How will APN settings work?

Hardware Librem 5
1

I am wondering how APN settings will be handled. I saw a bit about this in the updates:

The groundwork has also been laid for configuring the APN settings tied to the SIM card

then there was a link: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mobile-broadband-provider-info

So if I understand this right they are going to try and determine your network based on the sim and put the right config in place. If this fails is there going to be a place where we can enter it manually. I would think Gnome settings would be the ideal location. I just wasn’t sure if that had been fleshed out yet.

APN settings are notoriously annoying. If you don’t have proper APN you can spend a ton of energy in random forums trying to find the right mix of settings for your network. Hopefully autoconfig is going to be the way forward on this.

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Just follow the link in the July Update that reads cellular panel design.
It also says there

users can now select Network Operator, either manually or automatic

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3

What about where your network operator tries to forward the APN settings automatically. Will that work?

4

I didn’t even see that link that is awesome!

5

the auto-settings for APN are auto-handled by (usually) the local-network-operator (requires a restart most of the time)

what i’ll end up doing is setting it to the lowest tier of non data regular usage (only voice) probably 2G (my operator selects edge in my area 99 percent of the time)

6

Ubuntu already has a list of countries, a list of carriers for each country (including resellers), and a list of APNs for each carrier - so most of the grunt work has already been done. It is just a question of integrating it. (That said, I am using a non-standard APN with my USB dongle and had to enter it anyway.)

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So is the mobile-broadband-provider-info package used on the Librem 5?

Looks like it is installed:

purism@pureos:~$ apt list -a mobile-broadband-provider-info
Listing... Done
mobile-broadband-provider-info/amber-phone,now 20201225-1~amber1 all [installed,automatic]
mobile-broadband-provider-info/amber 20170903-1 all

and there are lots of providers in the xml file /usr/share/mobile-broadband-provider-info/serviceproviders.xml

Does this mean that we can get correct APN settings already by default, without entering anything manually, if that package has correct info about the provider?

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8

Yes, mostly.

Some people have commented here about whether manual override was needed: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellular-Providers

I note that you didn’t comment in that regard.

For the two providers that I tested, the APNs listed in that XML file were shown by the Settings / Mobile GUI and picking one of the APNs worked. So I didn’t have to type in an APN.

That isn’t proof that that package or that XML file is being used however.

2 Likes
9

@Jan2, if helps at all, did you test to get 4G settings automatically on your phone by dialing *100#?

EDIT: Please download recent database of provider-specific settings: mobile-broadband-provider-info_20221107-1_all.deb.

cd Downloads
ls -l

sudo dpkg --install mobile-broadband-provider-info_20221107-1_all.deb

apt list mobile-broadband-provider-info -a
sudo systemctl reboot

Now, let us know if your Librem 5 connects to the Internet over your provider mobile data.