I have requested a refund weeks ago and had no response and now I read in these forums that carriers are requiring voLTE on their networks. I do not see any information on the web site about supporting voLTE.
If we have waited for 3 years for a phone that will might not work in less than 2 years makes me very nervous about the future of the phone and the company. Is there any other e-mail other than support@puri.sm to request a refund? I am afraid I lost my money as the refund policy this week is vague and if I get a phone it will not work for long. Lots of other parts of the phone are still not working, so why would support for voLTE be expected anytime soon?
We need the refund policy explained and a real response about voLTE support.
I’m gonna bumb this, as the PLS8 question bothers me. Are they coming at all or maybe in the spring, summer or later? If L5 is soon offered, is there point in waiting for them to come and have on the same delivery or not?
Purism is working on supporting VoLTE, but trust me VoLTE is not much import at this moment there are other thing more import to get done. You can get “VoLTE” too with any VOIP apps like Telegram, Matrix or any.
The librem 5 has suffered many problems in its development and Purism has done its best to make the L5 the best it can be. Many delays in the delivery of the L5 are not the fault of Purism but of the dedicated chipset companies that the L5 uses even worse with this the pandemic that exists and the little money that purism has to finish the wonderful device.
The Purism team works 24/7 to try to finish all the complicated work they have with the L5. I have an evergreen L5 and until recently it has started working good, and I receive constant software fix updates.
500 1000 dollars is nothing for all the work that Purism has to do for the L5(HW-SW), be patient and you will receive your mobile workstation soon and with PureOS more polished.
From what I see purism is pursuing two paths. In theory the BM one can do VoLTE, it just needs a firmware update from the manufacturer(we’ll see if they do it). If that doesn’t happen, the PLS8 is being pursued. (If you look at the Librem USA, it says PLS8 in the store)
As most of us are waiting on the phones to be shipped for a few months yet, It seems like we have a path forward with a contingency plan, and should see how things play out. Should the BM radio not get a firmware update in the near term, the PLS8 is on the radar. If it does, the problem is solved.
One of the great things about this phone is you can change the cell modem yourself. My only concern on this is the price of the PLS8.
Yeah that’s the first time I’ve seen the PLS8 available , so I would take that to mean it is available for the L5 regular edition? I hope so cause that’s the modem I want.
Well it doesn’t show up for the regular edition. I’m hoping when I get the email on my order, I’ll get the option to switch it to the PLS8 if available (unless the BM one gets VoLTE support). Regardless, They have promised to offer replacement parts for the phone, so I imagine we’ll be able to order one once the backlogs are taken care of.
Granted, this is speculation, but it seems reasonable to me. I don’t represent Purism in any way. It’s just what I see and what appears to be the case based on the current information available. (I too was very concerned about VoLTE support, and the above was the conclusion I came to).
It would be helpful if we got a shout out from Purism to confirm/deny/call me a lunatic.
Since the Librem 5 USA will be delivered in January-February with the PLS8, I think that we can safely assume that the PLS8 for the Librem 5 will be available in the same time frame. Purism is having to custom manufacture the M.2 card with the PLS8 in the U.S. (probably in the San Diego area).
While making a cellular call, the connection will drop from LTE to 3G. If 3G isn’t available, then it will drop to 2G. For this reason, some people have reported that their internet connection appears to drop while making a cellular call.
The PLS8 is more transparent than the BM818, but you are still using tech from Qualcomm. The PLS8 is based on the Qualcomm MDM9215 modem (28nm, 100MB/s max) from 2012. The BroadMobi BM818 is based on the Qualcomm MDM9607 modem from 2016 (which has 256 MiB DRAM, 256 MiB NAND, and a single Cortex-A7 CPU clocked up to 1.3GHz, and is the same modem used by the Quectel EG25-G in the PinePhone). Both the MDM9215 and MDM9607 are Gobi 4000 modems, so they are similar, but the BM818 supports a lot more LTE bands.
Thales has a public community forum where you can ask questions, it provides full documentation about the PLS8 to anyone who registers on their web site, and it focuses on selling specialized security products. In contrast, BroadMobi doesn’t provide any public documentation on the BM818, and I assume that Purism had to sign an NDA to get it.
If broadmobi is similar with Quectel EG25-G then Broadmobi modem is the best option because Quectel EG25-G is going to work 100% libre, then Purism can copy free software of Quectel EG25-G to Broadmobi.
