Unlocked android phones with LTE support
I was planning to buy one of these devices: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Samsung_Galaxy_S_4?id=samsung_... but discovered that (1) they are available in the U.S. only, and (2) not surprisingly, they are designed for North American frequencies, i.e., 1700 MHz rather than the 1800 MHz bands used in Australia by the major carriers. The advantage, of course, is that the Google devices have unlocked boot loaders so you can replace the firmware yourself, if needed - and I might need it, for various reasons. So if one is looking for an LTE-capable phone with an unlocked boot loader that supports Australian frequency bands, am I right that there are no options on the market at the moment? I can afford to wait a little longer - the equivalent of the above device with the right frequencies supported would be ideal of course.
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013, Jason White wrote:
I was planning to buy one of these devices: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Samsung_Galaxy_S_4?id=samsung_... but discovered that (1) they are available in the U.S. only, and (2) not surprisingly, they are designed for North American frequencies, i.e., 1700 MHz rather than the 1800 MHz bands used in Australia by the major carriers.
Hah! I was just talking about this at morning coffee (morning tea, pfffft. We're not British here, and most of us here aren't even of British ancestry. Plus, we have good taste).
The advantage, of course, is that the Google devices have unlocked boot loaders so you can replace the firmware yourself, if needed - and I might need it, for various reasons.
So, on a related topic, where the hell do you get your images from? Do people really go and download an image file from some random thread on xda forums? Surely people here find a more trusted source where NSA haven't tampered with the image before re-posting? That and the post about "no, we can't allow you to fix the broken permission model" thread just reminds me that phones are a different culture to Free culture. Bah, get off my lawn. -- Tim Connors
On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 12:44:54PM +1000, Tim Connors wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jul 2013, Jason White wrote:
The advantage, of course, is that the Google devices have unlocked boot loaders so you can replace the firmware yourself, if needed - and I might need it, for various reasons. So, on a related topic, where the hell do you get your images from? Do
people really go and download an image file from some random thread on xda forums?
many people download and run random apps... are you really surprised that they do the same with their os's? do they even know the difference? the paranoid amongst us take more care and either go via reputable sources (eg. the above or AOSP), or build roms for themselves. on supported devices, and if you only want to make a few changes to an os, then building is pretty easy and there are good guides. eg. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Development Re: xda my biggest beef is that many xda folks seem to only pump out binaries (with tipjars attached) and don't have src available. not good for the future of the android community in general IMHO. the android ecosystem is certainly not like the traditional FOSS world. cheers, robin
Quoting Jason White (jason@jasonjgw.net):
I was planning to buy one of these devices: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Samsung_Galaxy_S_4?id=samsung_... but discovered that (1) they are available in the U.S. only, and (2) not surprisingly, they are designed for North American frequencies, i.e., 1700 MHz rather than the 1800 MHz bands used in Australia by the major carriers.
My own antique Motorola RAZR V3 non-smartphone (bought directly from Motorola USA) is a quad-band GSM device, the classic 'world phone'. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a modern smart LTE-capable world phone with an unlocked bootloader? On that question (which is not the one you asked, but somewhat related), I read: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390355,00.asp LTE May Kill the World Phone New 4G LTE networks are being built on so many frequency bands that it will be very difficult to build true world phones, and LTE phones' battery life and signal quality will suffer, Informa Telecoms and Media research analyst Malik Saadi said after releasing a report this week. The Informa report reiterates what many in the wireless industry already know: LTE is being launched on too many frequency bands for phone builders to cover all of them. Here in the U.S., launches so far have focused on the 700Mhz and 1700Mhz bands. That's not too bad. But to roam to Europe, the Informa report says, your phone will need to support 800, 2600, and maybe 1800. To travel in Asia, you're looking at 700, 800, 1800, 2100, 2300, or 2600, depending on where you go. Japan has a 1500 band just for that country. The Informa press release also doesn't mention LightSquared's particular 1500Mhz band, or the possibility that Clearwire may implement LTE in 2500Mhz. "There is no way you can support all of the 22 [LTE] bands in a single device," Saadi said. Remember phone makers need to add all of the 3G bands too, as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS antennas. The best bet for U.S. phones will be quad-band LTE devices that support 700, AWS, 2100, and 2600, giving them some coverage in countries worldwide. But those roaming phones won't have anywhere near the coverage or signal quality of local phones which support all the local bands. [...]
So if one is looking for an LTE-capable phone with an unlocked boot loader that supports Australian frequency bands, am I right that there are no options on the market at the moment? I can afford to wait a little longer - the equivalent of the above device with the right frequencies supported would be ideal of course.
So it would. Sorry, don't have a specific one to suggest. I'm just a bit depressed that it's going to no longer be possible to have a single phone compatible with all GSM-based networks everywhere -- _if_ you are using cellular data in accordance with the latest standards. (Yes, I do fly a lot, and that's admittedly an edge case.)
Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote: My own antique Motorola RAZR V3 non-smartphone (bought directly from
Motorola USA) is a quad-band GSM device, the classic 'world phone'. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a modern smart LTE-capable world phone with an unlocked bootloader?
On that question (which is not the one you asked, but somewhat related), I read:
[snip] There are, apparently, 40 distinct frequency bands recognized in the standards. these two articles summarize the situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#Frequency_bands_and_channel_bandwidths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks I also found the following article informative: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/communications/4g-lte-may-hit-a... Having looked at several recent phone specifications, the best I could find were models supporting six LTE bands. At the moment, this isn't a major problem: the phone will just fall back to a slower protocol on one of the supported bands if it can't connect to LTE. The result would be slower IP connectivity in some countries and with some carriers - hardly a major problem for most people if you're only there for a short period.
The problem gets worse. Today, in AU, we have 1800MHz, soon we'll have other frequencies when the analogue TV signals are completely switched off and freed up. LTE needs to be supported on many different frequencies as you say. Some radio / chipsets though .... are "programmable", so that they can support more of a range -- switchable by software settings; I can't find the reference now though, but I don't think any currently available phone has this feature. I expect that we'll keep seeing new phones, and we'll keep needing to replace them just for the radio capability, if nothing else is important enough. It makes the switch from analogue mobile to digital look insignificant. Bottom line is that any phone you get today, may not have the radio support you need in 2 or 3 years time. And of course the whole NSA set of problems is something else to consider. Perhaps we need to switch over to Firefox Mobile OS. Android has it's problems as does iOS ... need I say more? "iOS is a proprietary operating system whose source code is not available for auditing by third parties. You should entrust neither your communications nor your data to a closed source device." -- according to prism-break.org My solution to the problem is simple, use a separate radio that does nothing more than provide data, absolutely nothing more than a secure hotspot -- possibly better if via Tor as well. Then use a phone device that can use fully encrypted comms, end to end. Get the best phone that can support this setup and never use it as a /normal/ mobile. Cheers A.
On 22 July 2013 21:08, Andrew McGlashan < andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
Today, in AU, we have 1800MHz, soon we'll have other frequencies when the analogue TV signals are completely switched off and freed up.
In a way, it is amazing that international 3G phones work so well. Somehow governments from around the world managed to agree on 4 standard set of frequencies. Maybe one day something will be similar for 4G, will believe it when it happens. And of course the whole NSA set of problems is something else to
consider. Perhaps we need to switch over to Firefox Mobile OS. Android has it's problems as does iOS ... need I say more?
It will be really interesting to see what happens with Firefox Mobile OS. There will always be trade-offs, e.g. if you want you phone to receive email automatically, that implies it will be connecting to a remote server, and that remote server can log your IP address. -- Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>
Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au> wrote:
In a way, it is amazing that international 3G phones work so well. Somehow governments from around the world managed to agree on 4 standard set of frequencies.
I don't know to what extent it was a matter of agreement, and to what extent it was just good luck in regard to the availability of spectrum.
Maybe one day something will be similar for 4G, will believe it when it happens.
Indeed so. Ultimately, however, the GSM frequencies should migrate to LTE (note that LTE supports both voice and data - it's used only for IP data at the moment).
And of course the whole NSA set of problems is something else to
consider. Perhaps we need to switch over to Firefox Mobile OS. Android has it's problems as does iOS ... need I say more?
It will be really interesting to see what happens with Firefox Mobile OS.
And Ubuntu Touch as well. Neither of these has any accessibility options (no braille or speech support), whereas Android does. Frankly, for my own personal use, I don't much care about the "NSA problem". I'm not going to use mobile phones and mobile carriers for anything confidential - I'd use ZRTP over a SIP connection from a Linux host instead.
Jason White wrote:
Indeed so. Ultimately, however, the GSM frequencies should migrate to LTE (note that LTE supports both voice and data - it's used only for IP data at the moment).
I thought the *point* of 4G was that it used packet switching for everything. Are you saying that LTE is basically still using the 2G or 3G infrastructure for voice, instead of using VoIP?
Andrew McGlashan wrote:
LTE needs to be supported on many different frequencies as you say. Some radio / chipsets though .... are "programmable", so that they can support more of a range -- switchable by software settings; I can't find the reference now though, but I don't think any currently available phone has this feature.
I was wondering about this -- why can't phone transceivers just switch frequency? I built an FM receiver from a kit once, and you changed frequency by screwing an iron core into a wound wire coil. If you screwed it past the radio stations you could get the telly audio. The only reason I can think of that a cellphone's transceiver couldn't do the same thing, is 1) the FCC are scared of consumers using (pre-built) programmable transceivers to "shoot down planes and stuff"; and 2) it'd cost the hardware vendor an extra twenty cents per unit.
I expect that we'll keep seeing new phones, and we'll keep needing to replace them just for the radio capability, if nothing else is important enough.
Given that a smartphone is basically an ordinary computer and a completely separate black box transceiver that you talk flipping AT over serial to, maybe they should just made that a removable module, like the nonvolatile storage.
And of course the whole NSA set of problems is something else to consider. Perhaps we need to switch over to Firefox Mobile OS. Android has it's problems as does iOS ... need I say more?
I'm not sure I trust MoCo much more -- they're on Google's payroll, after all. They're also working for Turkish intelligence: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/sefa-pr11.pdf (p.2)
My solution to the problem is simple, use a separate radio that does nothing more than provide data, absolutely nothing more than a secure hotspot -- possibly better if via Tor as well. Then use a phone device that can use fully encrypted comms, end to end. Get the best phone that can support this setup and never use it as a /normal/ mobile.
Just to double-check - you're talking about an LTE-to-802.11 bridge, not a femtocell?
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
The only reason I can think of that a cellphone's transceiver couldn't do the same thing, is 1) the FCC are scared of consumers using (pre-built) programmable transceivers to "shoot down planes and stuff"; and 2) it'd cost the hardware vendor an extra twenty cents per unit.
Here in the USA, there was for many years a low-level flamewar between Linux activists saying there's no reason completely open-source radio stacks (for open source mobiles, software radio, etc.) would violate the law and a coalition of (1) proprietary-software apologies (notably Atheros people) and (2) a small but vocal group of control-freak amateur radio ('ham') people claiming it's against FCC regulations to permit open source. As you probably suspected, I was in the former group. The other folks spun out an endless stream of rhetoric, dire predictions of doom, and what seemed tantamount to threats, for years never _quite_ specifying what they were talking about. (We of the first camp remained polite but detected the whiff of metaphorical rodent.) I finally chased down ex-Atheros engineer Jim Thompson on this topic on July 27, 2006. The conversation remained twisty and noisy, but made some progress. Part of it was public: http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug/2006-July/050194.html Brief except from the even more noisy _private_-mail discussion (my side of an exchange with Thompson) follows. A 'tl;dr' summary would be: It's bullshit, but an informal conspiracy of nervous radio people and paranoid corporate interests _grossly_ misinterpret an FCC regulation designed to prohibit "user accessible controls" likely to be misused to violate spectrum assignments and similar provisions, as (supposedly) prohibiting any implementation of frequency-related code in open source. So, in short, it's less FCC being scared than the industry self-censoring and bullshitting the open source community. ---<begin long dialogue>---
Here are the relevant sections of CFR 47 Part 15 (http:// www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_01/47cfr15_01.html)
[snip]
(b) An intentional or unintentional radiator must be constructed such that the adjustments of any control that is readily accessible by or intended to be accessible to the user will not cause operation of the device in violation of the regulations.
So, Atheros's interpretation of CFR 47 15.15(b) is that "controls readily accessible or intended to be accessible to the user" encompasses _hacking and recompiling_ C driver source code? Sorry, that's laughable. By the standards of past FCC declaratory rulings, that's about as much a user-accessible a "control" as a radio's solder joints are. But it's pretty much the assertion I expected to hear, once some industry spokesman finally bothered to specify what "the FCC won't let us" means. It basically means "Well, if you stand on your head the right way and cross your eyes, you _might_ be able to argue that the FCC could conceivably disallow anyone outside the firm to see how we do this, so screw the open-source community. They'll never even ask for specifics, anyway." [later:]
Does the HAL have to be proprietary? This is the subject of some debate.
I would be very interested in seeing a polite and well-informed discussion on this topic. Maybe at a LinuxWorld BoF? Part of the problem is that, much as you say Atheros (and possibly other companies) has extensively analysed what may be done within the confines of regulatory law, outsiders have not been able to see or assess any of that.
I'm not speaking for Atheros here. I think the regs are clear. You may be unaware that the FCC has fined people for merely showing up at a tradeshow with non-authorized equipment (even non-intentional radiators) without the requisite sticker afixed to the bottom of the unit.
No, I'm well aware of such things. (I was assistant chief engineer for WPRB-FM in Princeton, New Jersey, once upon a time -- a commercial 17kW college station.) I'm just saying that I've read quite a number of FCC declaratory rulings and rulemakings (administrative law), and think their classing driver source code as a "user accessible control" is a ludicrously far-fetched interpretation. Did Heathkit Company give me unlawful access to a "user accessible control" when it sold the plans and build instructions to amateur radio transceivers? Because there was more than enough information in their detailed kit instructions and schemtics to modify them to intrude on the adjacent aeronautical navigation bands. Hell, with their plans and parts for even the Heathkit model FM-3, I could probably rig up a modification to that receiver unit to listen _and transmit_ on TV channel 6, without a lot of trouble.
Nothing would stop anyone even half motivated to change the hal source such that "underused" spectrum could (and would) be used. Atheros went as far as they could. You want more? Change the law.
The notion that the law objectively required this is basically what I class as a knee-jerk reaction from a company lawyer who thinks "It's not a _credible_ risk, but I'm covering our asses when I include this in my report to management -- and who's paying us to even have to think about this, anyway?" [still later:]
Your amateur radio transceiver is not a part 15 device. Amateur Radio is regulated under Part 97, not Part 15.
You seem to be going rather far out of your way to evade my point: Schematics and plans for Part 15 devices from any firm at all would suffice. (And many kits in sundry FCC regulatory categories from Heathkit Company and others are unlicensed devices.)
OTOH, the source code for the HAL is the >only< (and I do emphasize**only**) control available for the Atheros parts.
Again, you are ignorning the point: You are stretching credulity past reason to suggest that hackable source code is a "user accessible" control. Hacking C source is about as much consumer accessible as radio frequency crystals or solder joints. If you think otherwise, please show me an FCC docket where they sanctioned somebody for making available source code and declared it a "user accessible" control.
Hell, with their plans and parts for even the Heathkit model FM-3, I could probably rig up a modification to that receiver unit to listen _and transmit_ on TV channel 6, without a lot of trouble.
Yes, and this is specifically covered by the regulations, (73.525) but you (or rather the chief engineer) were in-charge of making sure that your station was in compliance. If, on the other hand, you were going to runs this under your HAM license, you'd have a different license violation on your hands, since TV ch6 is centered at 83.25MHz (82.0 MHz - 86.75 MHz, actually if you include the audio component), and meanwhile the HAM bands jump from 50-54MHz (6m band) to 144.0-148.0 MHz (2 meter), so you'd be in violation of your (HAM) license if you so much as keyed up the transmitter on 82.25MHz.
And, of course, if you were going to do it with no license, the FCC has you covered there, too.
Once again, you are completely ignoring my point: FCC would not held Heathkit to have violated regulations covering any of these spectrum segments by merely selling me schematics and plans, no matter how detailed. No matter how... how is it you say in English... hackable.
Of course, your apparent willingness to do this is exactly the problem. Far too many people would simply recompile the source code to "allow" themselves or others to transmit anywhere between 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz and/or the upper band I described before.
And _they_ would be violating FCC regs. Thank you for making my point for me. You're welcome to draw the obvious analogy to DeCSS, any time. ;->
The lawyer-in-question (at Atheros) is actually very "open source" friendly.
Suggestion: He or someone else familiar with Atheros's perspective should write up the matter for the benefit of interested laymen -- "outsiders" in the exact sense used earlier.
And yes, the law requires it. I've already cited chapter and verse.
And a beautiful non-sequitur citation it was, indeed! Fans of legalistic analysis the world over will appreciate it. ---<end long dialogue>---
On 23 July 2013 11:34, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
Here in the USA, there was for many years a low-level flamewar between Linux activists saying there's no reason completely open-source radio stacks (for open source mobiles, software radio, etc.) would violate the law and a coalition of (1) proprietary-software apologies (notably Atheros people) and (2) a small but vocal group of control-freak amateur radio ('ham') people claiming it's against FCC regulations to permit open source. As you probably suspected, I was in the former group.
Regardless, I don't think this has any relevance, as on most phones, Android does not do the 3G stuff itself, it hands the job to a separate CPU (modem), which, does not run open source software.
Quoting Brian May (brian@microcomaustralia.com.au):
Regardless, I don't think this has any relevance, as on most phones, Android does not do the 3G stuff itself, it hands the job to a separate CPU (modem), which, does not run open source software.
These days, yeah. I'm one of those poor sods who bought an FIC Neo Freerunner GTA02 running the OpenMoko stack. ;-> I didn't expect much in the short term on that one, but had some hope that they'd survive long enough to turn their somewhat feeble developmental platform into something with greater merit later -- because, through careful choice of components, they had everything except some 'firmware in blackbox hardware' in real open source. There, even the OpenMoko people claimed 'FCC regulations' forbade them to give out source code. http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/FAQ#Is_it_completely_free_software.2Fopen_sour... My point is that the Android people are being gutless wonders, too, because the claimed FCC prohibition doesn't actually exist.
Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Trent W. Buck (trentbuck@gmail.com):
The only reason I can think of that a cellphone's transceiver couldn't do the same thing, is 1) the FCC are scared of consumers using (pre-built) programmable transceivers to "shoot down planes and stuff"; and 2) it'd cost the hardware vendor an extra twenty cents per unit.
[...] So, in short, it's less FCC being scared than the industry self-censoring and bullshitting the open source community. [...]
Thanks for the correction; it rings a bell; I misremembered above.
Trent W. Buck wrote:
Andrew McGlashan wrote:
...........snip is feature. I was wondering about this -- why can't phone transceivers just switch frequency? I built an FM receiver from a kit once, and you changed frequency by screwing an iron core into a wound wire coil. If you screwed it past the radio stations you could get the telly audio.
The only reason I can think of that a cellphone's transceiver couldn't do the same thing, is 1) the FCC are scared of consumers using (pre-built) programmable transceivers to "shoot down planes and stuff"; and 2) it'd cost the hardware vendor an extra twenty cents per unit.
Well as a naive bystander the following additional possibilities occur 1/ extended transmission has the possibility of interfering with other peoples reception; whereas extended reception only has the possibility of intrusion on restricted broadcasts 2/ by restricting features there is the possibility of 'upgrading ' and selling another version of the device ! .......the concern for the cellphone'ss shareholder ? 3/ perhaps the feature would not be welcomed by telco's, who need to support the device; an example of such a feature would be 'voice-mail' on the mobil device, which would seem to be trivial to implement; but would definitely NOT be favoured by telco's. ....... the concern for the telco shareholder ? -typed with crossed fingers in fear that: (a) the eeePC battery will die or (b) the 18 AH inverter will do the same whilst waiting for the power to come back, as they replace the old analogue meters with digital, in this block of flats ! regards Rohan McLeod
I was wondering about this -- why can't phone transceivers just switch frequency? I built an FM receiver from a kit once, and you changed frequency by screwing an iron core into a wound wire coil. If you screwed it past the radio stations you could get the telly audio.
A radio can only do so much.. Even with the ability to do some tuning, the physical antennas within a given device are going to be optimally tuned for specific frequencies. Outside of those optimal frequencies, the antennas are not going to be as efficient at their jobs, requiring more power and lowering battery life, as well as increasing the size of the phone (ever wondered why a free to air antenna has multiple elements? Why some antennas needed to be upgraded to support DVB-T rollout in Australia on different frequencies?). Right now, the modern smartphone has antennas for: * Cell net * WiFi net * Bluetooth (I get the impression some vendors fudge things and share this with WiFi) * GPS * NFC They use different frequencies and work at different transmission power levels and generally need separate antenna elements. Hell.. probably forgot some stuff.. In short, the radio is not the only part of an RF device that involves tuning.
participants (9)
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Andrew McGlashan -
Anthony Hogan -
Brian May -
Jason White -
Rick Moen -
Robin Humble -
Rohan McLeod -
Tim Connors -
Trent W. Buck