Daley Ponderings

In continuing my tv watching and catching up on the news from the last year, I see that Verizon has been doing lots of ads about network speeds and comparing them to AT&T.  And I found out that AT&T rates lowest on consumer satisfaction surveys, etc.  My brother said he has never heard of anyone who is happy with AT&T...

Since I am the first one he has heard of, I figured I should write about it.  We've had AT&T cell phone service for the last eight years, starting with a prepaid phone ($8/month minimum).  When they doubled the monthly minimum, we switched to a $20/month plan, with maybe 4 hours of minutes.  Once I started my company and the CDMA phones were discontinued in favor of the GSM phones, I was forced to upgrade to $35/month, and more minutes than I could use.  I am still basically on that plan, though it was changed to include rollover minutes a year ago.  Two years ago, I added a second data-only device, and I use it while on the road, and at various places where there isn't wireless, or where people have forgotten their WEP/WPA passwords.

Other than the forced upgrade to GSM, and a tower that went down in rural New Hampshire for a couple years, I've been quite happy with them.  I have heard of some people who don't pay for a laptop tethering plan, and get into trouble with speeds and overlimits, etc.  I don't use data on my phone, just on the second device (which costs $50/month).  I often get 3.5Mbps download speeds when in cities and big highways, and it works most places I try to use it, though occasionally when we've been camping miles from anywhere, I have had more trouble, or a slower connection.

My use of the connection is a lot of ssh access, so I really care about latency, since every character I type is sent to the server and back before I see it on the screen.  Latency is always great, and almost always excellent (defined as I can't see any difference from Wifi from a latency perspective).  I rarely test upload speed, so I can't say much about that.

Last summer, I did use the data device as a router, connecting it via a desktop to a wireless router, and we successfully ran three separate laptops off of it, checking our email and such in a location where only dial-up is available (and slow dial-up at that, presumably due to old phone wires).

I do have trouble keeping an ssh connection solid while driving down the highway; I assume that the IP addresses are changing as I switch from cell tower to tower, so I am more likely to use webmail when on the highway, or else pull over for a bit, if I need the ssh access to fix something.  I have wondered if I could fix that, by doing some sort of proxy underneath the TCP/SSH protocols, to allow for IP skipping, but I haven't looked into that yet - I am not sure if that is a solved problem or not.

In summary, I pay a lot for service (at least I think it is a lot, though I hear that lots of people now pay $100/month for phone and data service, so maybe I am more average than I think) but I've been happy with my phones and service.

If I'm willing to sign a new contract, AT&T sends a free phone every two years (I've never paid any setup fees or new phone charges)  Usually they are less than free, with a free month or two of service, or a $100 debit card.  I've heard of people buying cell phones, but I'm not sure why one would do that, at least for regular voice, text, data stuff).  I did avoid getting a new contract a year ago, by using an old AT&T phone from a family member when my old phone would occasionally shut itself off without warning.  I don't know if a new battery would have fixed the problem, but its been nice having two phones now, since I can switch the SIM card and use both batteries by switching phones if I ever forget to charge the phone.

The contract for my data device is up in February, and I've been debating about what to do, if anything.  I've wondered if I replaced the data device with a fancier cell phone (and thus be my first cell phone I pay for) that can do ssh access, in which case I wouldn't carry my laptop around as much (I use the laptop to check email, maintain my web servers, write software, etc)  The small keyboard is the biggest downside for me, followed by a small screen.  I've been checking out the HTC Fuze, which last I checked had the largest resolution of any cell phone device.  I suppose the cost of the phone also makes me hesitate, partly due to the initial cost, but more to do with if I drop the phone and then have to buy another one.