yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
That's what I'm doing. Strategically located chargers makes it easy. If I'm somewhere where I can charge every so often, I take advantage.

I like to optimize battery life, but not at the expense of usability, unless I know I won't be around a charger for most of the day.
[Nexus 4 General] r1nstang:
anyone else having troubles recieving pics on tmobiles $30 plan? worked fine earlier today. but had 2 people send me pics. AT&T and Sprint. neither one come thru, they just say "Message size 232KB expires feb 27th Downloading...."

but it never finishes downloading. i have switched from wifi to data with no luck. restarted phone, and deleted all the other text messages on my phone except for 1 persons with 550 messages on it. Nexus 4 running AOKP 4.2.1
[Nexus 4 General] revamper:
Try unchecking auto retrieve and downloading manually. If it's still stuck use a 3rd party SMS app like gosms to download the MMS.
[Nexus 4 General] r1nstang:
got it using handcent. first time thats happened with the stock mms app. wonder what caused it. thanks!
[Nexus 4 General] ahodarkar:
My apologies if someone else has already mentioned this in the thread. There were too many pages and I could not go through all of them. I am an Indian who is studying in the USA. So here is what I have done.

I installed Pinger and got a free USA number with it. Then I installed Vonage and verified it using the Pinger number. So now I have free incoming on that number using Pinger and free outgoing from that number using Vonage!
[Nexus 4 General] baiju2012:
What is the incoming call quality on Pinger?

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
Hey guys I know a lot here are on VoIP. Just wanna let you know you might be getting the notifications delayed, or missed calls without ringing. If you're using stock it's supposed to be a problem in 4.2.1 and 4.2.2. If you're using CM10.1 you might have just started to get them delayed since 4.2.2, 4.2.1 apparently was OK. See here and also this one is the thread where the problem is described in detail, and a link where you can star the issue in the google bug tracker. There was supposed to be a Qualcomm driver out with 4.2.2, but they missed it.
[Nexus 4 General] RayLancer:
I need some help guys, I'm getting a lot of 504 error while downloading stuff from the Play Store. My APN is set to epc.tmobile.com.

EDIT: Ok now it's working... after I switched from wi-fi back to T-Mobile.
[Nexus 4 General] biggiestuff:
Probably would be a good idea to sync a lot of your Google music offline to avoid data usage.
[Nexus 4 General] ahodarkar:
It's the same as Vonage. A little worse than Skype. Decent enough over a fast connection. Sometimes when the WiFi is bad or the 3g connection isn't good I get some static. But that's about it.
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
Is Vonage better or worse than Skype for you? I'd never even heard of Pinger before your post. Seems like it's pretty widely used. I've read of Skype being a lesser service than some of its competitors these days, but so far, I'm not finding that to be the case. It's clearly better than Vonage and Viber, at least for me and the places from where I'm calling.

I'm getting very satisfactory results out of a combination of Skype and Spare Phone. Call quality on Skype has been excellent for me. I'd used it enough over the years to call phones from my computer and Nexus 7 that this isn't such a surprise. But most of my incoming and some of my outgoing calls are via Spare Phone, which has been terrific as the settings get refined. Sound quality isn't at Skype's level, but it's been solid. And the developer is very helpful.

This is all going much better than I'd even hoped now that I've zoned in on a couple of things that work for me. My first month of service will be up in about 10 days and I've only used 23 out of my 100 T-Mobile minutes.

I'd intended to try acegolfer's PIAF/Amazon approach and may get to that one of these days when I have time. But it may not even be necessary. It would be interesting to compare, though.
[Nexus 4 General] JsChiSurf:
Thanks for the tip for 'Spare Phone'. In my searches, I hadn't come across that app.

In my opinion, that's the holy grail for making this plan work. There's plenty of apps that I've found that can use my Google Voice number for making outgoing calls using data, but until now, I couldn't find a simple solution for receiving incoming calls on the same number.

Spare Phone is just the ticket. Just installed it and going to give it a whirl for a bit to see how it goes.

My cycle date is on the 8th of each month, and I've used 27/100 minutes so far, just by taking advantage of outgoing calls on data, this can only help reduce that usage even further.
[Nexus 4 General] thebryceee:
Update us on the quality, lag, etc.

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
I have Spare Phone, and it doesn't do anything that Groove IP can't. Groove IP and Talkatone are the better apps for GV. I bought Spare phone and for the longest time I couldn't use it cause it had battery drain that was fixed long after it was known (kept the CPU awake, Groove IP has the option in the "troubleshooting" section). Also, the developer came out with "Spare Phone 5" a separate paid app that did a few things more, most of which Groove IP already does, so I'm not so sure you can expect feature updates to the regular Spare Phone.

Groove IP and Talkatone have "dynamic forwarding" options, which will change your forwarding phone to either your cell or Google Talk depending on whether those apps are connected. With Groove IP you have to buy a $0.99 app called Groove Forwarder, and while it may seem like something the main app should have, it has its value as a standalone, IMO, cause it doesn't only automatically change forwarding phones when Groove IP is connected, but you can also tell it to change depending on whether you're on Wifi or mobile data connected, which makes it useful to use with other apps. You do have to maintain a constant internet connection cause the app communicates directly to GV in order to make the changes.

With Talkatone it's a $20/yr subscription for that and some other extras, including getting rid of ads (app is free) and a higher bitrate compression of the Speex codec (you get lower bitrate for free which is good for mobile data). Since you're going through Talkatone's servers, even if you don't have an internet connection for some reason, once their servers detect you're not logged into the app, they will switch your GV to forward to your phone instead.
[Nexus 4 General] baiju2012:
There is an update to Skype's app in Play Store. It says it has performance improvements. Let's see how it improves the battery performance.

On Groove IP, I tried it for 3 months. The app is great, has loads of features, but the call quality was sub-par. Especially, the receiver would complain about echo and missing voice. Tried Skype, everybody can hear me clearly. Though the App needs a lot of improvements, it is all about price and call quality. I am trying this now and see how it works.

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] ahodarkar:
call quality wise skype>pinger>vonage.

Pinger gives you a free US number. That number i can keep for life (or till pinger remains in business). Meaning if I am in my home country a person(official contact) can make a local call from his landline/cell to my 10 digit pinger US number and I can receive it in my home country. Vonage can make calls via that Pinger number. So essentially free outgoing and incoming calls to any US number for life from a 10 digit US number. That is the only advantage.

Im pretty sure that Skype is better call quality wise. But it aint free :(
[Nexus 4 General] cozmosland:
What would be the best/cheapest option for calling from the USA to Canada. and does any of them do txting aswell, i know that skype does but skype isnt the cheapest.
[Nexus 4 General] biggiestuff:
How does one get gold status? I've used 90 bucks in refills over 3 months but I've put in 110 dollars worth with the last refill being a 10 dollar one to get me to 110 total, yet my status hasn't changed to gold yet.
[Nexus 4 General] baiju2012:
I don't think you are gong to get Skype call quality with almost no setup. You call always go PIAF route, which could be free, but lot of DIY work. Skype is only 3 bucks a month to call any number in US and Canada.:)

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] cozmosland:
oh,, then i'll just do that then, im assuming txting would be extra?
[Nexus 4 General] baiju2012:
Yeah. FREE :D

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] thor79:
I'm still using pbxes.org for my voip provider and the stock dialer to make calls. voice quality is good enough for my uses. No complaints here. Of course, I rarely actually receive or make a voice call. When I do receive a voice call it's usually from a wrong number or a telemarketer. And they're usually calling my TMobile number...not my GV number...so it comes up as a non-internet call and I just don't answer.
[Nexus 4 General] Mr Ian B:
Last month I signed up for the USA unlimited phone calls for $2.99 plan. They charged my account the $2.99 but saw on the same date a second charge for .09 cents. Does anyone know what that second charge is for? Is there a number to call them to find out what it is for???

Tia,

Ian B
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
I don't think you can get gold status on this plan, if you're referring to what I'm thinking about. I think that only applies to the pay as you go types of plans. I haven't looked deeply into this, but when I saw mention of it on the T-Mobile site, I checked to see if it applies in any way to the $30 plan and it doesn't.
[Nexus 4 General] clockcycle:
I'm considering changing to solavei now that they've permanently waived the enrollment fee and lowered the Sim from $29 to $9.

Has anyone else that was on tmo$30 changed, hows your experience?
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
I had gold rewards a couple years ago. FWIW, this $30 plan's extra minutes are already the same price as the cheapest gold rewards minutes, i.e. $0.10.
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
That's pretty nice, though. If I'm understanding it right, that free number is what you'd have to pay Skype to get from them.

If you have that $2.99 a month US/Canada subscription from Skype, you can get a phone number for a year at $30, which is half the price you'd pay without a subscription. Then, people can call you on your phone at that number. In effect, that means $30 for the T-Mobile plan plus $5.99 to Skype for the US/Canada plan and a phone number. Plans to another part of the world would have the relevant adjustment, obviously. That's another way to get good quality two way calling at a low price, though there's the inconvenience of having to give contacts yet another number.

If you can do the same with Pinger for no extra charge, that's a nice thing

I have a Skype number and tested it to see what would happen if I indicated both that and Google Chat (for use with Spare Phone) as forwarding phones for my GV number. Both numbers ring on my phone at the same time. It's kind of odd having one device get two calls from the same number at once. My Nexus 4 didn't exactly like this. I refused the first of the calls (one beat the other by a slight amount, I don't recall which; probably Spare Phone was first) and then hoped to answer with the other. But it didn't quite work. SP then lost its ability to dial out, so I had to restart it to get that functionality back. I'd have to test all this out further to verify accurately, though. In any case, I don't recommend forwarding calls to both numbers in your GV settings if you go down this road.

One big negative about this method is that you can SMS from Skype, but you can't SMS to Skype numbers AFAIK. So if someone texts you at your Skype number, you won't likely see it and it seems they'll never know that. Does SMS with Pinger numbers work the same way?

So I'm limiting giving our my Skype number to only those with whom I communicate most, which is largely limited to my wife. I use the GV/Spare Phone number with everyone else.
[Nexus 4 General] acegolfer:
I don't understand why you reveal your skype number to anyone. Since you are using GV, just give out GV number. Then set Skype outgoing calls show GV# as the CID. (Google it)

Then you can use SMS without any problem.
[Nexus 4 General] happymfeet:
I'm currently under contract with T-Mobile and I want to get this plan but I want to be able to keep my current number. Would I be able to activate this plan, port my number, then cancel the line or no? Is there anything I can do to get on this plan and keep my number?

Thanks in advance.
[Nexus 4 General] guapinoy:
I would port it to Google Voice. Then you can have whatever plan you want.
[Nexus 4 General] NOSintake:
Ok, my Nexus 4 just came in and I ordered the SIM card online, but I want to make sure I'm getting this set up correct. Since I'm waiting on the sim, its a little easier to trouble shoot this right now

GV settings: Forward calls to Google Chat (not T-Mobile number)

GV Number + Groove IP lite + WiFi = free calls to and from Nexus 4 (all the time as long as I'm connected to wifi and using Groove IP to make calls)

GV Number + Groove IP (paid) + 4G = free calls to and from Nexus 4

That look correct? Shouldn't charge any minutes correct?
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
That's exactly what I do. But I can't use SMS without any problem from Skype. When sending the SMS, I even get a message from within Skype that says I may not be able to receive a response. And the receiving phone doesn't show my GV number, or even my Skype number, for that matter. It's just a five digit numerical code.

Furthermore, I now see that I was charged 11¢ for my test SMS message earlier in the day. Good thing there's no more money in the account.

From the ever slow Skype website at https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA...ompage=search&q=SMS&fromSearchFirstPage=false:

It's fine, though. I don't have any need to text anyone from Skype other than to other Skype users I know. I just pointed all this out as a FYI, since I was writing about my experiences with Skype and this T-Mobile plan. The only person who has my Skype number is my wife. It's useful for her to be able to call that directly. Everyone else gets my GV number, even if it's via CID from my Skype based call.
[Nexus 4 General] reniur:
I switched to the Nexus 4 on the $30 T-mobile plan; I'm blown away by the savings and experience (I made the change thanks to this thread) so I wanted to share the details with anyone who finds the details useful.

I switched from a Rezound on Verizon 4G-LTE which I was very happy with. I was frustrated with being locked into the contract and wasn't paying retail for a GS3...so I made the jump.

Once I got the Nexus I went over to mobile for the $30 plan and they sent me to Wal-mart saying it was 'a Wal-mart only plan'. Wallyworld was clueless so I went back to T-mobile and a manager was able to give me a free sim, port my number, and get me going.

I was able to root through the other threads in this forum and used Titanium Backup to restore most of my important stuff from the Rezound.

I'm in Hampton Roads, VA and I'm routinely getting 8-15 Mbps speed tests down. Much faster then I expected; pages load slower but not unbearable compared to my old VZ service. Upload sucks, but I don't care about that for my needs.

I average about 130 minutes a month for voice, so after reading this thread I stared using Vonage. I've had a decent experience with it (not perfect)...some calls my friends complain that I sound distant, but they aren't paying my bill :). Bluetooth in the car through Vonage was not so smooth. I learned to start the app a good 30 seconds before you make a call and I was good.

Use the T-mobile apps in the Play Store to track your minutes and get ready to find a way to get your music to play louder through an aux connect in the car (I'm here to figure this out tonight).

I'm happy as hell to have the 'true Google experience' and have already received a Jelly Bean update. The phone is clean, fast, and the display is as good as advertised. This will post will be captain obvious to most, but if you are on the fence there you go.
[Nexus 4 General] n2d551:
So glad to hear from someone else in the 757. I'm headed your way too.Been a loyal sprint customer for too many years and feel like I'm on dial up ! That $95 bucks a month I'm paying for crappy service is stupid, while everyone else on the peninsula gets better data then I do. We are one of the most populated regions on the east coast and sprint no wimax or lte. As soon as I get my taxes I'll be joining you on the T-Mobile $30 side. Already got the wi-fi calling and google voice ready to go. I'm all in!:good:
[Nexus 4 General] biggiestuff:
That's disappointing to hear especially since i use about an average of 50 out of 100 minutes. It would have been nice to build up some minutes so I could actually have a conversation. I mostly use groove IP to talk but lately have shied away from it since it's a battery hog. I only hook up to it when i'm at home at night.
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
Yes. Actually you just made me realize that another advantage of Groove Forwarder is that you can use it also with Groove IP Lite, which I would recommend if you're going that route. It's only $0.99 and it will change your forwarding settings automatically depending on whether Groove IP is logged in or not.

Also it's very likely that you'll run into trouble with mobile data and Groove IP or any other GV solution that doesn't use compression, like Spare Phone. Talkatone uses compression but it has ads and if you want dynamic forwarding it's $20 a year.
[Nexus 4 General] svengalis:
You would need a new sim activation kit but yes you can port over your existing tmobile number.
[Nexus 4 General] whahn1983:
I just tried Pinger and found it to be worse than both Skype and Vonage. Sticking with Skype for now.
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
One thing that no VOIP approach can overcome is the lack of a mobile connection when there's no wifi. One place where I am often has a weak signal. Another location I was at today had none at all and it was in a place where I needed phone communication because of an immediate matter. I had to go five blocks before a signal came back. This is in a heavily populated area.
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
But how is that a problem of VoIP if you didn't have phone signal? If you did and it was urgent, even if you already spent the 100 minutes, it wasn't $0.10/min urgent? And if you didn't have any extra couple of bucks in your account (I still have the $3.something that came with the new SIM), then you know it's not gonna be a problem for the next time this happens. In fact, VoIP can save your butt, especially in "heavily populated" areas where there are 2 starbucks per block.
[Nexus 4 General] maigre:
I think you misunderstand the point of my post. No data coverage in a non-wifi location = no VOIP. Therefore, the best VOIP approach has no value in those circumstances. I'm in a populated, high tech location. Data coverage around here is spotty. This thread is about users' experiences with this plan. Some people considering subscribing to this plan come here to find out what others' experiences are. This is a part of mine. I chose to share it, particularly in the wake of lots of VOIP discussion. So far, I find this plan to be a remarkably good deal. But it's not without warts.

Yes, the option exists to use the 100 minutes and beyond. I take advantage of that without hesitation when there's no good alternative. As it happens, today, I was getting in the car and driving somewhere when my VOIP call failed, so I waited a minute to see if I got better coverage. I'm experimenting with a few things, including seeing where my VOIP calling works and where it doesn't.
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
I understood this point:

But it's obvious, and it's tautological. No internet=no VoIP. It's like saying "one thing that no cell phone approach can overcome is the lack of a cell phone connection".

What I didn't get was what you had to go 5 blocks for. For mobile data, or for cell signal to come back on?

I think another point that you could make is that VoIP is no good when you're moving like in a car. I don't know if that's what you meant.
[Nexus 4 General] vickpick:
Has anyone ever encountered a tmobile page redirection when USB tethering? That just happened to me. It was telling to me go activate the hotspot feature in my plan :?
[Nexus 4 General] AlleN7:
omg $30 for all that data(practically unlimited if you aren't tethering) and texting? O.O

I'll see if that's cheaper than staying on my parent's family plan. I'm the only one that texts and uses data.

Currently on a 200MB plan since I came from a WP7 and it had nothing to do. All I did was go on FB once a day and had my school's email sync'ed. I had to try to use all 200MB. Just got my N4 so I'm gonna see how fast I'll use up 200MB.
[Nexus 4 General] lonequid:
Change the User-Agent in your browser to something non-standard
[Nexus 4 General] RayLancer:
I have my payment set to auto-pay each month online. How do I add more funding for emergency (extra minutes). Do I just goto Refill Account and add the extra funds there for my emergency minutes?
[Nexus 4 General] baiju2012:
Yes. You can buy prepaid cards at various website too and top up your account.

Sent from my Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] vickpick:
Oh okay. So we aren't allowed to tether. I thought we were according to the plan. Thanks! Funny thing is I wifi tether all the time and the thing never shows up, but when I usb tether, it does show up.
[Nexus 4 General] NOSintake:
I've got AdAway, so I'm not too terribly worried about ads. I will say though, I made a call with Groove IP and the person on the other end said there was an echo and I didn't sound "normal". I was on wifi only (didn't have my SIM card yet), so maybe I should give Talkatone a try?
[Nexus 4 General] andy o:
In my experience echo is a problem with most if not all of these apps. If you enable echo cancellation in Groove IP the advanced cancellation option appears to work well if I test myself, but several times now I've been told by others that my voice breaks, so I just keep it disabled. The trick then is to lower the call volume enough when you are in a quiet environment, and they won't hear their echo. If you are in a noisy place where you have to raise the volume, they won't hear it either because it will be drown out. I don't know if Talkatone is much better in this regard to be honest, or any other VoIP apps.
[Nexus 4 General] Jusnice:
I'm in the Boston area and been using talkatone. I've been making allot of calls to see how the app is. My experience is I can hear who I'm talking to jus fine with a Lil delay but the other person always hears echo's and I'm somewhat distorted. Doesn't matter if I'm on Wi-Fi or data same exists in both. Tried playing with settings but no success. On a great note it's definitely usable and it's free besides the 30 for T-Mobile. Now that I remember I'm having problems with answering phone calls through talkatone. It jus keeps ringing. So I call them back not a deal breaker for me.
[Nexus 4 General] ericshmerick:
Vonage. No you can't receive calls, but just call them right back on Vonage.

Groove IP is a echo-y nightmare. I uninstalled it after months of grappling with it. No setting combo works well, they are all equally as terrible. It just sucks, period.
[Nexus 4 General] Postal Psycho:
I managed to get groove ip working on my note 2 by going to troubleshooting and check Disable JB APIs.

It's not perfect but it's much more doable.
[Nexus 4 General] Eric-1987:
Groove ip works perfectly on a good connection. User error.