If you install signal on your phone without google play it will magically stop working with no warning after some delay (6 months?) leaving you without communic

If you install signal on your phone without google play it will magically stop working with no warning after some delay (6 months?) leaving you without communications ability. It was especially irritating when it cut out mid-conversation leaving me unable to tell the far end why I was unable to respond further, or get help getting a new package built. Pretty lame. I wonder if the desktop software also has this kind of logic bomb anti-feature?