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cletus

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Everything posted by cletus

  1. Premium just adds like 10GB of storage and video upload and sharing, etc. I still don't get the point of FamilyWall but I think they originally billed it as a private social network in your family.. which is weird.
  2. I'll be coming in from Ontario, CA and then driving in. Easier than driving from LAX. Really? Cool! I'll check it out when I am there. If I remember right there was a cell tower near the Salvation Army off of Ridgecrest Blvd if my memory is correct.
  3. I do work relating to radar test equipment so i'll be there at the China Lake test ranges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Weapons_Station_China_Lake It is a fun place really just two hours+ from anywhere like most of these places.
  4. The government loves it's rural places unfortunately. I'll still have service via my AT&T work phone but my company is ridiculous about restricting data usage on cellphone lines. Here is hoping the hotel has decent wifi (it won't).
  5. Not sure where I should post this so I will ask here: I'll be in Ridgecrest, CA this week and the coverage map shows off network roaming only BUT I could have SWORN when I was there years ago I had 3g coverage off a tower there. All I could find on s4gru was that it had a wimax protection site at one point. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4-wimax-protection-site-operation-confirmation/?p=13 (Do wimax protection sites only broadcast wimax and no CDMA?) Shot in the dark but if anyone knows anything that would be helpful.
  6. Well, yes and no. It runs on the same physical network to your home and this differs slightly from comcast on demand in that rather than being delivered over another software network Steam TV is then transported exactly the same as internet traffic but using a different flow which I have not found enough information on how this would be different, if at all, from other internet traffic. So far this sounds like they are not using a separate physical network or the TV side of things and they they are using your internet channels. BUT the only reason for this flagging is to discern it to be exempt from data caps.I mean, basically I see this as them admitting that they are using the existing physical network set aside for internet and their "additional bandwidth flow" is just packet identified traffic that is exempt.
  7. All this net neutrality stuff is NOTHING compared to Comcast's "Stream TV" which exempts services through comcast from data caps.. if you sign up for stream TV. http://bgr.com/2015/12/01/comcast-streaming-tv-service-net-neutrality/ "For $15 per month, users get access to standard live TV content from ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS, Univision and HBO, as well as on demand video content. And as Comcast confirmed to the media when it announced the service, Stream TV content does not count against data caps for users in any of the 27 markets that now have 300GB caps." Thanks T-Mobile for paving the way to successfully fucking up the internet
  8. OnePlus refunded my cables since they were found to be noncompliant. They didn't refund the shipping charge but I am okay with that because they didn't make me ship the cables back.
  9. I think you meant to reply to me? It all comes down to usage and location: Browsing reddit on dark mode uses very little battery and for days where I am at home/working from home my cell signal and wifi are both excellent. If I am at work in the back lab area all day it takes at LEAST an hour off my screen on time for the day.
  10. Pretty typical day for me. Only odd thing is I believe there is still a bug in these battery stats as Twitch.tv usage is not being calculated correctly which may explain the high android OS/Android System.
  11. Free case for the Alcatel tablet. You heard it here first folks.
  12. A knock on the do', who is it?I would happen to know, the one with the flow Verizon in the Rollz and Sprint's in the bill Cutt Supreme 4G down old Nat, high speed low ping I split ya stream, as matter' fact I split ya bill No 3G in the town, gotta stay high on Rootmetric still Sprint has more towers, Tmobile looks and glowers Not eligible for TMO advertised promo showers What a terrible butchering of that noble song
  13. Sounds like they saw more people going to Sprint due to the half off promo and wanted to take a few back from Sprint. TBH if you are on a family plan with 5 or 6 people this could really add up especially if they pay etfs and stuff. Meanwhile Verizon and AT&T will continue to give pretty much no fucks about the #3 and #4 carriers and continue to post record numbers.
  14. Yeah that comment was in regards to TV resolution. I am sure it is acceptable/adequate for a 5" screen/tablet. I wasn't arguing that at all. However, the difference between 480p and 720p/1080p is pretty noticeable when watching streaming video on my TV when I tried it this morning with Youtube. Even 720p is roughly 3 times the pixels shown compared to 480p with 1080p a bit over 6 times the pixels shown. I totally get that 480p is DVD quality but that "480p quality" can vary quite a bit depending on codecs used. Noticeably for black areas on the screen. I don't think I am being elitist or anything when I point out that all my normal TV channels are at least 1080i and I haven't bought a DVD for nearly 9 years now! I had to actually go look up when Blu-Ray came out and was surprised how long ago it was. To me the jump from DVD-> Blu-Ray was a bigger difference than VHS->DVD. I can't remember the last time I streamed Netflix in non 1080p+ actually. My point is that I am not sure such a step backwards in quality would be worth it for me to consider dropping unlimited if I was on the Tmobile $85 plan or to use the Tmobile service as a home internet replacement like a few people are suggesting. My original skepticism stands as I am not convinced 480p is sufficient in the modern age of tv viewing.
  15. Very true. The only question left is if 480p netflix is sufficient for tv viewing. I am guessing it wouldn't be good enough and would bother most people to watch on a screen larger than a tablet.
  16. Well, Think about it this way: If someone on unlimited sees this and goes "Oh! I can save money and still watch Netflix the same amount!" They will use LESS bandwidth than they are currently using. I am not saying many people will give up unlimited but.. some very well might. In your example of using a hotspot: An unlimited user can ALREADY do this and besides, 3-4 people running 480p netflix streams might not even hit the same bandwidth a single unlimited user on high quality settings might be pulling. The difference is larger if you are comparing 3-4 high quality streams vs 3-4 480p streams.
  17. I've been thinking about BingeOn some more this morning and I will bet it is a net win for Tmobile over all it's customer base. Basically, if you know how much bandwidth services use you can see it might work out. Netflix has 3 settings I am aware of: Low @ .3GB/hr, Medium @.7GB/Hr, High @ up to 3 GB/hr. Netflix has actually like 7? different resolution settings but these are the rates it advertises. Youtube (not yet included) 480p uses roughly 400MB/hr and 720p uses slightly more than twice that at 800-900MB/hr while 1080p is like 1.4 GB/hr You'll notice the huge bandwidth hog, Twitch (720p @ ~1.3GB/hr or higher) is absent and this is also probably because it isn't cached content. I'll bet they get those bandwidth rates slightly lower with the expectation that mobile users might not notice the slightly degraded quality because, hey, it is "free". All in all I don't think this is necessarily a huge HUGE deal. It may cause more strain on the network if their bet that people won't double their usage doesn't pan out but on the whole I bet truly unlimited users @720p or 1080p (roughly triple the bandwidth) are much bigger strains on the network.
  18. If they truly value the long term outlook they should just bite the bullet and go private like Dell.
  19. So it all depends on your use case, really. With the loyalty credit etc leasing is really quite attractive. For your example there are definitely downsides such as for your current phones: Your wife's S3 has only band 25 LTE access so she is missing on on b26 for building penetration and b41 for speed. Your current phone DOES have b41 but doesn't have carrier aggregation. Depending on the market, no CA isn't necessarily a big deal. So, lets compare iPhone and Note costs with 2 scenarios: 2 Years Lets say you want an iPhone 6s. Leasing: $15/mo. (or even less with loyalty credit) over 2 years you would pay $360. Buying: $27.09/mo over 2 years you would pay $650.16 and own the phone. But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the iphone 6s value now vs the 5s value (to approximate the value of a 2 yr old iPhone that you will have) on Swappa it goes for ~$160 - $180 for a 16 GB model. So in this example you are down $110 in terms of net cost to you with the higher estimate ($650 - $360 - $180). Okay so what about 3 years? 3 Years Leasing: $15/mo. (or even less with loyalty credit) over 2 years you would pay $360. But for the sake of fairness lets use the $22/mo non promo price for the 3rd year which is another $264 for a total of $624 Buying: $27.09/mo over 2 years you would pay $650.16 and own the phone. But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the iphone 6s value now vs the 5 value (to approximate the value of a 3 yr old iPhone that you will have) on Swappa it goes for ~$125 for a 16 GB model. So in this example you are up ~$100 in terms of net cost to you ($650 - 624- $125). For a Note device that might be a harder choice. 2 Years Lets say you want a Note 5. Leasing: $25/mo. 2 years you would pay $600 Buying: $30.80/mo over 2 years you would pay $739.18 and own the phone. But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the Note 5 value now vs the Note 3 value on Swappa it goes for ~$170. So in this example you are up ~$30 ($739.18- $600 - $170). Okay so what about 3 years? 3 Years Lets say you want a Note 5. Leasing: $25/mo. 3 years you would pay $900 Buying: $30.80/mo over 3 years you would pay $739.18 and own the phone. But how much will that phone be worth? Well, lets compare the Note 5 value now vs the Note 2 value on Swappa it goes for ~$115 So in this example you are up a whopping $275 ($739.18- $900- $115). The differentiation here is if you add in the loyalty credit to these calculations it comes $120 less for each year of lease which is extremely compelling seeing as even in the best case, 3 year old Note example you would STILL be ahead leasing and have a newer phone. The real money saver would be to buy 1 year or 2 year old used phones every year and then resell them. You might have a total cost of only $75 or so/year. It all depends how important having a new phone is to you. To my wife, having a new iPhone yearly was an easy choice. For myself I buy Nexus phones every 2 years and thus far the net cost to me has been fantastic.
  20. It does not affect customers. I am sure you will still send/receive devices from Sprint. The process of providing new phones to Sprint and receiving lease returns (after they are shipped to Sprint) will be handled by this new company but we, as customers, will interface with Sprint.
  21. The moto x pure does support b41 CA: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-389-teaser-hello-moto-x/
  22. Previous Project Fi or Google devices (Nexus 6 and Nexus 5) had Band 41 support but not Carrier Aggregation (LTE+?) support. Easy to get them confused with the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5x which both do support and have CA enabled right out of the box.
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