PinePhone Carrier Support

This page or section is under construction

Please help to review and edit this page or section. Information are subject to change.

This page contains hints on setting up cellular network connectivity for specific carriers. For more general information, see the carrier support section of PinePhone#Modem. For the APN settings see PinePhone APN Settings.

Check compatibility

To check if the PinePhone is supported on your carrier:

Search for your carrier on frequencycheck.com and compare the carrier's LTE/GSM/WCDMA frequencies to the PinePhone's supported frequencies (listed in the File:Quectel EG25-G LTE Standard Specification V1.3.pdf modem specification sheet).

It is likely that there will be a few frequencies that your carrier uses which are not supported by the PinePhone. Not all of the carrier's frequencies need to be supported by the PinePhone for it to work - as long as most of them are supported, you will still get good coverage.

Tested and working carriers

The following is a list of carriers which has been tested by users and confirmed to be working (excerpt):

Asia

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Japan	SoftBank	Not tested	Unsupported by carrier	No	No	Mobian Phosh, December 2020
Japan	Rakuten Mobile	Unsupported by carrier	Unsupported by carrier	Yes	Yes	Mobian Phosh, January 2021
Japan	Rakuten Mobile	Unsupported by carrier	Unsupported by carrier	Yes	No	Manjaro Plasma Mobile February 2021
Japan	Docomo	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian Phosh, February 2021
India	Vodafone / Vi India	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	DanctNIX (Arch Linux ARM) with Phosh, March 2021
Malaysia	Celcom	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Gentoo, SXMO
Malaysia	Maxis	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Gentoo, SXMO
Malaysia	U-Mobile	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Gentoo, SXMO
Malaysia	Yes	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Gentoo, SXMO
South Korea	KT	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh, June 2021
China	China Mobile	Yes	Not tested	Yes	No	Mobile NixOS, December 2021
China	China Telecom	Yes (hack needed)	Not tested	Yes (hack needed)	No	AOSC OS Phosh, January 2022
Japan	Rakuten Mobile	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian Phosh, January 2022 (rivised from January 2021)
China	China Unicom	Yes	Not tested	Yes (hack needed)	Yes	postmarketOS 22.06.3 Phosh, November 2022

Africa

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Test	Test	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	TestOS with Phosh, 20201129

Europe

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Ukraine	KyivStar	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian Phosh(11Nov21)
Ukraine	Vodafone	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro ARM Phosh(29Jun22)
Sweden	Tele2	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not tested	Manjaro ARM Posh
Sweden	Telenor SE	Not tested	Not tested	Yes	Not tested	Manjaro Plasma Mobile beta2
UK	Three	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Plasma Mobile beta2
UK	Vodafone	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	ALARM & pmOS (Phosh?), modem FW latest - 26 Feb 21
UK	Sky Mobile (O2)	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	ArchLinux Phosh (20210908 image, fully updated) - 3 October 2021
UK	Smarty Mobile (Three)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Arch Linux SXMO (Wayland) - 23 March 2022
France	Orange	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh Beta6 and later - 9 march 2021
France	SFR	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh Beta6 and later - 9 march 2021
France	Free	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	pmOS SXMO (Wayland) - 27 March 2022
Czech Republic	O2	Yes (only on 2G)	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian Phosh (20210517 image up to date) - 2 June 2021
Germany	Congstar	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes (IPv4 & IPv6)	Mobian (Megi's kernel 5.13.0-rc4, apt up-to-date) with Phosh, 2021-06-07
Germany	E-Plus	Yes (sending only 2G)	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh and postmarketOS, 2021-10-15
Germany	Telekom	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not tested	Mobian Phosh (5.10-sunxi64), 2021-07-28
Germany	O2 / Telefonica	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not tested	KPlasma
Hungary	Telekom	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes (IPv4)	Manjaro Phosh Beta 12, 2021-07-30
Hungary	Telenor/Yettel	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian-Phosh-20210517, 2021-09-24
Denmark	CBB	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Plasma Mobile Beta 5, 2021-06-30
Belgium	Telenet	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	postmarketOS v20.05, v21.03, v21.06 and edge, 2021-08-15
Belgium	CARREFOUR	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	postmarketOS v20.05, v21.03, v21.06 and edge, 2021-08-15
Poland	Play	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh Beta 18, 2021-11-14
Poland	Orange	Yes	No	Yes	Yes (IPv4 & IPv6)	Manjaro Phosh v21.10, 2021-12-23
Poland	Premium Mobile	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh v22.01, 2022-01-13
Italy	WindTre Italy	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Archlinux ARM Plasma Mobile
Switzerland	Salt	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Phosh on Mobian + Arch

North America

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI	Modem Firmware
USA	AT&T	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mobian - Phosh
USA	T-Mobile	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Arch Linux Arm 2020/11/29 Mobian - Phosh Manjaro - KDE Plasma Mobile
USA	T-Mobile	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mobian Bookworm (Phosh) (2022-03-08)	EG25GGBR07A08M2G_01.003.01.003
USA	MetroPCS (T-Mobile)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Arch Linux Arm (Phosh,SXMO) 2021/04/29 Manjaro - Phosh 2021/04/29 Mobian - Phosh 2021/3/20
USA	T-Mobile	Yes - buggy	No	Yes - buggy	Yes - buggy	Manjaro - Plasma Dev 2020/11/21 Ubuntu Touch - 2020/11/26 KDE Neon 2020/11/02
USA	Mint Mobile (T-Mobile)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mobian - Phosh 2021/3/14 postMarketOS - Phosh, Sxmo, Plasma Mobile 2021/5/26 Ubuntu Touch 2021/5/24 Manjaro - Phosh 2022/3/25
USA	Patriot Mobile (T-Mobile)	Yes	Yes chatty v0.6.1 mmsd-tng v1.8	Yes	Yes	Arch Linux Arm - Phosh 2022/01/12
USA	Tello (T-Mobile)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	DanctNIX (Arch Linux ARM) - Phosh 2022-07-09
USA	TracFone	No	No	No	No	postMarketOS - Phosh 2022/06/28
USA	Verizon	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian - Phosh 2021/3/1
USA	US Mobile	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not Tested	Mobian - Phosh 2022/01/09
USA	Verizon	No	No	No	No	Ubuntu Touch 2021/5/24 (You can occasionally get the settings to work with Verizon, but it seems like the settings automatically changes the carrier to the wrong one after a few minutes)
USA	Verizon	Not tested	Not tested	Yes	Not via gui	Manjaro - KDE Plasma Mobile 2021/5/10
USA	Verizon	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not via gui	Manjaro - Phosh 2021/5/31
USA	Verizon	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	postmarketOS - Phosh 2021/5/31
USA	Verizon	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Arch - Phosh 2021/5/31
Canada	Freedom	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Arch Pinephone - Phosh (APN: internet.windmobile.ca), 2021/4/25
Canada	SpeakOut	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Not tested	Mobian - Phosh 2021/11/18
USA	Consumer Cellular (AT&T)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Manjaro - Phosh 2021/06/26
USA	Google Fi (T-Mobile)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Arch Linux Arm - Phosh 0.10.2 2021/05/29
Mexico	Telcel	Yes	Not tested	Yes	Yes	Mobian - Phosh Weekly 2022/04/13 PostmarketOS - SXMO De Sway v21.12 (stable) 2022/04/13 PostmarketOS - Phosh v21.12 (stable) 2022/04/13 PostmarketOS - Plasma Mobile v21.12 (stable) 2022/04/13 PostmarketOS - sxmo edge 2021/09/09
USA	Ting	Yes	Yes - buggy	Yes	Yes	Manjaro - Phosh 2021/12/10
USA	Simple Mobile	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mobian - Phosh - Make sure APN is "Simple" in settings (note uppercase S)

South America

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Test	Test	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	TestOS with Phosh, 20201129

Australia / Oceania

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Test	Test	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	TestOS with Phosh, 20201129
Australia	Beyond (Telstra)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh Beta 20.
Australia	Belong (Telstra)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Arch (Danctnix), Feb 2022.
Australia	Optus	Yes	No. Ticket lodged with Chatty and mmsd re multiple APN issue	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh Beta 20. Manjaro Plasma Mobile Beta 9 (Data working with this release). SXMO (Danctnix and PMOS edge December 2021).
Australia	Amaysim (Optus)	Yes	No. Ticket lodged with Chatty and mmsd re multiple APN issue	Yes	Yes	Manjaro Phosh
Australia	OPTUS (Dodo)			Yes		Manjaro Plasma Mobile 5.23.4, 2021-12.27 (deepsleep disrupts settings)
Australia	Vodafone	Yes	Yes	Yes (No VoLTE)	Yes	pmOS Edge 5.15.3 kernel, 2022-02-10 with Phosh

Middle East

Country	Carrier name	SMS working	USSD working	MMS working	Calls working	Data working	Tested OS (with version) and UI
Israel	Cellcom prepay	receive+notify	NA	NA	ring+ notify	NA	on PmOS Sxmo May 14 2021.
Israel	Cellcom Talkman	receive+notify	YES	YES (when manually selecting the MMS APN)	ring(VoLTE not working)	YES	on mobian Feb 04, 2022, Earthquake early warning system did not show a notification on Feb 07, 2022
Israel	Cellcom Talkman	NO	NO	NO	ring+ notify (VoLTE not working)	YES	on Plasma Mobile Feb 04, 2022
Israel	Golan TC	receive+notify	YES	NA	ring+ notify (VoLTE not working)	Yes	on mobian/phosh March 13 2022
Israel	Partner prepay	receive+notify	NA	NA	ring+ notify	NA	on PmOS Sxmo May 14 2021.
Israel	Pelephone prepay	receive+notify	NA	NA	ring+ notify	NA	on PmOS Sxmo May 14 2021.
Israel	Hot prepay	receive+notify	NA	NA	ring+ notify	NA	on PmOS Sxmo May 14 2021.
Israel	019 prepay	No	NA	NA	Bars only	NA	on PmOS Sxmo May 14 2021.

Special carrier notes

Warning: This section contains providers which do not work or require special settings or actions to work.

Some carriers might support only certain frequencies or might require certain settings in Ofono or ModemManager. The following is a list of collected notes for carriers regarding special settings, hints or information:

USA

AT&T

According to this page, AT&T's primary bands are 12 and 17 - 700ac and 700 MHz respectively. Phone and SMS with PinePhone work out-of-the-box with AT&T. If you transfer a SIM card from another phone you were using with AT&T, you may need to activate the PinePhone through AT&T's website. Calls and SMS messages work. 4G and MMS work if these settings are used for APN, MMSC, and Proxy.

AT&T may drop support with their network upgrade in the near future like their child company Cricket Wireless already has. This page lists their supported devices for their new network.

Consumer Cellular

Consumer Cellular is a MVNO that uses both AT&T and T-Mobile networks. On the AT&T network LTE data works without special configuration. If you transfer a SIM card from another phone to the PinePhone, you may need to contact customer support in order for them to register the IMEI association to the correct hardware; in one case it was first incorrectly identified as a Samsung Google Nexus Prime before later being correctly identified by the modem model Quectel EG25-G. Customer support also explicitly enabled VoLTE on the device. After VoLTE instructions on this site were followed and APN instructions on the Consumer Cellular site were followed, VoLTE was confirmed working.

Cricket Wireless

Cricket wireless is a MVNO that uses AT&T's network. VoLTE was fully supported, but the PinePhone is no longer considered a compatible device in the US by the carrier (as of March 2021).

Faith Wireless

Faith Wireless is a MVNO that uses AT&T's network. VoLTE was fully supported, but the PinePhone comes up as a Mobile Broadband Device. Faith Wireless does not service Mobile Broadband Devices. (As of February 2022)

SimpleMobile

SimpleMobile is a T-Mobile prepaid MVNO operating in the United States. 4G LTE, VoLTE, data, and SMS all work on the PinePhone after activation. Activation can be done online without extra software or assistance, go to https://www.simplemobile.com/activation/byopcollectsim and make sure you have your SIM card and IMEI ready.

Sprint

Sprint is currently not supported due to unknown reasons. Any input regarding this issue is highly appreciated.

T-Mobile

According to this page, T-Mobile's primary frequency band for the United States is 12 (700ac MHz).

T-Mobile's bands and protocols are summarized on this page.

While the PinePhone's modem does support all LTE bands that T-Mobile uses in the US (And is one of the best choices for band support with the PinePhone's modem in the US), VoLTE is still listed as "Under development" by the modem manufacturer. T-Mobile's system also does not list the PinePhone as a compatible device due to this lack of official VoLTE support. The modem is capable of working on T-Mobile with VoLTE support enabled.

Verizon

According to this page, Verizon's primary frequency band for the United States is 13 (700 MHz). Verizon's bands and protocols are summarized on this page. According to the same page, Verizon might restrict their network to only approved devices.

Some users reported that they were able to activate their Verizon SIM by using an Verizon-approved burner phone and then inserting the SIM into the PinePhone.

TracFone

Following TracFone's acquisition by Verizon, support for the AT&T and T-Mobile bands has been deprecated as of early June 2022. TracFone has the same issues with connecting as Verizon, as they now exclusively use Verizon's frequency band.

Google Fi

Only T-Mobile service works currently, not US Cellular or Sprint. The APN is h2g2. Information from the forum.

Bear in mind that initial activation of the SIM card is not possible without an Android phone running Google Apps.

It should also be noted that Google uses a non-standard MMS implementation that is unlikely to be supported on the PinePhone at any point.

Europe

Telekom Germany

With low signal, there may be loud interference noise audible in calls on the receiving end. It has not yet been tested whether or not this problem is carrier specific. An easy fix is extending the modem antenna with aluminum foil (or similar) inside the back cover of the phone.

Orange Poland

Setting up dual stack IPv4 and IPv6 may require extra work, because the carrier provides IPv4 connectivity on internetipv6 APN via a protocol called CLAT/NAT64.

Asia

China Telecom

The baseband itself ships with bad (for CDMA, which isn't supported by EG25-G) MBN file for CT, so a force change of MBN file to the generic one is needed to get VoLTE (thus SMS+Call) work.

Run the following AT commands to force ROW_Generic_3GPP which can support VoLTE on CT:

AT+QMBNCFG="autosel",0
AT+QMBNCFG="select","ROW_Generic_3GPP"
AT+QCFG="ims",1

China Unicom

SMS/Data works OOTB.
For calls, apply the #China_Telecom hack above.

SoftBank

SoftBank USIM cards are IMEI-locked, and on top of that will only work on either Android or iOS.
A free SIM is available, but that one is data only.
The same problem might exist with MVNO's who make use of the SoftBank network, and therefore it's advised to pick either NTT docomo or au as the MNO.

ソフトバンク社のUSIMカードはIMEIロックで御座います。
なお、Android又はiOS限定です。
フリーSIMもありますが、これはデータのみSIMです。
ソフトバンク社を使っているMVNOで同じ問題があるかもしれませんので、出来ればMNOはNTTドコモ又はauをご選択下さい。

Known issues

Known issues:

• The FrequencyCheck model page does not list either Pine64 or the PinePhone.
• T-Mobile's system does not list the PinePhone as a compatible device due to the lack of official VoLTE support from the manufacturer, despite the fact that it does work.
• MMS doesn't currently work in any distribution on the PinePhone by default. This means images and group chats will not work in text messages.
• Some providers may allow only certain known devices identified by their Type Allocation Code.

MMS workarounds

These scripts allow partial MMS support on a PinePhone in distributions without working MMS support:

• JMMS: [1]
• silvermms: [2]
• MMS via Matrix with mmmpuppet: PinePhone MMS with Matrix

There is a Haskel MMS client. MMS can also be manually composed with mmsd on the command line.

Resources

• IMEI - International Mobile Equipment Identity