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FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

MMS just doesn't work on Google Voice UNLESS you're on postpaid Sprint (and maybe T-Mobile?). Even then, it's just an e-mail with the picture in it. This only works if you have it set to let Voice notify you via e-mail about missed calls.

Received MMS messages are placed into your gmail account with pictures attached even if you're not on Sprint or T-Mo. I think they're filtered specially, and may not appear as unread in your inbox, but that may be the filters I set up for SMS emails, which I like to archive.

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FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Man_of_Teflon posted:

And yeah, my battery has gone to poo poo too (and also started to erupt out the back - seriously, part of the kevlar is peeling up and away).

:stonk: hey that isn't safe in the least and you should dispose of it asap before it lights on fire or explodes in your pocket.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

Yeah...you need a new phone quickly. Honestly, I'd just pay for a cheap burner phone until October when the G drops. Don't take your chances with a bulging battery.

:v: his current phone will be quite the burner soon enough.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

I must be totally paranoid about my phone, I make sure I have it when getting out of my car, same as I do with my keys and wallet.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Pissingintowind posted:

Anyone want to send me a Cricket referral by PM? Thanks.

I think they only work via email. I don't mind, though.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

Can I ask what the difference is? Is it customer service?

We have friends that use net10 and they weren't too gung-ho about recommending them, although they haven't had any major problems.

With Cricket for 2 lines would it be 45 per line with auto-pay and then 10 bucks off second line = 80/mo??

Sounds almost right. They recently doubled data caps so it goes 1gb@$40/3gb@$50/10gb@$60 or something thereabouts. Discount $10 per line per line (so 10 off your second 20 off your third, etc up to your 5th line) for family discount, so it's 30/40/50 per line if you're doing 2 lines. I don't think autopay stacks with it but I think it applies to your first so it would be 85.

I could be wrong, I only glanced at the family plan description a while back, but I have a single line on cricket and am incredibly happy with everything but the "oh so you stole your phone" stigma that ATT is far too slow in washing away.

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Sep 23, 2014

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

PurpleJesus posted:

I don't think the autopay and family discounts stack. It's one or the other.

Yeah, I went back and double checked it, edited accordingly while you posted :v:

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Lblitzer posted:

I'm really liking the 10gb too, keeps me from having to worry about jumping on wifi. One thing I'm not liking about Cricket is the latency on my iPhone 5. If I've got 2 bars or less it takes FOREVER to get iheartradio or Spotify going if at all. I'm wondering if this is an iPhone thing though.

Sup 10gb buddy :hi5:

The iOS8 update was being downloaded by so many people at my work that they throttled the fuuuuck out of the company wifi as an encouragement for these people to download their several-gigabyte update at home. So I toggled wifi off because it was so hammered that I couldn't even browse webpages on my phone.

Having the 10gb plan also makes it a no-brainer to bump the streaming quality up on Spotify.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene



:sigh: Cricket's pretty good but I'd switch to T-Mobile in a heartbeat if they'd offer service.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

clockworx posted:

My wife is joining Cricket. Anyone want to shoot me a referral?

E: ThermoPhysical has dibs.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

sweart gliwere posted:

Why not just make a separate phone plan referral thread in the coupons forum, and put a big notification in the original post here? There's been tons of "JOINED UNDER YOU" stuff there in the past, and this qualifies perfectly. That takes care of every provider, even though Cricket is the most popular one for referrals right now.

Because it doesn't work that way since they need the email and name of the prospective new account holder and will check the code against that. You can't just generate a code and post it, and nobody probably really wants to post their full name and email in a thread when they could arrange it via PM or whatnot.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Wendigee posted:

My parents really want Verizon

Your parents are sadomasochists.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Radbot posted:

Yeah - you don't need a business, though. Thousands of SlickDealers can confirm that, besides the fact that you can be a legal "Sole Proprietor" with only your SSN. Not that Harbor Mobile even requires that.

Seems like everyone in this thread lives in an area with bad T-Mobile coverage, since I can think of 2-3 T-Mo MVNOs that are consistently cheaper than Cricket. That's too bad. :(

It isn't that their coverage is even that bad in a lot of areas, they just won't let me check out unless I take a new number with some weird area code in the next state over. Even though I have a GV number I would rather just have a local one. Can't even port my current number in, either.

It (402) isn't a trendy hipster area code or anything, it's just a pain to explain why I have the weird number saying I'm in a city a couple hours away. I imagine they'll eventually offer service here and I'll happily switch then.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Adblock is the first thing I check when sites go weird.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene


I think it's got some kind of time out period but it ain't long, a month maybe.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

carb0nex posted:

I've tried twice to redeem my referral code, but it keeps saying the Cricket number I'm entering (which is mine) is not an eligible Cricket number.

How long do I have to wait until I can do the referral? I have full service on my phone.

Are you putting just the 10 digit number in? I get poo poo from forms once in a while because I throw in a leading 1 by habit.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

chocolateTHUNDER posted:

Anybody in this thread have any experience or advice about signal boosters? I love cricket, except when I'm in my basement at home :( there's very little service down there, to the point where texts will sometimes come in an hour late and routinely fail to send. My new Moto G seems to have a much harder time than my old Razr M in this regard.

Anybody got a link to a good one?

Not sure if they require a service contract with the carrier but I think you can get an ATT femtocell for like $200. Boosters/repeaters start at nearly 400 though.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Cricket speeds went to utter poo poo this evening in Omaha too. I typically have zero issue streaming Spotify at extreme quality (and with 10gb of data I give zero fucks) but tonight it can't even keep normal quality from sputtering so bad I think I've blundered into a Fatboy Slim playlist.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

loving hell, it's gone poo poo again in Omaha too. Once again Spotify having more unexpected breaks than the middling-function alcoholics in the telesales department where I work.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

PurpleJesus posted:

I had Republic for a few months and I think it's a cool idea but Sprint was awful here, so when I was away from Wi-Fi, I could barely use data. On Wi-Fi, it was a great experience. Plus I hated having to wait longer for updates. It's something I'd look into again if they used a better network.

This is the issue I have with Ting. If it wasn't for the Sprint stench I would never have left them, but for ~15 more monthly than I typically paid, I could get data that actually loving works when used.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

SouthLAnd posted:

I don't regret opting for the 10GB a month plan. I look to be on track to use about 8 gigs before the next billing cycle. Crickets been real awesome save for those recent couple days where the data went to poo poo. I just could not stream any music or videos those days. I'll certainly be sticking with the pro plan for the foreseeable future.

Same here - Google Music seems to stream at higher bitrates than stuff like Spotify or Pandora or Rdio but with 10gb I can afford to not give a single gently caress, and I like Google's playlist curation a little more.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

God drat it t-mo start taking my money.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Cojawfee posted:

Outside of any city limits, you probably won't have any data with T-Mobile. They are really good if you only stay in a city, really bad if you ever go out of a city.

They also don't offer service nationwide. I could go today and get a SIM and service for the other three big carriers in Omaha without more than maybe 5 minutes drive.

T-Mobile doesn't offer new lines unless I say I'm like 4 hours away in Des Moines. Can't even port my number in and GV isn't yet at a point where my phone's "real" number is wholly irrelevant. Woe is me. :smith:

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

There are multiple Walmarts in Omaha that carry T-Mobile prepaid stuff...except it doesn't actually work that well.

I'd be using my T-Mobile dork plan I signed up for when I visited Vinton, IA but it wouldn't work here.

I haven't set foot in a Walmart in years and don't plan on breaking that streak for weak-signal mobile service :v:. I try their site every once in a while and 68105 is still not "a valid US zip code."

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

I went to the mall in Topeka and told the employee there at their T-Mobile store that we don't get service here. She checked on the computer and showed me that we should but I wasn't the first to say this.

It's weird.

Maybe their higher ups are only paying attention to their shittastic computer instead of doing real manpower to actually check.

I know they also hosed up Vinton too because after a tornado there, the tower got wiped. They went down from HSPA+ to EDGE and have been there for years. T-Mobile claimed they'd fix it but they never have.

Well, we get signal here, as in people with t-mo service won't be high and dry, but we sure as hell can't try purchasing service from zip codes anywhere near here. I lost a number I had had for 5 years (and had it attached to a lot of stuff, back before GV got a lot better) because Net10 decided it would be good to replace it with a number from some city down in Missouri instead of just saying "hey they won't let us port it."

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Lblitzer posted:

This may be because I just installed Lollipop on my Nexus 5 and have yet to fiddle with everything buttttt, is Cricket super slow for anyone else today?

I have noticed a bit of additional latency since the outages (well, data wasn't out per se but it may as well have been, or at least it was basically throttled like I hit the cap) but it hasn't been slow in thoroughput.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Cojawfee posted:

Cricket has been slow. I loaded up a facebook post which should have had a picture but it didn't load. I put my phone done until I got home from work and it loaded sometime in that time frame.

Same, looks like it's getting about 200kbps, which is a loving disgrace. Well maybe not if you're Louie CK but aside from that it's a loving disgrace. It seems like they're trying to make this bullshit the new normal.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

burn-this-bitch-down bad in Omaha, it failed to load any webpages and then gave me an exclamation point over the signal meter instead of the typical "LTE" or "H."

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

It was fine for me in Omaha this morning until midday since Cox was loving up and I was without internet. I even was tethered to my tablet for a while and was still fine with normal speeds.

I was getting those speeds at about 4:00-4:30. Then I went back into a building with WiFi. Driving home it's still poo poo, that's in the past 40 minutes.

E: can't even stream music. gently caress cricket in their slow rear end.

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Dec 4, 2014

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

quote:

Paolo Solis: im afraid they do not have direct contact with customers buddy.

:lol: I'm not your buddy, pal.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Devonaut posted:

So is Cricket like New Coke where it's designed to fail, and people will go back to AT&T and be grateful for it?

That's what it's looking like. Rope people in and make poo poo look good for a while, then lay on the brakes.

In a just world, it ought to be grounds for litigation due to the bait and switch aspect of it (these aren't even decent 2G speeds much less 4G) but the counterargument will just devolve into load balancing, QoS, terms of service, and how it is an LTE signal and not EDGE so it can't possibly be anything other than 4G speed. At these speeds I probably couldn't hit my 10GB cap if I let it download 24/7 for the month.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

:v: I'm fine, I don't know where FAUXTON is in Omaha tho. I haven't had any issues on Cricket so far.

Only really weird issue I had was my data dropping randomly for 2 hours in February when it auto-payed once but it's been fine since then.

I typically have the problems during my mad max nightmare hellride ordeal to/from work (so 7:15-8 AM, 4:15-5 PM most days gently caress you Omaha drivers gently caress you all especially the ones who need to take the ILQ exit from I80), but it's persistent during the drive - it isn't localized as I drive from near UNMC to near Cabela's in La Vista. Doesn't change based on whether I take the interstate but if it's rush hour congestion it should manifest with far more regularity. I tested with the FCC app just before writing this post and it's about 6.5 mb up and 6.5 mb down with 102ms ping and 0 loss. That's at home, so midtown near the hospital.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

ThermoPhysical posted:

That sounds like a shitload of dead zones...maybe there's just a bunch of lovely towers? :v:

Eh, it doesn't seem like dead zones because Spotify and Google Music both end up buffering every 3-5 seconds, as though the speed is uniformly bad instead of just on and off.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Rastor posted:

Ting is going to add support for T-Mobile's network, starting in February.

CDMA and GSM devices will be able to coexist under a single account and will share a single pool of minutes, messages and megabytes. At the end of the billing cycle, they will appear on a single monthly bill.

I will have to check this out. T-Mo's maps make Omaha look pretty decently covered but I still can't sign up for service via t-mobile.com with my zipcode (or any zip code remotely close to me). MVNOs aren't as touchy about that kind of stuff.

It would be loving awesome if they used Sprint as a fallback if the phone supported both (e.g. nexus 5) but that may be too much to ask.

E: to clarify I mean my phone would be on Ting-GSM (T-Mobile) as default but if there's an area with poor GSM coverage it would switch to Ting-CDMA (Sprint). Since they're two wholly different systems I doubt it would be possible with how numbers work and such, but who knows :v:.

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Dec 10, 2014

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Rastor posted:

There are probably too many technical and political barriers to have a single number roaming between the two networks.

But, it might be an interesting science experiment to get a CDMA+Global phone and activate two numbers (CDMA + GSM) with Ting and use Google Voice as your number. I don't know which phones would even qualify for such a crazy experiment because as I understand it the choices are limited by Sprint for MVNO operators.

The issue there is that dual-SIM phones seem to be janky shitboxes, so while you might be able to go with a SIM for each, you have to deal with the kinds of phones that come with MIUI or Cyanogen preinstalled and let's be honest XDA is not where I want to go for support.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Venkmanologist posted:

I cannot loving wait until TMobile gets better coverage in my area.

Venkmanologist posted:

I cannot loving wait until TMobile gets better coverage in my area.

Venkmanologist posted:

I cannot loving wait until TMobile gets better coverage in my area.

Venkmanologist posted:

I cannot loving wait until TMobile gets better coverage in my area.

For me it's both better coverage and them offering service. I still get "please enter a valid US Zip Code" :v:

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

nimper posted:

Where are you trying to enter your zip code?

Upon adding a SIM to the cart. It drops down a box asking me to enter a valid US zip.

Rastor posted:

T-mobile only just recently started rolling out 700MHz service, which has much better coverage than their other bands. If you're in the painted part of the map, the TM coverage situation may be improving for you.



:suicide: nope, not in a painted area.

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Dec 18, 2014

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

nimper posted:

You could order a SIM card from Amazon or somewhere that is not t-mobile.com! They have all the sim starter kits you could ever want.

I did that a while back, it's preventing me from activating when I put my zip in, it's like "oh, so you're from [3 hours from me in perfect driving conditions]?" and I can't port my number.

A new number would be too much of a problem and I've used GV for years.

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

nimper posted:

Can you use literally any other zip code or would that not work either?

Also if you've used GV for years a new number should be no problem, right? It would just be a matter of changing the forwarding phone on the GV website.

I've tried using several zips in various parts of the city and outlying hinterlands. The issue with a new number is that GV is recognized as a VOIP number (and therefore invalid) for verification purposes in a good number of places, and the new number would be located in an area code in some podunk molehill hours away meaning it fucks with location verification.

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Dec 18, 2014

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FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Rastor posted:

No doubt T-Mobile is trying to protect themselves from signing up a customer who would be experiencing poor coverage and/or roaming all the time.

If you're really desperate for T-Mobile, you could always get a private mailbox in a zip code they accept (generally about $10/month), sign up with T-Mobile, port your number, submit a change of address to your house, and then cancel the private mailbox.


Edit: the GoSmart Mobile coverage map should give some idea where the blessed zip codes lie.

Except their coverage map places my home in "excellent" even when zoomed in, it doesn't even drop below "good" until out in the filth-ridden suburbs. The city has good coverage and when my father visits he doesn't even drop below HSPA. It's bizarre that it's considered a nonexistent market despite having demonstrably strong coverage. I'd have to drive an hour out of my way to find 2G, let along roaming or dead air.

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