Any plans to sell smartphones without mobile (GSM/GPRS/2G/3G/LTE/UMTS) connectivity?

Hardware Librem 5
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Hi,
i am actually unsure, if this makes really sense, but do you plan to sell any smart"phone" without mobile/cellular connectivity? With that i mean GSM/GPRS/2G/3G/4G/5G/LTE/UMTS? Only Wlan, Bluetooth, NFC?

The issue is the following, in the past, baseband processors were often easily attackable and as they are closer to the cpu, they coud easily overtake the host system, without the user noticing it.

And today, it’s easy enough to call over WLAN with SIP services or something.

(oh, and actually really be able to turn off every wireless component, including GPS might also be good).

But this is only interesting if someone sell such a smartphone “en masse” (though i think you are big enough), so it’s not custom built.

Are there any plans doing this? Having a smart"phone" which is trusted from the hardware would be quite cool

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You can just remove the GSM card from your phone :slight_smile:

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The cellular modem is a physically discrete module which means that
a) it is not as close to the CPU as would normally be the case, and
b) you can physically remove it if you want.

Yes, you can turn off every wireless component. It is arguable that GPS is not a wireless component (receive only, never transmits) however you can turn it off too if you really want.

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NFC is not implemented on the Librem 5, although that may change in future versions:

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Your baseband processor can still be attacked, as you also can phone emergency services even without a gsm card

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Ah, okay, i can remove the cellular modem which has the processor and antenna in it without soldering? i did not know that.

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Librem 5 disassembly (0:49):

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and the librem 5 still works (ie. regarding wlan and bluetooth and gps) without antenna and cellular modem?

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Yes, other hardware components remain fully functional unless removed in a similar manner, power cut via their applicable respective hardware kill switches, and/or Lockdown Mode.

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The cellular modem is just an M.2 card and hence is removed like any similar card of that nature. To be clear regarding the antenna: You disconnect the antenna from the card and the antenna stays behind in the phone. The antenna is just not connected to anything any more. Also, if you ever want to reverse the process and reinstall the card then you must disconnect the antenna very carefully, otherwise you will damage the connector at the end of the antenna or the corresponding connector on the card.

Each RF component has its own antenna. So disconnecting the cellular modem’s antenna from the cellular modem card has no impact on the WiFi/BT card and its antenna, for example.

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If it wouldn’t, the cellular kill switch on the side would be rather pointless, as from the system’s perspective the cellular modem is simply gone once it’s engaged.

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non cell phones are the new cell phones

those towers are not just cell service towers

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You can just remove the cellular modem…

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