Probably a non-starter. Sprint is a CDMA carrier where you are restricted to the devices they offer. I don't think GSM telephony will work on their network.

Is there any update on this unfortunate situation for us want to be American sailors?

Did the recent update bring any working LTE bands to the US?

updates to software/firmware will not and cannot make the jolla work in the US. the radio itself doesnt support ANY 3g or LTE frequencies that ANY carrier supports in the US. {definitely not tmobile, at&t, sprint, verizon, or any of their various resellers}

in short, the jolla phone will *never work* in the united states. wait until they release jolla 2, or move to canada {or better yet, europe}.

EDIT: by 'never work', i mean 'never work with greater than 2g networking'. if you just want it to make calls and use wifi, youre all set. also, if the carriers decide to change infrastructure over the next 20 years, maybe it will work then.

If you are not afraid of being considered as a person with "highly conspiratorial behaviour" because of owning NSA-not-yet-approved hardware with spyware-backdoor-free OS, then you're good to go.

Can this thread be changed to: can the jolla Phone EVER be used in the United states?

sure! and while we're at it, we can just replace the content of each post with "no"

lol. I won't say this too loudly as you never know who is listening but there is a second conspiracy theory being quietly discussed amongst those members of the linux underground here in the US about the surprising absence of officially supported devices that behave as a proper linux distribution (i.e. N9 and Jolla phone)...

Yes surprising all that.

A US tech company's backing the cold daylight killing of the ultimate Linux-desktop-in-your-pocket-project being readied by Nokia (N900 being step 4 out of 5)

Declaring the N9, long delayed consumer Linux capacitive candy-bar touch version, a dead end at the very moment when even the most skeptical iPress journalist was enthusiastically previewing the N9.

Not a conspiracy, just smart business move.


Followed by purchasing of Skype, a former "supplier of integrated secure communications" in this Linux phone project and matching with Symbian. (2)
To match it not with Symbian and Linux in integrated preinstalls but instead with windows phone (throwing out the last remaining bits of data protection philosophy)

Finally tacking over the whole devaluated phone branch of Nokia.

Ending the hopes for a Nokia camera brand (Pureview) as an alternative to the expensive Leica lower end hipster gear - why we can't have a fresh approach to consumer camera's without counting on Japan?

As a bonus, killing Symbian and the Symbeose project (1) and saving the EU taxpayer's hard earned money money by using Android instead.

Pure coincidence if you ask me.


(1) "The SYMBEOSE initiative will develop new core platform capabilities, providing the best possible levels of power efficiency and improving Symbian’s current, market-leading offering in this area. This will be achieved by delivering fresh optimizations which harness the rapidly developing area of multi-core processing used in conjunction with new techniques in Asymmetrical Multiprocessing" Symbian Foundation....
The SYMBEOSE project is being led by a consortium of mobile device manufacturers, hardware and service integration professional services, major consumer electronics companies, mobile network operators, application developers, universities and research institutions.

(2) 2009, BARCELONA, Spain – Nokia and Skype announced plans this morning to fully integrate Skype into select Nokia devices. Kicking off with the Nokia N97, Skype will be part of the address book in the device, enable users to easily see when their Skype contacts are online. It’ll also enable them to use 3G and WiFi to make and receive free Skype to Skype voice calls.

Maybe it is better for its development that the device is deemed unusable in the US.
it's not too smart to kick the hounds while they are still devouring their pray. Jolla may choose it's moment better to serve the US market.

I promise that I won't complain of having to suffer 2G when traveling in the US

I am wondering whether one could attach some USB 3G or 4G modem to the Jolla phone to make it work in situations where one needs it in the US. Does anyone know?