4 ms·

Yes, they do. It's a little different than it used to be though. Historically, the carriers require their magic signal bar algorithms/network type display by c

Yes, they do. It's a little different than it used to be though. Historically, the carriers require their magic signal bar algorithms/network type display by contract if you wanted to sell phones in their stores. Now, less phones target each carrier specifically than used to, but ... Some of them also used to require display of various network types in various situations (IE you were required to display 4G in circumstances where it was on their "4g network", regardless of whether you were using a 4g protocol)

sofaofthedamned 8y ago
You can't trust any of this when it comes to mobile networks, they control the domain and have to play by their rules. Example? I used to work at a company that made femtocells, basically small 3g base stations. All 2 way radios are a co-operative medium, i.e. shouting 'fire' in a crowded room raises the noise floor for everybody so they all need to shout. We had hundreds of handsets for testing so knew when a particular model/brand/firmware version wasn't working to spec. We'd shoot an email to the manufacturer to get it sorted. Most were fine, but the one that never responded? A certain fruit related company.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Orange! Probably the fruit company with the most models of phone (Nearly all white label Huawei models, but still!)
  - sofaofthedamned 8y ago
    Nope. A manufacturer not a mobile network, apologies if it wasn't clear.
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      Sounds like the green grocer sketch. "My Blackberry is not working" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
chrisseaton 8y ago
> Yes, they do. I don't think my operator even knows what kind of phone I have, let alone any access to any software on it. How could they be controlling it? Is it something actually in the SIM?
- YUMad 8y ago
  Baseband cpu. Your phone has 2 separate cpus, and you dont have any access to the 2nd one. Your provider does.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    How do they get code onto that processor? From the SIM?
    - callalex 8y ago
      Over the network these days. Have you ever gotten a message on your phone similar to “carrier settings updated” especially after switching a device from one network to another? That’s what it means.
  - gst 8y ago
    That's one of the reasons why the makers of the Librem 5 phone decided to use an internal USB bus which isolates the baseband from the SoC: > To isolate the cellular modem from the SoC, we will be placing the modem on the (remarkably fast) USB bus and have the phone interact with the cellular modem through USB instead of on the main RAM bus. This will separate the cellular modem on its own bus without seeing any other data. (https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-2018-09-hardware-report/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-2018-09-hardware-report/)
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      These processors don't use a shared memory bus. It's just marketing dribble.
- gst 8y ago

sofaofthedamned 8y ago

You can't trust any of this when it comes to mobile networks, they control the domain and have to play by their rules. Example? I used to work at a company that made femtocells, basically small 3g base stations. All 2 way radios are a co-operative medium, i.e. shouting 'fire' in a crowded room raises the noise floor for everybody so they all need to shout. We had hundreds of handsets for testing so knew when a particular model/brand/firmware version wasn't working to spec. We'd shoot an email to the manufacturer to get it sorted. Most were fine, but the one that never responded? A certain fruit related company.

londons_explore 8y ago
Orange! Probably the fruit company with the most models of phone (Nearly all white label Huawei models, but still!)
- sofaofthedamned 8y ago
  Nope. A manufacturer not a mobile network, apologies if it wasn't clear.
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    Sounds like the green grocer sketch. "My Blackberry is not working" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI

chrisseaton 8y ago

> Yes, they do. I don't think my operator even knows what kind of phone I have, let alone any access to any software on it. How could they be controlling it? Is it something actually in the SIM?

YUMad 8y ago
Baseband cpu. Your phone has 2 separate cpus, and you dont have any access to the 2nd one. Your provider does.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  How do they get code onto that processor? From the SIM?
  - callalex 8y ago
    Over the network these days. Have you ever gotten a message on your phone similar to “carrier settings updated” especially after switching a device from one network to another? That’s what it means.
- gst 8y ago
  That's one of the reasons why the makers of the Librem 5 phone decided to use an internal USB bus which isolates the baseband from the SoC: > To isolate the cellular modem from the SoC, we will be placing the modem on the (remarkably fast) USB bus and have the phone interact with the cellular modem through USB instead of on the main RAM bus. This will separate the cellular modem on its own bus without seeing any other data. (https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-2018-09-hardware-report/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-2018-09-hardware-report/)
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    These processors don't use a shared memory bus. It's just marketing dribble.
gst 8y ago