FOSDEM 19 Announcements Discussion

[evilbunny]

Is there any idea at this time about what US carriers the Pine Phone is likely to be compatible with and accepted by?  Other than some very old knowledge about GSM vs CDMA networks, I'm pretty much clueless (the most "advanced" thing I've done involving cell phones in the last decade was swapping out SIMs to switch from Verizon to StraightTalk...).

4G bands are a mess, EC-25 chip bands can be seen here and EG25-G here

The only variant that covers all US bands is the EC25-AF, the EG25-G covers some of the US bands and most of the bands used in most of the world.

- How easy will it be to replace major components (at least the screen and main logic board)?  Are there plans to offer repair components?

tllim said on IRC that the pinephone is designed to be easy to repair.

- Is tethering a part of the design (or is this really just a software issue?).  I would love to have a tethering phone with one of the pure pay-for-the-data-you-use  virtual carriers like Ting.  Will the USB port act as a host port as well as a device port?

That's an OS/software thing.