Australian (Telstra) Librem 5 (September 2024)

Hardware Librem 5
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Dear Purism Community,

This post is aimed at prospective Australian L5 purchasers.

I bought mine in August 2024 and it does not have VoLTE capability (Voice over LTE - the replacement for the ‘voice’ service that enables phone calls). An in-built component of a modern phone, and absolutely essential in Australia with the shutdown of the 3G networks.

I went to my carrier (Telstra) and they were unable to help. I then logged a job with Purism to ask them for instructions on how to activate VoLTE. The steps they recommended provided no help. After further investigating the problem, they wrote back to inform me that they did not actually test L5 using Australian networks and the phone is incapable of running VoLTE in Australia. Purism politely thanked me for confirming for them that the L5 doesn’t work in Australia (but it might work on the Vodaphone network, they said). They also said they would work with Telstra to try and make it work. Nothing has come of that promise so far.

In accordance with Australian Federal Consumer Law, all retailers must make provide their customers with option for a refund, replacement or repair if the product contains major problems (such as, in this case not being able to make phone calls using VoLTE). Purism refused a refund, citing their returns policy (to paraphrase, Purism will only provide a refund if there is a fault in manufacture). I pointed out that a company policy does not trump legislation… and then they ignored me. They haven’t returned my emails requesting they reconsider their position on selling me a phone that can’t make phone calls. And they haven’t gotten back to me telling me the status of their efforts to make the phone compatible with Telstra. I ended up purchasing a different phone altogether.

So in conclusion, if you are Australian, do not buy one of these - there is no way to make Purism accountable, and it costs several hundred dollars extra to import the phone (import duties and shipping are each a couple of hundred dollars).

On a side note, the screen was occasionally responsive, built-in apps would randomly (albeit rarely) crash and the quality of pictures taken was … low. None of which I consider to be major problems.

Overall, I consider this to be one of the worst purchases I have ever made.

Australians beware!

Kind regards,

John

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That is the current situation (September 2024). If you have no choice but to use the Telstra network then VoLTE won’t currently work - and there is the risk that eventually Telstra shuts down 3G on their network, before the modem firmware supports Telstra, and the phone won’t be able to make calls on Telstra’s network.

There are a few other topics on VoLTE in Australia.

This isn’t necessarily good advice. VoLTE definitely works on the Vodafone network, and reportedly works on the Optus network.

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I have an L5 and from what I can see it works on the Vodafone network. I can make calls with the “4G” notification clearly in the top left for voice calls. So, its working on Vodafone 4G unless I’m missing something? We won’t know for sure until end October of course.

I think that to recommend that people not buy this phone in Australia is jumping the gun.

Optus also remains an unknown in this area.

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With care …

Vodafone closed down 3G at the end of last year. So if you are definitely on the Vodafone network then you already know for sure that VoLTE works just fine. The challenge is that the Vodafone network has roaming arrangements in place so as to supplement the size of its network - and if you have roamed onto one or other of the other two networks then you won’t know for sure until “end October” (or whenever both Optus and Telstra finally close down 3G).

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