Cell Phone Question
Mark Anderson
useful. I'm on the pay as you go plan with PagePlus that uses the
Verizon network. It's a pretty good deal for me since I don't use the
phone that much and have found myself mostly texting. I absolutely hate
talking on the cell phone. I'm so used to the clarity of the land line
that the constant drop offs and voice quality makes it intolerable to
someone like me who doesn't like to talk on the phone to begin with.
Everyone I know just texts me which is fine.
My question for the chi.gurus here is with the signal strength.
Sometimes in my kitchen I get 5 or 6 bars but during the peak hours
during the day I mostly only get 1 bar. One bar makes voice calls
impossible but I still can send and receive texts which is fine with me.
I am wondering why there is so much variation. Could it be because I'm
on the cheap low rent plan and that Verizon downgrades me during peak
hours or is this SOP for people with the regular expensive contract plans?
kenji
Mark Anderson <m...@nospambrandylion.com> wrote:
> PagePlus
it's prolly your equipment
Dod you know if you have an ipod itouch there's a texting app that you
can send and recieve texts for free?
Also looks like page plus is 30 bucks a month.
Cricket is 25 a month for talk all you want and text all you want plan,
with no contract.
Bruce Esquibel
> My question for the chi.gurus here is with the signal strength.
> Sometimes in my kitchen I get 5 or 6 bars but during the peak hours
> during the day I mostly only get 1 bar. One bar makes voice calls
> impossible but I still can send and receive texts which is fine with me.
> I am wondering why there is so much variation. Could it be because I'm
> on the cheap low rent plan and that Verizon downgrades me during peak
> hours or is this SOP for people with the regular expensive contract plans?
First off let me say that my knowledge of the current state of wireless
phone service is limited to what I gleem off tv shows like Law and Order and
Gordon Ramsays Hells Kitchen, but I think you answered your question with
"during peak hours".
As far as I know what package you are on is meaningless, same for the phone,
usually the pay-as-you-go models only have basic functions (talk, text and
maybe a primitive web feature) but the guts aren't that much different from
high end models. Most pay-as-you-go models can be put on standard service
and I really doubt there is a "work better" flag set in it if you do that.
The likely answer is none of the carriers (at&t/verizon/sprint) have systems
that can really handle all the calls with consistant quality. I'd guess as
things start to peak (people going home at rush hour), they probably are
trying to fit 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag and your observation with
the bars is the result.
But I wouldn't put any confidence into those bars anyway. In the early days
it was just "in-service" and "not-in-service". I think they were added as a
pacifier of sorts and is somewhat meaningless unless there are no bars at
all. Ask anyone with a satellite receiver (dish/direct) or one of those
government cheese converters for the digital tv signals. Some have a field
strength meter and the results are nearly worthless. One guy could have a
reading of 92 and getting a choppy/broken up picture and someone else with a
reading of 70 is crystal clear.
In the words of Jack McCoy, "don't worry about it".
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Mark Anderson
> Also looks like page plus is 30 bucks a month.
>
> Cricket is 25 a month for talk all you want and text all you want plan,
> with no contract.
I don't use the phone enough to pay a monthly fee. I just buy the
minutes. So far I've only used $15 worth of credit in almost 2 months
and I've been doing quite a few texts.
What network is Cricket on. I've been told that, in general, the more an
outfit advertises the worse the service will be. The pageplus plan is
tax free. What kind of taxes does Cricket tack on?
Mark Anderson
> But I wouldn't put any confidence into those bars anyway. In the early
> days it was just "in-service" and "not-in-service". I think they were
> added as a pacifier of sorts and is somewhat meaningless unless there
> are no bars at all.
Between one and three bars I can make a call but the connection is so
terrible that neither person can hear each other. That doesn't sound too
useful to me. Over 4 bars the phone works better. So I think with this
phone and this network, the bars do kind of tell you whether or not you
should make a call because if the call connects you get dinged for the
minute regardless if neither side understands each other. That's why I
prefer text. Plus I don't necessarily like talking to people.
kenji
Mark Anderson <m...@nospambrandylion.com> wrote:
sorry too many questions.
they have a website that's easy to use
I did a 5 second look at page plus and immediately saw a 50 dollar phone
and 30 bucks a month service then clicked away from their presentation.
If you are getting what you need for 7 dollars a month that sounds
wonderful
Chicago Paddling-Fishing
It's been years since I worked on cell switches but at that time nothing paid
attention to your class of service. You were either a customer with service or
not (if your phone had been disabled you could no longer place calls. I can't
say for sure if things still work that way, but at the time, the goal was
simply speed of connection and handoff between cells as you were moving
(constantly tracking your signal strength between the cell your on and the
nearby cells...) What might be happening is during peak times the cell closest
to you has too much traffic on it so you roll to a nearby cell that is close
but not close enough for you to get the signal strength you need...
--
John Nelson
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Chicago Area Paddling/Fishing Page
http://www.chicagopaddling.org http://www.chicagofishing.org
(A Non-Commercial Web Site: No Sponsors, No Paid Ads and Nothing to Sell)
Bruce Esquibel
> Dod you know if you have an ipod itouch there's a texting app that you
> can send and recieve texts for free?
That's a pretty retarded suggestion.
Those text/sms apps only work if they are in the foreground running and then
you have the problem of keeping the ipod on wifi if you leave the house.
Even if you are home bound most of the time, you need to initiate the first
message so that code number is sent.
Besides them being a novelty, the only useful purpose would be if a kid had
his cell phone taken away by his parents or something along those lines.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Bruce Esquibel
> It's been years since I worked on cell switches but at that time nothing paid
> attention to your class of service. You were either a customer with service or
> not (if your phone had been disabled you could no longer place calls. I can't
> say for sure if things still work that way, but at the time, the goal was
> simply speed of connection and handoff between cells as you were moving
> (constantly tracking your signal strength between the cell your on and the
> nearby cells...) What might be happening is during peak times the cell closest
> to you has too much traffic on it so you roll to a nearby cell that is close
> but not close enough for you to get the signal strength you need...
It also could be the design of the phone after thinking about it.
I have the pay-as-you-go from t-mobile but what I did was to get a phone
that I knew had a simm chip in it. I had a moto v3 razor, unlocked and I
think the one that came with the service was some cheapo samsung.
Anyway I remember when I first brought the samsung home, in the garage which
has that silver papered walls and aluminum overhead door, that phone worked.
Even today, if I'm in there with the moto and the door is down, there isn't
any service.
The other thing to keep in mind, I think the bars only represent the phone
seeing the closest tower. Pretty sure it has no bearing on if you can hit
the tower reliably.
The only thing with Andersons service is after looking at the website for
them, I didn't see anything with coverage maps. Keep in mind that $25
cricket service kenji banters about has a reduced service area over the $30
cricket service. Probably doesn't matter if you stay in or near the city but
just saying there is likely a difference.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
kenji
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
i dunno about retarded but when I'm in the house or anywhere with
wifi(it's a touch not and iphone) I tap an icon, get the app, tap a
message, hit send, and it's done. On my phone being that I have a phone
phone and not a pullout qwerty keyboard in my rugged hands I fumble
around looking at
123
456
789
0
and type a message in like 17 minutes
on the ipod I just type shit and hit send
I text people in the house instead of yelling three floors up when I'm
wondering where my fucken bourbon is.
call me a late pay luddite moron
Bruce Esquibel
> call me a late pay luddite moron
The fucking point is, unlike you, most people would like to receive messages
besides sending them.
Those ipod apps are next to worthless for that. Unless the app is running
they don't receive and store messages even if the device is on but something
else is running.
Even a $30 throw away phone does better than that.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
kenji
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
you sure about that?
What's it called? "push" or soemthing like that?
If I'm listening to music or in my browser on the ipod when I get a text
a little thingie shows up and says a text is available even though I'm
not using the text app. Same thing happens with my AP news app. I get
"alerts" from AP. they even show up when no apps are running.
textplus 2.0
kenji
kenji <ke...@ripco.com> wrote:
just tested. I get text messages when the textplus app isn't open as
alerts that tells me to open textplus