avb

What's interesting is that Virgin Mobile offers a $55 plan with unlimited data, but no roaming. Framily is $55 for 1GB of data, but you also get roaming thrown in.

 

If I didn't know my family's plan usage to be pretty low, Framily would actually work out very much in my favor, assuming my family converted from Ting. Their phones were all bought contract-free, and I'd fall under the "no extra fee limited time promotion" banner (recall that my contract subsidized a Galaxy S III, not the Nexus 5 that I'm currently using). With five family members, I'd be looking at $35/month per line, plus another $10 or $20 for me, depending on the month. Which ends up at $185-$195 per month, which isn't much more than we're paying now, but with a lot more data per line (the only thing I instruct the rest of the family to be thrifty about).

 

For what it's worth, here's the marginal cost of each added Framily line (since the cost reductions as you add lines can get confusing):

 

1. $55 - one line ($55)
2. $45 - two lines ($50 * 2 - $55)
3. $35 - three lines ($45 * 3 - $50 * 2)
4. $25 - four lines ($40 * 4 - $45 * 3)
5. $15 - five lines ($35 * 5 - $40 * 4)
6. $5 - six lines ($30 * 6 - $35 * 5)
7. -$5 (!) - seven lines ($25 * 7 - $30 * 6)
8. $25 - eight to ten lines

Yes, before taxes and fees seven lines are actually cheaper than six! If you have an existing Sprint phone, anyway.

 

For my next post, I'll compare Framily to the current Unlimited My Way plans.

 

By the way, has anyone heard about tethering on Framily? I assume that for 1GB and 3GB plans Sprint doesn't care. But what's the tethering allotment on the unlimited-data plan? Hopefully Sprint matches and raises T-Mobile and says it's 3GB.

 

 

The advantage Framily has, in my opinion, is phone selection.  Go with Virgin Mobile or Boost, and you're limited to only Virgin and Boost phones.  Go with an MVNO like Ting and you can't use a phone that's less than a year old like the Moto X, Galaxy S4, or HTC One (Sprint does allow the Nexus 5 on byod for MVNO's however).  I don't mind buying phones off contract because I can usually find them on Craigslist for a good price.

 

 

And at least some are speaking enthusiastically of Sprint -- a rarity among the magenta laced tech press.

 

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/07/sprint-just-turned-its-customers-into-recruiters-with-its-unique-spin-on-the-family-plan/

 

Yesterday and today, I discussed with Kevin some T-Mobile highway coverage weaknesses, which happen to be Sprint strengths. So, that may have helped pave the way for a positive article.

 

AJ

 

These plans have me excited.  I used to have 2 lines with Sprint proper, but now only have 1 line and the other I've been mvno and prepaid hopping for the past 8 months or so.  I've used MetroPCS (which is TMobile service), AT&T GoPhone, the other AT&T prepaid subidiary that shall not be mentioned, just to test out service providers in my area, but I wouldn't mind getting a tri-band phone with Sprint again.

I like what I see so far. Better or similar pricing to MVNO's but without the byod restrictions that MVNOs face.

The new Boost/Virgin mobile would be great if Sprint allowed the Nexus 5 or a byod solution.

We should remember that Sprint originally planned to host LightSquared's spectrum as part of Network Vision.

 

With Dish previously trying to acquire Sprint/Clearwire, it is quite possible in the future that Dish will make some sort of network sharing agreement with Sprint. This future catalyst (or at least speculation) is why I continue to hold stock in Sprint.

That was when Sprint was broke and Lightsquared was throwing in money for the network hosting. Now Sprint has money thanks to Softbank and it doesn't appear that Dish is a favorite of Sprint to work with.

Hopefully Sprint can do something similar in their spectrum challenged markets like Houston.  If the AT&T merger with Leap Wireless goes through hopefully they will have to divest some pcs spectrum and Sprint can scoop some up.

For those that are much more knowledgeable than me - will MIMO, bandwidth and carrier aggregation have an adverse impact on battery life?

Now the Chinese government can spy on Japan even faster.

 

We can't talk about other countries spying with the whole NSA thing.

The problem is sprint could finish/expand faster with more Soft money.

 

Throwing out more money doesn't necessarily mean network vision will be completed faster. There's only so many qualified contractors available that are qualified to climb those towers and complete the work. I don't think there's a large supply of those people sitting on the sidelines because no one will pay them. You can't get 9 women together to make a baby in a month.

Is Nokia's Here Maps and Navigation available yet for this phone and other non Nokia Windows phones? Same question for the ESPN fantasy football app - this was a Nokia exclusive last year.

 

I'm currently using a Windows Phone, and I like it because its great at the basics for a smartphone (texting, web browsing). It doesn't have all the apps like Android and iPhone, but as long as fantasy football is available that's all that matters.

Does anyone know if Boost, Virgin, and all of those other Sprint mvno's update PRLs when Sprint proper updates their's?  I'd imagine of course Sprint subscribers would get priority on a loaded tower, but I'm curious if these mvno's will pick up the SMR band when it's available.

 

 

Look at the monthly pricing between Sprint and T-Mobile now for 2 smartphones with unlimited data + insurance.

Sprint: $172.00 monthly + 398 (phones @199) = $4526 over 24 months

T-Mobile: $182 monthly + $20 (sim card x 2)     = $4388 over 24 months

T-Mobile with upgrades every 6 months! $186 monthly + $20 (sim card x 2)     = $4484 over 24 months

 

 

Don't you have to put a down payment everytime you buy/trade in your phone with T-Mobile's jump program?  So over a 24 month period, if you buy 2 new phones 4 times (once every 6 months), that's $200 (2 phones) x 4 = $800 extra that you add to T-Mobile if you want the latest and greatest.  T-Mobile's is better if you bring in your own phone, or if you hold off on purchasing a new phone (esssentially NOT taking advantage of early upgrades). 

 

I do agree with you that I don't want to sign contracts any more.  When one of my Sprint lines came off contract recently, I bought a Nokia 920 that I unlocked so I can try other carriers.  I'm currently using Metro PCS at the moment with that line, which is essentially T-Mobile's service but at a cheaper price.

The problem with stock messenging apps is lack of group text message (at least until Android 4.2 I believe).  iPhone and Windows Phone has group messenging built in, and on Android I had to use Handcent or GoSms for that functionality.

Via TUAW's article on Apple's relationship (or lack thereof) with China Mobile:

 

 

We'll know for sure in 26 days, but it's fun to think about the iPhone 5S/5C being true global smartphones, capable of running on multiple bands -- and especially fun to think about the possibility of a tri-band device for us to play with on the new Sprint Network.

 

I know with some Verizon phones you can swap sim cards.  My brother has a Verizon HTC Droid DNA which can roam internationally, and it can also take AT&T and Tmobile sim cards here in the US (although when I messed around with it, Tmobile only received 2g while AT&T had 3g but no LTE).  Hopefully Sprint will allow sim card swapping in the future.

Right! I've never heard of such a thing. Are there really a significant number of low self-esteem having people that have the need to use their cell phone carrier (of all things) as a social status booster? 

 

I have a confession - I kinda wanted to try Cricket Wireless when one of my Sprint lines came off contract a few months ago, but I didn't want to tell people I have a Cricket phone.  Cricket has LTE here in Houston, the rate plans are priced right, they have the Galaxy S4, etc.  Even if I don't tell them I have a Cricket phone, what if I miss a call and the voicemail message is "The Cricket customer you are trying to reach ....  .... ...".

 

Should I do something to boost my self esteem so this doesn't bother me?

they do

 

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sprint-phones-are-now-welcome-on-Boost-and-Virgin-Mobile_id40537

 

They don't have byod like their mvnos.  You can bring in old Android phones like the HTC Hero or Samsung Moment but not anything recent.  With Ting and some of the others you can bring in pretty much any Spring phone that has a clean esn.  Here's Boost's byod list:  http://www.boostmobile.com/support/faq/#!/activate-sprint-phone

I wish Sprint would let Boost have a byod program like some of their mvnos. At $55/month with shrinking payments I wouldn't mind buying a phone out right.

Also that's the international Exynos version, not the US Snapdragon version that Sprint uses.

I received an email from a source that says Sprint/Clearwire (Sprintwire?) are turning on TD-LTE 2600 today in a few markets over the legacy Clearwire network. He specifically named LA, NYC and Tampa. But there are others too. If I find out the other markets, I'll let you know. But there will probably be a press release soon. Time to get those triband hotspots! Where's the triband smartphones? Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

I'm surprised Houston isn't one of their launch cities as it's a large market that Sprint is spectrum challenged and Clear already has a sizeable network (for them).  Oh well, hopefully by the time the tri band phones are out Houston will be up and running and I can try it out for myself.

Too bad Sprint isn't planning LTE-A carrier aggregation across it's 800-, 1900- and 2500 MHz bands

 

News from 7/15: Sprint/Clearwire is "on track to have 5,000 TD-LTE sites on air by the end of December."[/size]

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-adds-clearwires-25-ghz-band-lte-coverage-area/2013-07-15

 

If I recall correctly, Sprint's plan is to put 2.5 Ghz on each of it's 38,000 or so towers. If so, the "5000 by 12/31/13" figure would seem to indicate a slow pace. 38k total towers - 5k done = 33k remaining. 33k towers / 12 months = 2750k/month needed to meet it's total network build-out goal by the end of 2014.

Where did you hear that? I thought the plan was LTE on 99% of Sprint's towers, but that's on Sprint's G block. Clearwire's spectrum would be deployed in high traffic hot spot areas (think near ball parks and stadiums).

Its hard to get activity going on a new stock like this. I mean, who would elect to get stock instead of cash and then immediately sell it the next day? The price has to be surging for that. Otherwise, people who decided to get stock were mostly long haul investors.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Yep that's true.  I work for a brokerage firm, and a few clients had Sprint stock.  They've watched their stock tank after the Nextel merger, so while the cash premium was nice it was still a huge loss.  They elected for shares in the new Sprint instead.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/12/us-att-leap-idUSBRE96B10520130712

 

 

I would have liked to have seen Sprint purchase Cricket.  In markets like Houston where Sprint could use more PCS spectrum this would have been a good fit. 

As you can see, it looks like an internal TMO site. The "permanent" link is:

 

http://t-mobile-coverage.t-mobile.com/#150million4glte

Click:

Check latest 4G LTE cities

 

They're advertising that they are faster than AT&T LTE as well.  Doesn't TMO run 5x5 in some markets?

Battery life on LTE phones starting from the Galaxy S3 and Evo LTE were very good, better than EVDO for me.  One thing about the Wimax phones were the Wimax baseband chips were a separate chip on the phone, so when you turned Wimax on you had to turn on that separate chip, which means more battery drain.

 

As far as signal strength - yes that has a large impact on battery life.  The stronger the signal the less power your phone has to use to transmit a signal back to the tower.

And again, I know that but it's the same concept: they use a virtual machine. Do you understand what a virtual machine is?

 

No, I don't expect assembly language and I never said that; I said C++ several times.

C++ is also higher level and Android would still provide a framework like on windows: Qt, MFC, WPF, etc.

But a framework is different from a VM - assuming the framework is native code - and a framework doesn't introduce anywhere near the overhead that a VM does.

 

 

Yes I agree. But if Android apps were native vs VM-based, they'd be way faster . . . because of the Dalvik virtual machine.

Which android apps are too slow?  I said earlier you only gave one example - the speedtest app.  And no I didn't ask the Ookla developers anything about the app.  I mentioned they use different backgrounds/graphics as well - do I need to ask them if that's because of Dalvik?

 

Is the Android browser too slow?  It performs just as well as IOS.  Same as 3d games.  The extra ram and processing power is because the Android OS has a lot more going on with the multitasking.  Dalvik is used to run apps, but I don't see apps suffering because of performance issues.

Why does "how many phones there are" imply that you have to use Java?

They all use ARM, MIPS or x86 so you compile your app three times and submit it to the app store.

 

Again - it does NOT use Java, it uses Dalvik.  And again - what architecture do you propose they use?  Do you expect low level machine language to get maximum performance out of every single app?  Dalvik is higher level to make it easier for compatibility across multiple hardware combinations.  Apple doesn't use low level machine language either - apps are developed using objective C.  It's easier to get max performance when you only have to focus on one hardware spec.  Same way consoles can match 3d game performance out of higher specced computers.