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Public Mobile SIM and Cosmo Communicator: Calls and text messages work, mobile data doesn't (so far)

ayilmaz
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Hello people,

 

I have a problem for which I've been trying to reach a Moderator, but haven't been successful so far. I did try Public Mobile's "SIMon" chatbot, which is the ordained procedure to reach a Moderator these days. However, after treating me like an idiot who didn't know anything about phones for several minutes, SIMon finally provided me with a "Submit a ticket" link - which promptly led to a 404 error. Nice. So I'm posting here instead in the hope that someone will see this and respond.

 

I have a new phone that I'm trying to make work with Public Mobile. It's a Planet Computers Cosmo Communicator, an unusual clamshell-type phone with a built-in keyboard. Like all devices from Planet Computers, it comes factory unlocked.

 

This phone is known to support 3G/UMTS/HSPA bands 2 and 5, as well as 4G/LTE bands 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, and 17, among several others. So it should definitely work on the Public Mobile network.

 

And indeed, it does - for calls and text messages. But not, so far, for mobile data.

 

I suspect the problem is with the APNs that my SIM card pushes to the phone. Despite being a Public Mobile-branded SIM, the three APNs it pushes to the phone appear to be Telus APNs, as follows (all fields are greyed out so they are not editable):

 

TELUS SP (*)
------------------
Name: TELUS SP
APN: sp.telus.com
Proxy: 74.49.0.18
Port: 80
Username: Not set
Password: Not set
Server: Not set
MMSC: http://aliasredirect.net/proxy/mmsc
MMS proxy: mmscproxy.mobility.ca
MMS port: 8799
MCC: 302
MNC: 220
Authentication type: Not set
APN type: default,supl,mms
APN protocol: IPv4
APN roaming protocol: IPv4
APN enable/disable: APN enabled
Bearer: Unspecified
MVNO type: None
MVNO value: Not set

 

TELUS Services ( )
--------------------------
Name: TELUS Services
APN: services.telus.com
Proxy: Not set
Port: Not set
Username: Not set
Password: Not set
Server: Not set
MMSC: Not set
MMS proxy: Not set
MMS port: Not set
MCC: 302
MNC: 220
Authentication type: Not set
APN type: xcap
APN protocol: IPv6
APN roaming protocol: IPv4/IPv6
APN enable/disable: APN enabled
Bearer: Unspecified
MVNO type: None
MVNO value: Not set

 

IMS
-----
Name: IMS
APN: ims
Proxy: Not set
Port: Not set
Username: Not set
Password: Not set
Server: Not set
MMSC: Not set
MMS proxy: Not set
MMS port: Not set
MCC: 302
MNC: 220
Authentication type: Not set
APN type: ims
APN protocol: IPv6
APN roaming protocol: IPv4/IPv6
APN enable/disable: APN enabled
Bearer: Unspecified
MVNO type: None
MVNO value: Not set

 

I remember having a similar problem with my last phone, a Moto Z Play, and was able to resolve it by fiddling with the APN settings. But that doesn't seem to be possible with the Cosmo Communicator, possibly because it has a more recent and further locked-down version of Android. As it is, the APNs listed above cannot be edited, cannot be deleted, and no new APNs can be added.

 

I did try the trick to add a corrected APN as explained in the following post:

 

<https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Unable-to-configure-APN-settings/m-p/...>

 

That post explains how Public Mobile SIM cards lock down their APNs when the SIM card is inserted. It then explains how to use the USB debugging facility for Android developers to allow adding a new APN that actually works. However, that procedure doesn't appear to work on this phone. Even after performing the steps given in that post, the phone still refuses to allow adding a new APN.

 

Effectively, it appears that my Public Mobile SIM pushes Telus Mobility-style APNs to my phone, which don't work, and then refuses to allow them to be corrected to the correct values for Public Mobile, for which the SIM was branded in the first place.

 

I must say, I'm not impressed.

 

I understand that rooting the phone may work around this problem, but I'm trying not to do that if possible. It shouldn't be necessary in any event.

 

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

24 REPLIES 24


@geopublic wrote:

Slot 1.


I have PM on slot 1 too and running same firmware.  The only explanation is the age of the SIM card.  Mine is 2016 vintage.  Maybe the older SIM cards ID differently than the new ones.  My SIM card placed in a LG G4 shows as Telus.  On the F2, it shows as Telus on the lock screen and then later switches to Public Mobile.  

Slot 1.


@geopublic wrote:

UMIDIGI_F2_V1.0_20191122

Screenshot_20200201-013823.png

 


 Strange...  I wonder if it's the age of my SIM card vs yours.  Along the way they have become different.  What SIM slot are you using?  I am using Public Mobile in slot 1 and dog brand in slot 2.  

UMIDIGI_F2_V1.0_20191122

Screenshot_20200201-013823.png

 


@Anonymous wrote:

@geopublic wrote:

  Positive. The only APN that currently shows up is the modified Telus. Like I said the only thing that was changed was the APN everything else contain the Telus values. In fact, the APN type does not include dun but tethering works without any issues.


There are a lot of little peculiarities with different devices. My S7 running stock A8 just has default,mms,supl. Everything works as it should from it's initial SIM insertion. I didn't touch anything.


Most devices do not require 'dun' in the APN type field to enable tethering to work.  So far, the only devices that I have used that require it for tethering is the Umidigi phones (A5 pro and F2) and Sony xperia z3 compact tablet.  


@geopublic wrote:

@will13am wrote:

@geopublic wrote:

@ayilmaz  I just purchased a Umidigi F2 and the Telus APN showed up. Did not allow me to add an APN. I made the changes as I described and manually selected the PM network and data started working immediately.  So the method worked for me. After making the change need to select the back arrow top left of the screen.

 

The F2 is running 10.

 

Good Luck!

 

 


Are you sure about that?  I am able to add APN on my Public Mobile service.  The + sign is right there.  

 

 


Positive. The only APN that currently shows up is the modified Telus. Like I said the only thing that was changed was the APN everything else contains the Telus values. In fact, the APN type does not include dun but tethering works without any issues.

Screenshot_20200201-011227.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011238.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011246.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011323.png

 


In the words of Steve Jobs, are you holding the phone correctly?  You saw my screen cap of the APN listing on my F2.  I assume you are running latest stock firmware.


@Anonymous wrote:

@will13am wrote:

  This is my darlicious-esqe® diatribe on the topic.  I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep with this discussion.  On that note, it is bed time.

My goodness folks are well-spoken around here.

At least you have split paragraphs and not a wall of text. But she's gotten better.

Is that esque or just esqe? Nicely done.


Let me consult my dictionary...

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/esque

Anonymous
Not applicable

@geopublic wrote:

  Positive. The only APN that currently shows up is the modified Telus. Like I said the only thing that was changed was the APN everything else contain the Telus values. In fact, the APN type does not include dun but tethering works without any issues.


There are a lot of little peculiarities with different devices. My S7 running stock A8 just has default,mms,supl. Everything works as it should from it's initial SIM insertion. I didn't touch anything.

Anonymous
Not applicable

@will13am wrote:

  This is my darlicious-esqe® diatribe on the topic.  I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep with this discussion.  On that note, it is bed time.

My goodness folks are well-spoken around here.

At least you have split paragraphs and not a wall of text. But she's gotten better.

Is that esque or just esqe? Nicely done.


@will13am wrote:

@geopublic wrote:

@ayilmaz  I just purchased a Umidigi F2 and the Telus APN showed up. Did not allow me to add an APN. I made the changes as I described and manually selected the PM network and data started working immediately.  So the method worked for me. After making the change need to select the back arrow top left of the screen.

 

The F2 is running 10.

 

Good Luck!

 

 


Are you sure about that?  I am able to add APN on my Public Mobile service.  The + sign is right there.  

 

 


Positive. The only APN that currently shows up is the modified Telus. Like I said the only thing that was changed was the APN everything else contains the Telus values. In fact, the APN type does not include dun but tethering works without any issues.

Screenshot_20200201-011227.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011238.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011246.png

 

Screenshot_20200201-011323.png

 


@geopublic wrote:

@ayilmaz  I just purchased a Umidigi F2 and the Telus APN showed up. Did not allow me to add an APN. I made the changes as I described and manually selected the PM network and data started working immediately.  So the method worked for me. After making the change need to select the back arrow top left of the screen.

 

The F2 is running 10.

 

Good Luck!

 

 


Are you sure about that?  I am able to add APN on my Public Mobile service.  The + sign is right there.  I have the dog brand service in SIM 2.  For that service, the + sign is nowhere to be found.

 

 

Screenshot_20200201-010659.png

 

 


@ayilmaz wrote:

@cellphoneuser1 (and @will13am 😞

 

I didn't know that fact about APNs before. So if I understand this correctly:

 

1.) Any automatically provided APN information doesn't come from the SIM card, it comes from a file or database on the phone itself. So any company that wants to make a world-capable phone must store APN information on each phone for all of the hundreds (thousands?) of mobile carriers and MVNOs in the world, major and minor, and keep it current. Quite a stupid system, but there it is.

 

2.) Public Mobile, an MVNO using the Telus network, uses the same network ID as Telus (302220), but requires other fields in the APN entry to be set differently for it to work correctly.

 

3.) For any two carriers that use the same network ID, such as Public Mobile and Telus, it is possible - even likely - that a given phone will misidentify the carrier and select the wrong APN information for a given SIM card, for example selecting the APN entry for Telus instead of the one for Public Mobile. This was true of the Moto Z Play, for example, and it appears to be true of the Cosmo Communicator as well.

 

4.) Mobile carriers lobbied Google hard for the ability to disallow any changes to the APN while their own SIM card was inserted, and as of Android 8.1, Google finally gave it to them. Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) then duly went ahead and disallowed APN changes for its own SIM cards, a practice which continues today.

 

5.) So: The user inserts a Public Mobile SIM card into his or her phone. The phone selects the wrong APN from its database. The Public Mobile SIM card tells the phone to lock out any changes to this APN. The user realizes that something is wrong and tries to correct the APN, but is prevented from doing so due to the APN lock.

 

Brilliant. By insisting on locking out APN changes, Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) has effectively prevented its own SIM from being used on its own network.

 

There appear to be three reasonable ways to address this problem without rooting the phone:

 

1.) Get Planet Computers to add special code to distinguish between Public Mobile, Koodo, and Telus SIM cards in its next firmware update, assuming that is even possible. Given that Planet Computers is a small company with limited resources, this appears unlikely.

 

2.) Get Public Mobile to "push" the correct APN settings to any phones using its SIM cards.

 

3.) Get Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) to stop blocking APN changes, so customers can correct any wrongly detected settings if necessary.

 

As for using a cast-off Freedom Mobile SIM card to add a custom APN entry: That's an interesting possibility, and I may eventually resort to that. However, leaving aside the fact that I no longer have any friends with Freedom SIMs (my evangelism was too good), there's something unseemly about the idea. It would be like skulking into a Fisker dealership and begging for a free Fisker Karma key that might help you break into your Tesla Model S, when it was Tesla's fault that you were locked out of your Tesla in the first place. This could also never be an "official" solution: could Public Mobile realistically ask its own customers to acquire a competitor's SIM card to bypass its own security procedures so their phones will work on its network?

 

No, it seems to me that this situation is Public Mobile's responsibility to resolve, not Freedom's. I'll be interested to hear what they have to say about this when I contact them.


I wish I could bravo this post 100 times for the sleuthing efforts here.  There are carrier config settings that are triggered by the SIM card placed in the phone.  I think there are "false positives" or "false negatives", however you wish to look at the unintended effects. 

 

I am currently using a Umidigi F2 on stock ROM.  The Public Mobile SIM brings up 4 possible APN options, sp.telus.com, services.telus.com, sp.mb.com, ims.  Fortunately, the correct Public Mobile APN is made available for selection.  As a fallback I do have the option to add a new APN.

 

The Public Mobile APN does not have 'dun' in the APN type field which cripples tethering on this hardware.  The carrier config settings prevent me from adding 'dun' into the APN type field to restore the tethering function.  However, I am allowed to add 'DUN' into the APN type field.  The carrier config restrictions were programmed as case sensitive whereas the APN type field information is not.  Through a bit of serendipity, I found a workaround for the tethering issue.  

 

I mention false positive/negative above because it is not the intention of Telus/Public Mobile to restrict tethering.  They don't care that I tether.  However, somewhere in the carrier config settings, the algorithm thinks Public Mobile is among the group of carriers that does not allow tethering.  

 

As for where responsibilities lie, it is an interesting discussion.  About two years ago I got an essential phone.  Telus was the sole distributor for that phone in Canada.  In the firmware update path on android 8.1, editing APN was crippled through carrier config settings.  I was a little upset when I saw this as I see it as something equivalent to SIM locking a phone.  If I am not allowed to add my own APN, effectively the phone can only be used with carriers that had their APN in the apn configuration file in the phone.  Unlock phone should allow it to be used with any carrier.

 

I contacted the CRTC to get their opinion on whether this constitutes phone SIM locking which was no longer allowed.  They felt my interpretation of blocking APN editing as legitimate and forwarded my question to Telus for a response.  The response was that there was no intention to restrict APN settings editing as a way of SIM locking the phone.  Moreover, Telus agreed to follow up with the oem to ensure future firmware revisions would restore APN editing.  True to their word, the next firmware OTA removed the add APN block.  Presumably, essential went into the carrier config file and made sure that there were no false positives/negatives on identifying Telus brands as ones that restricted APN editing. 

 

Are carriers responsible for false positives/negatives in restriction ID?  I don't think so as there are many whims and wishes given to Google by all the carriers around the world.  Is the programming of carrier config settings perfect?  Apparently not and I am not surprised.  Such is life in the software world.  That said, I am not geeky enough to open up the hood on carrier config settings.  I don't want to try overriding any settings and create other unwanted effects.  

 

This is my darlicious-esqe® diatribe on the topic.  I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep with this discussion.  On that note, it is bed time.


@ayilmaz wrote:

1.) Any automatically provided APN information doesn't come from the SIM card, it comes from a file or database on the phone itself. So any company that wants to make a world-capable phone must store APN information on each phone for all of the hundreds (thousands?) of mobile carriers and MVNOs in the world, major and minor, and keep it current. Quite a stupid system, but there it is.

The APN information is saved on the phone, but any given phone might not have all possible settings. As you've discovered, the issue here is not being able to edit or add a new APN. This doesn't affect all phone models or all brands of phones running Android 8.1. 

@ayilmaz  I just purchased a Umidigi F2 and the Telus APN showed up. Did not allow me to add an APN. I made the changes as I described and manually selected the PM network and data started working immediately.  So the method worked for me. After making the change need to select the back arrow top left of the screen.

 

The F2 is running 10.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

ayilmaz
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@geopublic Respectfully: Thank you for your suggestion, but as I mentioned in my post, the assigned Telus APN sp.telus.com cannot be changed, which is precisely the problem. On phones running Android 8.1 or higher, Public Mobile SIMs lock out any user-initiated changes to the APN: no modifications, no deletions, no additions, nothing. This is true even for carrier-unlocked phones. I'm hoping that Public Mobile has a reasonable solution to this problem, but we'll see.

Anonymous
Not applicable

tenor.gif

 

There is also an app called MyNewAPN that might get you going. It might only be for 8.1. You would need to permit it to run...it's outside of the Play Store.

A Speakout SIM might also work. And Roam Mobility. I wouldn't want a retailer to let someone use my old SIM though. There could be some data on it.

Public Mobile is not the only provider with this issue though.

ayilmaz
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@cellphoneuser1 (and @will13am 😞

 

I didn't know that fact about APNs before. So if I understand this correctly:

 

1.) Any automatically provided APN information doesn't come from the SIM card, it comes from a file or database on the phone itself. So any company that wants to make a world-capable phone must store APN information on each phone for all of the hundreds (thousands?) of mobile carriers and MVNOs in the world, major and minor, and keep it current. Quite a stupid system, but there it is.

 

2.) Public Mobile, an MVNO using the Telus network, uses the same network ID as Telus (302220), but requires other fields in the APN entry to be set differently for it to work correctly.

 

3.) For any two carriers that use the same network ID, such as Public Mobile and Telus, it is possible - even likely - that a given phone will misidentify the carrier and select the wrong APN information for a given SIM card, for example selecting the APN entry for Telus instead of the one for Public Mobile. This was true of the Moto Z Play, for example, and it appears to be true of the Cosmo Communicator as well.

 

4.) Mobile carriers lobbied Google hard for the ability to disallow any changes to the APN while their own SIM card was inserted, and as of Android 8.1, Google finally gave it to them. Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) then duly went ahead and disallowed APN changes for its own SIM cards, a practice which continues today.

 

5.) So: The user inserts a Public Mobile SIM card into his or her phone. The phone selects the wrong APN from its database. The Public Mobile SIM card tells the phone to lock out any changes to this APN. The user realizes that something is wrong and tries to correct the APN, but is prevented from doing so due to the APN lock.

 

Brilliant. By insisting on locking out APN changes, Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) has effectively prevented its own SIM from being used on its own network.

 

There appear to be three reasonable ways to address this problem without rooting the phone:

 

1.) Get Planet Computers to add special code to distinguish between Public Mobile, Koodo, and Telus SIM cards in its next firmware update, assuming that is even possible. Given that Planet Computers is a small company with limited resources, this appears unlikely.

 

2.) Get Public Mobile to "push" the correct APN settings to any phones using its SIM cards.

 

3.) Get Public Mobile (and/or its parent, Telus Mobility) to stop blocking APN changes, so customers can correct any wrongly detected settings if necessary.

 

As for using a cast-off Freedom Mobile SIM card to add a custom APN entry: That's an interesting possibility, and I may eventually resort to that. However, leaving aside the fact that I no longer have any friends with Freedom SIMs (my evangelism was too good), there's something unseemly about the idea. It would be like skulking into a Fisker dealership and begging for a free Fisker Karma key that might help you break into your Tesla Model S, when it was Tesla's fault that you were locked out of your Tesla in the first place. This could also never be an "official" solution: could Public Mobile realistically ask its own customers to acquire a competitor's SIM card to bypass its own security procedures so their phones will work on its network?

 

No, it seems to me that this situation is Public Mobile's responsibility to resolve, not Freedom's. I'll be interested to hear what they have to say about this when I contact them.

ayilmaz
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@darlicious Thanks, that seems like a good idea!

ayilmaz
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@Jb456 Thank you, I will try that as soon as I can get a coherent message together, and see what they say.

geopublic
Mayor / Maire

@ayilmaz  Change the assigned Telus APN sp.telus.com to sp.mb.com. Leave everything else alone. Make sure that the network is manually set to Public Mobile and test to see if data works.

 

Also change MVNO Type to GID if the above does not work and try again.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/general/help/help-thread-2019-question-noob-friendly-t4010903      ... @ayilmaz  You may be able to get help on thus forum specific to your phone:

[Help Thread][Cosmo Communicator](2019) Ask Any Question, Noob Friendly
15,086 posts
Thanks: 6,735
 
By sd_shadow, Recognized Contributor on 27th November 2019, 09:53 PM
This thread has been created
for
Questions & Answers/Troubleshooting
Specific to

Planet Computer's
Cosmo Communicator


@cellphoneuser1 wrote:

@ayilmaz APN isn't on the sim. It's set by the phone maker. Can you borrow a Freedom sim?  Put that in phone to enter the Public APN settings.


@ayilmaz , I was going to suggest exactly this.  It seems like freedom brand is allowed full control of changes to APNs.  BTW, the restrictions are what I refer to as a misunderstanding.  I am using a phone right now with this type of issue.  I need to edit the APN type field to add dun for tethering.  The phone thinks that Public Mobile does not allow tethering and so I cannot add dun in the APN type field.  I actually get a warning that carrier doesn't allow this.  For me the workaround is to capitalize the entry to DUN.  I digress.  Go to a freedom shop and ask for a used SIM card so you can bypass the add APN block.

cellphoneuser1
Mayor / Maire

@ayilmaz APN isn't on the sim. It's set by the phone maker. Can you borrow a Freedom sim?  Put that in phone to enter the Public APN settings.

Jb456
Mayor / Maire

I tried searching your phone and nothing really came up for APN settings...(sorry)

 

But to answer your other question. If Simon the chat bot is giving you issues with opening a ticket for moderators.

 

You can private message moderators via link below.

 

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

Need Help? Let's chat.