I am asking as I often use ATT network SIMs in my Max.
any 3G or 4G devices that don’t support HD Voice will stop working on the AT&T network in February 2022
-Bill
This would only apply to voice calls.
Since you’re not making voice calls with these devices, this change has no impact.
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It should be that simple, but unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be.
ATT has released a whitelist of devices that will be supported: https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf
No Pepwaves are on it right now.
One of my SIM cards is with Cricket (owned by ATT, and uses their network) and they insist my grandfathered Max Transit Duo cat12 will no longer be allowed by their whitelist come Feb.
I haven’t been able to figure out if they will back down on the strict whitelist, if they just don’t care as it is a rounding error overall and not worth the hassle, or if they are deliberately using this to try to force folks to more expensive business / IoT / etc. plans.
At this point it looks like there is a good chance no Pepwave devices will work on consumer plans on ATT or any ATT MVNO come Feb. I’d love to be wrong.
Thats not a “WhiteList”. they’re called AllowList in 2020+, and thats not what that is.
Theyre shutting down their 3G network. This wont have any real impact.
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No need to be rude, Eric.
The list I posted is linked from AT&T Wireless support for AT&T Wireless customers - AT&T® Official Site which clearly states:
Don’t see your phone make and model on the list? That means it’ll no longer work by February 2022. So, you’ll need to upgrade to a new one.
If you have specific information that contradicts what is on AT&T’s website and what many folks are talking about on various forums, I’d love to hear it. Yes, AT&T is shutting down their 3G network like other carriers, however they are also stating they will only allow specifically approved devices going forward.
I don’t see any rudeness here @marcs @erickufrin is quite right to highlight that terminology should change to reflect the times we’re in.
The reference to HD Voice is for cellular handsets specifically. ATT themselves advise that they will
‘no longer activate phones that don’t support HD Voice as they won’t be compatible to work on our network when 3G shuts down.’ This is also because of the FCC e911 compatibility requirement where older 3G/analogue voice phones will no longer be able to make emergency calls.
None of these issues affect routers specifically apart from those routers that might try to fallback to 3G if 4G is unavailable. The modem in your CAT18 Transit will try to do that so in your cellular modules settings set it to use LTE only and you’ll be fine.
In the ‘tested and approved’ device PDF you linked to, all of these devices are phones or support Voice in someway. There are no Data only devices listed at all (where there are millions of them deployed in the US) - that is because so long as those devices fully support 4G for data and are certified for ATT then they will continue to work.
Might you have issues activating SIMs for Peplink devices from Feb onwards - sure, but that’s always been the case as far as I can see because most ATT employees don’t understand that its not a phone…
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Hi @MartinLangmaid,
I found @erickufrin’s response to be unnecessarily dismissive in tone overall, apologies Eric if it wasn’t meant that way. The list is still commonly referred to as a whitelist everywhere I’ve found discussion of it, so that is the terminology I used for discoverability.
On page 9 of the doc I reference there is a list of compatible “Wireless Internet Devices” including common ones like 3 different Netgear Nighthawk models.
Again, from the technical level I agree it doesn’t make sense they wouldn’t support them.
I am receiving frequent text messages from Cricket saying my Max won’t be supported come Feb due to the 3G shutdown, and they have been refusing to activate them since early this year sometime unless you call in and get a manual exception. It appears their list is derived from AT&T’s list with some slight differences. I understand Cricket may be more restrictive for their own reasons.
I did just double check with AT&T support using my Max’s IMEI and they did say it will continue to be supported and that the list should be disregarded for data only devices, so fingers crossed that holds true.
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Thanks for checking - there really is no technical reason that Peplink 4G products would stop working on ATT network.
There are lots of sneaky commercial reasons though that the (virtual) network operators might indeed come up with, so knowing that AT&T themselves say its OK is empowerment for those subsequent conversations with their resellers / virtual partners.
To add a little piece of mind… I activated the $55 100GB plan on my Cat 18 Max Transit in 2021 in person at the AT&T store. I see in the forums someone else activating theirs 5 months ago at the store as well. So while Cricket may not be activating these devices, the AT&T stores still are. It seems to support the conclusion that AT&T doesn’t plan on kicking us off their network. Hope that helps 
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I just wanted to chime in here and mention that the reason this ‘voice’ thing comes up is because some of the cellular modules do indeed have voice capabilities and this capability gets transmitted to the carrier during the connection initiation. The fact that the router itself doesn’t support voice doesn’t matter because this capability flag is transmitted whenever a connection attempt is made. If the data plan doesn’t match the capability flags then no bueno.
IMO it is more of a carrier issue but Peplink did address this in firmware 8.1.3 for the Cat 4 devices:
Cat 6 and above devices should have no issues.
Cheers!
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So OP do you have a phone plan or data plan? Please tell us exactly what plan you have and what text messages you are receiving.
If you are using a phone plan, yes, you might want to worry. If you are using a data plan, my guess is that you will be fine, but the text messages could prove troublesome if your line has been flagged. Did Cricket ever offer data only plans for hotspot/router devices?
@mystery OP is using ATT and the consensus so far is they should be fine, however they haven’t piped up since their original post. You bring up a good point regarding if they are using a phone plan and not a plan designed for a hotspot / mobile internet, but I’d consider those fair game for being shut down at any time even though that can be a fairly popular approach for low cost data.
I am the one who has received the text messages from Cricket and chatted with their support a number of times, I don’t have the exact text of the text messages handy as I’ve been deleting them so they don’t fill up all the SMS slots.
Yes, they did and still do offer data only plans: Simply Data Plans | Cricket Plan Options | Cricket which are quite attractive (to me) because they work in Mexico and Canada and let you add more data at relatively reasonable prices ($10 for 15 gigs). They introduced IMEI based restrictions early last year, however until now have been allowing grandfathered devices. There is a bit of a discussion here: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/cricket-simply-data-plan-introduces-device-restrictions-do-not-move-sim-cards-from-routers/
They have an IMEI checker at Bring Your Own Phone (BYOP) | Cricket Wireless which (currently and for the past year) returns this for my cat12 Max Duo:
Apologies! This Sierra Wireless EM7511U is not compatible with the Cricket Network due to network changes. Please visit [cricketwireless.com/3Gnetworkshutdown](https://www.cricketwireless.com/3Gnetworkshutdown) for more details or see your Cricket store rep.
They are presumably doing this for business reasons, not technical ones, despite the messaging. I’m assuming they will follow through, but will wait and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’ll try to remember to update this thread with the results. Thankfully this is one of the reasons for having a router that can take 4 SIM cards so I’ll have time to switch to an ATT direct plan if needed.
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