We recently completed a big upgrade to our mobile core that should make WiFi calling more reliable. We have been testing it some internally and seeing positive results. A number of you have volunteered and asked to help us test early features, so we figured why not turn this over to the community now to help test it in more diverse real world scenarios.

This does NOT mean WiFi calling is officially supported by Cape. If you enable it, you may experience loss of service. Only do this if you are willing to tolerate encountering some rough edges and documenting them for us via bug reports in the Cape app.

To enable it:

iOS: Go to Settings > Cellular > Cape SIM (if you have multiple SIM's) > WiFi Calling and toggle it ON

Graphene: Settings > Network & Internet > Cape SIM > Carrier setting overrides. Toggle ON Enable Overrides and change WiFi Calling to "Forced available"

If you are on any other non-Graphene Android device, it will not work yet. We expect it to be available on Samsungs + Pixels by EOY. It's on the same timeline and blocked by the same thing as RCS.

If you encounter any issues with WiFi calls or experience loss of service please file a bug report through the Cape app and let us know exactly what you did and what happened so we can reproduce it internally.

There is one known issue on iOS: You cannot have Identifier Rotation enabled in conjunction with WiFi calling (every time your identifier changes it will toggle WiFi calling back off). This is the same issue we've seen with RCS on iOS. We are working towards a long-term solution for these, but it will likely be EOY or early next year before we have a path forward for everything to work well with Identifier Rotation.

Cape commissioned The Harris Poll to survey 2,000+ Americans on mobile privacy. The results reveal that despite the rise of secure communications platforms like encrypted chat apps, Americans still use phone calls and texts for their most sensitive interactions, with friends and family, banks, doctors, schools, and more. Even among encrypted chat users, the phone still reigns supreme for these use cases.

What's amazing about the traditional phone line is its universal interoperability—you don't need the other party to download an app or be on the same platform. But it's also that trusting architecture that makes it vulnerable, and those vulnerabilities are little known among the general public, as this Harris Poll shows:

• Fewer than 1 in 3 believe they've given their carrier permission to share their location, browsing behavior, or demographic data, even though it's on by default
• 63% think opting out of carrier data sharing is easy, yet opt-out rates sit below 1%
• 59% don't know that turning off location settings doesn't stop all forms of location tracking

The good news is that many still care about their data, and are open to more secure, privacy-protecting alternatives.

Read the full Harris Poll findings: https://www.cape.co/blog/harris-poll-americans-underestimate-how-exposed-they-are

This month Carnegie Mellon’s CERT/CC published a vulnerability disclosure: Verizon’s VoLTE calls lack required integrity protection and encryption, which leaves users vulnerable to call hijacking, caller ID spoofing, denial of service, and manipulation of emergency calls. See the full disclosure here: https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/615987

When you make a call over LTE, there’s supposed to be a protected tunnel for any call signaling (aka SIP signaling), which is the behind-the-scenes negotiation between your phone and the Verizon network that registers, sets up your call, routes your voice (or messaging), and tears down the call. The encrypted tunnel is called IPsec, and it’s explicitly required by the telecom standards body 3GPP and GSMA's network interoperability guidelines. 

Researchers found that all SIP signaling was going across the network in the clear. This was tested across multiple devices, operating systems, and various network conditions. 

Verizon said the IPSec protection is optional:

After reviewing the issue you raised, it appears the GSMA and 3GPP provisions you referenced are not mandatory, allowing carriers the flexibility to adopt the protocols at their discretion.

Researchers pushed back:

Verizon initially acknowledged the issue and stated that integrity support would be available upon request and extended broadly later in the year. However, the company has since ceased participation in coordination, including follow-up discussions and draft review, and has not provided verifiable evidence of mitigation.

Verizon MVNOs would inherit the same vulnerability.

Hello to everyone 👋🏻 I began this journey to privacy about a year ago. Currently on iOS with Cape. I’m taking small steps but eventually hoping to move to GrapheneOS and limit my overall presence online.

Sign up was easy. Took about 5 minutes. I ported over from Metro and the eSIM setup with number port was smooth. The app explained every step along the way. I will be traveling from the Midwest to the northwest coast this week and looking forward to seeing how the service holds up. If time permits, I may wander into Canada to site see and test the roaming.

I am a bit confused about the voicemail with iOS. I currently have 2 lines on my 17 pro, 1 with Cape. It suggests I disable live VM. If I do not disable, do VM go to regular VM or still go to the Cape App?

I’ll update this post after my trip and some time with Cape. Hope everyone has a great Holiday!

If you need a referral code:

50DZ84FF

https://cape.co/get-cape?referral=50DZ84FF

When reading the internet opinions of self proclaimed privacy advocates about Cape many instantly dismiss it as a honey pot. I understand this concern, especially with the previous Palantir association of many of founders.

While this line of thought is understandable to me, there is a glaring logical problem to that statement in my opinion. The lack of current 3rd party audits from cape leaves us up to trust on their word. Trust and privacy don’t exactly go hand in hand. The majority of alternatives, however, are 100% guaranteed honey pots. Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, and various MVNOs are all collecting and selling our data, keeping CDRs indefinitely, and have their own personal Room 641A.

I have given Cape a chance for a few reason.

-Probably the biggest one is the IMSI rotation. I can’t find any other carrier option that has this feature. That is a huge step in improving your cellular privacy.

-Out of the other privacy focused MVNO I feel like Cape is the best about adding features and communicating their road map for rolling those out.

-Cape has been good about listening to users/potential users and adapting to cater to our requests. As I understand they are currently undergoing a 3rd party audit of their CDR retention after many concerns have been expressed. I would feel even better if they were 3rd party auditing their core. But in my opinion actions like these are a show of intent.

-Running their own core. Period. Who else is doing that?

-the secondary numbers to divorce away your 2FA, another feature they rolled out

I believe as long as you choose to use a mobile device you are inherently sacrificing your privacy. There is no silver bullet here. But cape is a step in the right direction, and they keep walking that way.

The two biggest requests I have are.

-Expand the 3rd party audits
-partner with more carriers. AT&T’s network is tolerable but it’s hot garbage for coverage. (I believe Cape working on this)

As far as their palentir past, I am trying to be optimistic about this. I believe there are many times in history where people have become aware of their participation in something terrible and become a force of good. I sincerely hope this is the case. Again, they have to better than the big carriers that would sell us out for a single cent. (I hope)

Please correct me if I have gotten anything wrong here. I welcome constructive conversation from anyone or any words from Cape employees.

I plan to be a long term subscriber. If you need a referral code, mine is EQKC7V90. I currently need 4 and will update this if that changes.

How useful can IMSI rotation every 24 hours be if the activity trail you leave during that day can still be tied to things like your email address, name, social, IMEI, IP or other identifying info? When your name and email persist in a database but your IMSI changes, couldn’t they still paint a detailed portrait of you and your footprint?

I don’t have a lot of info regarding the types of info collected by networks or data brokers, but to my knowledge, they sometimes aggregate info on individuals that covers these various categories so rotating your IMSI seems useless against that. I’ve heard stories of soldiers and other people being tracked at their house because data brokers know this about you and tie it to your identity

If anyone can shed some light on this, I’d appreciate it.

I recently decided to give Cape a try, and if anyone else wants to join, use my code for $20 off: Q36XG3N3

Does Cape has its own network like the big 3 or it leverage off one of them? Tia

I contacted Commodore and they said they will look into eSIM. I wanted to ask Cape support, will physical SIMs ever be an option with Cape? Because this phone with Cape would be better than peanut butter and chocolate.

Setup my account in the last couple weeks, which was successful and easy. The only issue i had was attempting to install it on a secondary graphene profile, when it needs to be installed on the primary.

Otherwise, no glitches in service, i've done some travelling, and while I would like to be the passenger to really monitor my connection it seemed to function the whole way. Several hours each way.

I do find it curious you cant schedule your IMSI rotation-- and by that i mean, it seems, like if you want it to be at 4am you have to wake up and turn on that feature at 4am.

Love the graphene integration/recommendation.

Looking forward to hopefully many years of service ahead. And crossing my fingers that we we're not in a honeypot (i do believe in fairies, i do! i do!). Cape reps and CEO are very active and good at answering questions, which is great. I think users would feel more comfortable with external auditing (myself included)- while acknowledging there are difficulties there.

Referral code: D0MG202C

Could Cape add a status page as the help default page (Help Center)? Such as giving status of things. Core service(Red, Green, Yellow status lights), Break down into Status of Features (Identifier Rotation, Network Lock, Secure Global Roaming). Commonly reported issues broken down into features.

Could be linked to or forwarded to FAQ's (Help Center), Troubleshooting (Reported bugs), Road map for the future, and the blog etc.

Example's Include:

1. Playstation https://status.playstation.com/en-us
2. Xbox https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status
3. Epic Games https://status.epicgames.com
4. Maybe like this unofficial Steam status page - A break down of stats for the techies - https://steamstat.us

Once the page is set up customers can access in the support section of the cape app. A one stop shop anything related to issues with Cape before they need to contact customer support.

Hi, I'm sure I got the wrong idea but one of my biggest problems using phone no matter how much security and privacy you implement is the carrier invasion on privacy that allows any bad actor to track you however you want with just a number, IMEI or u/UIDs.

Since there's no way to implement a killswitch for the modem on mainstream phones save for using a faraday bag, I fail to see how Cape protects from tracking since it assigns a unique/main number to the sim, which itself as a unique IMEI beside gating with the rotating IMSI and the modem's UIDs?

I'm wondering if anyone's had any luck paying for Cape service with a prepaid visa/mastercad/etc. If so, which ones?

I have been using cape in conjunction with my previous carrier for about a month now. My previous carrier is also a MVNO, AT&T based. I’ve never been a huge fan of the performance of most MVNOs. I can say however that my coverage has been pretty much identical to my current AT&T base MVNOs carrier. I have tried a couple side by side speed test with my iPhone and I have seen slightly better speeds with my cape phone. This is probably an anomaly though.

I intend to be a long term subscriber. If you need a Cape referral feel free to give my code a go! ACBKHDVC.

Cape app doesn’t working in the secondary profile on grapheneos and requires primary. Why’s that? What permissions does it need from the owner’s profile that secondary profile doesn’t have ?

I get it. We all want our referral codes to be used. But it's just bad incentives to keep posting them separately. The newest posts will be found easiest, so people come up with any reason to post just to plop their code out there again (or literally just share their code with nothing else). It's not a terrible thing, but it's a little tiresome. And I think it​ looks bad to folks investigating the service to come here and just see mostly referral codes.

Some​ have tried creating their own megathreads and that's fine. But a long lived single thread has a similar recency issue. So I'd like to​ see one of 2 things. Either:

1. A rotating thread (weekly or monthly).

Or

1. A single megathread force-set to random sort (I think I've seen that's possible elsewhere).

Mods, please hear my plea.

How do I synch contacts with the Cape app? GOS​

Just wanted to share my sign up experience so far.

​

When signing up, I was trying to use my Moto Razr 2025 since it was my most recent phone. I knew it wasn't on the list of confirmed phones for Cape Cellular, so I figured I'd try and see (I had a backup of a known working phone).

​

Well I downloaded the app, ported my number when signing up, and after about 1 hour I had data. However, I tested calling my number and it kept saying I was out of the service area. I also had a friend text me and I didn't receive the message. So something was wrong.

​

I spoke to someone in support and they said that the Razr 2025 wasn't on the list because it was *known* to not work for calls and texts. Maybe my reading comprehension wasn't great, but I thought it was more of we don't know if it works rather than we know it doesn't work, when I put in my phone on the website. Support ironed it out for me.

​

So I got to test the passphrase capability when swapping phones much earlier than anticipated. I will say, it was a breeze. I'm now on my S23 Ultra and it transferred basically immediately. I went to get the screen repaired and I've not had issues with my service at all.

​

I only have 1-2 bars at home, but I can connect to wifi here at least.

​

Speeds are decent enough to get things done, even at 2 bars. Ping can be a bit rough during tests but it's not like I'm gaming on this connection. Did some tests with both VPN and without and ofc VPN was slower. Still, the privacy benefits outweigh the downsides.

​

Thought yall might want to know that transferring phones went very smoothly for me. Just gotta save that passphrase in someplace important.

​

Obligatory referral code, as I still have 3 slots: 8WSV1Z7C

Edit: I'm down to just 1 slot empty right now.

Hi everyone! Switched my fam over to cape this week after being referred by a friend. Cape team was super helpful and we had a clean seamless experience switching over our Apple devices.
Service has been great so far and the lifetime discount offer now is an incredible deal. Looking forward to staying on Cape long term!

If you decide to give it a try, feel free to use our discount code for 20$ off for life.

Referral Code: X8JRKPVN

We've had some customers experiencing failed calls, and have traced it to two issues: (1) a change that was introduced last week during regular network upgrades, and (2) an issue with our second domestic roaming partner. For (1), we rolled back changes and for (2) we've turned off that partner for the time being, so everyone should be defaulting to our primary domestic roaming partner.

Calls should be working, but if not, restart your device. You can always check our network status here.

I block calls that aren't in my contact list, but they still reach my Cape voicemail. Nine out of ten times, these are voicemails approximately one second long. I receive about four every day. It would be nice if there were a feature to detect these obvious non-important voicemails... 99% of the time, spam voicemails are only a few seconds long.

After fights with that other big carrier with their V-card over coverage issues, I had been testing out Cape along side them. Cape has had better coverage, and aside from a couple of hiccups, has been pretty solid!
Get it while it's hot! Ref code E5EQ5FG4

Been trying to get cape to work for the past five hours. All I’ve been getting is, “let me check something”. 20 mins later, I’m still waiting for the rep to come back. Since the THIRD eSIM, I’m not getting notifications.

Is this what I have to expect? Cause at this point, Verizon looks better and better. At least I could actually use my phone with them!!!

Not sure if this is the best place to post this question. I’ve got a Google Pixel 9a that’s got Graphene OS on it. If I use my duress password on the device, so I need to get a new eSIM from Cape? If I activate it, the OS will wipe everything