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Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

charge.co

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Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#71

Post by icelancer »

stanleydrew wrote: post #39
maximsch2 wrote: post #17

Price is not competitive with T-Mobile 5GB @ $30/mo plan. I guess the only interesting use case is for low-bandwidth use on data-only plan just to get a device connected.

That $30 T-Mobile plan is the plan I used to have before I started the company. I actually found that I was using way less data than I thought. Just looking at my Charge dashboard, for the last week (which wasn't atypical), I used ~120MB. Doesn't matter how many GBs are in your plan, if you don't use them, the price per GB is still high.

Pretty sure 120 MB/week is atypical for tech nerds. I have the T-Mobile $30/mo plan and reach the cap every other month, and have to renew early to get LTE speeds. And I'm on WiFi at home and work.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#72

Post by blisterpeanuts »

anotherevan wrote: post #59
rsync wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's sort of workable ... EDIT: ok, actually not so much - if you are out of coverage area and your phone rings zero times and goes right to voicemail (that's how it works with carriers in the US) then the caller calls you and goes right to silence, and presumably they retry 1-2-3x and get frustrated ... not even sure this is the right number, etc. Whereas if the phone just rang and rang and rang, at least it w…

This was the message on my voice mail before I had switched to a carrier that made it easy to turn it off (that wasn't the reason I switched, that was a nice surprise): --- Hi, this is Evan. I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt. So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number. Feel…

My solution was to switch to Google Voice for voicemail (on T-Mobile) which transcribes the recording into a passable text message.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#75

Post by icelancer »

jessriedel wrote: post #41
maximsch2 wrote: post #17

Price is not competitive with T-Mobile 5GB @ $30/mo plan. I guess the only interesting use case is for low-bandwidth use on data-only plan just to get a device connected.

That's a recurring monthly fee rather than pay-as-you-go never-expire data. Apples and oranges. It's quite competitive if you look at the comparable T-Mobile plan: $10/GB that lasts for 1 week, or $5/500MB for 1 day. http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/pay-as-you-go

For people who use at least 2 GB/month it's far better.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#77

Post by andrewpi »

funkaster wrote: post #68
maximsch2 wrote: post #17

Price is not competitive with T-Mobile 5GB @ $30/mo plan. I guess the only interesting use case is for low-bandwidth use on data-only plan just to get a device connected.

Even less if you consider free international roaming and the fact that most streaming media sites (Netflix, YouTube, etc) don't count against data. Not sure if that's the $30/mo on T-Mobile though, could be contract but for similar price.

The $30 plan doesn't come with free international roaming.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#78

Post by rsync »

stanleydrew wrote: post #37
rsync wrote: post #11

Can I have no voicemail ? That's a feature I really want and it's not easy to do. If you configure a mobile phone line without voicemail, it will not just ring and ring and ring (as I hoped it would) - instead, the caller gets a message that "the number you have dialed is not accepting calls at this time" ... or some other message (depending on the carrier) that makes it sound like you don't pay your phonebill or som…

Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed. We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now that I think about it.

"Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you."

Yes, but what happens when you disable voicemail ?

ATT wireless can disable vm for me, it just results in weird behavior that confuses people...

If I disable voicemail on Charge, and am out of coverage area (or have phone turned off) what does the caller experience ?

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#79

Post by kordless »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #47
stanleydrew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed. We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now that I think about it.

And this is how you run a company, everyone please take note. User feedback is actually seriously considered and responded to in an acceptable manner.

That's not scalable when it tries to sell to everyone, however.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#80

Post by dimino »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #43
rfrey wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... takes offence at being called a geek ... calls out the company for using Go instead of Erlang Just sayin'. :)

Yeah I'm a nerd or a geek, if that means I'm interested in programming and IT. But if you ask Google for some definitions, it still tells you: nerd: a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious. geek: an unfashionable or socially inept person. And it's also kind of patronizing. I don't know, something about it just doesn't sit right with me.

This is a you thing. Nerds are cool now, the battle you're trying to fight is over.
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