| Mike DePaulo on 10 Nov 2015 14:17:18 -0800 |
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| Re: [PLUG] OT: Unlocked Cell Phones |
An extremely deep canyon ... now that is a use case for mobile phones I hadn't thought of. I personally would love to see Femtocells spread throughout the Grand Canyon. Hurray for over-engineered solutions! -Mike On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 9:20 AM, K.S. Bhaskar <bhaskar@bhaskars.com> wrote: > Thanks, Mike. You are right. > > I guess in my travels I have sometimes found myself in places where 2G was > all I could get, and so I tend to focus on that, and treat anything better > than 2G as a bonus. > > Although not mundane to the topic, I will share an anecdote about a place in > the continental US with no cell coverage. Some years ago, I was on vacation > in the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with no cell coverage. I had turned on > my BlackBerry in the morning to check, and found no signal. Then I forgot to > turn it off when taking a half day mule-back trip into the canyon. On my > return, I found it had downloaded a couple days' worth of e-mails. > > Regards > -- Bhaskar > > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 6:56 AM, Mike DePaulo <mikedep333@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Hi Bhaskar, >> >> That is very good advice for feature phones. However, those 4 bands >> are the 2G bands. >> >> Over the last 5 years or so, I have found that nearly every smartphone >> supports all 4 bands for 2G. Definitely all new smartphones worth $150 >> USD+ nowadays support all 4 bands for 2G. >> >> It's the bands for 3G (HSPA) and 3.5G (HSPA+) where your $150 to $300 >> smartphone is likely to not support all the bands. There are 5 >> commonly used international bands instead of 4. Some of them overlap >> with the 2G bands. >> >> And in terms of 4G (LTE), there are even more bands. >> >> If all you care about is making and receiving calls, sending and >> receiving text messages, doing emails (either plaintext or html with >> little to no images) and doing web browsing (with little images), then >> 2G service will suffice. You can send and receive texts with Google >> Voice also; because GV texts are merely tiny amounts of data. I am >> speaking from experience using a 3.5G android phone (Motorola Moto G >> 1st gen) with only 2G service abroad. >> >> -Mike >> >> On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:21 PM, K.S. Bhaskar <bhaskar@bhaskars.com> wrote: >> > If you plan to travel, make sure that you get not just a GSM phone but a >> > quad band GSM phone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands). >> > >> > Regards >> > -- Bhaskar >> > >> > On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> I'm planning to replace my smartphone, and I want to get one that is >> >> unlocked. >> >> >> >> AS far as I know the only potential pitfalls to purchasing my own >> >> unlocked >> >> phone are compatibility with the 2 competing network standards, and a >> >> potential lack of warranty for some unlocked phones (at least, for the >> >> android >> >> ones sold by Amazon) >> >> >> >> >> >> Are there other issues I should be aware of before spending $300 - $500 >> >> for a >> >> new phone? >> >> -- >> >> Casey Bralla >> >> >> >> Chief Nerd in Residence >> >> The NerdWorld Organisation >> >> >> >> >> >> ___________________________________________________________________________ >> >> Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- >> >> http://www.phillylinux.org >> >> Announcements - >> >> http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce >> >> General Discussion -- >> >> http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > ___________________________________________________________________________ >> > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- >> > http://www.phillylinux.org >> > Announcements - >> > http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce >> > General Discussion -- >> > http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug >> > >> >> ___________________________________________________________________________ >> Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- >> http://www.phillylinux.org >> Announcements - >> http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce >> General Discussion -- >> http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > > > > ___________________________________________________________________________ > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org > Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce > General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug