Re: Mobile phone question
Why complicate things? You can get a dirt cheep smartphone here in Israel and then go to any of the netwrks and buy the SIM with the plan that suits you... I wouldn't go into buying refurbished phone at all - to many things can go wrong : a friend of mine bought a Samsung Galaxy S II at one of these dealers here in Israel and the screen went dead after two months. Of course, the dealer denied any warranty or liability and it turns out it was a fake from Japan... I'd buy a new phone, right from the official dealer. I just bought my Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-I9300) for 2400 NIS. Amichai. On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Geoffrey S. Mendelson geoffreymendel...@gmail.com wrote: On 7/28/2013 12:29 AM, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: So I looked it up, jailbreaking is legal but if you hand the phone in in it's jailborken state they will claim your warranty is void, if you restore the phone to factory before handing it in you should be fine (at least according to the people on the oh-so-trustable internets) Jailbreaking is a minor issue. First of all, only a small portion of iPhone owners do it, most have no need nor clue as to why one would do it in the first place. Jailbreaking can be removed by resetting the phone back to the state you bought it, which can easily be done using iTunes and anyone who has enough tech savvy to jailbreak it in the first place knows how to do it. To keep this the least bit on topic, Android also has a padded cell which prevents you from installing software except from the Google store, but it can be turned off via a user settable option. The problem is removing SP (usually mislabeled SIM) locks. If a locked iPhone does not have its SP lock removed by Apple, it has been tampered with and will not be repaired. Service Providers that sell SP locked iPhones, unlock them through Apple. I have never seen an SP locked Android phone, although I am sure they exist, so I have no information about how one unlocks them. Ehm... the iDen network is still up and still heavily used. Ok, thanks, I thought it was dead. But yeah I also heard rumors that they'd like to close it and move everyone to 3G, I guess if they provide stable PTT services on those networks and devices that are rugged like most iDen devices most people won't mind. There are several private (as in non government) trunked radio systems in Israel, eventually everyone using MIRS will either go to cell phones, or buy time on one of them. Keeping the MIRS network going for the few users they have today will become less and less worth the cost. Note that MIRS is the name of the system and service, iDen is a US vendor's name for their service to separate it from Motorola's MIRS service and other trunked services. Pelephone didn't start with no customers, when the market was just released I actually spoke to them to see if I wanted to move to them but at the time their 3G network wasn't operational yet and I would have had to buy a new (old) phone just to connect to them. Pelephone has been mistreating customers since the first cellular service in Israel. They started out with AMPS, then NAMPS (which failed miserably in the rest of the world due to poor service in hilly/built up areas. They they moved to 800mHz CDMA, which was even worse in terms of crowded or hilly areas. As far as I can find online Pelephone is still operating it's old network (EV-DO/CDMA2000) but aren't accepting new customers with that technology... Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 __**_ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/**mailman/listinfo/linux-ilhttp://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
Not really my decision, or even my phone - I am only the messenger. I would not buy a phone that costs like 2 netbooks - I own a Galaxy mini (the one with the slightly larger screen), which does all I need, and cost me 599 shekels. True, if I forget my magnifying glass the screen is tough to read, especially for sites not parsed for mobile, but that is probably a benefit. Otherwise I'd be having too much fun. I was advised Amazon sells unlocked Apple 4 devices, refurbished, for very reasonable prices. So I guess I'd soon be the proud uncle of one such device. Thanks for all the advice, Z. On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:25 AM, Amichai Rotman amic...@iglu.org.il wrote: Why complicate things? You can get a dirt cheep smartphone here in Israel and then go to any of the netwrks and buy the SIM with the plan that suits you... I wouldn't go into buying refurbished phone at all - to many things can go wrong : a friend of mine bought a Samsung Galaxy S II at one of these dealers here in Israel and the screen went dead after two months. Of course, the dealer denied any warranty or liability and it turns out it was a fake from Japan... I'd buy a new phone, right from the official dealer. I just bought my Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-I9300) for 2400 NIS. Amichai. On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Geoffrey S. Mendelson geoffreymendel...@gmail.com wrote: On 7/28/2013 12:29 AM, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: So I looked it up, jailbreaking is legal but if you hand the phone in in it's jailborken state they will claim your warranty is void, if you restore the phone to factory before handing it in you should be fine (at least according to the people on the oh-so-trustable internets) Jailbreaking is a minor issue. First of all, only a small portion of iPhone owners do it, most have no need nor clue as to why one would do it in the first place. Jailbreaking can be removed by resetting the phone back to the state you bought it, which can easily be done using iTunes and anyone who has enough tech savvy to jailbreak it in the first place knows how to do it. To keep this the least bit on topic, Android also has a padded cell which prevents you from installing software except from the Google store, but it can be turned off via a user settable option. The problem is removing SP (usually mislabeled SIM) locks. If a locked iPhone does not have its SP lock removed by Apple, it has been tampered with and will not be repaired. Service Providers that sell SP locked iPhones, unlock them through Apple. I have never seen an SP locked Android phone, although I am sure they exist, so I have no information about how one unlocks them. Ehm... the iDen network is still up and still heavily used. Ok, thanks, I thought it was dead. But yeah I also heard rumors that they'd like to close it and move everyone to 3G, I guess if they provide stable PTT services on those networks and devices that are rugged like most iDen devices most people won't mind. There are several private (as in non government) trunked radio systems in Israel, eventually everyone using MIRS will either go to cell phones, or buy time on one of them. Keeping the MIRS network going for the few users they have today will become less and less worth the cost. Note that MIRS is the name of the system and service, iDen is a US vendor's name for their service to separate it from Motorola's MIRS service and other trunked services. Pelephone didn't start with no customers, when the market was just released I actually spoke to them to see if I wanted to move to them but at the time their 3G network wasn't operational yet and I would have had to buy a new (old) phone just to connect to them. Pelephone has been mistreating customers since the first cellular service in Israel. They started out with AMPS, then NAMPS (which failed miserably in the rest of the world due to poor service in hilly/built up areas. They they moved to 800mHz CDMA, which was even worse in terms of crowded or hilly areas. As far as I can find online Pelephone is still operating it's old network (EV-DO/CDMA2000) but aren't accepting new customers with that technology... Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 __**_ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/**mailman/listinfo/linux-ilhttp://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il -- Sincerely, Steve http://www.words2u.net - GPS points and tracks (mainly in Costa Rica) http://www.words2u.net/recipes - Recipe collection ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
On 7/28/2013 12:29 AM, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: So I looked it up, jailbreaking is legal but if you hand the phone in in it's jailborken state they will claim your warranty is void, if you restore the phone to factory before handing it in you should be fine (at least according to the people on the oh-so-trustable internets) Jailbreaking is a minor issue. First of all, only a small portion of iPhone owners do it, most have no need nor clue as to why one would do it in the first place. Jailbreaking can be removed by resetting the phone back to the state you bought it, which can easily be done using iTunes and anyone who has enough tech savvy to jailbreak it in the first place knows how to do it. To keep this the least bit on topic, Android also has a padded cell which prevents you from installing software except from the Google store, but it can be turned off via a user settable option. The problem is removing SP (usually mislabeled SIM) locks. If a locked iPhone does not have its SP lock removed by Apple, it has been tampered with and will not be repaired. Service Providers that sell SP locked iPhones, unlock them through Apple. I have never seen an SP locked Android phone, although I am sure they exist, so I have no information about how one unlocks them. Ehm... the iDen network is still up and still heavily used. Ok, thanks, I thought it was dead. But yeah I also heard rumors that they'd like to close it and move everyone to 3G, I guess if they provide stable PTT services on those networks and devices that are rugged like most iDen devices most people won't mind. There are several private (as in non government) trunked radio systems in Israel, eventually everyone using MIRS will either go to cell phones, or buy time on one of them. Keeping the MIRS network going for the few users they have today will become less and less worth the cost. Note that MIRS is the name of the system and service, iDen is a US vendor's name for their service to separate it from Motorola's MIRS service and other trunked services. Pelephone didn't start with no customers, when the market was just released I actually spoke to them to see if I wanted to move to them but at the time their 3G network wasn't operational yet and I would have had to buy a new (old) phone just to connect to them. Pelephone has been mistreating customers since the first cellular service in Israel. They started out with AMPS, then NAMPS (which failed miserably in the rest of the world due to poor service in hilly/built up areas. They they moved to 800mHz CDMA, which was even worse in terms of crowded or hilly areas. As far as I can find online Pelephone is still operating it's old network (EV-DO/CDMA2000) but aren't accepting new customers with that technology... Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Mobile phone question
I am a happy user of Samsung mini with android, and golan telecom service. However, my wife is looking for a better phone (we live abroad in the process of moving to Israel), and was told to look for refurbished older models of Apple's iPhone - without a SIM (chip) in the US for the best prices. Any advice which model is most cost effective, and what technology it has to have in order to be used in Israel (GSM, G3, G4, what not - I don't know what all this means, quite frankly)? It does not have to be Golan/Orange - other mainstream carriers would probably suit my wife better - but it could... Thanks in advance, Z. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Zvi Grauer zvi.gra...@gmail.com wrote: I am a happy user of Samsung mini with android, and golan telecom service. However, my wife is looking for a better phone (we live abroad in the process of moving to Israel), and was told to look for refurbished older models of Apple's iPhone - without a SIM (chip) in the US for the best prices. Be advised that some phones (this is especially true for Apple products in the US, with their ATT deal, I think...) are locked to the original Cellular Carrier that sold them to the customer; As such you'll not be able to use them in any other carrier, unless you break them, a task you may, or may not be, successful in. If you're not successful, then it would be a pricey paperweight... Any advice which model is most cost effective, and what technology it has to have in order to be used in Israel (GSM, G3, G4, what not - I don't know what all this means, quite frankly)? The 2nd issue is the frequencies; Not all companies work with all of them. Not all companies provide 2G (everything that sits on Pelephone's infrastructure - Pelephone themselves, Rami Levy, HOT Mobile, Cellact - will not work on 3G phones) See list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code#I (and verify with other sources for the carrier you finally select; I have seen errors there regarding Golan, which I fixed...) What it mostly means (for you, as a user) - the higher the generation, the higher maximum bandwidth you can get with the cell tower; That does not mean that a network with 3.9G will necessarily give you better Internet performance than a 3.5G network - it really depends on how much BW they get to their cells, and how many customers (ab)use it besides you... Old 2G phones probably have better reception than the new smartphones, due to usage of the sub-1GHz spectrum. Rumor has it, that those frequencies penetrate walls better... they also definitely have a much longer battery life, due to the huge colorful LCD screens power consumption... but unfortunately, 2G won't be here forever; Eventually carriers will want to clear this spectrum for other stuff, given the very low amount of subscribers still using it - something that already happened in the US, and I do not see a reason for it not to happen in Israel. HTH, -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
2013/7/27 shimi linux...@shimi.net: On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Zvi Grauer zvi.gra...@gmail.com wrote: I am a happy user of Samsung mini with android, and golan telecom service. However, my wife is looking for a better phone (we live abroad in the process of moving to Israel), and was told to look for refurbished older models of Apple's iPhone - without a SIM (chip) in the US for the best prices. Be advised that some phones (this is especially true for Apple products in the US, with their ATT deal, I think...) are locked to the original Cellular Carrier that sold them to the customer; As such you'll not be able to use them in any other carrier, unless you break them, a task you may, or may not be, successful in. If you're not successful, then it would be a pricey paperweight... I may be wrong but iirc the US like Israel established the right in law of the customer to have his/her phone unlocked/jailbroken without that affecting warranty... Any advice which model is most cost effective, and what technology it has to have in order to be used in Israel (GSM, G3, G4, what not - I don't know what all this means, quite frankly)? The 2nd issue is the frequencies; Not all companies work with all of them. Not all companies provide 2G (everything that sits on Pelephone's infrastructure - Pelephone themselves, Rami Levy, HOT Mobile, Cellact - will not work on 3G phones) HOT == MIRS so you could theoretically use a iDEN phone with them... Orange and Cellcom (including golan) based companies still support GSM (2G), however for a player like golan it is reasonable to expect that they will not put up their own 2G network so when/if they get full coverage in an area 2G connectivity may very well be lost. See list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code#I (and verify with other sources for the carrier you finally select; I have seen errors there regarding Golan, which I fixed...) What it mostly means (for you, as a user) - the higher the generation, the higher maximum bandwidth you can get with the cell tower; That does not mean that a network with 3.9G will necessarily give you better Internet performance than a 3.5G network - it really depends on how much BW they get to their cells, and how many customers (ab)use it besides you... Let's be clear, 3.5G and 3.9G are just marketing terms to separate the higher bandwidth 3G applications (3G is regular UMTS, 3.5 HSPA, 3.9 HSPA+ all are 3G technology). 4G is LTE and/or WiMAX (but WiMAX afaik is almost dead), some carriers have started to set up LTE networks but they are still very experimental. Regards, Eliyahu - אליהו Old 2G phones probably have better reception than the new smartphones, due to usage of the sub-1GHz spectrum. Rumor has it, that those frequencies penetrate walls better... they also definitely have a much longer battery life, due to the huge colorful LCD screens power consumption... but unfortunately, 2G won't be here forever; Eventually carriers will want to clear this spectrum for other stuff, given the very low amount of subscribers still using it - something that already happened in the US, and I do not see a reason for it not to happen in Israel. HTH, -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
On 7/27/2013 9:59 PM, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: I may be wrong but iirc the US like Israel established the right in law of the customer to have his/her phone unlocked/jailbroken without that affecting warranty... I don't think that would apply. The correct way to unlock an iPhone is to have Apple do it. They push an update to your phone which you install with iTunes. Therefore the phone shows up as unlocked in their database, and if it is not officially unlocked, it has been tampered with, which voids the warranty. The places that sell official unlocks buy them from your carrier or Apple itself. Orange and Cellcom (including golan) based companies still support GSM (2G), however for a player like golan it is reasonable to expect that they will not put up their own 2G network so when/if they get full coverage in an area 2G connectivity may very well be lost. I disagree. I assume that if they ever do put up a network and it is 3g only, they will continue their current roaming agreement with Cell-Com. Actually I doubt that they will put up more cells than needed to fulfill the terms of their license, the Cell-Com deal is too profitable. HOT had to start from scratch. Although it was marketed as a cellular network, it was really a MIRS (trunked radio) network and not compatible with any cell phone. They ripped it all out, and replaced the Motorola MIRS cells with Nokia 3g cells. That required replacing everything as MIRS was 800mHz, Israeli 3g is 2.1gHz. But Golan has too sweet a deal, and too many 2g users to abandon them. So if they put up anything at all, they will IMHO keep 2g, even if it is roaming onto Cell-Com. The difference is that HOT and Rami Levi (remarkets Pelephone 3g) started with no customers and therefore could say, want our service, buy a 3g phone, while Golan is actively pushing customers to 2g phones. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Mobile phone question
2013/7/27 Geoffrey S. Mendelson geoffreymendel...@gmail.com: On 7/27/2013 9:59 PM, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: I may be wrong but iirc the US like Israel established the right in law of the customer to have his/her phone unlocked/jailbroken without that affecting warranty... I don't think that would apply. The correct way to unlock an iPhone is to have Apple do it. They push an update to your phone which you install with iTunes. Therefore the phone shows up as unlocked in their database, and if it is not officially unlocked, it has been tampered with, which voids the warranty. The places that sell official unlocks buy them from your carrier or Apple itself. So I looked it up, jailbreaking is legal but if you hand the phone in in it's jailborken state they will claim your warranty is void, if you restore the phone to factory before handing it in you should be fine (at least according to the people on the oh-so-trustable internets) Orange and Cellcom (including golan) based companies still support GSM (2G), however for a player like golan it is reasonable to expect that they will not put up their own 2G network so when/if they get full coverage in an area 2G connectivity may very well be lost. I disagree. I assume that if they ever do put up a network and it is 3g only, they will continue their current roaming agreement with Cell-Com. Actually I doubt that they will put up more cells than needed to fulfill the terms of their license, the Cell-Com deal is too profitable. HOT had to start from scratch. Although it was marketed as a cellular network, it was really a MIRS (trunked radio) network and not compatible with any cell phone. They ripped it all out, and replaced the Motorola MIRS cells with Nokia 3g cells. That required replacing everything as MIRS was 800mHz, Israeli 3g is 2.1gHz. Ehm... the iDen network is still up and still heavily used. But yeah I also heard rumors that they'd like to close it and move everyone to 3G, I guess if they provide stable PTT services on those networks and devices that are rugged like most iDen devices most people won't mind. But Golan has too sweet a deal, and too many 2g users to abandon them. So if they put up anything at all, they will IMHO keep 2g, even if it is roaming onto Cell-Com. Could be, in the end I guess it'll depend on how many 2G users are still walking around whether Cellcom/Golan continue to support it or take it down to reuse the frequency for LTE or newer technologies. With the fairly high smartphone adaption rate in Israel it will probably go faster then in other countries. The difference is that HOT and Rami Levi (remarkets Pelephone 3g) started with no customers and therefore could say, want our service, buy a 3g phone, while Golan is actively pushing customers to 2g phones. Pelephone didn't start with no customers, when the market was just released I actually spoke to them to see if I wanted to move to them but at the time their 3G network wasn't operational yet and I would have had to buy a new (old) phone just to connect to them. As far as I can find online Pelephone is still operating it's old network (EV-DO/CDMA2000) but aren't accepting new customers with that technology... Regards, Eliyahu - אליהו Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379 ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
