Some people reported that VoLTE works for them, so it’s definitely possible, depending on the carrier:
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Unfortunately it looks like AT&T has implemented a VoLTE whitelist where even if a phone supports VoLTE, it must be certified with AT&T in order to be provisioned for it.
You can find the whitelist here: https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Service-Capabilities-Unlocked-Devices-ATT-Network.pdf What they call “HD Voice” is VoLTE
Verizon also has a VoLTE whitelist, but theirs isn’t public. Since the Purism team has indicated they’re not interested in certifying with any carriers due to privacy-related issues, it seems both of these networks will not be able to use VoLTE on the Librem 5, even when the devs implement it successfully.
So you can expect that when VoLTE is fully working on the Librem 5, The T-Mobile network will be your only option in the USA.
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And I would imagine the T-Mobile network will do the same at some point.
Would the white list affect smaller carrier’s that piggyback off of the major carrier’s networks, such as Puretalk or AweSIM?
Yes, for sure.
Yes, it does apply. Non-whitelisted phones on MVNOs using AT&T’s network currently fallback to their 3G network for all calls. Come February 2022 the AT&T 3G network is decommissioned and all non-whitelisted phones will stop working altogether.
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I have tried the instructions listed here on TracFone (MVNO on top of AT&T). I get OK from the commands need to enable VOLTE. The “AT+BMRAT” command shows:
AT+BMRAT: FDD LTE
before a call, and shows:
AT+BMRAT: HSPA
during an outgoing call to a VOIP number. A call to my Librem5 from the VOIP number shows the same thing. Both showed 4G on the Librem 5 display. However, when I call from the Librem5 to an AT&T cell, the display changes immediately to 3G. So it seemed to switch to 3G when I called an AT&T number.
Anyway, I don’t know if the commands I was using worked correctly or not, but I was getting OK status back from the commands.
From what was discussed above, it seems like Purism would have to convince the carriers to whitelist the phone or we will be SOL.
It is not looking good. In lieu of this, the other possibilities I see are using either a data SIM and a VOIP number or some type of hotspot device (providing WiFi) and a VOIP number. Although more and more VOIP providers are providing SMS support (in addition to voice), some services which use SMS text for verficiation check to see if a given number is classed as mobile rather than landline (apparently VOIP are often classified as landline) and will not send the verification text to a VOIP (i.e. landline) number.
For example, as you can see here Azure doesn’t allow VOIP numbers for verification:
A Voice-over-IP (VoiP) phone number can’t be used for the phone verification process
The are other services (including some banks) that check the number and don’t allow verification with numbers not classified as mobile.
BTW, I mentioned a data-only SIM card before and someone suggested that it might not be allowed in the Librem5 by the carrier. I don’t expect most to care what it is used in, as it is typically for tablets etc. anyway. However, there are cars that have SIM card slots (for creating an internal WifI hotspot), so there must be carriers that allow you to by data-only SIMs for those. Since the Librem5 modem is essentially an automobile modem, I suspect that it would be possible to buy data-only SIMs for it.
So if we get to the point that we can’t make calls (and/or send/receive texts like other mobile phones), is the Librem5 still a mobile phone?
That’s disappointing. Out of curiosity, what is the privacy related issue to having a phone certified with a carrier? Does it call for a change in software/firmware that the grants the carrier access?
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Purism’s CTO Nicole Faerber posted this 2 years ago about carrier approvals being invasive.
Dunno if things have changed since then.
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This is the sort of 
that makes me lose my noodle.
Not my area, but is there any possibility of being able spoof ATT/Verizon as to the identity of one’s L5, given that we can (hypothetically) do what we want on it? That is, what technology is used by the whitelist, and can it be corrupted?
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Just one more or less minor addition to that - we (as in Purism) currently have no plans to get additional carrier approvals. Getting carrier approvals is a PITA and in most cases bound to very high restrictions on the device and a very expensive qualification process.
I don’t think this represents current policy at Purism. Since that time, Purism announced its AweSIM program, which makes Purism an MVNO of both the T-Mobile and AT&T networks. That means that Purism will have to eventually get the L5 on the whitelists for those two companies, so it will have to get the BM818’s VoLTE to be certified to work on their networks.
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That’s encouraging info. Thx again Amos!
Would the modem then fallback to 2G/GSM?
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Yes, that is how it works. If 4G isn’t available, then it falls back to 3G, and if 3G isn’t available then it falls back to 2G. Most people are able to get 4G data, but because they don’t have VoLTE, they can only make phone calls with 3G or 2G.
I think the way the US carriers have implemented VoLTE with whitelists is ridiculous, and frankly the US government needs to step in and properly regulate the industry to stop carriers from excluding phone models that support VoLTE. The US mobile industry has all kinds of anti-consumer practices that a functioning government shouldn’t allow, but lobbying power and legalized bribery in the political system allow this to happen.
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I have bad news. L5 doesn’t work like that.
Vodafone here decommissioned his 3G network, so only 4G and 2G are available. If I set the network mode to “2G 3G 4G (preferred)”, that’s the default setting, I cannot get incoming calls, sometimes it also fails to make calls. In order to be able to use the L5 like a phone I have to set the network mode to 2G only … and, of course, data connection becomes a pain in the neck.
I guess the phone is taking too long to switch from 4G to 2G when receiving a call so it goes to voicemail everytime. If it is set to 2G only it rings perfectly.
I’m in contact with Purism support in order to try and fix the issue, but it doesn’t look easy.
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Wait, isn’t the problem that they’re excluding phones that DON’T support VoLTE after Feb 2022?
Or is that a separate problem, and you are you saying that they’re excluding phones that have the technical capabilities, but are arbitrarily excluding some for purposes of their own? Both are shady practices
AT&T already shut down their 2G network in 2017. T-mobile is shutting theirs down in December 2022: https://1ot.mobi/resources/blog/a-complete-overview-of-2g-3g-sunsets
That’s what @amosbatto was referring to. However, as I understand it, there’s an entire certification & testing process that OEMs must go through with the networks to get their devices qualified. There may also be concerns of interoperability across various networks, especially internationally, and different implementations of IMS. So it’s probably not as simple as “Device A has the ability to make Voice over LTE calls, so it should work with this carrier.”
See:
https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/ip_services/volte/
https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/accreditation-certification/
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Well, someone said earlier that the EU doesn’t have the whitelist thing so maybe the Librem5 will end up only being feasible as a phone in Europe and perhaps other places outside of the US.
I am not tied to a particular MVNO in the US, but I prefer an MVNO on top of the AT&T network as it was the only one for which I could get a strong enough signal at home (also where I used to work). It is a pain to switch to another network just to find out that it doesn’t work at home or somewhere else (like work) where you spend a lot of time, but one might have to consider it if only some of the US networks support Librem5.
Of course, most newer Android and Apple phones support WiFi-calling which can be used to work around weak signal strength (a relative of mine now uses WiFi-calling to get around this issue), but I guess this is something the Librem5 doesn’t have either. Anyone know if there are any plans to support that? I don’t know if that would be a change to the Calls app or if it would be done somewhere lower in the stack.
In Europe, more specifically in the EU European Union, the situation is that: as long as a device complies with the regulations/standards, the carriers have to accept it in their network.
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Interesting. Is the issue that the BM818 modem is unable to downgrade from LTE data to GSM when you receive a phone call or that it takes too long to make the switch, and the caller hangs up? With the PinePhone’s modem, it was taking too long to respond to calls and people were losing calls, but the community is working on improving the driver so it is much faster now.
Yes, but the issue is that the US carriers are making it much more difficult to use their VoLTE than the carriers in other parts of the world, because they have a limited number of phone models that they have included in their whitelists.