441–450 of 608 posts
"Project Fi has partnered with Sprint and T-Mobile, two of the leading carriers in the US, to launch our service." Lolz. That's some definition of leading I haven't heard before.
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A carrier in germany has to build 26 times less towers than a carrier in the US, because germany is more than 26 times smaller than the US. I would think the increased expenditure of 26 times more towers would increase the cost of plans. Europe also never had the culture of carrier subsidized phones, and so were never accustomed to paying more in monthly fees in exchange for low to no cost upgrades of hardware. Tethe…
> Europe also never had the culture of carrier subsidized phones, and so were never accustomed to paying more in monthly fees in exchange for low to no cost upgrades of hardware. I live in the Netherlands and subsidized phones are the norm here, don't think other countries are that different.
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Is $10/GB and $0.2/min normal within the US? I'm not familiar with American (non-roaming) pricing. For comparison: In Germany I have an LTE data plan for my tablet where I pay €24.99 for 7.5GB (~$3.57/GB), the lowest plan being €6.99 for 1GB (~$7.50/GB). Unlimited calls in Germany including 1GB data would cost me €19.99/month (~$21.48) at the same provider and unlimited text in Germany would be an additional €4.99/mo…
Roaming is almost non-existent in the US now among the four major networks. Not sure if you mean domestic or international though. I pay about $65 / month with AT&T, for unlimited talk & text, and 5gb of LTE data (10gb shared on a two person family plan). That includes the cost of the device.
I always hear Americans say they have unlimited talk and text. Is this really the most popular option or do most plans just include it by default? Might explain why American mobile plans always sound so incredibly expensive to me (i.e. "pay for what you use" a la Ting is actually a disruptive idea in that market because everybody overpays by default).
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I have Sprint and I live in Alameda Ca - and work in SOMA in SF - It is hands down the worst cellular carrier in the bay area with respect to LTE coverage and speed: 1. They have been claiming they are building new towers for the last THREE years. 2. No coverage AT ALL in any bart tunnel 3. No coverage fully across the bay bridge 4. Spotty coverage in SOMA 5. Google hangouts is utterly useless on mobile 6. three huge…
But that's the whole point of Google Fi. They partnered with Sprint and T-Mobile. When your in Alameda and Sprint sucks, Google puts you on T-Mobile's network, and you get better data + coverage. When you head to the rural Midwest, and T-Mobile has EDGE or no service at all, Google can put you back on Sprint LTE and it's at least better than EDGE on T-Mobile. If this works the way they describe, then you win in both…
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Look at the name. I think their goal is that most of the time when you're out and about, you're connected to Wi-Fi. I think the cellular partners are a crutch to get them there. If they manage that, you'll wind up paying a lot less than with T-Mobile.
I usually don't have wifi while I am out and about, most stores at least require you to hit accept on their terms and conditions before you can actually connect. Maybe if they showed wifi hotspots on their coverage map I could get behind this idea.
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What I don't get is, what's in this for Sprint and T-Mobile? Currently a user of their network is a customer they "own" -- they deal with that customer directly. Now they have Google sitting between them and the user, which effectively commoditizes their service; Google could switch them out for another network down the road without the user ever knowing or caring. That's great for Google, and probably also great for…
Google is charging a significant markup over T-Mobile's existing rates ($30/month for 5Gb vs $70/month through Gooogle.) So Fi is really only interesting for people doing significant international roaming.
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Roaming is almost non-existent in the US now among the four major networks. Not sure if you mean domestic or international though. I pay about $65 / month with AT&T, for unlimited talk & text, and 5gb of LTE data (10gb shared on a two person family plan). That includes the cost of the device.
What is domestic roaming? I guess you mean state-to-state within the US? I wouldn't have thought that that would have ever been a thing (at least not after domestic long distance calls stopped being a thing). I always hear Americans say they have unlimited talk and text. Is this really the most popular option or do most plans just include it by default? Might explain why American mobile plans always sound so incredib…
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I am on T-Mobile and travelled outside the US late last year. First off, I just want to say, the "free tier" of international data is extremely appreciated for two important reasons: - Overage is literally impossible (i.e. no "bill shock"). - If you don't wish to pay, you get "something" for nothing. So, now, the "bad." The reality is that T-Mobile's free tier is incredibly slow like "my 56K modem was faster than thi…
Where did you travel to? When we went to France, I got great speeds (almost 3G-ish) roaming on several providers there (IIRC, SFR and Bouygues) in all sorts of locations, including very remote ones. In the end, we paid $40 (all for calls @ $0.20/min) for 3 weeks of near-normal usage with 2 iPhones. To me that's very much a game changer - previously I paid double that same amount as an accidentally access charge (forg…
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Is $10/GB and $0.2/min normal within the US? I'm not familiar with American (non-roaming) pricing. For comparison: In Germany I have an LTE data plan for my tablet where I pay €24.99 for 7.5GB (~$3.57/GB), the lowest plan being €6.99 for 1GB (~$7.50/GB). Unlimited calls in Germany including 1GB data would cost me €19.99/month (~$21.48) at the same provider and unlimited text in Germany would be an additional €4.99/mo…
A carrier in germany has to build 26 times less towers than a carrier in the US, because germany is more than 26 times smaller than the US. I would think the increased expenditure of 26 times more towers would increase the cost of plans. Europe also never had the culture of carrier subsidized phones, and so were never accustomed to paying more in monthly fees in exchange for low to no cost upgrades of hardware. Tethe…
That's an interesting attempt to justify the price, but it completely fails to take into account that simply calculating area is nowhere near accurate for the number of towers - it depends on where people live. Fortunately people live close together, so towers don't need to cover every square inch of the country.
If you look up the number of towers, you'll find that the US has roughly 120,000 mobile base stations, while the UK has 23,000. (Despite the fact that the UK is ~30 time smaller than the US). So your argument does not hold.
On another note, I'll never understand how people think that you get "low to no cost upgrades" of hardware. You don't. You're literally paying _more_ to upgrade your phone/get a new phone in the long run, than just buying one outright. The reason you can buy an iPhone for 99 USD is because you'll be paying ~27 USD "extra" for the next 2 years, which is exactly the same as if you had just spent 600 outright and saved that amount (or even more, 99% of the time) over the next 2 years. There's no "subsidization" going on, if anything, you're subsidizing the company.