AT&T cutting off my LG flip phone in 30 days

[KC9UDX]

This might be worse for us with few-years-old phones, if 3G is really going away. Voice and SMS/MMS are IX/2G/3G-only for most of us. Years ago I was ahead of the curve using a 4G-only VOIP service.

[kqlnut]

Regarding KaiOS I can very much recommend BananaHackers who do a great job at making KaiOS devices more open (don't let the fact that it's a Google site put you off). @Zebulon Walton you might want to check that out for your new flip phone.

[Zebulon Walton]

Regarding KaiOS I can very much recommend BananaHackers who do a great job at making KaiOS devices more open (don't let the fact that it's a Google site put you off). @Zebulon Walton you might want to check that out for your new flip phone.

Very interesting, thanks! Looks like this thing may actually have some possibilities.

[KC9UDX]

Wow!  I wonder if any of those are ruggedised like the old Nextel phones.

[Old_Mil]

Today I received a free 4G replacement flip phone from AT&T due to 3G service being phased out in February 2022. I did not ask for the phone, they just went ahead and sent it, and as expected it is a stripped-down Android phone filled with Google spyware. Trouble is I thought I had until February to switch over but the paperwork with the new phone said if I don't activate it myself it will automatically be activated in 30 days. (It has a new SIM and my old one will be deactivated.) I called AT&T support with my concerns, and my preference that my current SIM stay activated to install a phone of my own choosing (Pinephone). Needless to say there was nothing they could do to stop the automatic activation.

I really don't even want to turn this thing on but it looks like I'll have to let the spyware phone activate the new SIM and hopefully it will work in the Pinephone like the old one does. So it looks like assuming it works I'll be going with the Pinephone as my daily driver six or seven months faster than I thought. Since calling has been working well it shouldn't be a problem. If it doesn't work I'll be looking for another provider, as I will if AT&T cuts off the Pinephone for not being on their whitelist.

As an AT&T customer you're going to have a problem, I think.  They appear to be using their 2G/3G network deactivation as an excuse to institute a whitelist, severely curtail BYOD (and boost device sales), and force as many users as possible onto android devices to be able to monitor and monitize their activities.  T-mobile has thus far been better and as of now has no plans to institute a whitelist.

You might want to consider a Nokia 225

https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/nokia-225-4g

You may have to port your number to another carrier.

I understand the frustration; I had been using a Sailfish phone for the past three years but with the mandatory switch to VoLTE and Jolla's refusal to implement it thus far I had to make a change.

[Zebulon Walton]

As an AT&T customer you're going to have a problem, I think.  They appear to be using their 2G/3G network deactivation as an excuse to institute a whitelist, severely curtail BYOD (and boost device sales), and force as many users as possible onto android devices to be able to monitor and monitize their activities.  T-mobile has thus far been somewhat better.

Well, they did send me a KaiOS flip phone rather than Android so they're not totally limiting devices to Android or IOS. It appears that KaiOS is open-source, based on Firefox OS, and has an active community around it. I have not had time yet to look into how much user control over it is possible but it looks interesting.

There is also the possibility of changing the Pinephone IMEI if the modem command suggested actually works. However so far I have not had a problem using a pre-activated AT&T SIM in the Pinephone.

[Old_Mil]

Well, they did send me a KaiOS flip phone rather than Android so they're not totally limiting devices to Android or IOS. It appears that KaiOS is open-source, based on Firefox OS, and has an active community around it. I have not had time yet to look into how much user control over it is possible but it looks interesting.

I looked at Kai when I got my Nokia 225 because I was considering the 6300 which runs on Kai.

But this made the decision for me...

Google invests $22M in feature phone operating system KaiOS
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/27/google-kaios/

They're not doing this as a form of charity.

[Zebulon Walton]

It's difficult to get away from Google. The company has always been very active in funding and contributing code to the Linux kernel and open source in general. Earlier this year Google announced they are funding developers to improve Linux security. Not a single $22 million investment, but over time the company has had considerable input into Linux.

[TRS-80]

Aaand... they are not doing any of that for charity, either. What do you think all of their "cloud" crap runs on, after all?

I guess you really depend on that call notification feature, but the way I think about things, I don't know if I want to rely on any of these carriers any more than Google... In fact, I'm more than a little surprised this feature has continued to work for this long. But how much longer will that continue? Which is why I tend to try and think in terms of solutions (as much as possible) that don't rely on proprietary software nor network features. Just my $0.02. But maybe there is no other way (I figure you must have thought more about it than I have).

[Zebulon Walton]

Well, to put some closure on this thread, the day has come. I needed to use my old flip phone today and it came up saying "SIM not provisioned". So I fired up the KaiOS phone that AT&T provided and after a minute or two its SIM was activated. First thing I noticed is that Google Assistant gets in your face for just about any function. You can dismiss it, but still annoying and is evidence that Google is in there active and snooping around. Unfortunately from what I've been able to to find so far it doesn't look like anyone has yet been able to root one of these AT&T phones. So this thing is definitely going on the shelf for emergency use only.

In any event, once the new SIM was activated I took it out and installed it in the Pinephone using a nano-micro adapter, the same one I've been using with the Tracfone test SIM. On first boot with that SIM the Pinephone didn't recognize there was a SIM installed. I was afraid that either the SIM was not compatible for some reason or maybe I managed to damage contacts as some have reported doing with these adapters. Luckily after removing and reinstalling the SIM it's working properly, at least until AT&T figures out I'm using an unsupported device and blacklists it.

So now I'm in the Pinephone "daily driver" club. (Right now I'm doing an image backup of my working configuration.)