SIMple/AweSIM down

Funny that I am part of this extended outage and did not receive this email.

How much should I trust claims that anything is secure with this company when honesty is not there? This has been a good learning experience for me: open source alone is not enough.

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Informatively (“some” carrier tactics related) from 20200916: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/att-wants-to-put-ads-on-your-smartphone-in-exchange-for-5-discount/, leaning toward conclusion like this:

For the record, having been a participant in this forum since last December, I have seen people on here express concern about not being able to trust Purism many times before. So while this is a wide-spread problem that is likely causing lots of people to question Purism (well, as many as have their cellular service), the questioning of Purism’s trustworthiness was valid months or years ago.

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I wonder if their mailing list is managed manually. When they said “Previously, we were informed that
the issue had been resolved and we sent an email to you to that effect” I didn’t receive any such email except in an individual conversation with support.

I think the emphasis was on the word “dispute” but sure we can all see that the effect of the dispute is on Purism (and potentially other customers of the MVNO) and thereby on all of the end customers.

Is Purism’s MVNO service still down? I gave up on Purism back in July, but I was just wondering.

EDIT: I have no idea why it replied to a specific person and not the general thread.

My point was that since Purism chose to have the intermediary MVNO and since Purism made the choice for the particular MVNO (was it “Joe’s Bail Bonds and MVNO Service”?) they had something to do with the dispute (the initial conditions). Furthermore, Purism chose to not reveal that to customers until they wanted to disown blame.

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That’s like saying “It’s your fault your car’s transmission went out, you bought it.” I don’t think its fair to hold Purism accountable for a good-faith business deal they made.

Nobody knows where they get any of their chips from either, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

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The key word I disagreed with is “nothing”. They made a choice to have an intermediary and they got to choose that intermediary. That is “something” not “nothing”.

In terms of you transmission analogy, if my friend bought a used car from “joe’s bail bonds and used cars” instead of a reliable vendor, I would absolutely say that they had something to do with
the issue. Especially if they chose to buy a Yugo. Of course we don’t know much about
the MVNO … other than Purism chose them —> which, again, shows that “nothing” is not the
right word.

Did you say “anyone”? It bothers me. I’ve complained repeatedly that they didn’t list the manufacture location of the SoC/SoM. Yes, I know it’s S.Korea. I’ve also complained repeatedly that they did not provide the name of their ODM for their Librem 14 or the Librem 5.

Again: “anyone” is not the right word here.

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Perhaps this can be explained by:

P.S. If one of Purism’s SIM customers will check their number at the following site, it might reveal the MVNE, but it might also just indicate “AT&T.”
https://freecarrierlookup.com/

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And they key word you ignored is “good-faith.”

I’m not interested in cherry-picking technicalities. I’m sorry I missed your complaint about the source of the chips.

Mine says “Bellsouth Mobility, LLC (AT+T)”, so “AT&T”. No help there.

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  1. Regardless, “nothing” is not the correct word.

  2. How do you know they selected the MVNO in good faith? It’s an assumption you’re making. MVNO’s are not all the same and how do you know on what basis they chose the MVNO?

Then stop using absolutes. I’m a mathematician. “Nothing” and “anyone” are strong words. Don’t use them if you don’t mean them.

C’mon, man… How am I supposed to take this seriously?

I’m just asking you to defend your comment. You’re the one who asserted that it was a “good-faith business deal”.

How do you know Purism didn’t simply pick the cheapest most fly-by-night MVNO/MVNE ??? If they did, then that was not done in good-faith on behalf of the customers (you are supposed to get what you paid for).

All I know is:

  1. Purism didn’t tell us about them. Embarrassed?

  2. We still don’t know who they are. Embarrassed?

  3. There is currently a dispute between them and AT&T. Are they fly-by-night?

Just checked, yes it is. Really not feeling like “we are aggressively exploring any and all options to
restore service to everyone as soon as possible”

This is ridiculous.

My apologies, @Jt0 for my part in subjecting your thread to this farce. I’ll know better for next time.

Well anyway … :wink:

One thing that Purism does control is communication and it seems that the outage is currently at about 7 days and no comment from Purism in this topic has been forthcoming. Maybe Purism is keeping actual customers of this service informed behind the scenes, or maybe they are too busy trying to negotiate moving the service to a different MVNO.

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I would think the latter. No news = nothing to report, though I concede they’re not as forthcoming as other companies. Also a week with no service… like the 90s, except then you at least had a land line.

For those who need some kind of phone number, jmp.chat is a quick and easy temporary solution. It won’t be your number, but it’ll be a number.

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Update from Purism:

Dear AweSIM/SIMple customer

We wanted to provide you an update on the current status of the outage.
Our upstream network has informed us they are closing their entire
business as a result of their dispute! This means that our only choice
to restore service is to move to a new network provider.

We had already started evaluating replacement networks once we learned
of the dispute, just in case, so we had a head start on the search. The
good news is that we have identified a suitable, stabler provider that
should actually provide us with more options for our customers in the
future, and we have started the process of migrating to their service.

We do not yet have an estimate on when we will be able to restore your
service, but we are doing everything in our power to make that as soon
as humanly possible. We will continue to provide regularly updates as we
have more news and will be sure to let you know once we do have a firm
estimate on restoring service. We continue to appreciate your patience
and understanding as we deal with a truly unprecedented set of
circumstances!

With best regards,
Purism, SPC, Operations and Support

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