I think it’s something else. I can get a strong signal on LTE full bars and not matter how I try the APN settings nothing will make it register and before you point the finger at the carrier the very same SIM card works in an android phone without issue. There is something going on with the firmware on the modem and my provider or something with the network manager? No idea. But it worked before it went into service and all things being equal I should expect it to work now. Nothing has changed on the network that would cause any issues (confirmed with wireless engineering for my provider who I work for). The only thing that is being rolled out is 5G but LTE is very much unchanged since my phone went in for service.
EDIT: FYI my phone is going to get RMA’d again so hopefully they find something this time.
I’ve sent countless log files to Purism. Nothing yet and they suggested RMA’ing the phone again. The thing is I get that they can’t test every carrier, but because my carrier roams onto AT&T in the US, if it works on AT&T it should work here, otherwise people could not roam onto their respective networks. The SIM is good, the IEMI is good then I should at least register on the network here and it doesn’t. The only possibility is that there is some issue with the modem or it’s firmware or both. I’m assuming it’s the latest modem hardware and firmware version as it was just replaced. The APN settings should only affect mobile data and I haven’t even gotten there yet because it won’t register on the network at all and that should be happening with this SIM because it works in my android phone.
I thought that AT&T was a problem with the Librem 5 because AT&T whitelists devices. Maybe your carrier has suddenly got the AT&T virus, and started whitelisting devices.
(As an aside, I recently received an email from one of my providers in connection with the impending shutdown of the 3G network. The email actually listed the make, model and variant of the device in question. NB: This wasn’t a Librem 5. It is just to illustrate that your provider extracts details from your device, and what is extracted is unknown to you, and can therefore whitelist in ways that you will not like.)
Do you know what modem variant you had before the phone went in for repair and do you know what modem variant you have now? Maybe someone stuffed up and sent you the wrong variant with the repair (if they had to replace the modem card - which would mean that the IMEI would have changed).
Maybe the damage was worse than expected when the U.FL connector “popped off” (and your modem therefore doesn’t have an antenna). In this case an RMA would be the appropriate course of action, as tedious as that might be.
True but surely it’s not that difficult to send someone from Purism HQ to next door (i.e. to Canada). I get that they can’t visit every country in the world. 4 million air-miles later …
I work for the provider that I’m using with the phone and spoke to one of our Wireless Engineers about my issue and he said we do not whitelist, if you have a working SIM it will work in whatever you plug it into so that’s off the table as far as I’m concerned.
I’m fairly certain the modem is the correct one because it will show (sometimes) full bars with a 4G signal but in modem details it is not registering and calls immediately fail.
The phone went in for the charging port issue and they also repaired (replaced) the modem and both antenna connections are in place, so that’s not what’s going on either.
I agree, a trip up the pacific coast highway for them into BC might be in order with a little war driving to see how it performs on various networks up here, Bell, Rogers, Telus…etc. Unless they want me to do this research for them, I’d be happy to oblige but not sure how that would work. I would think they wouldn’t want me to be involved in their testing not being an employee.
My modem does not act like yours at all: I can text and call, but the other party does not hear me clearly. I still have very little interest in figuring out the “issue” to it.
Have you adjusted the microphone gain settings to see if that’s the issue? I know I had to make a few phone calls to another phone and tweak things. If you’re hearing nothing at all it could be a one way audio SIP issue that can be a common problem in the SIP world when the two ends cannot negotiate a common audio codec.
As mentioned earlier, I have very little interest in figuring it out; I literally got the Librem 5 USA because of the hardware kill switches to block everyone from demanding and soliciting my immediate attention. I fetch notifications at my discretion and whim.
I am in fact sending them the phone back again. I hope it gets fully tested before leaving their facility. I have a feeling it wasn’t the first go around and maybe I got a defective modem or something because it really should just register out of the box with my sim card and it doesn’t even do that.
