Matisyahu's Blog

With all the kerfuffle occurring regarding Trump and his administration there has been a trend developing of decoupling from the United States or more specifically United States based technology giants in favour of domestic providers of cloud services. There is the ‘European Alternatives’ website (link) that I mentioned before which provides a pretty good list of providers but the big stumbling block is in regards to finding DeGoogled phones that are also compatible with carriers in New Zealand. In the past it was fairly easy because all you had to do is find out whether the phones supported the frequencies for your carrier and if they did then it was all good to go but unfortunately with the move to 4G and 5G, and shutting down the 3G network, the fall back to 3G voice will be removed resulting in VoLTE being the only option. The problem is that VoLTE is a minefield due to the lack of any sort of consistent standards that are mandatory along with a whole lot of optional features resulting in the mess that exists today – your phone may support VoLTE but your carrier may not support your phone.

I say that because I was looking at the Fairphone 6 running /e/os which is a DeGoogled version of Android but the problem is that it may not work in New Zealand and I haven’t heard anything back from the company that sells it so I’m left with a situation of no choice in the matter. It is kind of frustrating that there hasn’t been one standardised way for VoLTE to be setup which would allow you to buy a phone from anywhere in the world, throw in a SIM and everything just starts working. The other option I’m having a look at is buying a Pixel 9 Pro XL and then installing GrapheneOS onto it but I’m concerned that I’ll lose VoLTE compatibility given that the Pixel Pro XL works in New Zealand on Spark and Skinny but will I lose that compatibility if I install GrapheneOS onto it? I’m wondering whether it is more of a hassle than it is worth in the end.

With all that being said, I’m pretty happy with what I am using at the moment – Google Workspace, Chrome, Samsung S25 Ultra for my phone but I’m sticking with macOS for both computers along with an Apple TV. If there is going to be a change it’ll be upgrading my television by giving my old one to mum and then buy a new one with the OneUI Tizen which integrates into Samsung’s SmartThings which does a better job than Google’s own Home application which has issues when used in conjunction with a Workspace account. I am looking at moving to Quic for my internet service provider because the price is better, more features and less drama when I want to get something done such as changing an email address or phone number so I’ll look at moving ASAP but I’ll stick with Skinny for my mobile due to Skinny Mobile having the best coverage at a reasonable price although if a better offer comes along I’m not going to turn it out. I guess I am a creature of habit where in the past I tend to stay with a provider in the mistaken belief that loyalty is rewarded when in reality if the business doesn’t provide you with what you want at a good price then you should take your business elsewhere.