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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

#121

Post by exolymph »

joshbaptiste wrote: post #32
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…

To get rid of VM notifications, I recorded 2 minute+ of silence as my VM greeting, zero VMs after that.

My voicemail message is "Please hang up and email me" -- this unfortunately has not dissuaded as many people as I hoped.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#122

Post by mjrpes »

goda90 wrote: post #20

I'd like to see cell plans targeted at remote "Internet of Things" usage. Say you have some sensor that you want to transmit X bytes back to the server every hour. Instead of paying for a bulk set of gigabytes you pay for the bandwidth and frequency you use the network.

I hope this happens too. The MVMO Ting is closest I have seen to this. $6/mo each device and data/voice/SMS usage is pooled.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#123

Post by Figs »

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.

I'm on the $30 plan and hit the cap every single month because I'm using it as my home internet. I absolutely refuse to do business with AT&T -- the only cable provider to my apartment complex. I can't imagine I'm the only person in this situation, and wish I had a better option, such as a fixed rate (i.e. X bits/second transfer cap) to the local cell tower at this one location that I actually use data regularly rather than a fixed number of GB per month over wherever they have coverage.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#124

Post by vinay427 »

icelancer wrote: post #71
stanleydrew wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps it is atypical, though I spend a lot of time on my phone and don't go through more than 1 GB/month because almost all of my browsing involves text and images, with videos usually only while I am indoors (generally over WiFi).

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#125

Post by nickmccann »

niij wrote: post #107

If I signup for the data only plan ($3/mo) and purchase 1GB ($13) of data; does that data expire? For example, if I want to use only 100MB/mo could I pay $3/mo for 10 months with a single 1GB data purchase at the beginning to cover all 10 months?

https://charge.co/data-only

About midway down the page it says: "Your data never expires, so stock up!"

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#126

Post by LeoPanthera »

tuxracer wrote: post #102
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…

I have t-mobile and just called up support and asked them to disable voicemail. My phone does just ring and ring without any weird messages to the caller. Maybe other phone companies are different but if you have t-mobile just call them up and ask them to turn it off. Very quick and easy.

What happens if your phone is off?

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#127

Post by vinay427 »

advertising wrote: post #94
LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

Free (or, no premium) international roaming and wi-fi calling on T-Mobile are now essential features for me. One thing I've always wished for was for my phone to have a routable IP address and not be behind NAT. A&A offers this in the UK: http://aaisp.net/telecoms-mobile-data.html

I've enjoyed that for awhile now as well with T-Mobile. Except being in Japan more frequently as of late, the 2g speeds for free are great for essentials (messaging, maps, email) but damn I'd love a better package for LTE speeds that isn't like $50 for 200mb or whatever it is. Maybe I just need to do more research.

I was looking up the T-Mobile international roaming high-speed upgrade pricing for my own use so I might as well post it here:

Single-day pass: $15 for 100MB

7 day-pass: $25 for 200MB

14-day pass: $50 for 500MB

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#128

Post by CodeWriter23 »

rsync wrote: post #78
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.

"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 ?

I'm thinking the reason you can't get the feature you want is because some engineers who designed the call setup for cell networks decided keeping the phone's battery from dying as a result of excessive ringing is a nice feature. I'm with you though, I hate voice mail. So does my mom. She recorded her outgoing message to politely say she never checks v/m and to text or email.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#129

Post by niccaluim »

16th_hop wrote: post #117
sandworm101 wrote: post #116

Ok, yes. I clicked on the OP's "your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com" link. I was wonder how it would react to my using OpenDNS. Good joke. Not the results I was expecting.

I think something is up with the site, see URL of the Rickroll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ#sup_Charge,_got_...

Someone just registered the domain today as, I suspect, a practical joke:

   Domain Name: YOUR-CARRIER-IS-HIJACKING-DNS.COM
   Registrar: GOOGLE INC.
   Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 895
   Whois Server: whois.rrpproxy.net
   Referral URL: http://domains.google.com
   Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C1.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
   Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C2.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
   Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C3.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
   Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C4.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
   Status: ok https://icann.org/epp#ok
   Updated Date: 22-may-2016
   Creation Date: 22-may-2016
   Expiration Date: 22-may-2017
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