Look up Australia’s whitelisting system.
If you phone isn’t manually approved, it won’t be able to connect to a cell tower, not even for emergency calls.
What is blocking it? I haven’t done much research yet but was hoping to find a new OS if this goes through. Wouldn’t it be the same as putting a sim card into a tablet/laptop? Or is there something specific to your country that stands out?
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
0x0@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
not even for emergency calls.
That’s wild.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIJavqEzEIw
If your phone isn’t manually approved, its assumed your phone doesn’t support 4g/5g, therefore, blocked.
4G/5G phones have already been blocked
Fairphone isn’t certified in Australia, Pinephone also isn’t, nor Librem 5.
Custom ROMs on an approved phone might work for now, but they could potentially start verifying OS in the future if the autocratization trend continues. Also, manufacturers could starts start locking the bootloader.
The best realistic way forward is have two devices, one is the “normie” phone, the other is your own pocket PC running a Libre OS.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 5 days ago
What the hell
muhyb@programming.dev 6 days ago
Probably they need to pay for an IMEI fee their government wants. I know because it’s the same here. I got PinePhone for $200 and had to pay for $250 IMEI fee. What did I do? Changed the IMEI to my old dead phone’s.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Nice, that makes sense. Doesn’t is store more data than just an IMEI number though, like making/model, did you have to spoof that as well or was that easily ignored
muhyb@programming.dev 6 days ago
Normally, yes. As for my government concerns, I’m using Nexus 5X. They probably would notice if they investigate but as long as there are no active phones with the same IMEI, they most likely won’t notice.