G'day,
Did you buy a cheap phone from China? They usually don't support Band 28…
What is life without the band 28 (700MHz) in Sydney and NSW?
Is it OK to live without it, i.e. will you be dropping out of calls when moving around, going indoors, driving etc.
Cheers
Calls are not made on 4G, just 3g for most users
With the exception of Telstra users with Voice Over LTE support on certain selected mobile phones (there are about 15~20 phones so far on the list) not having 4G does not affect calls.
'upgraded' (note the quote marks!) from a z1 compact to a z5 compact, wanted band 28, based in western Sydney.
zero difference, still drops to 3g in shopping centres, increased speed is simply due to faster internal modem not the bands.
in hindsight, should've bought a redmi 3 pro prime for a compact handset with good battery life! (if only the cameras were decent!)
So just to be clear because this makes zero sense to me: you think band 28 makes no difference at all despite the fact that a phone with band 28 was faster than one without it and for some reason you believe the faster speed is due to the phone having a faster modem rather than band 28.
Is that about it?
Yes, band 28 isn't speed, it's still getting 4g when the signal is weak. The modem in the z5c is faster than the z1c, but the signal strength (or lack of) is unchanged for me with or without B28. You can get fast modem phones with and without b28.
clearer?
what phone do you have now? Does it have B28?
I've a Galaxy S5, and yes it's got it. Hesitant to go with one without it, because people on Ozbargain seem to think that it's really important (e.g. in redmi note 3 deals!)
wont make a difference for your calls. but more and more it will for data and speeds.
in Qld I have B28, son and wife doesnt and they notice no difference between us all. $200 phone without it or a $800 with it, go the $200 I reckon. (unless you are fanatical about best speeds for your data)
Band 28 is very important for me in everyday life. I frequently travel to rural areas where there is often little to no mobile coverage at all. In many places there are towers where the only 4G band is B28 700MHz. Without it I'd be stuck on 3G speeds.
However… this isn't relevant to OP as I'm not in Sydney.
Life is so much better since I got band 28
VoLTE (calls on 4G) is usually only supported on carrier ROMs anyway. Most calls still go through 3G. B28 is a LTE band, which won't affect calls unless you use VoLTE.
Basically you end up with slower data in some areas.