Buying bulk Pinephone Pro without WWAN?

[curtakomla@vusra.com]

Hi, was looking at Pinephone Pro vs. Librem 5. Seems PPP has better GPU. However Librem 5 has removable WWAN (mobile broadband) card via an m.2 slot? I don't need WWAN. I plan to establish connectivity only via USB.

I looked up these EC25 card awhile ago on alibaba. They seem to go $100 a piece. If the WWAN is soldiered on the PinePhone Pro board, is there any way I can get 5 to 10 of PPP void of the WWAN card, and at reduced cost?

As well if price is correct I'd gladly order 20 to 40 pieces without built in mic, camera too as well. What are my options?

TYVM.

[Barugon]

You do know that there are DIP switches to disable the modem, cameras and microphone, yes?

[curtakomla@vusra.com]

Yes we are aware of the dip-switches. Unless I'm mistaken I need to order the correct WWAN card and phone combo per country we're using the phone at. This means once we're locked into a phone we cannot use it in some countries. This is the benefit we believe of the removable card of the librem 5.

Beyond that we need a way to deregister IMEI, and bluetooth/wifi MAC and registering new combo without having to throw the phone away or spend the time This is part of our SLA with MNO/MVNOs and IT SLA concerning the MAC changing requirements.

Last these phones will be used in secure production areas more as Linux PDAs for staff. They cannot have cameras or microphones. This is not about privacy. We want the users to not be able to just turn the camera on at will via the dip-switch. We want to make sure there are no cameras at all.

So we're trying to see if there is a cost saving route of having no WWAN card, no mic, no cameras.

If there is a solution you or the pine64 knows on generating a new IMEI or MAC from the Quctell card, we could consider it. However talking to one of the IT guys who told us we would need access to closed-sourced firmware management system provided by the Quctel engineering team and that we would also probably need to know Assembly language? This is all gibberish to me. It doesn't sound as easy as just using an external cat5 cable or usb connection to an external mifi device that we can decommission or throw away when SLA has ended on that device or we need to deny access by blocking IMEI or MAC.

Also even if we can change IMEI on the fly it doesn't seem to solve the problem to making the phone a world phone where the librem 5 we can just pop in a new card per the country the user requires it during travels.

Again we'd like to order about 10 with no WWAN, and no cams or mics. If possible and all goes well we'll likely deploy more that 100.

TIA.

Edit: I just read someone on the forum mention "broadcom chip for wifi" so it seems I made a mistake in thinking the wifi was build into the quectel WWAN mode. So I'd like to be explicit in Wifi, bluetooth, WWAN, camera, and mics need to be removed. Anything that can transmit a radio frequency must be removed. Hope it's clear enough.

[zetabeta]

Yes we are aware of the dip-switches. Unless I'm mistaken I need to order the correct WWAN card and phone combo per country we're using the phone at. This means once we're locked into a phone we cannot use it in some countries. This is the benefit we believe of the removable card of the librem 5.

Beyond that we need a way to deregister IMEI, and bluetooth/wifi MAC and registering new combo without having to throw the phone away or spend the time This is part of our SLA with MNO/MVNOs and IT SLA concerning the MAC changing requirements. 

Last these phones will be used in secure production areas more as Linux PDAs for staff. They cannot have cameras or microphones. This is not about privacy. We want the users to not be able to just turn the camera on at will via the dip-switch. We want to make sure there are no cameras at all.

So we're trying to see if there is a cost saving route of having no WWAN card, no mic, no cameras.

If there is a solution you or the pine64 knows on generating a new IMEI or MAC from the Quctell card, we could consider it. However talking to one of the IT guys who told us we would need access to closed-sourced firmware management system  provided by the Quctel engineering team and that we would also probably need to know Assembly language? This is all gibberish to me. It doesn't sound as easy as just using an external cat5 cable or usb connection to an external mifi device that we can decommission or throw away when SLA has ended on that device or we need to deny access by blocking IMEI or MAC.

Also even if we can change IMEI on the fly it doesn't seem to solve the problem to making the phone a world phone where the librem 5 we can just pop in a new card per the country the user requires it during travels.

Again we'd like to order about 10 with no WWAN, and no cams or mics. If possible and all goes well we'll likely deploy more that 100.

TIA.

Edit: I just read someone on the forum mention "broadcom chip for wifi" so it seems I made a mistake in thinking the wifi was build into the quectel WWAN mode. So I'd like to be explicit in Wifi, bluetooth, WWAN, camera, and mics need to be removed. Anything that can transmit a radio frequency must be removed. Hope it's clear enough.

eg25 is global, maybe exception of few countries, this modem chip works worldwide.

IMEI change is possible, but it may open serious legal issues. at least in UK, it's illegal. https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...nging+imei

you're use case is just weird. in the end pinephone is intended to send "radio" signals and communicate. of course some individuals need to control these, but creating separate device for ACTUAL development but in the end, those special devices probably won't be used.

in theory, you could remove camera modules and cut microphone. but changing IMEI and MAC addresses are possible by developers. i think MAC-address change is only possible by software, not in hardware level.

[curtakomla@vusra.com]

Yes we are aware of the dip-switches. Unless I'm mistaken I need to order the correct WWAN card and phone combo per country we're using the phone at. This means once we're locked into a phone we cannot use it in some countries. This is the benefit we believe of the removable card of the librem 5.

Beyond that we need a way to deregister IMEI, and bluetooth/wifi MAC and registering new combo without having to throw the phone away or spend the time This is part of our SLA with MNO/MVNOs and IT SLA concerning the MAC changing requirements. 

Last these phones will be used in secure production areas more as Linux PDAs for staff. They cannot have cameras or microphones. This is not about privacy. We want the users to not be able to just turn the camera on at will via the dip-switch. We want to make sure there are no cameras at all.

So we're trying to see if there is a cost saving route of having no WWAN card, no mic, no cameras.

If there is a solution you or the pine64 knows on generating a new IMEI or MAC from the Quctell card, we could consider it. However talking to one of the IT guys who told us we would need access to closed-sourced firmware management system  provided by the Quctel engineering team and that we would also probably need to know Assembly language? This is all gibberish to me. It doesn't sound as easy as just using an external cat5 cable or usb connection to an external mifi device that we can decommission or throw away when SLA has ended on that device or we need to deny access by blocking IMEI or MAC.

Also even if we can change IMEI on the fly it doesn't seem to solve the problem to making the phone a world phone where the librem 5 we can just pop in a new card per the country the user requires it during travels.

Again we'd like to order about 10 with no WWAN, and no cams or mics. If possible and all goes well we'll likely deploy more that 100.

TIA.

Edit: I just read someone on the forum mention "broadcom chip for wifi" so it seems I made a mistake in thinking the wifi was build into the quectel WWAN mode. So I'd like to be explicit in Wifi, bluetooth, WWAN, camera, and mics need to be removed. Anything that can transmit a radio frequency must be removed. Hope it's clear enough.

eg25 is global, maybe exception of few countries, this modem chip works worldwide.

IMEI change is possible, but it may open serious legal issues. at least in UK, it's illegal. https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...nging+imei

you're use case is just weird. in the end pinephone is intended to send "radio" signals and communicate. of course some individuals need to control these, but creating separate device for ACTUAL development but in the end, those special devices probably won't be used.

in theory, you could remove camera modules and cut microphone. but changing IMEI and MAC addresses are possible by developers. i think MAC-address change is only possible by software, not in hardware

I talked more to IT, seems I don't fully understand all the jargon and I'm probably making some mistakes on the requirements.

But they've decide to just find a pocket size linux tablet solution with no wifi or radio connectivity. Hoping somebody can chime on on the bulk order question.

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To sales:

Any way to buy quantity 100x PinePhonePro devices without WWAN, wifi, gps, bluetooth, or anything that transmits radio signals?

As we stated earlier we can get connectivity through USB/network we assume.