[GTALUG] Freedom and Graphene

[Russell Reiter]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 7:14 PM Christopher Browne via talk, <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Oct 2020 at 18:41, Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> It's 2020 and a long time since Shaw bought Wind Mobile and renamed it to
>> Freedom. So I wonder if it's worth another look. Prices are as always
>> aggressive but questions remain about speed and coverage.
>>
>> The reason I want a new phone plan is because I'm experimenting with a
>> new phone on which I've just installed GrapheneOS; more than just another
>> Android ROM, it's touted as being one of the most privacy-focused phones
>> one can have. Google-free, of course, beyond what's in AOSP, and two
>> different app stores to replace Google Play.
>>
>> Does anyone here have experience with either Freedom Mobile or
>> GrapheneOS? Any answers are much appreciated. If there's interest I'll be
>> happy to talk about my experiences with GrapheneOS at a future GTALUG
>> meeting.
>>
>
> I have been on Wind/Freedom for a good number of years now; I had made an
> abortive attempt quite a while back, and initially gave up, as I grabbed a
> SIM card, and did a walkaround at my office, only to discover that the
> instant I walked in the front door of the office building, all reception
> disappeared.  At that point, apparently the nearby towers were in such a
> location that reception was entirely blocked within the building.
>
> A couple of years later, I retried with better success (they had been busy
> adding more and better cellular towers in the interim), and have been
> pleased enough with them since.  There's sections of the 401 between cities
> where one must piggyback onto other carriers, but that's been livable for
> my purposes.  Dodgy reception used to be a thing; seems to have improved.
>
> I had never heard of GrapheneOS; interesting that it *only* runs on
> recent-ish Google Pixel phones.  As the battery on my OP5 starts to age, I
> suspect I'll be looking at a Pixel in the not too distant future, certainly
> of interest to hear what's up with alternative phone "firmware" these days,
> particularly as it's difficult for them to keep up with hardware
> evolution.  CM and LineageOS had history of supporting lots of devices;
> Lineage has been hurting in that regard <https://download.lineageos.org/>
> They used to support a wide variety of Samsung, but no models later than
> about 2017 have been supported, no LG past about 2016, and such.  If
> there's reason to expect better from GrapheneOS, that would sure be nice.
> (That tells you some of the kinds of questions I'd hope might get answered
> ;-) )
>

I had a similar experience with somewhat sketchy Freedom service. While the
geographic range had improved somewhat over time, the deal breaker for me
came when I was running a custom "Pixel Experience" rom on my Nexus 6.
Somehow the settings were changed so that all inbound calls went directly
to voice mail, which I had not set up.

Customer service said I'd made that change from my phone when I enabled
phone over wi-fi when that was available instead of LTE over the sim and
they couldn't change it back. I even reverted to the original distribution
OS but no joy on incoming calls after that glitch.

I think I'd be very careful with a Freedom plan and non stock device roms.
I had lineage and carbon and a couple of others working for a time on my
Nexus, but the Pixel Experience rom out performed them in battery life and
overall useability.

It was the fact that even reverting to the original OS release, my inbound
calls couldn't get to me, that I dropped the service in favour of a Voip
app over wi fi and simple call only cell plan.

This may have been just a glitch in my own custom rom, but the lack of
support and even understanding of the issue by Freedom is why I dropped
that service.

My rom works fine for inbound calls on another sim carrier, so while you
might not have similar issues with yours, I wouldn't count on any level of
service from Freedom for a non stock item.

I notice in the GraphineOS downloads the pixel 2 walleye release is
supported. Thats the Pixel core base I'm running on my Nexus now, so I'd be
interested in hearing about your install experience, to see if I can
further kludge/extend the life of my own Nexus.

-- 
> When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
> question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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> Russell

“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’
banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young,
marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable,
buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” F. P. Dunne
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