2025

Since the launch of the new Calyx Sprout BYOD membership, we tested four popular devices requested by our members and community partners, especially the RV Mobile Internet Resource Center. In this article, we would like to share some insights from our test in the hope it will inform your decision in choosing the best devices for your unique cases.

To compare the real-world performance of the tested wireless access points that work with our BYOD SIMs, our team performed regular speed tests simultaneously in different locations and repeated the test several times across a span of days. Each speed test collected data using multiple distinct speed testing tools provided by OONI and the Measurement Lab (M-Lab), including the DASH Streaming Test that emulated a video streaming experience and NDT Speed Test that measured network speed and performance. We gave each tested device a score on user experience based on the following criteria:

• Easy to navigate: Is the navigation intuitive? How clear is the information architecture?
• Easy initial configuration: How deep is the learning curve to get onboard with the device for everyday users?
• Clarity: Is the visual design straightforward? Are there unnecessarily confusing or distracting commands and buttons?
• Visual consistency: Does the user interface use uniform colors, fonts, and styles?
• Functional consistency: Do similar actions yield similar results across the user interface?

Highlights and snapshot of our tests

Our tests demonstrated that all four devices work seamlessly with our BYOD SIMs. Specifically:

• All the devices we tested returned good performance
• Among tested devices, GL.iNET GL-X3000 Spitz AX (Spitz) was the best and most powerful in terms of user experience and speed performance
• From our limited location sampling, performance is consistent across devices

Please note, the above charts demonstrated the then-current data during our test. Subsequent results are subject to any change in the operations by T-Mobile, the upstream provider of the Calyx Internet Membership program. Besides, the area, terrain, network traffic, and weather of each specific device can also play a contributing factor. We cannot guarantee that our members will see the same results and speeds as we have seen in these initial tests. We share these results not to demonstrate that there is one best wireless access point for our BYOD SIMs, but instead to demonstrate that these SIMs will work with a wide variety of wireless access points – many more than we’ve been able to test so far. The best hardware setup for you is highly dependent on your specific use case, location, and other individual factors.

As always, we recommend that you use a reliable VPN and privacy-respecting browsers and tools—such as Tor Browser and DuckDuckGo search engine—to maximize the protection of your online privacy. With that in mind, we plan to do additional rounds of testing to evaluate the advanced features of these hotspots, including the native VPN support and other privacy-focused features. Stay tuned for our future test results.

A detailed breakdown of our conclusion by devices

 

 

 

We are sharing an important update regarding the recent change to the server infrastructure at Calyx Institute to ensure transparency and respond to emerging questions and concerns on personal data stored at Calyx. Please continue reading for details about the change and how it affects your data.

Update in Calyx data infrastructure

In July, Calyx experienced an outage of our storage infrastructure, which caused our member portal to be down for approximately 12 hours and greatly affected several key projects. This is not the first time this has happened, and our internal data infrastructure has been undergoing reconstructions for more than a year. This outage made it a matter of urgency to keep our work running while conducting a full data infrastructure audit and redesign.

To conduct an urgent fix, the affected projects were migrated to the Vultr cloud to ensure project stability and resilience. This includes our member portal and database. Here you can find information about Vultr's note on data encryption, their privacy policy, and their approach to data protection in Trust and privacy section of Vultr Trust Center.

For the same reason, we have switched to Proton as our primary email provider, and are in the process of transitioning our email server for the member helpdesk to Proton. This means future emails from us to our members, including this one, will be sent from a Proton SMTP server. Here is Proton's privacy policy and their explanation of how email encryption works within and outside Proton.

How does this affect our members?

This operational update will not change any member status and services. Member login credentials stay the same. The integrity of our members' personal data is our main priority and we will continue improve our infrastructure to secure data privacy. Calyx does not, and will not have access to any payment information if you have been using credit card or cryptocurrency for your contribution, as all of the transactions are and will remain being handled by PayPal and NOWpayment. As a reminder, you can login to your member portal any time to delete your shipping information if you are not waiting for shipment from us.

Looking ahead

We always strive to do our best to keep our members apprised of changes, and to take efforts to enhance organizational transparency.

As part of this effort, we are reviewing our privacy policy and are currently in the process of a thorough update. Please stay tuned for our updates.

After months of diligent work with all of the applicants for the 2025 Sepal Fund, we are thrilled to announce the stellar list of our current recipients, including: Library Freedom Project (LFP), CryptoHarlem, Abya Yala Network, and Open Archive. To share more exciting news, LFP, CryptoHarlem, Abya Yala Network, and Open Archive will join us at the Global Gathering 2025 event in Portugal between September 8-10. We look forward to the precious opportunity to connect with everyone in person and further expand the community for internet freedom. Here is a brief introduction to each of these grantees:

As we explained in the Calyx granting philosophy, our effort focuses on supporting organizations with limited resources to unleash their potential and grow, through community building, eliminating barriers with minimized restrictions, and a culture of reciprocity. With this in mind, we were able to provide single-year discretionary funding to the Sepal Fund finalists alongside the selection of the Sepal Fund grant recipients. This group is comprised of the Center for Intimacy Justice, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), the De|Center, and Convocation Research + Design. While we have closed funding applications for the 2025 cycle, we aim to continue refining and evolving our granting strategies in the future.

If you would like to meet us and the stellar folks at LFP, CryptoHarlem, Abya Yala Network, and Open Archive, come to the Calyx booth throughout Global Gathering! See you there!

Nicholas Merrill, president and founder of Calyx Institute, has left the organization to pursue other projects. Nick has championed privacy and data security over the last 25 years, and we thank Nick for his decades-long leadership, guidance, and contributions.

As Nick charts the next chapter of his career, Calyx Institute’s Interim Executive Director Ellen McDermott will continue to lead the organization’s important work.

We remain fully committed to our mission to defend digital privacy, advance connectivity, and strive for a future where everyone has access to the resources and tools they need to remain securely connected. Our work will continue to grow an alternative FOSS digital ecosystem centering on CalyxOS, offer hands-on tools for people to access the internet easily wherever they are, and support internet freedom through grantmaking, research, education, and community capacity building.

We have temporarily paused signups for our CalyxOS Privacy Champion membership during the hiatus in CalyxOS update releases as our CalyxOS team revamps internal workflows to ensure security best practices. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this temporary adjustment.

Current CalyxOS memberships and phones will not be affected by this change. Read our letter to the community about updates on CalyxOS, how they impact CalyxOS users, and our planned steps. Please stay tuned to our website and social media for more updates as they become available. Thanks for bearing with us, and for all your support!

We are currently facing technical difficulties in processing cryptocurrency contributions. While we are working to resolve the issue, cryptocurrency contributions are currently down on the website. We will be providing updates as soon as we have more to share, and we appreciate you bearing with us. Please stay tuned to our website and social media for more updates.

UPDATE: We have extended the deadline to switch from an active hotspot membership to a Sprout membership through December 31, 2025.

Over the past few years, we have frequently heard from Calyx Internet Members that they would like a 'bring your own device (BYOD)' option. Achieving this goal has taken a lot of coordination between Calyx and our partners, Mobile Citizen and T-Mobile, but we have finally arrived. We are excited to announce the launch of our new Sprout membership level! Sprout members will be able to use their own devices that are compatible with a Calyx SIM for unlimited internet data during their membership. Choosing your own device opens the door to options far beyond the range of hotspots we have been able to offer. You can pick a device that meets your particular budget, needs, and concerns. For example, you can get a device designed specifically for a RV lifestyle with advanced capabilities like external antenna ports, built-in ethernet ports, easy-to-use native VPN functionality, and more. To check if your device is compatible, you can enter your device IMEI number in this lookup provided by T-mobile.

As always, we want to make sure all Calyx Internet members have the option to adjust their membership to their needs. From now through December 2025, if you want to switch your current Contributor, Contributor Plus, or Sustainer level to the Sprout level for the remainder of your active membership, you can take the following steps:

1. verify if your device is compatible with the Sprout SIM.
2. log in to your account
3. click Devices on the lefthand menu
4. click Order Replacement Device to order a BYOD SIM (no contribution needed)
5. click Sprout SIM to select that as your internet membership premium
6. click Submit Order to finalize
7. click Profile on the lefthand menu
8. Update the Mailing Address to where you want the SIM card to ship to

This will ensure that you get the Sprout SIM card. If you run into any issues in the process, please contact us at help[at]calyxinstitute[dot]org.

Have more questions about the new Sprout membership and what it means to "Bring Your Own Device"? Please check out our Sprout membership FAQs.

Sign-ups for the Contributor Plus membership level are currently unavailable while we evaluate our current device selection and work on cultivating new membership levels like the Bring Your Own Device membership, which we plan to launch soon. Our apologies for any inconvenience! If you are not sure which of our current membership levels is right for you, please refer to our Membership Levels guide or reach out to our Membership team by email at help @ calyxinstitute.org.

GRANTING UPDATE:
Application has been closed. Applicants will be notified of funding decisions via email in April 2025. Find out more about this program on the grant page.

The Calyx Institute started providing small grants in 2020; seeds of hope to nourish individuals, small organizations, and collectives contributing to free and open-source software (FOSS) technologies and internet freedom. With the launch of our new initiative, the Sepal Fund, Calyx aims to reach even more people in our ecosystem, connecting them not only with financial resources, but with others doing complementary work.

Technologies are not built and distributed evenly. Platforms and their metaphorical enclosed gardens, built by tech giants, constantly reshape how we access communications, information, and knowledge. Government mass surveillance programs and invasive commercial data tracking profit from valuable personal data, leaving individual people subject to regular threats of data breach and abuse.

At the Calyx Institute, we envision a future where everyone has access to the resources and tools they need to remain securely connected. That means supporting a privacy-respecting digital ecosystem fueled by FOSS, and communities working to protect and advance internet freedom and human rights. More importantly, we are committed to making sure the global majority and under-resourced people can equally afford and enjoy digital technologies without impediment, fear or hesitation.

Women and identity-diverse groups should be able to opt out from data tracking and profiling, by their phone makers and service providers, that could put them in danger. Residents in rural areas of America should be able to stay connected and engage meaningfully in the digital world. Survivors of natural disasters and crises should be able to contact their loved ones, despite infrastructural damage. Journalists and activists should be able to make safe, secure, and private communications to do their work. None of these are possible if we live in a one-dimensional, for-profit tech world. Sustaining and advancing an alternative tech future with an ecosystem of FOSS tools is more critical than ever. People's lives depend on it.

As we’ve reflected on the past four years of grantmaking experiences, along with the lived experiences of many on staff, Calyx’s philosophy on grantmaking has taken shape, encompassing the following principles:

• Community building. Too often, individuals, projects and organizations receiving funding from a shared funder are kept in silos from one another. By the nature of FOSS development, we understand how generative and necessary cross-pollination and collaboration is for sustainability. Undertaking the deep work of networking and community building among past, present and future Calyx grant recipients is core to our funding philosophy.
• Multi-Year commitment. Sustaining a tool is much more challenging than creating a tool, especially for less resourced projects and groups. More often than not, the funds needed to sustain a project, tool or program developed through seed funding is hard or impossible to come by. As a result, many innovative and game-changing ideas are left without care, leaving initial funding wasted and leading to reinventing the wheel. The newly launched Sepal Fund aims to change that pattern, by providing continuous funding for three consecutive years, thereby allowing for maintenance and planning.
• Unrestricted funding. Small organizations and collectives do not have the capacity to equip themselves with expertise in administration and operational work. Restricted grants without holistic support could disproportionately cost them energy and resources, leaving the core programmatic work hindered or even discarded, diminishing the effect of the funding. Calyx provides unrestricted funding to allow for projects and organizations to self-determine how resources would best serve their work.
• Eliminating barriers. Grant applications can often be burdensome and overly complex to small teams and projects. Calyx has streamlined and standardized our grant application to eliminate barriers in applying for much needed funding for small-but-mighty projects.
• Reciprocity. Too often, grant recipients are made to feel like supplicants, benefiting from the generosity of the grant makers. At Calyx, we believe that grant makers receive as much as grant recipients from the funding relationship.
• Sharing results. Calyx aims to compile and publish our learnings from the Sepal Fund pilot (2025-2027), so as to share knowledge and power across our digital privacy ecosystem.

We hope the Sepal Fund effort will sprout more growth in the whole ecosystem of FOSS technologies, and help to pollinate enlightenment across privacy and security advocates, internet freedom supporters, digital educators, and everyone for a privately, freely, and securely connected future.

Starting today, our CalyxOS Privacy Champion membership will come with the Pixel 8a as a membership premium! CalyxOS phone memberships are a great way to restore privacy for your mobile experience, as well as support our nonprofit mission to develop and distribute free online privacy tools. Plus, they make great gifts! To sign up or learn more, simply visit our member page.

As a new CalyxOS Privacy Champion, you will get a Pixel 8a pre-installed with CalyxOS as a thank-you gift. This Android operating system comes with default privacy-protecting settings, highly customizable control over personal data, and a full bundle of privacy-and-security-first apps.

The contribution required for this membership starts at $700 for the first year of membership. All of the contributions will go directly to maintaining and improving our tools to protect privacy and connectivity for everyone. If you would like to extend your support, please renew your membership with a $10 annual contribution after the first year.

With CalyxOS, you can make encrypted backups for your phone, secure communications with your contacts, control when and how your apps access the network, and more. We’re excited to pair these advances in our operating system with the Pixel 8a's improved hardware features, including Google's improved Tensor G3 chipset, which provides a significant upgrade in performance and processing speed from the Tensor G2 chipset in the Pixel 7a. CalyxOS will provide device support for this model at least through 2031, which means you can keep your phone for years without worrying about planned obsolescence or diminished performance. The 8a also features a long-lasting battery, a larger OLED display, smoother 120Hz refresh rate, and an aluminum frame with Gorilla Glass 3 upfront. Questions? You can get more details here.

Want to make your CalyxOS phone membership even more convenient? Combine it with our unlimited Wi-Fi hotspot membership! Our CalyxOS phone memberships comes without any Wi-Fi or data benefits, and can be used with any mobile data carrier.

Thank you for your membership and support,
The Calyx Institute