Thank you! That was very helpful. At least for me, for I guess I’ll be one of those who will have to wait till summer (living in France)… 
Still, I wonder what kind of “issue” (besides bureaucratic…) can affect some operators but not others… 
Technical question: What will happen to FP phones upgraded to A12, and roaming to those regions/operators who do not handle A12 yet?
(No, just curious, I haven’t suddenly decided to visit my family in Germany… 
)
That’s what we expect, as it’s more of an incremental upgrade from Android 12, compared to 11 → 12. We’ll share more about that timeline when A12 is officially out.
That is wonderful to hear.
I am curious: Does Fairphone provide ADB-Sideload upgrade binaries? I was fond of those while i was on the Pixel2 and Pixel4a.
Thank you for your work!
Not officially, but once the rollout started, someone can just extract the URL from the logs.
I’ve tried to do that for all the OTA updates in the past and I intend to keep it up as long as I have a phone with stock FPOS around.
like quoting movies
Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to deliver a single Android OS upgrade is insignificant next to the power of speedy and constant delivery of the most current Android in general.
sigh we have finally? maybe tomorrow, not for everybody though, arrived on the Android 12 software layer level of October of 2021 that is. Maybe even with a few monthly security updates of A12 on top of that, who knows what monthly level we will getting handed. I wouldnt have imagined this being so hard. If your basic hardware board components you originally chose to be nicely supported by all the hardware vendors for your software stack (Android in general back then A11) were well within in the support windows and nothing exotic, then I still dont get it what took Fairphone as a company this long. You are not the only company running A11 or A12 on the SOC, are you? am I totally wrong here? you are not the only hardware vendor operating in all these nations, continents, the absolutely major network operators an all. I strongly doubt that we will see any speedy A13 delivery hereafter or let alone truly monthly and immediate security patches.
My question of some other thread still holds, how much money do we need to additionally fork over to have the software people of Fairphone decently funded, supported and paid. Are they getting minimum wage as well? are they getting pensions and what not? where did all my money go that I dropped with each and every payment for goods with the Fairphone company? Apparently the software guys were seriously left out of the game. What a shame.
How much does a Fairphone device need to cost, please do tell us, that this endless mess with barely being able to deliver A12 for flagship FP4 does not happen ever again. I am not convinced. Not at all. Not yet.
once the rollout started, someone can just extract the URL from the logs
ah, yes. i love simple solutions like that - and will try myself to remember to attach my fairphone to adb to get the logfile 
If you are on Android 11 and travel outside France or Switzerland, you shouldn’t receive the update.
If you are on Android 12 and travel to France or Switzerland, you shouldn’t notice any difference in performance.
I checked, and I’m not able to share the names of the operators that will receive the A12 upgrade later. The same goes for the reason for the delay. All I can say is that it’s not related to the quality or coverage of the network itself, but rather the network-specific optimizations and features that we include with each software update.
Worry not, our team is working hard to deliver the upgrade to everyone and with some luck, it will be out before the end of March.
Thank you! 
That is great News!
Network specific optimizations?
I vote for Orange F. They provide the best QoS… and the shortest list of compatible devices (VoLTE).
What kind of performance depends on the region (CH, FR)?
And what do you mean with delayed, are we talking about days, weeks or even months?
Second question already answered here 
Or here…
And here the rest is answered as well
Overall I guess the information that could be shared were shared so maybe a bit more patience will do the trick.
What are operators? Is this where the SIM is registered (in CH for example Salt, Swisscom, etc.)?
So did I understand it right, that not every device in FR and CH is affected?
Yes, these are operators and yes, not every device in France and Switzerland should be affected. If an operator is affected, it’s very likely that all it’s virtual network operators (like Lidl Connect is one in the network of Salt) will be affected, too.
Sigh…
I am satisfied with Android 11.
Until Android 11 Google has restricted the user rights more and more with almost every new main release.
What positive changes may I expect with Android 12 compared with Android 11? My internet search did not give a clear answer. Restrictions are seldom advertised…
What kind of restrictions are you referring to? There are plenty of positive changes in Android 12 and 13 though. They are wildly advertised. But I suppose you don’t value them that much. I personally really like the increased control over privacy and enhanced security. One hand mode is also great, especially since the FP4 is quite big. The new UI is also refreshing.
Thank you for sharing your opinion.
I think I have to search deeper to find out, if Android 12 has some advantages from my point of view.
Here’s a full list
The stuff under privacy and security is what I’ve been waiting for
You can search for “android 12 features”, there are plenty of blogs and videos about it that can explain the benefits in plain English.
Bingo!
Wednesday 1st, 10 am local time, and no Android 12 upgrade for Orange France clients. 
(No security update either)
“with some luck, it will be out before the end of March” -sigh-
In Germany using O2 there is also no update available, yet 
EDIT: BTW, the release notes are also not showing any A12 version: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405858220945