Why is the Librem 5 blocked from nearly all phone companies?

Hardware Librem 5
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If everyone with a Librem 5 moves to a SIP service and subscribes to data only, then there’s no way for them to preventing you from using the Librem 5 on their network, regardless of the carrier.

Maybe Purism should move Awsim to a SIP service. Purism could work out all of the technical bugs with SIP on the Librem 5 and push out the fix, then use their their own SIP provider to provide a Google Voice type of service by running their own automated PBX system. So when you make a call, Purism’s PBX system would call the number via their own landlines and then connect your SIP call to that other call (the number you dialed). That’s how Google Voice works. If you have Google Voice you don’t even need a voice service. And if you want to, you don’t even need data. Google voice works just fine where there is no cellular service as long as you have a good wifi connection. Another advantage of this method is that Purism could provide point to point encryption in to their own PBX system. Suddenly, you get much more difficult to track and impossible to listen-in on. Every call you make would go encrypted through an encrypted tunnel like VPN does with no way for anyone to know where the other end of the call ends up.

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If incoming calls do not ring audibly, have you tried to set up a notification from the app? You could (for example) use the “You have mail” notification which would really mean in your case “you have an incoming call".

For the thirty second limit on outgoing calls, there might be a few possible causes. 1.) Someone in the chain wants you to pay a subscription fee. So they impaired their part of the system to motivate you to pay. 2.) Something that tells the phone that someone picked up on the other end isn’t working. Typically, if no one answers the phone within thirty seconds, the phone hangs up to disconnect the call. In your case, maybe the call is not being treated as though someone has answered. But the only part of that, that you might have some control over could be the phone’s settings or permissions. 3.) Your voip settings in the interface to your SIP provider might not be set correctly for your device. I know that at least with voip.ms, there must be several dozen, if not well over a hundred settings on the provider end that have you can adjust via their web interface. Some of the fields are critical. Some of them don’t matter. Most of them can be left blank or set incorrectly without affecting anything. Most of them, I didn’t have a clue what was supposed to go there. All it takes is one field with one piece of incorrect information to mess things up. If you copied someone else’s settings like I did, maybe something you copied doesn’t apply to you the same way as the person you copied from, especially if you don’t understand the field with the incorrect setting. The only cure in this case is to learn exactly what every field actually is asking and what it does. Then you might need to use trial and error. With multiple variables, many of which you don’t understand, and any one of which can screw things up, getting the voip settings correct can seem to be impossible sometimes.

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Calls drop 30 seconds after the other party answers. Max Expiry and RTP Time Out values in voip.ms sub account settings are 450 seconds.

I’m fairly confident both the non-ring and 30 outbound call timeout issues are bugs with the Linphone android app, that’s why I brought it up as a warning to anyone going that route.

If someone manages to get Linphone, or the native Librem SIP client working reliably with voip.ms, please post.

I might be forced to buy another mobile phone for business and it’s going to be a Librem or other phone with hardware switches for all the needful. hell or high water, I’m done with the mobile surveillance borg.

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I solved the no ringing problem by toggling this setting on under Advanced Settings => Calls => Ring during incoming early media call

Still working on the 30 second call drop on outbound calls.

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46

Just for your interest: I made two calls in Italy and it worked! So, yes, it’s kind of US communication companies conspiracy :worried:

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Did you make them using Linphone, Voip.ms while using TLS/SRTP?

I’m only having the 30 second call drop problem when making outbound calls using that combination.

I can call Linphone to Linphone account no problem. It think it’s something to do with NAT/ICE/TURN and voip.ms’s customized Asterisk implementation.

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I am using my Librem 5 with Mint Mobile, which uses the T-Mobile network and it works fine.

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An overview of VoLTE: Voice over LTE - Wikipedia

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I just learned today that tracfone does not support the librem5. I was trying to consolidate my devices and purchased a ‘keep-your-own-phone’ sim from them, intending to transfer my existing tracfone number to that so I would only need to carry one phone around. After some searching I find that tracfone was bought by verizon and that’s probably why they don’t support it. I had no idea since when I first got tracfone I was on the t-mobile network.

Their activation page asks for the IMEI of your device and then just says “Not compatible” and removes options to continue.

On an unrelated note, now that I know my tracfone service was switched to verizon, I can stop blaming t-mobile for the god awful service issues I’ve had with it. It is SO bad that I actually get locked out of accounts requiring 2FA for literally 3 days at random because they get some glitch in their system that repeatedly sends the last text message I received and blocks all other incoming messages, and recently even calls sometimes fail to come through.

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Until Purism vets the phone with the carriers, this is the fate of the phone. There is a very particular vetting process they use to allow devices on their network. It sucks but that’s the way it is. It’s more of a business decision more than anything else. There is Android and Apple and anything else is on the fringe and therefore means they have to train support staff to support a phone that would be a tiny fraction of their subscribers. That’s the harsh reality. I work for a small Telco here in Canada that uses the Rogers network for cell, same thing for me. I haven’t used my L5 on the network in a long time because I can’t use VoLTE, it gets rejected by the network.

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Personally I think the argument against “fringe phone support” is rather flimsy, Carriers should only be concerned with network support and should be phone agnostic, although granted that they probably have to put up with support tickets that have nothing to do with the network just like ISPs constantly got support tickets that had nothing to do with internet service (ie. a user calls for their computer getting virus or running slow nothing network related). Considering the fringe linux phone user is likely most tech savvy, that should be even less of a burden on their tech support, like I still occasionally see my librem5 wake up, but get no notification so I know a text is trying to get through, and I can verify with an aliased command to see that yes a text is stuck in receiving, so either a quick reconnect of the modem or reboot of the phone should allow it through, something I can’t do on a tracfone.

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Well, indeed. There are a lot of things in the world that should be - but aren’t. Unless they are forced to by the government i.e. enforced neutrality, it is unlikely to happen.

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Yes, based on the average level of tech knowledge of most subs, a great deal of support calls are completely not related to the network. The lineups at our own retail store are full of people that don’t really know how to use their phone, and that’s with devices that have had billions of dollars of development to make them user friendly. The L5 might as well be a 20x20x20 rubiks cube that requires knowledge of quantum mechanics to use. I think that’s why Purism introduced the AweSIM thing. I think if they expanded the AweSIM service to other countries or negotiated deals with other carriers then I think the phone could be viable, because it would be a bespoke network for the L5. But that is going to take a lot of leg work on Purism’s part and essentially they will have to become a cellular reseller in some respects. I don’t know what kind of human and financial resources they have to make that happen. At the end of the day everyone has to make money or it’s just not going to happen.

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All of the phone carriers should be required to allow but not required to support the Librem 5 on their respective systems. When an obscure linux command line found deep in Purism’s support forums is required to get LTE working on your Librem 5, that shouldn’t be the carrier’s problem. But as a common carrier (common carrier laws go way back to boats using common water ways), there should be a common communications protocol that is published and that always works for anyone who implements it. Otherwise, revoke the radio license and re-issue it to a different carrier who will operate as a real common carrier.

Verizon is the worst. Their network is the best. But they overcharge everyone and they are not cooperative on issues like the Librem 5. The phones that Verizon sells will lock you out of features that are commonly free in Europe and then charge you for those same features here in the US. To charge you extra for limited amounts of data that can be shared with other devices should be criminal. When you buy data services, you should own the use of the data to use from any device you want to use it from. When you root your Android phone you can simply turn on your hotspot for free. But rooting Verizon phones is nearly impossible. Better yet, just avoid using Verizon.

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About Verizon, I agree. They’re not customer friendly.

I, too, think there should be a common, global communications protocol that ensures all phones can communicate with one another on any, or at least most networks. There is, I believe, an “open market,” interoperable VoLTE protocol that much of the world uses, but sadly not all networks.

Not sure if you’re just employing hyperbole there, but the Librem 5’s modem has always been capable of 4G/LTE data out of the box, with no “obscure Linux command” required… only inserting a compatible phone company’s SIM.

If you were talking about Voice-over-LTE, [EDIT: after the initial development stages] that only required installing the BM818 Tool app, checking a box, and rebooting (or, granted, running a command to install it from the terminal). [EDIT: Although it would be better if the switch were moved to the main mobile settings.]

But yes, U.S. networks definitely should not be so segmented when it comes to device compatibility.

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Verizon has a device certification process (v42 2026 PDF) and from what I’ve heard, the process is very expensive. They also require the business to sign an NDA and who knows what’s in that.

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Agreed. But see my previous post.

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Yes, the BM818 tool to get voice over LTE is what I was referring to. I wiped and reinstalled the OS on my Librem 5 recently and had a hard time finding that tool again. If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I would have never found it. It’s not in the Librem 5 app store.

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I am not certain of this but … wiping and reinstalling the operating system may have no effect on the modem and hence no effect on the VoLTE setting anyway. In other words, I am suggesting that you only need that tool once in the lifetime of the phone (unless you obtain another modem from ‘somewhere’).

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I am certain that a wipe and reload of the Librem 5 operating system does require loading that BM818 tool to fully restore the LTE features. I actually loaded PostmarketOS on to the phone. Then I wanted to test Crimson. So I restored PureOS to the phone. The only way to get rid of the modem errors with the modem shown as impaired on the notifications bar, was to find and restore that tool. You can see that tool as an installed app, after you install it. But you won’t find it as an app available for install in the app store. The modem error on the notification bar went away immediately after reinstalling the BM818 tool and rebooting the phone.

But putting this specific tool aside, it takes a very advanced forum to support an audience of mostly experienced Linux users here, to support the Librem 5’s technical support requirements. I can’t imagine the average T-Mobile employee helping the average T-Mobile customer, to support the Librem 5 technical support requirements on their own phones.

This is the one weakness that I don’t think that Purism adequately recognizes when desiring to propagate their phone product in to the market. Linux users come here. Experienced Linux users get their problems resolved, and in the process they feel a sense of pride in how much smarter they are than the average, non-Linux user. The Linux community itself has little concern for those who are basically weak. Most non-linux users refuse to learn or engage at all with the command line. This creates a culture of intolerance against anyone who doesn’t aspire to become a Linux guru, with all of the accolades and recognition that comes with being more advanced than those less informed people who only use Windows and Android. There is a baked-in sense of pride to this affect that is tied to Linux user culture and that is costing Purism more than they can understand. While the Linux user eventually, after hours of troubleshooting, gets that command line just right (the perfect syntax alone having taken years to perfect in some cases), the average person will just refuse to spend any of their time at a command line. So yes, the average Librem 5 user is one out of ten thousand or more of a special, more informed group of niche customers. Is this really what Purism wants?

Meanwhile, the average Windows or Android user would tap a conspicuously placed “Click here to install BM818 driver" button in a similar situation. That’s five seconds and no special knowledge required, to get complete resolution. The speed bump is so small that the user barely notices that it’s there. As they say “…it’s so easy, my mother could do it". Aw, that’s no fun. But what would happen if Purism could multiply their current sales by 10,000 or by 100,000 by catering to everyone, instead of just to a very niche group of people. It doesn’t appear that Purism has any interest in those potential customers (the vast majority of the population), those that could buy millions or billions of Librem 5 phones, if only Purism chose to cater to them too.

We need Purism’s software developers to take that last step, after completing the hard part (which they typically do the hard part). Build the install GUI or inbed the additional code as a part of the main app, make everything more than just easy. Make it brainless. Make it so easy to do that my mother could do it. Link everything together so that a configuration tool (always a GUI) can be called by the press of a button from the main app. Get rid of a-la-carte apps, man pages, how to pages, and command line requirements to make something work. Do what Windows and Android do. And like Windows and Android and Apple, sell millions or even billions of Librem 5’s.

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