Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple SIM

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 185 posts

Re: Apple SIM

#131

Post by arcticbull »

wil421 wrote: post #112
digi_owl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more i learn about US telecom, the more i wonder how the hell they managed to invent both the landline and mobile phone. Their infrastructure sounds like a balkanized mess...

Not really a fair assessment. The 4 larger mobile providers are spilt between GSM and CDMA in the past CDMA phones wouldn’t work abroad, except maybe China. You would even have to buy a CDMA version of the iPhone. The big 4 just buy up all competitors and usually one tries to buy one of the others. Geographically the US is much more expansive than the EU and more robust. I would not compare infrastructure I would com…

CDMA is winding up in the US also as all providers move off to LTE leaving their legacy infrastructure to die off at scheduled EoL.

Re: Apple SIM

#132

Post by spiralpolitik »

wil421 wrote: post #112
digi_owl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more i learn about US telecom, the more i wonder how the hell they managed to invent both the landline and mobile phone. Their infrastructure sounds like a balkanized mess...

Not really a fair assessment. The 4 larger mobile providers are spilt between GSM and CDMA in the past CDMA phones wouldn’t work abroad, except maybe China. You would even have to buy a CDMA version of the iPhone. The big 4 just buy up all competitors and usually one tries to buy one of the others. Geographically the US is much more expansive than the EU and more robust. I would not compare infrastructure I would com…

Regulation was the key difference. The EU mandated a common wireless standard (GSM) to be in use across all countries. The US let the market decide and ended up building 4-5 largely incompatible semi-nationwide networks.

Thankfully time, technology, and consolidation has now reduced that down to 2 (CDMA/LTE - Verizon, Sprint, GSM/LTE, AT&T, T-Mobile). LTE will eventually consolidate that down to 1.

Re: Apple SIM

#133

Post by chrisballinger »

alphakappa wrote: post #127
cosmie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have T-Mobile's Simple Choice plan, and while I haven't flown too much internationally, the few times I have, my service has worked seamlessly. My plan includes 4G coverage in Mexico and Canada, and 2G coverage in 100+ other markets (with the option to upgrade for 3G and 4G rates in those markets). Looking at [1] it appears the current plans may not offer this for free anymore, but it's still available. [1] https:/…

While T-Mobile has 2G coverage for no additional charge outside of US/Mexico, in practice it's not very usable due to the extremely slow speeds. After trying to painfully use maps with that data plan, I had to switch to a regular 3G data plan so I could get on with being a tourist.

The “One Plus” plan has unlimited international 256 kbps LTE and is juuuuust fast enough to get by. The low latency of LTE is helpful to make it feel a lot faster than a 2G connection of similar speed.

Re: Apple SIM

#134

Post by vel0city »

swiley wrote: post #57
blhack wrote: post #53

I've always wished that apple would offer this in the macbook pros. A laptop that doesn't have to tether, but just carries its own internet connection with it would be really nice.

I know many thinkpads have an empty bay with a minipci connector that you can put modems in which do just that. I don't know why things like that aren't popular, I guess it looks "ugly?"

Many Thinkpads have LTE modems from the factory, with a SIM tray on the side. It is not even just a Thinkpad thing, many manufacturers of enterprise laptops ship plenty of devices with SIM card slots. I've had HPs and Dells come with GSM modems since 3G was a shiny new thing. It is not that its ugly, it is probably not something most consumers have demanded, so they haven't bothered including. Or, the OEMs use it as a differentiator from their consumer tier devices to their enterprise devices.

Re: Apple SIM

#135

Post by gsich »

exikyut wrote: post #125
gsich wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First telephone was invented by an Italian (Antonio Meucci). Probably the best landline system was/is in Germany. The ISDN was a complete digital system beginning from the 80s, having features that are not present in current mobile technologies. Calling was almost instant, probably only matched with VoLTE or SIP in local networks. Deutsche Telekom tried very hard to adapt most of the ISDN features to SIP.

What do you mean by "calling was almost instant"?

You dial a number. The other party will start ringing.

Re: Apple SIM

#136

Post by tracker1 »

Unfortunately, when I go on road trips (mostly western US), there are a LOT of areas that only Verizon seems to have coverage. I've used most of the other carriers at one time or another, but I've been with Verizon for about 2 years now as I just got tired of not having connectivity when traveling inside the country.

Re: Apple SIM

#137

Post by rsync »

scrollaway wrote: post #58
mvid wrote: post #31

I'm surprised Apple has created a proper Fi competitor yet. It would fit so well into their premium brand of "your iPhone works the moment you step off the plane wherever your amazing life takes you". They wouldn't have their UX tied to cell providers, who are some of the most unpleasant entities to interact with. They would probably be able to lean further into their personal security stance, by fully obfuscating th…

> It would fit so well into their premium brand of "your iPhone works the moment you step off the plane wherever your amazing life takes you". If there's anything that would make me buy an iPhone, this is it. I travel a lot between the US and Europe; I'm using Fi at the moment even though I shouldn't actually have access to it. It's mind boggling to me the crazy things we can do with tech today, and not make it all w…

"I travel a lot between the US and Europe; I'm using Fi at the moment even though I shouldn't actually have access to it."

Would you elaborate ?

I am currently traveling in Europe and used the "Orange Holiday Europe" travel SIM which appears to do everything I need it to (tethering, calls to anywhere, etc.) and it "just worked" when I landed.

What alternatives to this would be worth looking into ?

Re: Apple SIM

#138

Post by rsync »

untog wrote: post #32
Jtsummers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's Project Fi does work in iPhones (if they're unlocked) when you travel internationally. It's not quite as effective as using a Nexus (now Pixel) device (they switch between carriers more effectively, they're designed to), but it does work. Can get you down to one SIM if you don't mind not having a local-to-the-country phone number. EDIT: To qualify this, it's more useful if your primary country is the US.

> if you don't mind not having a local-to-the-country phone number This is actually one of my big pain points with SIM-juggling while travelling. iMessage would work great, except for the fact that Apple unregisters your US number and registers your new SIM number in its place. Which makes total sense on a technical level, but is irritating in practise.

"This is actually one of my big pain points with SIM-juggling while travelling. iMessage would work great, except for the fact that Apple unregisters your US number and registers your new SIM number in its place."

I use twilio for this. I picked a nice, easy to remember twilio number in my preferred area code and I inserted a very simple "twiml bin" that will forward that number to a number of my choosing.

So now, I can use any old SIM I like (at home or while traveling) and I just need to edit the call forward rule.

I am also able to do nice things like not have voicemail. With US carriers, you can either have voicemail, or have a confusing message about "customer has not yet set up voicemail" ... instead, my number simply rings forever...

One tip: If you want to call people with the caller-ID of your twilio number, regardless of your SIM number, you need to use a VOIP dialer (there are excellent ones) and set up a SIP endpoint at twilio (five minutes). Your outbound calls will go through the SIP endpoint and a line of code or two sets your caller ID to your twilio number.

Re: Apple SIM

#139

Post by torstenvl »

untog wrote: post #41
oarsinsync wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My slightly expensive hack-around is to have a second travel iPhone, and tether my primary phone to that when I travel. I used to swap SIM cards around so that my primary SIM ended up in my travel phone, and my region-specific SIM ended up in my primary phone, but ultimately that became more hassle than it was worth, and tethering was a less painful solution with the prevalence of wifi everywhere in most places I vis…

I wonder if anyone on HN can recommend a cheap-ish tethering device? That had occurred to me before - some little hotspot thing I can throw a SIM card into. Maybe annoying to keep charged, though.

Yeah, these are extremely common in the military. You get a "puck" (hotspot box), install a SIM for Kuwait or Iraq or wherever, and then you've got Wi-Fi Calling, iMessage, etc. on your U.S. phone and U.S. number.

I have a TP-Link M7350 from my last deployment. Don't think it works on Verizon bands in the U.S. though.

Here's the one I had in Iraq: https://m.imgur.com/a/4FD9h

Re: Apple SIM

#140

Post by nordify »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #96
dzhiurgis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10 buys you unlimited LTE in like half europe. If you can actually get these plans using Apple SIM - it’d be order of magnitude cheaper.

I've used Travel SIMs in the past simply because although they're more expensive, at least they work and I know I'll probably have coverage. Trying to figure out how to get a prepaid plan with a good amount of data that'll work everywhere in Europe isn't easy. Then there's issues about recharging the plan, and many of them don't accept foreign CCs, so you need to be in the country you purchased it in to buy a voucher…

Finland has unlimited (without the quotation marks) data on prepaid SIMs from all carriers. Usually for about 1€ per day or 20€ per month. Depending on the plan it will also include unlimited texts and talk.
Post reply on HN