GSM Phones North America

As I explained in previous posts, I am a refugee from Reddit, and this community is intended to be a refugee shelter for those whose beloved home country is /r/vintagemobilephones community on that big scary site. As explained in my last post, I was never banned by VMP subreddit mods, from what I can tell those mods were just as appreciative and supportive of my on-topic relevant content as the rest of that community - but Reddit site-wide admins inserted themselves as an insurmountable barrier between me and my native community.

So why did I not name this RetroLemmy community "vintagemobilephones" just like the one on Reddit? Answer: because neither I nor A2GC own that name. I am not the original founder of /r/vintagemobilephones, nor was I ever a member of its mod team - instead I was just a prominent technical contributor without any ownership stake. As of this writing, I do not yet have any way to contact any of the mods of that subreddit - hence I have no way of knowing if they even know what happened, and if they do, how they feel about it. Thus it would be wrong for me (or for A2GC as a company) to claim to be a successor to /r/vintagemobilephones on Reddit without having even spoken to any of the mods of the original community.

I thought about naming this community after A2GC, but then decided against it. A2GC seeks to become a small regional cellular operator in some of the more remote and rural locations in USA, and once we build out as such, we will stand on equals with AT&T, T-Mobile, Viaero Wireless, Union Telephone, GCI Alaska and so forth. It is clearly not appropriate to require a customer relation (or being a "customer in waiting", anxiously awaiting promised network build-out) for someone to be interested in Vintage Mobile Phones - hence the community needs a name that conveys a more expansive scope than just A2GC.

Then come some practical limits on my area of expertise. It is my understanding that anyone who creates a new community is expected to moderate it, and I do not feel qualified to moderate in areas that are outside of my expertise, both technical and geopolitical:

1. In technical terms, GSM is not the only "retro" cellular phone technology for which Vintage Mobile Phones were made - far from it. Just in terms of "2G" technologies alone, GSM fiercely competed with CDMA and iDEN in its heyday, then there are "1G" analog technologies such as AMPS, C-Netz and NMT, and then there is a "1.5G" transitional technology as in D-AMPS or "TDMA" as it was called in North America. All of these technologies have their own devotees, each of them is beloved to some people, and all of them were represented in the original Reddit community. Yet out of these technologies, the only one in which I consider myself an expert is GSM.
2. Why North America, why not just USA or in the opposite direction, the whole world? When it comes to Vintage Mobile Phones, different frequency bands were adopted by EU and USA, and then by other countries that followed these two different leads. All of Eurasia and many other parts of the world (with which I have very limited familiarity) eventually adopted GSM frequency bands that were originally defined/invented by some regulators somewhere in EU, while Federal Communications Commission in USA defined a different set of frequency bands for early cellular networks in USA. Canada and Mexico copied these frequency definitions from USA FCC, and thus all of North America became technologically harmonized when it comes to early (1G and 2G) cellular systems - but EU and most of the rest of the world harmonized on a different standard.

Newer phones, including late 2G era, were made triband or quadband, covering both geopolitical regions - but all early GSM/2G phones were made for one region only, either for EU-led world or for North America. While many of the same companies made "parallel" models for the two markets, differing only in frequency bands, once there are two different physical variants being made, other differences inevitably crept in. Hence Vintage GSM phones made for North American market constitute their own category, distinct from early GSM phones in EU.

Now on to practical matters: while I consider myself an expert only on North American GSM phones and not any other category of Vintage Mobile Phones, this community is a refuge for anyone who has been wronged by Reddit in one way or another, and anyone who would like to stand in fellowship with those of us wrongfully banned from that site. Therefore, if you would like to post some interesting content about Vintage Mobile Phone technologies other than GSM, or VMP topics or issues or concerns that exist geographically outside of North America, please feel welcome to post or comment! Maybe some day the original founders of /r/vintagemobilephones will create a properly blessed mirror community here, or maybe someone else will step in - but until then, please use this rule of thumb: anything that would be welcome in /r/vintagemobilephones on Reddit is also welcome here.

If you haven't seen it already, please read my introductory post about American 2G Cooperative - then come back here.

As my linked post says, I currently serve as President and CTO of A2GC - but this non-profit corporation was only formed in the spring of 2025. What was I doing previously? Answer: for many years (going back to 2013) I led a project named FreeCalypso, seeking to design and build my own phone handset based on GSM/2G technology and TI Calypso chipset. That project has its home page, but that page had its last update in 2023 and is now due for more updates...

Back in 2018 there was a now-defunct project named ZeroPhone - another person, completely unrelated to me, designed a DIY smartphone in which an off-the-shelf GSM modem module from SimCom was controlled by a Raspberry Pi Zero, with the latter component implementing and controlling the phone UI. Those SimCom GSM modules used by ZP project were proprietary, while my FreeCalypso solution was the only available GSM modem whose firmware source code is fully published. So I got in touch with ZeroPhone main developer and engaged in a dialogue toward building a ZP+FC variant - but that original ZP developer then lost interest (not just in FC, but in his own project too), and ZeroPhone project went defunct.

In its heyday, ZeroPhone had its own Reddit community, and in December of 2018 I joined Reddit specifically so I could engage with that community. I named my Reddit account MotherMychaela: Mychaela is my actual first name (yes, it appears on my California driver's license), and Mother is the title by which I went in my own then-active FreeCalypso community.

But then the unexpected happened. When I joined Reddit in December of 2018, I did it with the express intent of participating in that ZeroPhone community, and didn't have any other uses or activities in mind. But when I went to create that MotherMychaela account, Reddit somehow psychically learned that I am a trans woman (physical fact, irrelevant to my work with cellular phone technologies, but a fact nonetheless), and recommend a bunch of transgender-related subreddits to me. I joined those subs, thinking "why not".

After that beginning in December of 2018, ZeroPhone project very quickly went dead, but all those other subs I joined (TG-related) naturally remained quite active - so I started participating in them, commenting from my lived experience. And thus between that time in late 2018 or early 2019 and the end of my Reddit tenure on 2026 May 30, I used that MotherMychaela account to make posts or comments of two different kinds:

1. Posts and comments related to my technical work: FreeCalypso GSM MS project, Osmocom Cellular Network Infrastructure, Themyscira Wireless CN software and eventually A2GC.
2. Posts and comments of a more personal nature, primarily in transgender-related subreddits and some other subs dealing with my marginalized minority status.

None of my posts or comments in category 1 per above breakdown ever broke any rules, subreddit or site-wide, and I was never subject to any adverse moderation actions (or adverse actions from site-wide admins) in any of the technical subs I participated in, including the principal one /r/vintagemobilephones. However, when crimes against humanity occurred beginning in 2020-March and then continuing for two years or so, my once-beloved LGBTQ+ community took the wrong side in those events - and while I continued engaging with TG community on Reddit due to the unchangeable physical fact that I am a post-op trans woman and thus have a lot of interest in common with the larger TG community, my interactions with them became a lot more tense.

My interactions with transgender community in the post-Covid era earned me some subreddit bans - but those subs were all TG-related or otherwise personal-type, not technical, hence my ability to do high-quality technical work and post about it in technical subs was unimpeded. But on the more personal side of my life, as a result from having been banned from the more mainstream TG subs, I felt forced to seek out and participate in more marginalized ones. Those marginalized subs have much less aggressive subreddit-level moderators, at which point I met a new enemy: Reddit site-wide admins.

It also needs to be understood that the more marginalized, less mainstream TG-related subs on Reddit attract those trans women (as well as trans men and non-binary folks) who have a lot of trauma, stemming from inability to pass, "failed" transitions, getting worn down by being the target of intense transphobia on a daily basis - hence the mood in those subs is often dark. In that atmosphere, every now and then someone will post musings about a certain unmentionable act that is widely associated with a certain number that reads as 41%.

As it happens, I am pro-choice: not only with regard to abortion, but also with regard to that other issue. Between 2023 and 2026, a total of 5 comments of mine got "[ Removed by Reddit ]" as they say it - I had to dig through my still-visible (to me only) account history to count them. Every single one of those 5 instances were in personal-type subs, either transgender-related or related to another marginalized minority I am a part of - never in any of the technical subs in which I participated with stellar reputation.

Unfortunately my fifth offense before Reddit site-wide admins (or rather their AI algorithms - the suspensions in reaction to my comments were far too immediate to be done by any human moderator or admin) moved that AI-powered behemoth to ban (or "permanently suspend", as they say it) my entire Reddit account. And from what I read online regarding new accounts in such circumstances, it is basically an impossible task if the objective is to maintain a continued identity and presence in those subs in which I was always fully welcome without any trouble.

I fully admit that I fucked up: I showed my last fateful comment (the one that triggered the last and final ban) to a non-autistic member of my family, and she told me in no uncertain terms that what I said was not appropriate for any public platform. My Aspie brain meant absolutely no harmful intent with that comment, absolutely no intent to harm anyone, violently or otherwise, but I was told (after the fact) that mainstream society's norms say otherwise.

However, I argue that the punishment meted out to me by Reddit site-wide admins was and is not appropriate to the crime. It might have been proper to ban me from all personal-type communities or subreddits, such that I can never again post anything on their platform of a personal nature, while leaving my ability to make purely technical posts purely for work-related purposes, strictly related to my job of building a new GSM/2G cellular network that is highly desired by /r/vintagemobilephones community in which I never had any negative interactions - but Reddit site-wide bans don't work this way, instead they block my ability to post in those subs where the resident communities were nothing but appreciative of my content.

Going forward, this new account I created on RetroLemmy in the fediverse shall be strictly "bonnet on": aside from the present post and any clarifying replies, I intend to post only in conjunction with my official role as CTO of American 2G Cooperative, only technical or business-related content that relates to our mission of building a new GSM network and providing working service to those who wish to use 20 year old Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson etc phones.

As for the original /r/vintagemobilephones community on Reddit, the best scenario would be if high-ranking members of that community (mods or otherwise) discover on their own this new A2GC online presence in the fediverse, and on their own initiative inform the rest of that community as to what happened. It would also be ideal if some other member of VMP community, someone who is not subject to a Reddit ban, were to join this Lemmy community and act as a human bridge between the two communities, cross-posting important valuable content back and forth. Alternatively, if no existing member of VMP on Reddit feels up to the task of serving as this human bridge, but someone else with an interest in Vintage Mobile Phones (and 2G cellular services to make them work) finds this post - if you are not banned from Reddit, I and the rest of A2GC team strongly implore you to join both /r/vintagemobilephones and this Lemmy community and start bridging content.

We as in A2GC are also exploring the possibility of having other A2GC corporate officers create Reddit accounts and post in /r/vintagemobilephones. As I understand it, Reddit site-wide ban applies against me as an individual human - and while they won't carve out an exception for me posting solely in my job role, A2GC as a corporate entity has not committed any Reddit rule violations. Thus if a different A2GC corporate officer creates a Reddit account and posts A2GC content in a subreddit where such content is fully welcome, can they still call it ban evasion? It is an avenue which we are still exploring.

American 2G Cooperative is a start-up non-profit cellular phone company in USA, and I (Mychaela N. Falconia) am one of its founders, currently serving as President & CTO. We seek to build a new GSM cellular network in our great country, a specialty network specifically designed to serve the needs of Vintage Mobile Phone users who reside here. The network we seek to build shall consist of the following components:

1. Physical GSM services in those small select locations where we can obtain the necessary spectrum. There are a few select locations with PCS1900 spectrum vacancies, and there is a much larger set of locations (albeit still rural and remote) with available GSM850 spectrum.
2. Roaming-capable core network. At the present time the very unloved GSM/2G network of T-Mobile USA is still up in many places, but they artificially block access to it for their own native users and for users of TMO-parented MVNOs. Yet users of SIM cards issued by foreign operators (e.g., Mexican Telcel) who roam on TMO experience much higher quality of service, without any artificial blocking! When A2GC becomes a physical GSM operator in some little remote corner of rural America, operating under a license from FCC, we'll be able to use FCC rules section 20.12(d) to compel TMO into letting us roam on their network, with the same level of roaming service which they provide to foreign SIM cards.

A lot of information about A2GC and progress of our work toward the goals listed above has previously been posted in /r/vintagemobilephones community on Reddit. However, our team's ability to post in that forum has recently been disrupted by hostile actions on the part of Reddit site-wide admins, necessitating the present refugee-mode migration to Lemmy. Just to be clear, VMP community on Reddit loved our content, it always got significant upvotes, and we can only assume that VMP mod team welcomed our contributions as well - but Reddit site-wide admins got in the way and thereby made life worse for all GSM/2G users in North America, blocking communication between the new 2G-serving cellular phone company and its base of would-be service subscribers.

Over the coming weeks and months we are going to post more content here, eventually recreating the full repository of knowledge that once resided in VMP community on Reddit. However, let me close this post with some important legal and contact information.

A2GC is a non-profit corporation seeking federal tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(12) as a mutual or cooperative telephone company (please note it is a different type of tax-exempt non-profit entity from the usual 501(c)(3) - see IRS publication 557), and like all tax-exempt non-profit entities, we are required to publicly disclose our management structure, bylaws, financial details and so forth. While our website is still under construction, the key basics are as follows:

We are a Delaware corporation, our incorporation file number with the state of DE is 10180871, and our federal EIN is 33-4896531. Our physical office address is 16870 West Bernardo Drive, Suite 400, San Diego, CA 92127 - however, because we don't employ any full-time staff, only part-time volunteers, in-person meetings at our office location are available only by appointment. Contact details for our current corporate officers are as follows:

Ms. Mychaela Falconia, President & CTO: falconia@usa2g.org
Ms. Jessica Westerman, Secretary: secretary@usa2g.org
Ms. Shannon Hogan, Treasurer: treasurer@usa2g.org

We sincerely apologize to our users-in-waiting for having to take this detour, i.e., for having to take a break from our actual work of building our new GSM cellular network and spend time and energy on Reddit-to-Lemmy migration instead - but those Reddit site-wide admins forced our hand by blocking our ability to post in the original community. Please stay tuned for more technical and network-operational content that will be posted here shortly.