iphone 4 to t-mobile is not as outrageous as you may think

it would be a good thing.

no, you read that right. the iphone 4 to magenta would be a good thing.

i know i posted to this blog about how much i really like the vibrant i
got from t-mobile a week ago today, but understand this:
the iphone is a big name to have. if t-mobile got this device it would
easily surpass sprint as the number 3 domestic carrier. with its cheaper
rate plans (not to mention a truly unlimited data plan) and faster
network, it could supplant at&t for number 2, which would be very ironic
to say the least. the iphone to t-mo makes more sense than it going to
verizon or sprint. i said earlier that both use the cdma frequency to
make calls. well, a chip has been developed that will be compatible with
both gsm and cdma technologies. but there's one catch- apple would have
to redesign the iphone to accomodate it (and with the death grip
associated with a touch on one spot on the casing a redesign may not be
such a bad thing). if it goes to t-mobile, all apple has to do is add in
t-mo's 3g frequency to its 3g radio chipset. which move is more cost
effective?

there are more than a million iphones on t-mobile's network right now.
all of them capped at edge data speed. there are enough iphones that
t-mobile has an entire tech support section devoted to it. and 3g data
speeds being slower is not a concern. with the release of the vibrant and
the release of the htc hd2 months ago, two data sucking devices, the
network hasn't come down yet. it's being built out even more. it could
handle the iphone, vibrant and hd2 on its network. at the same time even.

handset diversity is key to growing out the business and if t-mobile could
snag the iphone once its exclusivity with deathstar ends it would bring in
a whole bunch of new people; people who want iphones but don't want to
deal with at&t incompetance or people who want to jump in the smartphone
market with a recognizable name.

that being said, i really don't know if i would get one or not since i
have the vibrant. i really like the openness of the android market
although the apps leave a lot to be desired. its like a jailbroken iphone
4 out of the box, but the only apps available to you are from cydia.
there are some good cydia apps but the ones from the apple app store are
better. but as long as google/android don't remove the adult apps ex post
facto like apple did, i may stick with this for a while.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

get a dropbox (and increase my box size): signup here:
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU5OTA2MDQ5

why t-mobile is the best cell provider in the country

when i first got a cell phone, i got it through cingular's gophone. and i
got it strictly for work purposes. i don't talk much. not in person, not
on a phone. i had been happy with what i had until i went researching for
providers after i had been thinking of getting an iphone. it wasn't going
to be at&t, they were charging $30 data plans on top of voice plans, voice
minutes i was never going to use. so i look at what t-mobile had to
offer. they had a flat data rate plan. cool, i'll go with that. but
doing a little more digging, i find that in their prepaid plans, they
offered rates as low as $.10 a minute. i was happy with cingular/at&t
prepaid rate i was using of $.25 a minute, but i would be crazy to pass up
$.10. when i went to the at&t store to get my account number so t-mo
could port over the number i had for years with at&t, the reason i told
him i was going to t-mobile was at&t didn't offer $.10 a minute prepaid
plans. i would stay with at&t if they did that. they aren't, but i'm
just sayin.

so for the last year i had both of the phones on t-mobile service, one
prepaid, one on a data plan. going in i knew that the fastest the iphone
would go would be edge speeds. i didn't care, because for listening to
streaming radio and surfing the web at work when the wifi went down, it
was good enough. then thursday i bought the new samsung vibrant. oh my
god. i would honestly say this phone is t-mo's answer to the iphone line,
especially in light of the problems the iphone 4 has with reception and
the fact that at&t's 3g network is crap. plus at&t ended officially
unlimited data plans. so much for that if you use an iphone. i would try
to find as many wifi hotspots as possible because that thing is a data
hog, especially for the apps that work best with the 3g data lines. the
samsung is fast. blazing fast. i haven't seen such downloading speeds
since i was using the dorm internet network connection in college. the 3g
is faster than the dsl we have at home. and on the 21st it is supposed to
get faster.

but that's not all. that same thursday i had a problem with service. i
was not able to use the 3g connection with the vibrant. and i could not
change my plan online to get it to work. so i call up t-mo customer
service on my prepaid phone. bad idea, i kept getting rerouted to the
prepaid tech support, and even then i couldn't talk with a real person.
so i called using the vibrant itself. when i got with a customer support
person, the girl/young lady on the other end could not have been any
nicer. she got me straightened out. she switched my plan to the android
internet plan (didn't know there was such a thing) which was the same
price as before and threw in unlimited texts for nothing. i had gotten a
300 text plan when i quickly realized that people send me and i send
others more than 25 texts a month. i got charged $.25 a text either way.
it was more economical to get the 300 text plan even though i didn't come
close to 300 texts. she saw that and upgraded me to unlimited. the only
thing she didn't change was the voice option which was $.45 a minute.
when you have a cheap prepaid plan, you don't need a voice plan on that
device. so with a discount i get for working at mcdonald's, i have an
unlimited data plan and an unlimited text plan for the same price i had
been paying on an annual contract- $45 a month. it is much cheaper than
the unlimited talk-text-data plan t-mo offers and it is the perfect plan
for me, something at&t should have been offering people from the start.

verizon is expensive with a technology using a dying standard in cdma.
sprint is hemorraging customers using a dying standard in cdma. at&t has
a poor network with a popular phone and expensive plans. and t-mobile has
cheap plans and before thursday had crappy phone selection. the vibrant
will do some things. it may not bring in as many customers as the others,
but it will hold up to the iphone, especially when you have unlimited data
usage on it.

viva t-mobile

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

get a dropbox (and increase my box size): signup here:
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU5OTA2MDQ5

on lebron james, dan gilbert and espn

shame on all 3.

1. on lebron for telling the world he was leaving for miami while still
IN CLEVELAND. classy lebron. way to build up the cav fans hopes and then
shatter them like glass. that was the most stupid thing i have seen in a
while. if it were me, regardless if i were staying or leaving, i would
not have made that decision IN CLEVELAND. do it in your old high school
gym. or do it in a major city without an nba team. but not IN
CLEVELAND. i just see this as lebron cementing his reputation. no not as
a superstar, but as a self-centered overhyped very good basketball player
who cares more about promoting himself and getting his name out there than
winning. if he cared about winning he would have gone to chicago. as a
bulls fan i am glad he is not going to make his home in the united
center. as it stands now, he's on a team with a lot of talent, but i'm
not sure how much of a "team" it is or will be. and speaking of "team"...

2. on dan gilbert. i don't say that because of the screed he wrote in
the plain-dealer after james jumped ship. i say that because of the
screed he wrote after he enabled james for 7 years. i'd be hella pissed
too after i did everything i could to coddle the league's most marketable
loser and came away with nothing. gilbert didn't have the balls to tell
james no. his general manager didn't have the balls to tell james no.
his coach(es) certainly didn't have the balls to tell james no, but then
again none of the 30 nba coaches, with the slight exception of phil
jackson, have the balls to tell any players no. instead of building an
actual team to complement james gilbert through his gms threw players on
this team with no rhyme or reason. the offense was pretty simple- give
the ball to lebron and get out of the way. the players he was surrounded
with were slightly better than average and only because they were with
lebron were they perceived as being better than they were. i can't shoot
for the life of me. if i were on the cavs for the last 7 years i would
have been a valuable role player to have on their team. why? because i'm
a teammate of lebron james. and lebron james is king. he's god. he's
the akron hammer. he must be that damn good because espn said so. and
speaking of espn...

3. on espn for that masturbatory celebration of all things lebron james.
i didn't watch it. but i saw clips of it on other shows. in a few words,
that was horrible. here was a supposed news organization making a story
that could have been covered in 15 minutes last for 5-6 hours, not
including the 1 hour special itself. keeping secret from your own
reporters that you had even a special planned is a nice move. so is
finding out where hoopstar christ is going 30 minutes in the interview
when it was promised the announcement would come within 15 minutes of the
start of the show.

really, everyone looks sleazy in this deal all around, hoopstar christ
especially. if anyone wants to know why i haven't consciously voluntarily
watched any nba game in 13 years, look at this incedent. i'm a hockey
fan. i can guarantee you that sid crosby or alex ovetchkin should either
of them hit the free agent market would ever do something like this,
mainly because publicity stunts like this embarrass all parties involved.
the players especially. and both of those players respect the nhl and
hockey too much to ever do something like that.

good luck (n)ever winning a championship in miami, provided they have
enough basketballs to go around.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

get a dropbox (and increase my box size): signup here:
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU5OTA2MDQ5

craigslist

you know i wonder how many real people actually use the for sale section
of craigslist. i tried selling my old laptop on craigslist a few years
back, and every one of the respondants i got were from outside the
country. despite me saying in my description twice (i tried twice) that i
would only deal with people in the louisville area and all transactions
would be face-to-face only. and then now as i am attempting to buy an
iphone 3gs, under the local louisville craigslist section i see people
trying to sell iphones with area codes that say florida but are actually
located in california. AND THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT AMERICAN. i'm not
bagging on immigrants. i like them more than i like most americans. but
when i called these people, obviously i could tell there were some major
shenanigans going on. there are also images embedded in ads that are
advertising selling the iphone on websites that look like the spam
erectile dysfunction/vicodin/vioxx. the websites look as though they were
made on geocities. $210 for an iphone 3gs? sure i'll take it, as long as
i'm not sending you any money first.

it's too bad there aren't any moderators in the for sale sections of
craigslist, because i'll bet that 3/4 of all the ads reporting to be local
would get axed in a heartbeat. craigslist wants to clean up their image.
they can go a whole lot further by getting rid of all the crap ads in the
for sale section.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/