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Verizon iPhone.. tick-tock, tick-tock

Nevada carrier

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Okay, so here I am sitting and waiting patiently for midnight to roll around so I can be one of the first to pre-order an iPhone on Verizon. Getting ready for this was a real bugger, for lack of a better word and that's what I'm going to share with you now.

So, a little less than a year ago, I used my upgrade discount, so I wouldn't be eligible for another one until October. Yes, I know it's childish, and it's just a phone, but I've been waiting and wanting an iPhone for years unwilling to switch to AT&T. So what is one to do if they don't want to pay full retail for the phone, but they don't have a line that's eligible for an upgrade discount? Read on my friend this was sweet.

I was pondering several arguments I could make to Verizon, even threatening to terminate my contract if they refused to give me the upgrade price. Then I had an epiphany! The upgrade is tied to the line, not to the account. I grabbed one of my old beat up phones that I hadn't used in years and called up Verizon to add another line! this only costs $9.99. While I was at it, I reevaluated my talk, text and data usage and reorganized my plan to cut some costs down considering I'll be required to have a $30 data plan.

Wouldn't you know it, after setting everything up, I go to the web site Verizon has set up for their existing customers to get the iPhone, I plug in the new number for the additional line to check to see if I'm eligible for the upgrade price and viola! I'm eligible. Will I have to spend a little more each month than existing customers who have an upgrade to burn? yes, but only until October when I will no longer be required to maintain service on the other line! After running the numbers, I'll spend $10 a month for the additional line for 8 months, but I will save $549 off the full retail price.

Of course I could just act like an adult and be patient, waiting until October to use my upgrade then, but then I wouldn't be one of the first people to do something previously unheard of on AT&T's most popular "almost phone"; make phone calls!

-please give Jon Stewart credit for the "almost phone" remark
 
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Nevada carrier

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Are you sure this will work? you might find out come October that your "primary line" can not be disconnected while the "secondary line" is active.

They told me that I could cancel service on the other two lines in October, but I'll still have to maintain one line for a full two years after the iPhone was ordered.
 

KBCraig

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Granite State of Mind
Of course I could just act like an adult and be patient, waiting until October to use my upgrade then, but then I wouldn't be one of the first people to do something previously unheard of on AT&T's most popular "almost phone"; make phone calls!
Just be aware that Verizon is already choking bandwidth in preparation for the iPhone.

As one report I read today put it, you can expect the iPhone on Verizon to be a better phone, but for all the stuff people love about their iPhones (data and apps), it won't be nearly as good.
 

Nevada carrier

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Just be aware that Verizon is already choking bandwidth in preparation for the iPhone.

As one report I read today put it, you can expect the iPhone on Verizon to be a better phone, but for all the stuff people love about their iPhones (data and apps), it won't be nearly as good.

Noted. But one of the things that makes Verizon a better network is they transcode media (images and video) to more efficient formats, saving bandwidth. If you go over 2GB you get throttled down to a slower speed, but not shut down or charged extra. Also, going over 2 GB puts you in the top 5% of users. I foresee myself using my phone for the B of A app, face book and as a music player, but I'll be getting my music through my PC not from Verizon, perhaps an occasional you tube video, but I doubt I'll ever flirt with the 2GB limit.

One of the mistakes AT&T made was giving people as much bandwidth as they could eat, stressing their network. Eventually they recognized that the network could not handle that so they had to put in some checks and balances. As for their dropped call problem, AT&T didn't expect people with a cell phone to be moving around when making calls. Just because there is coverage at your house, doesn't mean there will be coverage just outside Las Vegas at some place like say, the Clark County Shooting Park.
 
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curtiswr

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Richmond, VA, ,
I wanted it but I would have had to pay the full retail price. I decided to not do it and wait and see what comes out in the coming months.

The 4G Droid Bionic looks amazing. Dual core processor on a phone! :eek:
 

KBCraig

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Noted. But one of the things that makes Verizon a better network is they transcode media (images and video) to more efficient formats, saving bandwidth. If you go over 2GB you get throttled down to a slower speed, but not shut down or charged extra. Also, going over 2 GB puts you in the top 5% of users. I foresee myself using my phone for the B of A app, face book and as a music player, but I'll be getting my music through my PC not from Verizon, perhaps an occasional you tube video, but I doubt I'll ever flirt with the 2GB limit.

One of the mistakes AT&T made was giving people as much bandwidth as they could eat, stressing their network. Eventually they recognized that the network could not handle that so they had to put in some checks and balances. As for their dropped call problem, AT&T didn't expect people with a cell phone to be moving around when making calls. Just because there is coverage at your house, doesn't mean there will be coverage just outside Las Vegas at some place like say, the Clark County Shooting Park.
I won't say that either network's method is superior; each suits a particular type of user, in a particular place. It's unfortunate that users have to chose one or the other, usually based on coverage rather than what suits them best.

Where I live, AT&T dominates, and Verizon is Teh Suck. ATT doesn't drop calls here, and it doesn't matter how good VZW is, you are outta luck outside the city limits or a quarter mile from a major interstate. Since this is a rural part of flyover country, that's significant.

In major metro areas, I understand things are different. Different users, different situation, different choices to make.

For those who haven't yet committed, some good reviews that point out the major differences between the VZW iPhone, and the ATT iPhone:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/
http://www.macworld.com/article/157613/2011/02/verizon_iphone_4.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/157680/2011/02/verizon_throttling.html

Finally, since some of you were lucky enough to get in on the online sales madness: the iPhone broke all daily VZW sales records in the two hours it took to sell out.
http://www.macworld.com/article/157682/2011/02/verizon_iphone_preorders.html
 

celticredneck

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Jul 23, 2008
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Amelia County, virginia
You guys are lucky. NO ONE gets service at my house. I've had Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T_Mobile and a few other users walking around my yard with their phones held up looking for a signal.I can go 3 miles either direction and get a signal, or I can go back in the woods and climb up in my tree stand and get one, but not at my house. If you watch the Verizon commercials where they show the coverage map, you will see a tiny white dot on Virginia. That dot is sitting right over my home.
 

xdfan

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Jan 12, 2007
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Location
Alamance county, North Carolina, USA
For folks with no coverage and a decent Internet connection, check out Verizon's Network Extender box. I'm too in a small coverage gap in rural NC and the Extender does a decent job of covering the entire house plus 50 ft. or so around it.

It creates a small CDMA cell and uses an available high speed net connection to backhaul. AT&T and Sprint offer similar boxes called a MicroCell and Airave respectively. No monthly charges and I bought mine used on Ebay for $150, about 9 mos. ago.
 

Nevada carrier

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For folks with no coverage and a decent Internet connection, check out Verizon's Network Extender box. I'm too in a small coverage gap in rural NC and the Extender does a decent job of covering the entire house plus 50 ft. or so around it.

It creates a small CDMA cell and uses an available high speed net connection to backhaul. AT&T and Sprint offer similar boxes called a MicroCell and Airave respectively. No monthly charges and I bought mine used on Ebay for $150, about 9 mos. ago.

They should be reimbursing customers who do this for using their internet service to supplement their infrastructure gap. This should work much the same way those who generate their own electricity and transmit unused energy back onto the grid get credited by the electric company. also, is there a way to secure this CDMA cell so that I'm not paying (through my internet service) to provide everyone around me with cell service?
 

Jack House

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They should be reimbursing customers who do this for using their internet service to supplement their infrastructure gap. This should work much the same way those who generate their own electricity and transmit unused energy back onto the grid get credited by the electric company. also, is there a way to secure this CDMA cell so that I'm not paying (through my internet service) to provide everyone around me with cell service?
I agree, except I think they should just give the customers that live outside their service area the box for free.

Re: Security;

Also, think of all the trouble you could get into if some jackwagon came along and started DL'ing CP or something equally illegal. I'm not sure how those boxes operate exactly, in terms of what data gets sent out, but it still could be your ass on the line if they backtraced the illegal activity to your IP. And until judges are educated on network technology, they'll continue to accept IP traces as valid evidence of the guilt of the account holder. :rolleyes:
 

eye95

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Jan 6, 2010
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Fairborn, Ohio, USA
The problem with AT&T is that it works well here, but not there. And here and there are not very far apart. Verizon, on the other hand, works well dang near everywhere, including in the middle of many nowheres.

When I visit my son's home, I get coverage. He has to move around to find a "sweet spot" to make a call with his AT&T iPhone. He must be at the edge of the range of his nearest tower, because that "sweet spot" wanders.

I'd never get AT&T. Everyone I know who has it talks about lack of coverage and dropped calls. These are just plain not issues with my service. I imagine that there are places that Verizon does not cover or does not cover well. I just haven't found them.

You can tell from AT&T's advertising that they are aware of their inadequacy and are sensitive about it. Their contorted stat about covering 97% of Americans "where they live" reveals their knowledge of their lack of endowment. That stat means that 3% of HOMES cannot get AT&T coverage. That is a LOT of homes, of which my son's is one. Also, what about where you visit or work or play or shop or...?

Nah, if Apple (who has a similar corporate mindset to AT&T) wanted to pick one of the most restrictive and limited carriers to be their only outlet, that was their mistake. They just turned me (and, I suspect, many others) off to the iPhone, hence the rise of Android phones. I won't even consider one now that Verizon has it. I respect Apple as little as I do AT&T. They are both into controlling their users, not empowering them with choice. (AT&T got that mindset when they were a government-sanctioned monopoly. Apple has just always been arrogant. They know better than anyone else.)

Anyway, Verizon getting the iPhone earns a quiet, little, lower-case "meh" from me.
 

Nevada carrier

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There are tons of kick-ass phones out there, Android family phones are a huge majority of them, but heres the thing; with the iPhone, there IS an app for that. with androids, there MIGHT be an app for that. Then we come to the transition from 3G to 4G. Yes, 4G is lightning fast, but it will also drain you battery with incredible speed as well.

My girlfriend has an Android phone and it's got more bugs and quirks than I care to endure. While I've never been a fan of Apple for computers, they make damn good personal media devices. They have the advantage of popularity. when something is the most popular device, it gets the most attention from developers. I've loved my iPod classic for years. My car interfaces with it nicely but I've had to carry around my phone in one pocket, and my iPod in another. now I have one device that does both. When I'm on the road, not only can i listen to my tunes, but my phone gets a charge at the same time, and I can use it as a personal GPS navigator when I need help finding my way. So now that's three devices in one package. Yes you can argue that your android does all of those things, but I can't connect my android to my car's sound system and shuffle through my music from my steering wheel controls either. So because iPhone is the most popular device, Nissan was intuitive enough to jump on-board with that brand, though it's likely that Nissan got a little stimulus from Apple for doing so.

Personal preferences vary from person to person by need and circumstances. The iPhone is the phone I've wanted for a long time, but because I'm unwilling to part ways with Verizon for a crappy provider like AT&T, I've just had to do without. Now, I get to have the phone I've always wanted. If you like your android phone, by all means hang on to it. I know people that are perfectly happy with the old flip phone that barely handles text messages that they have used for 5 years or even more. They don't need more and they don't want more, who am I to tell them that they are wrong?
 
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celticredneck

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Amelia County, virginia
What is considered a "reliable internet" connection. I'm currently stuck with Hughesnet satellite service. It is pretty fast, especially when you compare it with the 25K I can get on dialup. However, I am limited by their "fair access policy" to 225 megs of download per 24 hours. This isn't just downloading videos or such. Every website I visit uses some of this allowance. One of my big gripes about my cell phone service is that the minimum plan which I can get for two phones(one for me and one for my wife), is that the minimum plan available from my current provider(Sprint) is 500 anytime minutes. Added together, we use less than 50 minutes per month. And, we aren't into texting, or using a lot of cool apps. We are both to old, All we need is a reliable phone for voice usage.

All of that being said, I wouldn't trade living where I do for the best cell service or internet connections in the world. I don't have to put up with a lot of nosy neighbors poking into my business and I can walk out my back door and shoot whenever I want, and know that no one is going to call the police about it.
 
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