šŸ’ Canadian Fairphoners! šŸ‡ØšŸ‡¦

Hi @Jonnydark, Iā€™m really interested in the ā€œCanuck Fairphoneā€ movement, as you call it. Iā€™d seen that Fairphone doesnā€™t ship to North America. Iā€™m a journalist based in Toronto and would love to talk and perhaps arrange an interview or meeting. Are you based in Toronto? Thanks and hope to speak with you soon.

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Hi everyone, I messaged Jonnydark specifically earlier, but Iā€™m really hoping to connect with any Fairphone users in or near Toronto or Montreal. Iā€™m a journalist with VICE Canada and Iā€™m super interested in the Fairphone movement and telling more people about it. It looks like aerler, @Maria_Cabrera, @petey, blutch and Jonnydark might be able to help me out. Please message me if you can and Iā€™ll send along my email or my phone number or vice versa.

Thank you, merci and I hope to hear from you soon!
Tomas Urbina

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We just figured out that Canadians can order the Fairphone 2 at Vireo:

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/legally-forward-fairphone-to-people-outside-the-eu/26696/2?u=stefan

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Good to know! Iā€™m sure thatā€™s helpful for the whole forum group. Thanks @Stefan

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Anyone have any stories to tell about how their Fairphone is running overseas? Iā€™m thinking about getting a friend of mine to ship me one in Canada, and Iā€™d like to hear more about how people how itā€™s working for people in unsupported areas. I searched the forum, and didnā€™t find anything about people running it successfully here, but I donā€™t see why not. My Carrier (bell) supports the correct frequencies, but I donā€™t know what other pitfalls I should be looking out for.

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I moved your post to the Canadian Fairphoners topic. Iā€™m guessing some of the answers youā€™re after are already mentioned in the topic / someone can help you out best here.

Hi! Brand spanking new to this forum. Im Canadian living in the Yukon. I desperately want to order a Fairphone. I am on the Bell Network, I know Virgin Mobile works up here too. I see in older posts there is not a lot of info but hoping there is something new to report for 2017!

Did I read someone say to call your provider and chat with Tech support to see if the Fairphone will work? I used the website to look up Device Compatibility with carrier but really dont understand. I only had 2 green check marks for 3G and 4G networks (which means, Device is compatible with some of the network carriers frequencies. It may work)

Is there anyone in BC, Alberta or the Yukon that uses a Fairphone? Just looking for some quick feedback.

Thankyou so much!!

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Hi!
Well, I have just taken a look at the page of Bell.ca ā€œCheck if you can bring your mobile device to Bellā€.
On that page you can check the compatibility of your phone by entering the IMEI.
Unfortunately the result for my FP2 (for both IMEI) was

Your phone is not compatible

  • Your phone will not work on the Bell mobile network.

Well, that must not be the entire truth, as they sure are interested in selling new device and - even more important - want to make sure, you do not complain in the future. And - most likely - it might very well be, that they can not assign the IMEI to specific data, as Fairphone is not on their list for checking compatible phones.
According to the necessary specs, I would guess, that HSPA as well as the 850 mHz and 1900 mHz band are available (as the results for your inquiry show).

I would contact tech support for the details on possible restrictions, like e.g. not being able to use it all over their covered area.
All I can do is mere guesswork and for any reliable information you would have to hope for some experience from a FP owner living in Yukon or having traveled there. Support seems to be the fastest way, and check all carriers, that cover your area, as they might use different bands.

Hi Bert! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my question. Its still a bit hard for me to understand, but overall like you said, calling Tech support would be the best way to figuring out the compatibility.

Oh I want this phone SO bad!
Thanks again for your time!! :slight_smile:
Mucho appreciated!

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Hi,
my Name is Joshua and me and my girlfriend are currently doing a semester abroad in Victoria BC.
So until December we could possibly join the Canadian Fairphoner community.
She has an FP1 and I have an FP2. Both are working good even with dual sim.
But certainty I have to mention that Sophie doesnā€™t use mobile internet here and I donā€™t have an LTE plan, so we cannot fully evaluate the functioning ā€¦
Cheers
Joshua

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This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

Opening this again, maybe new Fairphoner @teleute can find it useful. From my memory @jonnydark still shows up in the forum once in a while. :slight_smile:

Haā€¦thanks! Hopefully Iā€™m not the only one, but Iā€™ll go ahead and do some documenting here in case it helps anyone. :slight_smile:

I ordered my FP from ecosto.net - with shipping it ended up being about $550 CAD. Arrived in less than a week, and got charged about $42 for clearing customs. All in all not too bad.

Hoping to spend today getting it set up, since itā€™s -25 or so outside (and this is the high for today!). Will report back on functionality with Public Mobile here in Alberta before and after I flash the ROM.

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Alright! Was able to call, SMS, and MMS no problem on the FP2, both with the stock OS and after I installed LineageOS. Itā€™s showing that itā€™s connecting to the LTE network. So - all good so far! Just setting up apps, transferring data, etcā€¦ but in terms of network functionality Iā€™m not seeing any issues. Public Mobile seems to be playing nicely with it. In fact, this was a smoother connection than my partnerā€™s Asus ZenFone by far.

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Thank you for sharing your Alberta experience! I am also in Alberta and interested in getting a Fairphone for my next phone when my current one dies. Stay warm! :snowflake:

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Hello all! I am very new here too, both to the phone and to Canada. I moved from Europe to Ottawa a month ago with my fairphone 2. Since I didnā€™t have a house, canadian bank account and thus no personal wifi at that moment, I chose to go for a prepaid chatr account, as they offer the most payable data options.

So far, the phone works fine on chatr with phoning and messaging, the internet is just very slow. I had 3G on it for exactly two days, since then it has been on 'H" all the time, I just never get it on 3G or LTE (4G in Europe) Not even 2G will show up.

Does this experience sound familiar to any of you? Is this a case of the services of chatr being terrible or is this rather a problem caused by an european phone working only wonkily on north american frequencies?

I am an absolute idiot when it comes to tech, both digital and analogue, I must add so maybe I am doing something wrong? (I am hoping it is that!)

H = HSPA, an extension of 3G that is sometimes referred to as 3.5G

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Hi Johannes, thanks for clearing that up! I thought H meant the same as in Europe. Sorry, my bad.

Yes it is the same as the H in Europe. In the Netherlands (your username indicates youā€™re from there?) you just donā€™t encounter it very often because the 4G network is very good.

In the US some operators (T-Mobile has been discussed a few times on this forum) have a habit of calling HSPA+ a ā€˜4Gā€™ standard instead of optimised 3G which it technically is. Maybe that happens in Canada too?

Yep, Dutchie here, hello Albert. Thanks for the info. This shows how much I know about mobile phone networks. Which is pretty much zilch. I am not really sure how mobile companies in Canada work, except that 4G is referred to as LTE and networks do not operate everywhere (totally understandable, in a country vast like this one)

It also shows, I realise, that I am pretty spoiled, as I find the network here slow compared to what I am used to, and while in Europe I have come to see ā€œHā€ as a mark I am out of reach of a decent network. I guess Iā€™ll just have to adapt.