We have to be more patient. They ran into the big hurdle and now trying to resolve all these issues.what I would suggest, is wait and see what works by Dogwood batch release. Once that batch is out and tested , we’ll know the real modem options, probably with some alternative ones (like Quectel) if some folks give it a try. Just hang in there , folks.
Edit:
For those who are impatient or worried enough, if at any point you want to request a refund, I would suggest to first try and offer your order to someone you know or ppl in this forum.
That way , you avoid hurting the company and making someone happy at the same time.
In my case , I want this phone to be my daily driver with a few shortcomings. Chances are 50/50. If upon the mass product release (Evergreen), I don’t see it happen (too many cons), I know 2 ppl who will gladly pay me to take it from me.
I’m patient, but I am a little concerned about whether or not (regional) Australia is even in Pure’s plans. Yeh, sure, its tiny I know… Just reading the email on reddit about the Birch email sent out, it appears , at this time, it is US and EU modems that are being offered. I was under the impression that there were some Aussies here that were onboard early and would be in the Birch batch. I may be wrong, but as it stands the L5 would only function in large centres in Australia.
Unless there are some from Australia here that have received a different email? I get that they are flat out elsewhere. My preorder will stand of course. It would be nice to know if there has been progress with modem options that applies to the few Aussies here.
Dealing with thermal and antenna issues will benefit all customers everywhere. It makes sense to tackle those issues first.
Given that it seems like there are delays with the Gemalto modems and making the potentially optimistic assumption that all the BM818 modems are interface compatible, if anything that is a favorable development for you (i.e. since the Gemalto modems weren’t going to be usable for you).
You could try expressing your concerns formally via email. Perhaps that will elicit clarification regarding your specific query.
Being realistic, you most likely aren’t going to get your phone this year (don’t know what date you backed and what batch you could be in and what batches you nominated), so plan a great Christmas and New Year and resume contemplation of getting a Librem 5 next year.
Purism supplied a list of supported bands, as referenced earlier. The BroadMobi modem appears to come in 4 different flavours, Purism’s list only covers 2 of them. What is covered by Purism’s list checks out with coverage in Australia. How well and where exactly coverage extends, undoubtedly varies by carrier, but Australian coverage is certainly there.
Thanks for that. Yes, I am aware of that post which was a while back now. I was hoping that would lead to a follow up, but I’m not aware of any since then. B28 is the one we need.
Maybe this question deserves its own thread, or e-mail to ops, but it is related to the Birch shipping e-mail.
If a shipping address change is required, and the customer supplies the new address in a reply to the “pre shipping alert,” is that new address expected to show up in shop.puri.sm/my-account/view-order/x ?
@Kyle_Rankin It’s been a couple of weeks and still no word from you to clarify your position as per above? I find it a bit suspicious. Your company makes an announcement that there will be two options for the baseband, with no mention of a price difference, then months later your post. So can you please clarify if you mean “later it will be available at a higher price” or “the other option will be available later, at a higher price”. There’s a bit of a distinction there.
I based my decision to back the project on the announcement that there will be two options for the baseband. But now you’re implying that one of those options will be at a higher price.
Depends when you made that decision. If you really backed the project to get to go/no go (i.e. initial funding to make the project happen) then there weren’t two options, or even one option, just certain requirements of the baseband - and “specifications subject to change”. Later there was one identified option, the Gemalto. Later still there were two identified options, the Gemalto and the Broadmobi.
Oh of course, my bad. I’ll edit my original post. Fixed it, now I don’t imply anyone else. Just me. Point remains. The blog post didn’t indicate an extra fee, or the possibility of it. Any posts or emails since did not indicate this either. I read those as meaning we will get a choice between the two with no additional fees. Just @Kyle_Rankin reply on this thread announces such a fee. So what’s the deal?
?? When did you make the decision to back the project? What is your order date? What batch are you in?
The original project commitment did not mention any options and said “specifications subject to change”.
Is that OK? I was OK with that. I knew that I was buying something that was at the time non-existent and was being built from scratch from the ground up.
I don’t have any connection with Purism other than as someone who is an initial backer of the Librem 5, so I definitely don’t speak for Purism - but I have read in this forum that the Gemalto devices only come as BGA packages, not M.2 cards, whereas the Broadmobi devices come as M.2 cards. So Purism will have to mount the BGA package on an M.2 card, or get someone else to do so on its behalf, for the Gemalto devices. Perhaps there have been problems / delays with that part of the process. This is speculation on my part.
I see in this thread that some people have been on this journey with us from the beginning. For those that haven’t, when we first announced the Gemalto it was the only modem we were aware of that would be suitable for the Librem 5. Later on as we continued to source components we discovered we had another option with the Broadmobi modem that was already available as an M.2 card (the Gemalto modem needs to be mounted to a M.2 card in our US facility). More recently as we got final pricing for all of our components the Gemalto modem ended up being about twice as expensive as the Broadmobi.
At that point we had two options:
Conclude the Gemalto modem was too expensive and only offer the Broadmobi option.
Continue to offer the Gemalto but charge more for it.
We figured some people would want the Gemalto even if it cost more so we decided to default to the Broadmobi but continue to offer the Gemalto as an option and let each customer choose. We need to charge more for it though (we are still deciding how much more)–it’s a significant enough difference in price that combined with the number of orders we can’t just offer it for free.
@Kyle_Rankin Thank you for coming back to the thread to clarify the matter. Perhaps it would be of interest to others, those that don’t follow these threads. For example you could send a new message indicating the price difference BEFORE you send out emails asking for their modem choice. Rather than waiting until they receive the modem choice email with the additional caveat.
@kieran I appreciate you were just trying to help. As you don’t work for the company and could not speak on the matter in an official capacity, it just came across to me as confrontational. I am sorry if my frustrations filtered through to you. I used this thread, as this is the first time it was noted to be at a higher price. That notice and how it was delivered came across as disingenuous to me.
Currently the Broadmobi is the only option for early batches–we are still working on the Gemalto. We haven’t made big announcements about it yet because we don’t yet know when the Gemalto will be ready to offer and because we haven’t decided yet how much more to charge.
In general we try not to make big public announcements until we we believe we know things for sure and have enough information to answer the questions we expect will follow (otherwise our support team gets slammed with questions). Having to wait until we have all the information is both frustrating for us and for the community I’m sure, but since I did have some information I could add, I did so in this thread when it came up–I wasn’t trying to be disingenuous, instead I was trying to give as much information as I knew for sure in the interest of being transparent.
Fixed it, now I don’t imply anyone else. Just me. Point remains. The blog post didn’t indicate an extra fee, or the possibility of it. Any posts or emails since did not indicate this either. I read those as meaning we will get a choice between the two with no additional fees. Just