Random Chit Chat

[BK_123]

Jeeze that's outrageous. I'll stick to my little LG pay as you go phone. Or better yet my government subsidized phone is free. 280 free anywhere minutes per month. If I didn't need the LG for the job I wouldn't have a cell phone.

It sure is, I am renting my 4S though so its not so bad.

 

[XPikachu]

In New Zealand they cost 670-750 for the iPhone 5, which is just foul.

 

[BK_123]

iPhone 4 is now being sold for $429AUD on prepaid.

 

[root]

That phone is quite old and pretty worthless now. But high end phones commonly run $600-700 if they aren't subsidized by your carrier.

that's the same most places, including the UK, the point is that your contract charge is generally higher than a pay as you go tariff because it pays for the phone as well.
it's a weird thing to get your head around that you don't actually own your phone.

But when you paid £50 for the handset on contract. You effectively only borrow the handset. the network covered the additional £450 of that £500 iphone to secure your custom.

so in the UK, you get a choice.
get a not locked phone for £500 (non-smartphones are a lot cheaper) and get a pay as you go sim card, or a sim only contract deal for around £10 - £15 per month.

get a locked phone, for around £50 - £100, and a contract charged at £20 - big money depending on what sort of benefits you want...

when I last upgraded my handset I found that I could get the iphone 4s, on contract for 18 months for £32 a month, (which 200 minutes of calls, unlimited text messages and 500 MB download data...) and the handset costs £90 (total cost over 18 months £666)

or I could get similar amounts of phone utilisation for £10 a month, but, I would need to buy a phone up front.
phone cost = £500, £10 contract charge for 18 months = £270 so total cost of £680.

so very little difference.

I wonder whether this would be an illegal route for emergency call reasons. In the UK at least, you can place a 999 call on any network free of charge, which makes sense. Arbitrarily cut this down and you could sensibly claim companies are forfeiting emergency service coverage, which may not be currently illegal but I'd imagine (hope) would be a bigger incentive to ban this workaround too.

Moreover, I'd hope the law would come in the form of it being illegal for service providers to lock phones, rather than it being legal for us to unlock them (or both of course.) If they only support specific frequencies, this is still a prime example of locking, just on a lower level (locking at the physical hardware rather than the software / driver layer.)

it's a bit different in the US in the UK we use GSM/GPRS and for 3g we use wcdma

in the states there is less gsm coverage and much more CDMA coverage.
with a lot of UK phones, (GSM only) if you go to the states then you won't get a signal at all, as you don't have the radio hardware capable of transmitting/receiving CDMA.
so emergency or not, 911/999 type calls will not work unless there is a radio coverage that you can receive

additionally, even with phones like the iphone 4/4s with are dual radio CDMA/GPRS just having a phone doesn't mean that you can go to that country and use the network.

in Europe we're used to there being standards, I can go to France/Italy/Germany etc (and have) take my phone and expect it to work. and that's any phone.

conversely when I went to New york a few years ago my HTC wizard could pick up a GSM network so I could make calls, but I was completely unable to receive any data services.

Even if I had a CDMA capable phone, I wouldn't be registered to any carrier so I'd be unable to authenticate on the network...

 

[BK_123]

But when you paid £50 for the handset on contract. You effectively only borrow the handset. the network covered the additional £450 of that £500 iphone to secure your custom.

so in the UK, you get a choice.
get a not locked phone for £500 (non-smartphones are a lot cheaper) and get a pay as you go sim card, or a sim only contract deal for around £10 - £15 per month.

get a locked phone, for around £50 - £100, and a contract charged at £20 - big money depending on what sort of benefits you want...

when I last upgraded my handset I found that I could get the iphone 4s, on contract for 18 months for £32 a month, (which 200 minutes of calls, unlimited text messages and 500 MB download data...) and the handset costs £90 (total cost over 18 months £666)

or I could get similar amounts of phone utilisation for £10 a month, but, I would need to buy a phone up front.
phone cost = £500, £10 contract charge for 18 months = £270 so total cost of £680.

so very little difference.

it's a bit different in the US in the UK we use GSM/GPRS and for 3g we use wcdma

in the states there is less gsm coverage and much more CDMA coverage.
with a lot of UK phones, (GSM only) if you go to the states then you won't get a signal at all, as you don't have the radio hardware capable of transmitting/receiving CDMA.
so emergency or not, 911/999 type calls will not work unless there is a radio coverage that you can receive

additionally, even with phones like the iphone 4/4s with are dual radio CDMA/GPRS just having a phone doesn't mean that you can go to that country and use the network.

in Europe we're used to there being standards, I can go to France/Italy/Germany etc (and have) take my phone and expect it to work. and that's any phone.

conversely when I went to New york a few years ago my HTC wizard could pick up a GSM network so I could make calls, but I was completely unable to receive any data services.

Even if I had a CDMA capable phone, I wouldn't be registered to any carrier so I'd be unable to authenticate on the network...

In Australia with what ever service provider you choose whether it be Telstra, Optus, Vodafone or Virgin Mobile, You own the phone after your 2-3 year contract is up and then you can choose to upgrade phones or leave it and get a new plan.

I didn't really use that much data on my cap before I got my iPhone and started using iMessage a lot and I don't really use the $220 of calls, texts and 400MB of data included by just recharging $30 each month (I am prepaid and its easier then a plan) and I get the $30 as bonus credit.

We mainly use GSM and 3G now, The CDMA networks got disconnected meaning if you had a CDMA sim-card you needed to get a GSM or 3G one.

 

[dazisSt4tiX]

I do not have a phone, and all of the above is why.

 

[BK_123]

I do not have a phone, and all of the above is why.

Do you mean a heap of posts off topic, Wells if its that well this is thread is called random chit chat because you talk about anything here.

 

[jmacavali]

I think he's referring to all the reasons that everyone has listed.

 

[BK_123]

Yay public holiday today.

 

[BK_123]

Browsing through App Store and came across good ole crash bandicoot, I loved playing this game.