Carriers do not support PinePhone?

[bcnaz]

Personally I dont like t mobile or verizon, but tmobile will probably have their 3g converted to 4g by or before any dead lines.

I'm posting from my Explorer Edition, Pro series. :-)

[rocket2nfinity]

I took the phone down and got the network unlock code, which only showed up on the android when the sim was inserted and booted, the PP did not show the message. Explained exactly what I was doing and what needed to happen. You ever talk to someone and they get this look in their eyes where you just know they have no idea what your talking about but keep agreeing with you that they understand? So that didn't work.

Called the 611 number and explained the situation, I think they understood because they associated the sim to a "Miscellaneous EG25-G", that's the modem, so hope springs eternal. Waiting for the sim to arrive today and will give that a shot.

I also changed my OS from Mobian to Manjaro, I think Manjaro is using the updated modem code but not 100% sure. Mobian has not been updated by the developers since early last year, I was on the stable version. Didn't want to use testing or nightly, so I just put the latest Manjaro on, Beta 21, to ensure I had the most up2date OS.

If this doesn't work, and hearing that others are working, I am not sure how to troubleshoot the modem to ensure that nothing is wrong with it. I have no issue with AT commands or digging deeper but not sure what I am looking for.I am wondering if my IMEI is on some sort of blacklist because early on when switching the sim from my android and back to my android caused some sort of watch program to auto blacklist in the AT&T system, that will be hard to figure out.

Will post back when I get the new sim and share my results. Last resort would be to grab an old broken phone and use that IMEI on the PP for a test.

Jon

I would not expect any carrier to "support" any phone unless:
a) they sell the phone (branded)
b) their approved retailers sell the phone (resellers)
c) the carrier has an official supported phone list (and the Big Boys do)

If one thinks the Big Boys have the best intention, then there's some Q&A involved in hopes for fewer customers calling with complaints, but if you don't believe the carriers are altruistic (at all) then they do it to make money selling consumer hardware (directly or indirectly).  So carrier support isn't really a PinePhone specific thing.

Like others said, simplest is have 2 phones, and go with an MVNO.  Especially if the MNVO's onboarding process is entirely online via mailed SIM card.  Ting was as simple as: 1) activate an approved/branded phone, and then 2) switch SIM into PinePhone. 

I did walk into a local MVNO that rides off Verizon, got voice+sms activated but couldn't get data, finally got escalated to someone smart, and they did admit that the PinePhone modem's frequencies probably weren't compatible with their tower frequencies, and that affected receiving data.  That confirms what others have speculated here when the PinePhone radio won't work or works with limited functionality.

There may be an ATT MVNO that basically as the same coverage as ATT directly in your area.

---

P.S. Wikipedia has a nice chart of the MVNOs.  Not specific to Pinephone.  Just sharing encase others hadn't seen it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un..._operators

I wish the chart also listed which MVNOs mail SIMs in multiple sizes / microSIM.

Both Pinephones support band 13 verizon's main band. You will get slow data if you connect via band 2 or their other backup bands. To activate data, your APN needs to be: VZWINTERNET all caps

[bcnaz]

In the U.S. the TracFone sim kits are available at Family Dollar and many other retail outlets, usually they have 3 sim cards in the kit.

One sim for each of the big three carriers ... It was still only $1. USD the last time I Looked.

You can try each of the cards without activating, ==> to check signal strengths ....

It's only a buck --- not much to lose