randynavarro Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 The Android is supposed to automatically grab the home Wi-Fi? And you can make a cell phone call over the Wi-Fi? If that's true, it would save me about $200 I was just getting ready to drop on a cell phone signal booster cuz the cell signal in my home is almost non-existent. How do you make the Android work that way?
mthomas1 Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 How do you make the Android work that way? Turn on WiFi, and log into a WiFi network. After the first login, it automatically re-connects when in range. BUT... now that we are discussing it, I've just been assuming that it's smart enough to be routing voice over the WiFi, the same way it switches net access over when WiFi is available - Sprint's signal is usually problematic at my location, and I've never dropped a call with the phone connected to WiFi, which happens from time to time on the straight cell radio. Now that I think it through, that's unlikely, so I may have spoken in error, I'll have to check.
mthomas1 Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 Also, there are various ways to access GOOGLE voice over WiFi from Android based phones, but they are too tough to set up from most users.
kurt Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 Not all phones are made equal. I've got the Droid2, or something like that, and it's just another POS Motorola phone. The Sprint EVO is a good phone, as are several of the HTC lines. Motorola's are clunky POS's. It continually finds, then loses my home WiFi signal while my iPod Touch and my computer do not. Every other phone I've got goes WiFi in an instant; the Motorola does not. I'm on my 3rd Motorola thru the warranty program, seeing if it's just one phone. Nope, all 3 suck. Lately, I make most of my calls on the iPod Touch via Skype. 2 cents a minute. I regularly Skype to friends in China for free. The usual phone services are vastly overrated; Skype and an iPod Touch works. I've programmed Skype (it takes 2 seconds) so the ID on the receiving end is my number, so folks know it's me. Hardly any of this stuff works in the USA. In China, everything worked, first time and continually, no problems. It's mildly depressing knowing every other developing nation has infinitely better service than we do. (We now rank 32nd on the world connectivity index.) Yes, Bangladesh and rural China have better phone service than we do.
Terence McCann Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 I really like this one, it's the BC 2011. If you talk for a few minutes it gets nice and warm - handy for winter inspections. The wife snapped a picture of me talking to one of our customers.
Jim Morrison Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 My cell phone is so old, it has a rotary dial. When it dies, I will either buy the cheapest phone I can find, or I'm getting me an iPhone, because iPhones are the slickest damned things on the planet.
kurt Posted February 1, 2011 Report Posted February 1, 2011 Listen to me boy.......get yerself an iPhone........ Don't settle for nuthin' else.
Gibsonguy Posted February 2, 2011 Report Posted February 2, 2011 Is it the EVO that is a WI-FI hotspot? I use a toughbook on site and if I could use my phone as a WI-FI router, then I can just send and receive emails (ie: reports) from anywhere! (Not to mention access this website if I needed to )
randynavarro Posted February 2, 2011 Report Posted February 2, 2011 Yes, the EVO is the hotspot. Your particualr plan, however, may required you to purchase an upgrade to tether your laptop to the phone.
mthomas1 Posted February 4, 2011 Report Posted February 4, 2011 Randy, It seems I'm misinformed, and the cellular voice functionality cannot be supplied by the WiFi connection (which does provide data functionality such as web browsing) - an assumption I have been making based on what seems to be better voice functionality (primary, fewer dropped calls) when I am connected to WiFi. (The difference is pretty striking, and I assume that it most have something to do with the lower load on the cellular radio when the data connection is via WiFi, but that's just guess.) BTW, before I switched from Verizon to Sprint I installed a Verizon Cellular Access Point connected to my local network in an attempt to solve various problems in my house's low-signal location. 1) It provided only a voice (not data connection) connection and 2) it resolved none of my problems with Verizon, which according to one of their "senior technicians" were the result of known but apparently unfixable problems with the software that handed off signals from tower to tower, and which gets hopelessly confused if you are right on the boundary of two towers and are not moving (for example, my house's location).
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