Verizon annoyance

One thing I would suggest to anyone else who might want to try this: Disable Backup Assistant+ (if you can) before disconnecting from Verizon. Mine keeps trying to run but it can't access the server. It's not a huge deal, but it's annoying. I will probably have to root my phone to get rid of this app. My phone is not rooted and it won't let me uninstall or disable the app. I tried deleting all the contacts that were being backed up, but it still wants to run.

Spare Phone: An Alternative to GrooVe IP?

I've mentioned in the past that there is an iOS app you can use to accomplish the same thing that I do with GrooVe IP, but now I see there is another Android app available.

It's called "Spare Phone" from Guidology, and it claims to be better than GrooVe IP. Here is the product page:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guidology.sparephone

Now I don't actually have any complaints about GrooVe IP, but according to the reviews, Spare Phone will work on a weaker signal and give a clearer connection. Both apps let you tweak a lot of things under the hood, but I don't want to mess with that unless I have to do so. It might depend on which device you are using, because the default settings on each app could be better on one device and worse on another.

Also, I like GrooVe IP because there is a "Lite" version which is free. Spare Phone costs a few dollars. GrooVe IP "Lite" only works on WiFi, but since that's what I'm using then it's all I needed. Plus it allowed me to try it and make sure it worked first. I ultimately purchased the full version of GrooVe IP because I wanted to support the developer and have access to advanced settings, but I would not have had to do so.

Still, it seemed like it was worth spending a couple bucks to see if Spare Phone was better. I bought Spare Phone and tried to use it. I was at work where I had a 3G connection only, but 4 bars. I called myself at my desk, and I could not hear myself at all. It was just a one-way connection. I've had a couple of bad connections with GrooVe IP as well, so it could be just a fluke. I tried it again today, and it worked.

It seems like in the short time that I have used each app, they are pretty close to the same in call quality. Calls can be pretty tinny & mechanical sounding, and I've had people tell me they can hear an echo. So all things being fairly equal, it seems like GrooVe IP "Lite" is the winner because it's free. So if you want to try doing what I'm doing, and only use WiFi, just grab GrooVe IP Lite and save yourself the extra cost of paying for an app.

I'm not going to ask for my money back. It will be good to keep Spare Phone as a "spare phone" in case I'd ever have problems with the GrooVe IP app, or in case it works better on other devices I purchase in the future. I like to have a backup plan, especially when it only costs a couple of bucks.

I wonder if a future version of the Google Hangouts app will incorporate VOIP calling and eliminate the need for a 3rd party app. Something to ponder.

Calling on 3G

Today was a busy day at work but then after 4 pm the calls just stopped. That happens sometimes but usually on a Thursday I will still get a couple of calls after 4 pm. But just to make sure the office phone was not having another outage or something, I called our 800 number from my cell phone.

My Overdrive Pro only has a 3G connection right now, but it does have 4 bars. My goal was just to make sure it would ring through to my desk. Which it did. But to my surprise I could actually hear myself clearly on both ends. There was a slight delay, but not any worse than a normal cell phone call.

So, once again using Google Voice via GrooVe IP, and doing that over the FreedomPop network, I actually successfully made a call while on 3G. So that's pretty cool! I'm still looking forward to the LTE roll out and better coverage, but this is good news for the time being. Maybe I will be more brave in the future when I have a strong 3G signal.

No USB for Bionic Lapdock

I tried connecting my Overdrive Pro to my Droid Bionic Lapdock directly via USB, but it looks like there is no driver support available. So I can only connect via WiFi. It still might work as a charging station for it, but I need to play around with it some more.

Ooh, I like this:

"FreedomPop's high speed wireless internet service runs on Clearwire's 4G WiMax network. The service will expand to include Sprint's 4G LTE network in 2013."
From http://www.freedompop.com/about.htm

I imagine I will need to buy a new device to get access to the LTE service. Perhaps the "Tri-Fi" hotspot, also from Sierra Wireless, will be offered later this year. I would be interested in that because Sprint is supposed to be expanding their LTE network in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area throughout 2013. Hopefully there is some sort of trade-in deal. It would be really sweet if they offered something like the Freedom Sleeve with LTE (and 3G backup) because that would make it less cumbersome than the separate hotspot.

I am not sure who told them the price would would count towards the LTE hotspot, but here is a related quote:
"So if you get an Overdrive Pro now, and want 4G LTE support in the future, you're going to have to trade it in. The $39.99 price will go towards getting you an LTE hotspot. LTE devices will also have the ability to roam on 3G." 
From http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418028,00.asp

I hope that is an accurate statement. I had LTE on Verizon and enjoyed the speed of it, just got tired of the cost. It would be worth kicking in a few more dollars for the speed of LTE at FreedomPop prices.

Milwaukee

Well if you live in Milwaukee, FreedomPop probably won't work for you. At least for now. I was there over the weekend and never saw a 4G signal even once. So it served the purpose of letting me use Google Voice for text messaging, but not for phone calls. That was good enough for me, but it would not really be a good thing for someone who lived there.

Interestingly enough, Wisconsin Dells had 4G. But I guess that makes sense because it's a touristy place and a lot of different Sprint customers would use their WiMax 4G there. I stopped at Culvers on my drive down and I thought about making a call to see how it worked, but I wanted to get back on the road so I didn't test it. Most of the entire stretch of I-94 in Wisconsin had 3G coverage, with only one blackout south of Eau Claire. I drove I-94 all the way from Hudson to Oak Creek (south side of Milwaukee).

On a side note, I got 40 mpg in my Sonata on the drive home. So that was pretty exciting. Best mileage I've ever seen with this car. It has Bluetooth built in to the radio, but the Droid Bionic runs really slowly when connected to Bluetooth, so I've been leaving it disabled on the Bionic lately.

I'm not alone.

Great quote from Ashton Kutcher:
"People are going to start looking at cellular and have that same feeling that I'm not getting that experience I should get, that I want to get, and deserve to get -- consumers are really entitled."

The quote comes from this article:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-57585932-10356022/ashton-kutcher-on-why-twitter-is-messed-up-and-more/

He makes another good point just before that:
"If Apple wanted to turn on a unified hot spot, I don't think I would need a carrier."

I agree with him. I'm not as hung up on it coming from Apple, but since all I want is data then I would be interested in this service from whoever offered the most reliable connection at the lowest price. When I read this at the end of the article, it made me excited to know that I'm not the only one looking for an alternative to the cellular providers.

Is FreedomPop's 3G of any real value?

So far it appears that I won't be able to make calls over the Overdrive Pro when I am on 3G. There's just not enough bandwidth. In defense of both services, neither FreedomPop nor GrooVe IP would tell you this should work. GrooVe IP works great when I'm on a broadband connection at home. FreedomPop works great for texting via Google Voice, using Facebook, or light web browsing. They just don't seem to work together very well. FreedomPop does sell a sleeve for the iPod touch that advertises it works with VOIP, and that sleeve only uses the 4G (WiMax) connection. Which means I should be able to make calls on 4G.

So that makes me wonder if I really get any value out of the 3G service. It lets me browse Facebook on my phone, but do I really need to do that? Texting via Google Voice would probably still be handy, but is it really worth the money? If I can use FreedomPop's free 500 GB of 4G only service, it would save me another $20 per month. So the real question is, how much of a tight-wad to I really want to be?
When I am out and about this summer I will get a better feel for how I use it and the real capabilities. If I have 4G coverage most places, and I find that I use less than 1 GB of data, then I should probably consider downgrading.

AT&T GoPhone as backup

If I had a compatible phone already, I would consider getting this as a backup:
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/voice/sku4940399.html#fbid=zB0VoXYPmTv

Because I only talk on my cell phone a few times each month, this would be a great backup for places my FreedomPop does not have a good enough connection to let me use VOIP. I would still use GrooVe IP whenever I could, but this AT&T option would be nice as an alternative when needed.

Option for my old Verizon phone are not as appealing:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/prepay/processPrePayRequest.do?&type=ppmonthSP

My feedback letter to FreedomPop

The FreedomPop website has a note that says this is all in open Beta, and they want feedback. So here is what I wrote to them:

Hello,

The positive feedback is that I like how small the Overdrive Pro device is. Fits in my pocket nicely. I like that it's a USB connection so I can use the car charger for my phone and keep it powered when I'm in the car. And I like that I can tether it to my laptop via USB. I bought it to use over WiFi with my phone, but this is a nice bonus for PC use. I also like that it has a switch to mute the speaker. The beeps are helpful at times, but it's nice to be able to silence them. And I also think it's cool that the device monitors battery temperature when charging so it doesn't overcook the battery.

My negative feedback is that you supposedly "activate" it when I place the order, so that 3 GB offer for the first month is misleading because I only have 2 week to use all of that. Granted I didn't pay for it, but it's not as good of a deal as it was purported to be because I really only get 2 weeks for free. And then even though it is supposedly activated, the 3G does not work right away. This is annoying because in my home, I only get the 4G signal from one corner of my house. Once I updated the PRL and profile, the 3G works great, but I'm wondering why you can't do that at the factory so it works right out of the box. I don't feel like this was truly "activated" until I did it myself, and I don't think the free month should have begun until after I did so.

Also the lack of communication on the backorder was pretty lame. It would have been nice to have been advised that it would take two weeks to ship. I did not expect to receive it the next day, but since the meter was already running on my first month, this was all pretty disappointing, and the lack of a known ship date made it worse. I think you probably received a lot more orders than you anticipated, and probably were overwhelmed, but I suggest improving communication with your future customers so they know when to expect it.

Overall, I think I like the service. It's only been a few days but it appears to be working effectively. I am being hypercritical because I work in customer service myself, and you asked for the feedback. I think in the future I will recommend this to friends who want to unplug from their cell phone carrier, but I still need to use if for a while and make sure I'm confident in it before I start making recommendations.

Kind regards,

John J. Koenig

Update 5/23, FreedomPop wrote back to say that they are going to give me another 1 GB extra for free next month. So that's pretty cool of them.

FreedomPop - growing pains.

I think FreedomPop is a victim of their own success. They seem to be overwhelmed at the moment. First it took them about two weeks to ship the Overdrive Pro, so it was about two and half weeks by the time I received it. I responded to that automated message with a question about delivery, and it took them a couple of days to respond.
Now when I go look at my account I get an error message that says my account is suspended because of a billing problem, and I need to enter a new credit card. Well they were able to bill me for the Overdrive Pro before they shipped it, so it seems to work just fine. I happen to have a second check card with a different number, so I changed to that number and the error is still there. But they have not cut off my service anyway. So I guess my account is not suspended and that whole message is just an error. I sent a screenshot to their customer service and hopefully I will hear back from them soon.
The other thing that's uncertain is how accurate the accounting is for the amount of data I have used. It says I've used 141 MB, as of the end of yesterday. That may be correct, but it seems low. The numbers displayed on the device seem a lot higher, but that may just be a bad perception on my part. Because I have 3 GB of data to use, and only a week left to use it, I've been trying to use it a lot. But it could be that I just don't have a fast enough connection to use tons of data. I'm actually starting to think that I might downgrade to the 500 MB "Pro" plan because it's only $4/month. But I'll see how much I am able to burn through in the next week, and then see how much of the 2 GB I am able to use next month.
I just logged in to my account again, and the error message seems to be gone. It was there for a day or two, but hopefully this means it's corrected now.

FreedomPop - getting the 3G connection to work.

I noted earlier that it took a couple of weeks to receive my Overdrive Pro device. In the time I was waiting, I received an automated email message that gave me some tips for getting the 3G working. So they must be aware that it doesn't work out of the box. I forgot about this when I received it, and had to figure it out on my own. But if you are a fellow owner and need help, here's a link to their suggestions:
http://www.freedompop.com/faq_answer.htm?categoryId=22019471&categoryTitle=Devices%3A%20FreedomPop%20Overdrive%20Pro&articleId=23689026
I only did the update to the profile, not the PRL. So I'm going to update that tonight when I am on a 4G connection again.

FreedomPop, Google Voice, and dropping Verizon.

I've been on Verizon for years. Almost a decade, I think. Great coverage, never had any customer service problems, and I get a 17% discount from work. A couple of years ago I decided to spring for a smartphone and I bought a Droid X from Costco, which meant I also had to sign up for a data plan. I got a discount on that monthly fee too, and it was unlimited data. Then about a year later I dropped my phone and of course the screen shattered. So I found a Droid Bionic on eBay. When I activated that, I was delighted to learn that this 4G phone would also have unlimited data. That was exciting, and it sure was fast! Good times were enjoyed for several months. Then last summer Verizon announced that they were getting rid of the unlimited data plan. When I was ready to upgrade my phone, I would have to choose a new plan. For the same price as unlimited data, now I would only get two gigs. That did not seem like a good deal to me at all. So I started looking around for other options. Also, I don't talk on my cell phone very much. I talk on the phone all day at work, so even though I'm an extrovert, I just don't spend a lot of time on the phone outside of work. So it irritated me that I was shelling out about $75 a month for a service that no longer fit my needs.

I signed up for a Google Voice account some time last year and enjoyed playing around with that. It seemed to work alright, but they explicitly stated that they are not a phone replacement service, just a call forwarding service. So its usefulness was limited, but it did save me some overages on my text plan because the friend who texted me the most would use that number instead of my cell phone number. The texting on GV is SMS only, so no MMS. And that means no photos or other attachments, and only one person at a time. No group messages. But hey, it's free!

I started looking around for a VOIP app that would let me make calls with GV, and I quickly found a great app called GrooVe IP. So that was exciting. As long as it has a solid data connection, it makes and receives calls via my GV account, and it works really well. 

And then I discovered a cool bonus when I went to Europe. I was able to use my Google Voice account over WiFi while I was there. I could text people back home just fine because it was not over a cell phone network, it was all just using the internet. I was also able to use my CDMA/LTE phone to call the US for free, because I was not using CDMA or LTE, I was using WiFi. I only ever called my work voicemail, so I don't know if it was lagging really badly or not. There was not a live person on the other end to complain. But it was exciting to learn that my phone could be operated exclusively with a WiFi connection.

So that just left one question remaining: How do I get a reliable, affordable mobile WiFi hotspot? I had looked at Clearwire in the past, and also hotspots from the major cell phone carriers. Most of them seemed to work out to about $50 per month. So that was a nice savings, but not worth the hassle. Plus the coverage was not always stellar. I had seen a service called FreedomPop which was reselling Sprint coverage, but only the 4G WiMax coverage, which has a lot of gaps. But coincidentally, while I was in Europe I received an email from FreedomPop promoting their new Overdrive Pro which has both 3G and 4G service. Their two gig plan is only $20 per month, and when you go over it's only one cent per meg. So I excitedly placed an order for on of them on April 30.

I guess a lot of other people excitedly placed an order. too. It went on backorder and I didn't receive it until May 17. When I did receive it, only the 4G data worked. It was not able to connect to the 3G. This was annoying because there was only one place in my home where it would get 4G. So I set it in the window and let it connect, and then signed in to the admin page. I had to update the 3G profile, or something like that. Once that had been done I could get 3G. Woo hoo! The Overdrive Pro device is pretty light. It contains a battery that charges via USB and then will last over 4 hours. You can also tether it to a laptop via USB, and the settings allow you to have WiFi turn off or stay on while it's tethered. The device measures 2.5 x 2.5 inches, and it just under 3/4 inch thick. It also has a physical switch that mutes the little beeps it emits when it is connecting and disconnecting to data signals. That is handy because I don't want it making noise when I'm at work.

Now that I had it working, I went to my Google Voice account the next day and signed up to have my cell phone number ported to them, which cost $20, and also resulted in my Verizon account being cancelled. I actually felt a little bit of anxiety as I clicked "Submit" and got rid of Verizon. This was all very exciting back when I was realizing that it might work, but then to jump in and try it was a bit scary. But I did it anyway, and the next day I received an email from Google which said it was all complete. On a Sunday even! 

So now I'm free. The FreedomPop account is not a contract, just a month by month arrangement. So if it does not work out, I can drop it and go sign up with AT&T, or whoever. It certainly seems affordable, but the reliability has yet to be seen. I tried to make a phone call from the cafeteria at work yesterday, and I could hear the person I called, but they could not hear me. Last night at home, when I was on my CenturyLink WiFi, I took a call and there were no problems. So I guess it just depends on signal strength. I also have GV forward to my office phone, so during the day I shouldn't need it anyway. The other negative comment I have is regarding the free first month of service. They active your account the day you place your order, and the clock starts ticking. So I only have 10 days or so to try it out before I get billed for the next month. So it's free, and it's still a good deal, but not as much as it seemed. And then there is a deal to pay $3.50 more per month to have unused data rolled over to next month, but at a max of 500 megs per month. So that's not actually a great deal after all. I need to cancel that piece. It's better to risk paying an extra penny per meg if you need it.

I will keep posting my thoughts and experience on here as time goes on. FreedomPop also has a free service for 4G only and only 500 megs per month. If it seems like that's all I need, then I will probably drop to that at some point. I guess we'll see how it goes.