I recently tried to re-establish phone service with Boost Cellular and learned that the Librem 5 is not authorized to use their system. This was a surprise because I used Boost Mobile in the past with no problems. Are there any cheap alternatives $25-$35 range that allow the Librem 5 to run on their systems? Now I have a Librem 5 phone but, unless I want to pay more for the Purism endorsed carrier, I cannot use it.
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Cellular-Providers
The ones I have experience with are Ting Mobile, AweSim, and Boost.
Ting Mobile and AweSim currently work fine, Boost was used 2+ years ago so⌠
Ting has some pretty affordable plans.
AT&T has been reported in this forum to work if you activate it on a different phone.
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Please spray the blocked mean?
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I am using a Google Fi SIM card that had been in an Android phone previously. Itâs been working fine for 2 years, but when I tried to order another one to put in another Librem 5, they donât support that and wonât allow it unless I tell them the make and model of the phone for the new SIM.
So my Librem 5 is working well as a daily driver for 2 years because my carrier didnât notice, not because itâs supposed to be that way. Now that I say it, maybe I should think about that some moreâŚ
Is there any chance the Boost Cellular folks are telling you its not authorized because configuring a Librem 5 to work is above the paygrade of whoever you were talking to, but that if you got a SIM from them and turned it on that it would then actually work?
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âAllâ carriers is a bit of a stretch. The Librem 5 is blocked by Verizon, AT&T, and some MVNOs that utilize their services. TMobile and TMobile MVNOs should work just fine.
TMobile is the second largest carrier in the United States of America.
More information here: https://wiki.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/Cellular_Networks/Supported_Networks.html
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I would recommend Mint Mobile or TMobile.
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Or Ultra Mobile, which, in addition to pretty fair plans, has cheaper and more useful ad hoc international roaming costs, if thatâs something you might want. (Mint ruined their roaming rates a while back).
Youâd still probably need to swap in a modem for a different region to use the L5 abroad, though.
If youâd like to take advantage of âcheapâ eSIMs with the L5, you can buy one of the commercially available âeSIM adaptersâ that enable you to load purchased eSIMs onto them. (An eSIM adapter is a writable physical SIM card.)
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I got my Librem 5 phone activated with Mint Mobile. Their Website reports that the Librem 5 is compatible with their network. Also, their service is much cheaper than any of the others because I paid a year in advance. They average a low price for 5 gigs of data for around $16 per month when all fees are factored in.
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Blocked means that the Librem5 phone is not supported by some mobile phone companies in the USA. Iâm not sure what you mean by the term, âsprayâ.
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As Iâve stated before, there is no interest in supporting the Librem 5 because it represents a potential strain on support staff in the future troubleshooting potential issues because itâs neither an android or apple device. Voice is handled differently than data for carriers because the voice core is a separate beast for them. Data is more loosely policed because itâs less complicated on the carrier side. My L5 works fine with data, but cannot do VoLTE because the carrier doesnât recognize the device and shuts down voice services over data. This problem is only going to get worse moving forward because these networks are going to lock things down more and more. They also cannot be as vigilant with data because they have to support all kinds of devices like POS machines for example. Your best bet to make things more future proof with the L5 is to look at getting a SIP service that you can access over the data connection. jmp.chat offers SIP accounts which you can integrate into the calls app and chatty. Iâve already played with this with a test number. Depending on how well things work with Crimson (Iâm testing it now) I may just migrate my number to this kind of setup.
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Is it that phone companies built in some code that blocks L5, or that L5 doesnât meet Providers system requirements?
~s
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It is more like providers do not like to support L5. I also never heard about issue somewhere else in the world beside USA. I mean sure, beside USA, Canada and Europe I hear nothing much L5-related, but at least in Europe there is no issue as far as I am aware. Maybe a thing of laws that allow US telecommunication companies to act like ****.
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That pulverize the definition of âblockedâ.
Example: Blocked may different for Unsupported.
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There is a vetting process that the carriers put handsets through to ensure they function properly. If they donât do this it becomes a support nightmare for them. Thatâs the idea anyways.
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It can be though that âsupportedâ == âlazinessâ.
They can just say âitâs not supportedâ - meaning that âif you have problems, donât come to us and anyway we donât know anything about this device and we donât have one to play with and âŚâ
But that doesnât mean that it wonât work and it doesnât mean that it is actually blocked. That is, âsupportedâ, âworkingâ and âblockedâ are three different things. (And, anecdotally, some providers may block only at activation time while other providers may genuinely block i.e. each time the device registers on the mobile network.)
The only true answers come from: you tried the device yourself or you relied on someone elseâs report of same. It is unlikely that you will get accurate answers from a call centre.
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I wouldnât necessarily call it laziness, its more a business decision. Purism is capable of working with carriers, they offer the Awesim product, but they have to do the legwork to work with all the carriers to move this forward, mainly to convince them that it will be a significant enough product for them to vet it. They need to be reassured that this device isnât going to be a support headache for them.
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That can be âchicken and eggâ though. Rightly or wrongly, a perception that the âLibrem 5 is blocked from nearly all phone companies [in the US]â can become self-fulfilling.
I have no problem with any MVNO/MNO saying that the Librem 5 is ânot supportedâ, in the sense of âif you have problems, donât come to usâ (or in other words, you will have to put your SIM in your old spyphone and demonstrate that the problem still occurs, where the phone itself is relevant to your support call). I understand that call centre scripts will only cover Android and iPhone.
I have every problem with their saying that they will not allow the Librem 5 to be connected, through the operation of IMEI checking (blocking) or other telco chicanery.
By laziness, I just meant that itâs a fast way of closing the case and contributing towards meeting KPIs - even when the specific phone is not relevant at all to the support call.
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Do you say that, as a Librem 5 owner, you should forget about the phone calls feature (somewhat included for free or cheap) and only use the data channel? Should we think of the Librem 5 as an IoT device that needs a data-only SIM card?
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Not necessarily. You can probably use a regular SIM even if you donât or canât make calls.
In any case, it is 100% dependent on what country you are in. It is stated above that EU MNOs/MVNOs are less âfascistâ, whereas Canada and the US are more troublesome.
This particular topic is implicitly talking about the US.
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No what I was saying is that you can circumvent the VoLTE blocking on carriers (everything is going to VoLTE which is all voice over data, HSPA is going away). If you get a SIP account from some provider and port your number to that provider you can regain your voice/text services that way. Iâve played with it using the jmp.chat service which offers SIP accounts.
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