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Lana Turner

Desert Sand

2 hours ago, Grabber5.0 said:

Utah desert

It's beautiful but seeing this makes me sad, if not for CV19 coming into play we had a huge west trip planned that included all the Utah parks save Zion, and we'd be on week 3 of it still right now.  Going to try again in 2 years to let things finally sort/settle hopefully.

Price Gun

Store Sale

Parts Store

Fried Chicken

(/hattip to Robert)

Caught the August security update over the weekend on the G8X.  This is noticeably quicker this time on such compared to the past with LG devices.

Robot Warning

Card Game

Cast Iron

12 hours ago, DurhamHusker said:

Well ... If you're like me and have a CDMA (non VoLTE) device on Sprint, I can still wait around ... But for how long?

That's totally subjective for anyone depending on where they live and what changes/activity to the towers/equipment in your area take place (for better or worse) going forward at what rate of speed.  I did say 'Unless network changes make things so bad you have no choice'.   

I was just speaking in generalities for anyone reading though....I guess my inferred point underneath that is, as long as you can get enough signal and service at 4G level for whatever you absolutely need, and you don't fall into either the categories of (a) both have and are willing to throw surplus money at high end 5G phones and/or (b) also possibly work in the industry and/or are just a wireless tech enthusiast to the point you insist on staying on the bleeding edge and experiencing everything as it happens (obviously its a given for many here they may easily fall into that 2nd category - but that's not me personally), to me there's no compelling intelligent reason to have to go blow much money on a 5G phone still this early.  Outside of 5G phones, my last personal hurdle with phones otherwise was when I could finally get a phone with 128GB of internal storage as standard.  There's so little differential between phones otherwise in terms of my own personal needs that I really have no need to upgrade.

I should give a disclaimer here too, that my approach/perspective, particularly as it relates to 'in the now/present' circumstances, to all this may be a bit unique (or perhaps some might think it unorthodox) compared to many other site members here though.  For one, I've been a part of this community/fellowship for just about 8 years now. I'm a an IT guy in a former (work) life, and thus I do have an interest to a point with all of this stuff, but its been more from a more personal casual perspective and gaining information and insight from that perspective about the network I use and its growth - I'm not one of the elite wireless tech guru members such as Robert, Trip or others that have connections in the industry, or are actively going around mapping cell towers or gathering information about them or equipment changes involving them, and speaking GCI's and other such jargon in their sleep.  I find it interesting and fascinating from a distance to read and learn a bit about, and certainly make use of it if/when it suits me, but I just don't have the same level of dive-in drive (or time availability) that many of the more well established senior members here do, or at least the ones that don't already work in the industry directly (for which I have the utmost respect for all of you that qualify either way here btw, because without you guys, I'd have been at a loss to have learned what I have here - S4GRU has been the most unique forum community I've been a part of in my life by far (and I've been part of many covering various genres and subjects, including even having been a moderator for several years on a nationally-recognized college sports network forum - I'll refrain from stating which however).

At any rate, the above context in mind, and speaking for myself - if my area gets to a point that 5G equipment deployment is more universal and things are more skewed across the board towards better service via 5G connections than 4G/LTE and I'm being hindered somehow whether it be voice or data connections or both not having moved to a more expensive 5G device, that's when I'll start seriously researching my options and probably look for either a new midrange or a used/refurbished version of a higher end model 5G device.  I've for probably nearly 2 years now cut out all payments for 'equipment protection' and instead use a Cap One 360 account to put $10 out of every paycheck into for each device we carry, and let that money just sit and accrue - I don't touch it for anything else (unless a worst case absolute emergency arose that I didn't have the funds for otherwise).  Instead of it going into a vacuum I'll never see again and given in 95% of my phone-owning experience thus far in my life I've never had to employ use of anyway, I then have that money available if either (a) my phone is lost, damaged or destroyed, or (b) I just want to upgrade either mine or my wife's phone for any reason.  But even in scenario (b), I'm frugal when doing so.  And the last time I bought a brand new/newly released phone was the LG G5 in 2016.  

TL;DR response:  If you're an average Joe like me, don't go all-in on the 5G hype train just yet, monitor your regional home situation primarily unless you regularly travel alot, stay abreast to changes on the greater national level as our esteemed (S/T)4GRU membership here roots out over time, and make the best informed decision based on your unique scenario.  There are no 'one-size-fits-all' answers, regardless of which wireless carrier you pay money to.

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

It doesn't have 5G. I wouldn't spend more than $250 on a 4G phone on TMo right now.

Unless you just have that much surplus money to play with or you're so into wireless industry/tech that you always want to be on the bleeding edge, I honestly wouldn't spend more than $250 on a phone period right now anyway even on New T-Mo.  Trying to 'Keep up with the Joneses' these days with wireless devices is a fairly jarring cost dynamic. 

Unless network changes make things so bad you have no choice but to switch phones (or worst case carriers), to me playing the waiting game is a smarter approach for now - see how all the dominoes fall with changes/coverage where you happen to live, and then make a more informed decision on a more robust but economical upgrade path into a 5G device.

Sports Hand

Safety Dance

Safety Pin

....aaaand now its finally working again.  

Appears its happening to many....anyone willing, go to this link on the community and upvote this:

https://support.google.com/voice/thread/54982359?hl=en

The OP started in June but as of today there's been several new posts and the upvotes have jumped from below 20 when I first found it/posted in it to 45 already.

EDIT:  Was notified the above thread was marked as a duplicate issue to this one, and a Platinum Expert at least chimed in on this and confirmed finally that Google is aware/looking into it:

https://support.google.com/voice/thread/66242972

Train Station

I'm trying to make a call from my PC/web session, and suddenly today I can't call out for some reason.  Even if I manually type in a number and then click the lit-up call button, the field just blanks and no call actually engages.  Never experienced this before and it doesn't appear Google has any sort of technical support line you can call about it (or, at least I couldn't find such immediately, they just have their 'community' portal it looks like).