Good news for some, no doubt.
Excerpt:
We are happy to announce the Librem 5 + Librem AweSIM cellular service bundle and payment plan starting at $99/mo (4GB Data), or $129/mo (10GB Data), or $169/mo (Unlimited Data),
Customers are now able to buy a Librem 5 bundled with any of the three available Librem AweSIM cellular service plans for a low monthly payment and after 12 months, own the Librem 5 outright and can continue service at the regular monthly service rate.
I like how this gives users an option to pickup the Librem5 in a more “conventional” (for the USA at least) manner. People who may not have purchased a phone outright in years (or ever) now have a lower barrier to switching.
On the other hand I think a lot of the core audience doesn’t need/want to finance anything and wants to A) own their device from the get go and B) may think that AweSIM isn’t a good fit for their needs.
Stressing that it’s nice to have options (and availability!), I hope this does well for Purism.
Always good to have options.
I wonder what anti-fraud protections there are. Normally (here) a phone sold like this is locked to the network on which it is sold and can only be unlocked once it is fully paid for - but an open phone can’t really be locked. ??
Related:
All six were in the Purism Shop since the end of January, but the unbundled Librem 5s are unlisted, as mentioned in the post.
In this case, I don’t think it would be a problem, because the subscriber is still on the hook to pay for the service, whether they’re actually using the SIM or not, even if the phone is “open.”
Here in the U.S., it’s a similar situation to Oz’s: a subsidized phone is generally not unlocked until it’s paid for, although sometimes a carrier will authorize (at least temporarily) an unlock for overseas travel. Sometimes.