I’ve been doing this for decades (starting back in Nokia/Symbian days and later the N900) partially to dodge the insane roaming charges. It was much safer to just buy a local sim card and avoid all unpleasant surprises abroad.
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Huh, yeah, it’s kind of like Sailfish is focused on other parts of the world. If only there were a special forum thread for those using it in a particular place.
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I agree here. I’m starting a company which builds private services and some hardware, it’s always been a pipe dream of the team and I to tackle the phone.
What’s the most stable SIP service been in your experience? Would there be a way to port my number in?
Well, I started with GrandCentral but then Google acquired and destroyed them like they always do.
I’ve tried various services over the years but then settled for nexmo.com largely because of their nice SMS API.
And yes, you should be able to port US numbers to nexmo.
This issue has been discussed here:
and here:
New Year’s Eve Surprise Thread
Basically, the story is this:
(1) T-mobile is shutting down it’s 2G and 3G networks on October 1st.
(2) AT&T is following suite in the 1st quarter of 2022.
(3) In addition to this, AT&T is instituting a device whitelist so that even if your phone is VoLTE capable, if it isn’t on the whitelist it will be banned from the network. I see this as a sneaky way to strike down BYOD for AT&T and it’s MVNOs, if not an outright data mining scheme by insisting it provide the handsets.
(4) Barring the implementation of VoLTE in sailfish, phones with this OS will not work in the United States after the 1st quarter of 2022 barring some tinkering.
Although it won’t work for AT&T and it’s MVNOs (see the aforementioned whiteliest), it may still be possible to connect to T-mobile and/or it’s MVNO’s using the 4G capability of the Xperia series on a data only basis. That is, the built in phone and messaging app in Sailfish won’t work at all, but the browser and email functions will.
If this is the case, then you can install a VOIP app (I chose TextFree, there are others) send/receive messages and voice calls over the data stream of the phone.
While no one knows if this will work for sure in the future , Tello (a T-mobile MVNO) says the data only conection for non VoLTE phones will be permitted as T-mobile has announced no plans to use a whitelist. I am using that combination right now (Tello + Textfree) and it works (the caller can hear some echoing if you leave mute off so you need to use the mute button like the transmit switch of the radio to talk, and then mute when you’re done talking).
Hope this helps. I really hope Jolla does something about 5G and VoLTE. Rostelcom may not want to deploy it right now, but the rest of the world is moving in that direction rapidly and ensuring that the OS is compatible with this technology is more important than worrying about a new handset right now.
Sounds interesting - are you able to share any details?
TextFree seems to be Android/iOS only so this is a big no-no.
Anyone interested should feel free to DM me either on this forum or on Matrix (@xylobol:lighthouse.cx) – currently we’re focused on “prosumer” apps, but the hardware’s somewhat interesting. Trying to avoid self-advertising here.
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It is android/iOS only, but although there’s a native SIP client, I haven’t found any SIP providers here who are interested in anything but providing large business networks…and without some sort of a workaround, after October it’s lights out for Sailfish here and everyone will be forced onto Pinephone or Lineage.
Start the apps as proprietary, sell for a tiny fee… But, make that fee a “disappearing one”, then give them the apps. Later on, open-source the apps.
Nope. We’re open-source all the way. Our business model is mostly centered around services (sync and support) and hardware.
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There are still a few that also cater to individual consumers but for whatever reason seem to be harder to find now than just a few years ago.
Maybe someone on this forum should become a reseller for them, optimize the service for SFOS and make a few $ that way.
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That’s a good idea, I’d definitely buy. Esepecially if all users could be routed through an I2C VOIP System
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That could go as far as providing a SFOS SIP app to allow remote provisioning of SIP credentials for the service. Means you would be able to type your number/password (or whatever) into the app and off you go without the need to set up anything. This service would not have to be limited to the US, of course.
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I’m telling you, peer-to-peer-to-multipeer PTPMP would be perfect, especially with encryption that is created for every single connection.
This is correct. This isn’t a problem only for US users or North American users. That’s like saying in the event of a plane crash, the people in the last row have nothing to worry about.
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Throwing my 5 cents in here. Ofono, which handles modem, currently doesn’t support CDMA on sailfishos, but i’ve been informed that it has no reason not to. And VoLTE is VoLTE
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Among all the possible venues to solve this issue for US’s SFOS users, I think moving to Russia seems to be more palpable.
- get a mole inside rostelecom
- try to make him hasten the switch to volte
- ???
- not profit probably extradition
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