Location (Country/Region): USA
Provider: Mint Mobile via T-Mobile (or whatever they call it now)
Network: T-Mobile
Cellular bands (if known):
Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-A1
What’s working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]: All of the above.
What’s not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]: MMS and data drop. But I believe this is a known issue. 95% of the time, HKS-restarting the modem, or sudo usbreset 2020:2060 fixes it. Sometimes the phone needs a full reboot though.
There are other (rare) issues I have with calls and texts, but I believe those issues are also due to other problems in the phone (input volume sets itself to 0, for instance), and not due to issues with the cellular connection.
Edit:
I can also add that I was on AT&T in the US with the same above details, until a few months ago.
My experiences mirror @L5STL 's below my post.
If anything, Mint/T-Mobile has been slightly better, but I don’t have data to back that up.
Location (Country/Region): USA Provider: ATT Network: ATT Cellular bands (if known): Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-A1 What’s working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] Calls work well, VoLTE works well, SMS works well, and Data works well. What’s not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] MMS sometimes, have not tried for a while
Location (Country/Region): USA Provider: Google Fi Network: T-Mobile (?) Cellular bands (if known): Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-A1 What’s working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] Calls work well so i didn’t bother to figure if it’s using VoLTE, SMS works well, and Data works well. What’s not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] MMS can sometimes send, but always fails to receive. I reached out to Google Fi support without telling them the exact make of my phone to ask for MMS settings, and they said my type of phone is not supported. So the only reason it’s working for me is presumably that I previously had an Android that they approve of, took the SIM card out of that Android, and put it into the L5. They still list the traffic as coming from the Android when the L5 uses data, according to their website.
I also have the “standard L5 issues” where although I left the “Data works well” comment above, in reality when the HKS first toggles to allow Data, there is no Data for some reason, and then I press all the buttons for turning data on and off, and after doing that once or twice it usually kicks it into gear where it will start getting Data. Then after that it works fine, and can be a powerful enough hotspot for me to work off of on a laptop for many hours.
Location (Country/Region): USA Provider: AweSIM SIMple Network: ATT Cellular bands (if known): Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-A1 What’s working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] Calls work well, VoLTE works well, SMS works well, and Data works well. What’s not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data] MMS does not work the best, ie, it is slow but most everything comes through eventually. (I think)
I notice that my modem sometimes has to be reset because it misses some texts and I suspect a few calls.
General observation: The table in the Wiki doesn’t actually cater specifically for MMS. So while comments about whether MMS works or not (and if so whether any config changes are needed) are valuable, they won’t be reflected in the Wiki.
Location (Country/Region): Czech Republic
Provider: O2
Network: O2
Cellular bands (if known):
Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-E1
What's working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]: Calls, SMS, Data
What's not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]: Receiving MMS (sending never tested)
Unknown: VoLTE, sending MMS
Roaming (calls, SMS, data) tested across several EU countries (Germany, Austria, Italy) on various networks. No issues encountered.
There is one more thing regarding MMS worth sharing:
I applied updates from here I am running modemmanager 1.22.0 (Byzantium is at 1.18.6) some time back.
Since applying the updates, there is some new behavior - If the data signal craps out, and I fail to receive an MMS during that time, I get a notification in Phosh stating that it failed to receive an MMS.
In all cases, flipping the HKS and waiting about a minute got me that missed MMS message.
(I am assuming it’s modemmanager at play here, but there may be other packages that were updated that provided this feature. Not fully sure :))
I just got confirmation from our project management team that Rogers in Canada will not support the L5 or any other off brand device for VoLTE and will be turning off HSPA next year. I will need a new modem by then, so exploring a 5G modem will be my only route moving forward.
UPDATE: 5G wont help me either because they will still reject my IMEI. I guess I’m going to have to switch to jmp.chat and use an xmpp or matrix client and just get a data only account.
There are some more v.o.lte enablement on modem firmware v1.0.0.2+ so have tried already?
Additionally may have the option of crossburn-firmware technique in order to get VoLTE working.
I think you’re not understanding. Rogers will not allow VoLTE on off brand devices. So as soon as they see my L5 on the network they are blocking VoLTE. I’m sure my phone would work if that were not the case.
As may already know, Librem 5 is more that a GNU device but Hydra device silver-level(kudos for purism). So L5 it can not be Blacklisted either by WWAN, WLAN or WPAN so i guess it just incompat blob volte enablements.
They have the IMEI which they are detecting as “NON-ROGERS” I can show you the screen capture from the Rogers NOC showing my IMEI with those comments in their network tool. VoLTE will never work on their network with the L5.
Location (Country/Region): USA
Provider: Mint Mobile
Network: T Mobile
Cellular bands (if known):
Modem (e.g., BM818-E1, BM818-A1, BM818-T1): BM818-A1
What’s working well? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]: VoLTE, Data
What’s not working well or needs improvement? [Calls, VoLTE, SMS, Data]
Calls - 1) Works well with earbuds; however, without earbuds, people simply have a hard time hearing me
2) When I make calls at times, the call will not complete - rather just end. I have to reboot and then I can complete making the call.
Chats/SMS/MMS - Texts are mostly sent successfully, but, I have to reboot my L5 daily to make sure I receive all messages (SMS or MMS) ~ I receive messages approximately 75% of the time without rebooting. After a reboot, i receive all unreceived messages at once.
The IMEI is associated with the modem. A 5G modem will be guaranteed to have a different IMEI. A deficient telco may still reject the different IMEI too however.
It is probable that a telco can’t tell what make and model of phone you have and/or that you could falsify the make and model of phone. It’s the modem that is going to matter.
I guess your question to your telco would be: well, OK, what modems do you allow?
They must be able to tell by the IMEI because I have never told them it’s and L5, only after I couldn’t get VoLTE to work so I don’t think it’s true that they cannot tell. Also in order to have data a MAC address is required and that can easily be parsed to discover the manufacture of the modem. They could easily exclude by OUI number.
Regardless, I think something will have to give here or “rogue” devices like the L5 will be left outside the walled garden that the globalist machine is trying to create. Soon we’ll need digital ID’s to get internet access, so police can show up at your door for wrongthink more easily.
I signed up for jmp.chat to experiment with sip and xmpp and so far so good. I think that will be my path because I don’t think the carriers have as much controls in place on the data side vs the voice core so I will be good until they shut LTE off which will not be for a while and hopefully 5G data only plan will still work with any luck.
Once they shut off HSPA I’ll port my number to jmp.chat.
Tested on the L5 in the U.S.: Vegolink global data SIM. In the U.S., can roam on AT&T or T-mobile, and depends on your local coverage. Rates vary per network (manually selectable) and per country. (U.S. rates while roaming on AT&T or T-mobile are currently $0.005/Megabyte, i.e. $5/Gigabyte.)
I have 4G while roaming on T-mobile USA. Haven’t connected to AT&T yet.
This is a data-only SIM designed for inexpensive international roaming. Also available: eSIM.
I added to the wiki.
P.S. Data is non-expiring, as long as you use some data within the year, even a very small amount.