Librem5 5G is here! Working alternative modem setup tested successfully

True, I can only speak for Rogers in Canada, but I did check other carriers with their IEMI tools and it definitely isn’t vetted on Bell or Telus in Canada. Whether or not they are lazy and don’t bother blocking is a different story, that I cannot confirm.

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Isn’t Rogers running Maple Leafs? That kinda implies how the network is run… :roll_eyes: (not winning when it matters :ice_hockey:) I wonder if we could be the zamboni driver (shout out to “yeally-screamy-guy:wink: )

[edit to add: Apparently I get all my Canadian news and network economy reports via hockey vlogs: apparently Rogers is pretty much a monopoly that’s screwing other communities online too.]

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Rogers currently has a 75% majority stake of the MLSE.

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Yeah, there is that hope. You could also go the illegal route and write a fresh, supported IEMI to the device. But that is ill-advised.

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OP should check their IEMI against those networks.

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To be clear … you are talking about a specific carrier or country with specific rules. You seem to be implying “whitelist”, which may well be right in your scenario.

The rules are different in my country on both counts.

I actually think that there is a good chance that that will work in my country. However as I (temporarily?) don’t have 5G at all (it was previously available - yeah, don’t ask me what the carrier is doing), I am not motivated to give it a try on my Librem 5. Maybe in a few years time …

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For all, for the last days to participate: take part in a poll in this thread :nerd_face: :chart_with_upwards_trend:: Librem5 5G is here! Working alternative modem setup tested successfully - #50 by JR-Fi (now several posts above :arrow_heading_up:)

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The results are now open (poll closes today). It seems somewhat what could be expected: some do not seem interested and some are - maybe (at least) about a fifth of all L5 owners won’t consider upgrading it, while (at least) about half will most likely do so, eventually. Plenty of margin for error there of course. There is also a “early adopters - late adopters” thing going on too among the community (at least those that answered). Nice to know about the approximate distributions. Thanks to all those that participated.

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I should clarify something. If I take my SIM and put it in my work Samsung S24 VoLTE works with that SIM, but as soon as I put the SIM in the L5 VoLTE is disabled, so for Rogers they are detecting not just the IMEI but the device that it’s inserted into and selectively disabling the service. So there is no workaround for me here, and if Rogers is doing this, it’s probably safe to assume the other carriers in my country are doing it as well.

In network security it is best practice to block everything, then whitelist services/devices if you want absolute control over what gets connected to your network. I think that’s what is happening now, and more so in the future.

Whether or not your carrier does it in your country probably depends on how much they want to tick off their subscribers. Most people here go to the store, get a “blessed” phone on a payment plan and are done with it. People like me that BYOD that isn’t blessed are probably a small fraction of the subs on the network. The networks are always looking at ways to boost profits and/or save costs. Blocking everything other than blessed devices saves them a ton of support headaches.

Again, if Purism wants to be serious about this effort, they really need to invest some time and money into the vetting process or this whole effort is going to die a slow death. I know, right now, your countries rules may be different. They were different for me not that long ago, but carriers are also concerned with security on their networks, now more so than ever, and you cannot just assume your device will just continue working as it is now in the future.

That’s really the point of my statements here it’s a huge pain but if you don’t reach out to the carriers and create relationships then they will just block you out and then the L5 will truly just be a mobile computer and not a phone.

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To be clear … for mainstream phones there is basically no difference between the IMEI and the device that the SIM is inserted into.

The problem is the whitelisting.

Some carriers will just extract the TAC component of the IMEI and if the TAC is not on the whitelist then the phone is not allowed on the network.

The only reason that there is a difference between IMEI and device in the case of the Librem 5 is that the IMEI associates with the modem, not the phone, and you can therefore change the IMEI by changing the modem. (In your country, with a strict whitelist, that may not help at all.)

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Yeah, this is the thing that makes the L5 so good.

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