Announcing Librem AweSIM: A Privacy-focused Cellular Service for the Librem 5

What does that even mean? I understand what they would be trying to achieve but …

It’s not that simple. The definition of “stupid shit” varies from country to country, changes from time to time and includes things that you might not think of as stupid.

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Wow! That’s awesome \=(⌢ヮ⌢)=/ ! Pretty expensive, but actually a good, non-exploitive phone plan with unlimited data! I hope I can get a job soon, and when I do, hopefully can afford this, as it is really, really good. It might even be a good option for rural internet, which could really help moving somewhere cheap and mostly off-the-grid. From what I read about internet in rural places, this could be much better than what currently exists, at least until Starlink, which I imagine would be likely to launch during a similar time period. I guess we could enter a golden age of rural internet in the US? But even in cities, this is so much better than the other plans too.

Also a brilliant business model, IMO. If Purism can sell non-exploitive services like this, it means it still gets a consistent income without planned obsolesence, spying on people, or anything else bad. So, although very expensive, once I get money this plan is likely to be very worth it for me, for the peace of mind of unlimited private data on the go, and for supporting a company which is actually really good, and which I want to be able to continue making good devices without selling out to planned obsolescense.

It means exactly what it says. Most peak data users aren’t just using a little bit more data, they are USING a lot. Their bandwidth needs reflect that. By taking the speeds of the average network utilization, you are merely throttling them in a way that is fair to the rest of the users.

I think this is not only necessary, as there is only so much bandwidth, but I also think it is fair. One user using their phone to seed 50 bittorrents shouldn’t be allowed to tank the service for others. But at the same time, they absolutely have a right to do what they are doing.

Some companies would just drop you to super slow speeds and that’s it. By being dropped to the average you might not even notice.

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So that’s how people who use a ton of data would be factored in. I was wondering about that, since this seems like it could be a really really good rural internet alternative too.

“Peak data users” could just mean users who use high bandwidth during peak times, rather than users which use a lot of data in total. That could allow factoring in people who want to take full advantage of their internet, while not tracking individual bandwidth usage by user.

Can this be bought after the fact, by the way? My Librem 5 (still in preorder) was a gift for my 18th birthday last year, but it would be harder convincing family to get such an expensive phone plan, so I will probably have to wait until I have my own reliable job, which may or may not take longer than my Librem 5.

Anything above the current 128kb/s I get when I go over my 1GB T-Mobile data cap is a huge win for me.

I would assume “yes” but that’s just my assumption. You should ask Purism if you want to be sure.

Since it talks about 5G and 5G isn’t available on the L5, I would suppose you can, in theory, get the SIM and put it in a surveillance capitalism phone - hence you could get the SIM and put it in your existing L5.

Well they should have a clause saying that on product purchase page then because with TOS, product specs etc, you have to assume the worst case scenario for when they aren’t fully explaining something.

wow that is terrible. I think anything is better than that. In europe, I cannot find anything as bad as that.

Not sure. I think that breaks the concept that purism was going for as in they set it up and you pickup sim under being their name. I think that purism can’t really be bothered to create 2 diff versions where one is done by users themselves for setup. I think you will have to somehow convince your family. Not certain btw so wait for a nerd like Rec to respond.

Awesome news !!!

you don’t see any problem with the entirety (or most) of the planet’s surface being blanketed with radio-wave radiation then ?

i don’t know about you but i like my honey INSTEAD of sugar …

But the planet has been inundated with radio waves for over a hundred years. At least that’s what my old radio wave propagation and modulation manual said. (Included 50 years 'cause that’s how old it is.)

This post can be deleted.

T-mobile’s service is spotty. I’ve used U.S. Cellular, Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon. U.S. Cellular was reliable and well priced, but left the Chicago market.

T-mobile looks great on paper, and has decent pricing and good customer service, but I found their service claims fail to consistently align with reality. To this day, every month I’m with people who use T-Mobile, and can’t make or receive calls, or access the internet, when I can on Verizon, with no problem.

I missed a couple thousand dollars of work shifts while with T-Mobile, because of those issues. If you’re mainly interested in price, T-Mobile is fine. If you’re mainly interested in dependable phone and internet service, Verizon is tops, in my experience.

I draw your attention to the following slightly confusing text from the product page for AweSIM.

Coverage          T-Mobile or AT&T backbone. Ability to change backbone service with new SIM.

My experience with AT&T was horrible. Mediocre real world performance, smoke and mirror performance claims, and really poor customer service.

And that’s in a major market - Chicago. AT&T will never again see me as a customer. Period.

I have four phones on a bring your own phone plan, on Verizon. I travel out of the country sometimes. My bill, all in, is less than $250/month. International travel adds another $5 to $10 on those months.

The service is solid. I could save a few shekels elsewhere, for sure, but I already know the trade-offs are reduced QoS, and insufficient or frustrating customer service.

This Purism service might be a fit for folks who can’t get the Purism phone provisioned otherwise, and/or who have concerns about stalkers, ISP marketing data scraping.

For anyone who has an established business presence, or otherwise wants a portable phone number, this doesn’t fit. It also doesn’t fit folks who need a really solid and dependable service, like business owners, salespeople, gig workers, healthcare workers, service technicians, etc.

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AT&T customer service is bad enough to drive one to pith oneself with an ice pick to the forehead.

:dog2: :poop: :face_vomiting: Never, never, never again.

I’ve heard these claims and am cautiously optimistic that they won’t be an issue for me, since they haven’t been an issue so far. The main reason I’m leaving Verizon is that they have consistently failed to support my unlocked phone since it “doesn’t support X feature” when it clearly does and they’re just reserving it for Verizon-locked phones; I can go into my control panel on Verizon’s website and see that video calling, for example, is blocked as a feature (there’s a toggle switch for the block set to “on”), and neither I nor their customer service reps can turn the block off.

I spent nearly three hours over two calls on the phone with Verizon customer service with tier 1 reps, tier 2 reps, and a tier 2 rep’s manager trying to get a basic 90-day block on a single phone number put into place since the website was giving me a “try again later” error when I went through the web interface. As it turned out, even the manager would get an error when trying to add the number from her side for the unlocked phone, but if she added it to another, Verizon-locked, phone on my account, the block went into place without a problem.

Given their engineers’ or corporate management’s hostility toward unlocked phones, I would expect them to be even less friendly toward an unlocked phone that’s neither iOS nor Android. If basic calling, texting, and data are all you need, go for it, but any other features are probably going to be blocked from the carrier’s side.