Tuesday, August 23, 2011

misc.consumers.frugal-living - 6 new messages in 2 topics - digest

misc.consumers.frugal-living
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living?hl=en

misc.consumers.frugal-living@googlegroups.com

Today's topics:

* Black+white caterpillars are poisonous - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/3948414fa5978d43?hl=en
* AT&T Minimum Texting Plan Price Quadruples in One Year - 5 messages, 4
authors
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/d30df867e6683fac?hl=en

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TOPIC: Black+white caterpillars are poisonous
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/3948414fa5978d43?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 7:21 pm
From: "deja.blues"


On 8/13/2011 2:32 AM, zeez JosephineJoseph rules wrote:
> http://www.snopes.com/horrors/insects/tussock.asp
>
>
> Claim: Black and white caterpillars are venomous.
> TRUE

If you eat caterpillars you deserve to die.

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TOPIC: AT&T Minimum Texting Plan Price Quadruples in One Year
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.consumers.frugal-living/t/d30df867e6683fac?hl=en
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== 1 of 5 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 7:59 pm
From: Justin


Paul Miner wrote on [Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:59:47 -0500]:
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 01:48:33 +0000 (UTC), Justin
> <nospam@insightbb.com> wrote:
>
>>nospam wrote on [Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:12:02 -0400]:
>>> In article <4e52fced$0$2186$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS
>>> <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> >> And not to pick on Sprint's MVNOs too much, three of those places have
>>>> >> no T-Mobile coverage, and two have no AT&T coverage. The T-Mobile
>>>> >> acquisition would be good for coverage since with a combined network,
>>>> >> only one of those areas would have no coverage at all.
>>>> >
>>>> > those are rural areas where people rarely go, which is why there's not
>>>> > much coverage there.
>>>>
>>>> But lots of people go through rural areas. Lots of people go to
>>>> Yosemite, Kirkwood Ski area, & Glacier National Park, and lots of people
>>>> drive up the coast through far northwestern California. I chose Hamburg,
>>>> MN, only because some friends of mine live there (they are on T-Mobile)
>>>> and they came on a trip up the Pacific Coast with us in July. It was
>>>> very annoying to be calling them and often having the call go to voice
>>>> mail because of the lack of T-Mobile coverage.
>>>
>>> there are 300 million people in the usa. how many go to yosemite or
>>> glacier every year out of those 300 million? it's not enough for at&t
>>> and t-mobile to care.
>>
>>Glacier: 2216109 last year
>>Yosemite: 3.5 million a year
>
> Would it be safe to assume that those are visitor totals?
>
> If so, how many are US citizens? I know when I go to a National Park
> I'm much more likely to hear people speaking languages other than
> English.
>
> Second, of the visitors who live in this country, how many are at&t
> customers, or T-Mo customers, or even Sprint customers? A few
> thousand? A hundred thousand? Not nearly enough for the carriers to
> worry about.

Why do you have to live in the US to have a cell phone?
I know when I travel abroad I buy a burner and a local SIM

EVery time I have been to Glacier, and it's 7 or 8 times as we used to
have close by relatives, the visitors were very white and mostly american.

== 2 of 5 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 8:38 pm
From: Todd Allcock


At 22 Aug 2011 16:14:07 -0700 SMS wrote:

> Platinumtel is indeed a good deal, but the coverage is very poor since
> it's limited solely to the native Sprint network.
>
> Very strange statement on their web site: "Free on-network nationwide
> roaming." If you're on their network, you're not roaming, and in fact
> they do not offer any roaming at all. They are as bad as Virgin Mobile.


It's not that strange.

If you recall, the original definition of "roaming" was simply using your
phone outside your home market. Until (the old) AT&T offered the "One
Rate" plan in the late 90s ushering in the current era of "nationwide
coverage", you paid roaming charges when traveling outside your home area
even in areas covered by your own carrier. T-Mobile and Alltel still
offered low-cost regional plans that charged for in-network roaming up
until just a few years ago. (When I lived in Missouri back at the turn
of the century, I had a $50/month T-Mo plan that included 3000minutes for
calls placed from and to Kansas and Missouri. Roaming outside those two
states cost $0.49/min, and calling outside those states cost $0.10/min
long-distance!)

== 3 of 5 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 9:17 pm
From: Paul Miner


On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:59:18 +0000 (UTC), Justin
<nospam@insightbb.com> wrote:

>Paul Miner wrote on [Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:59:47 -0500]:
>> On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 01:48:33 +0000 (UTC), Justin
>> <nospam@insightbb.com> wrote:
>>
>>>nospam wrote on [Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:12:02 -0400]:
>>>> In article <4e52fced$0$2186$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS
>>>> <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> >> And not to pick on Sprint's MVNOs too much, three of those places have
>>>>> >> no T-Mobile coverage, and two have no AT&T coverage. The T-Mobile
>>>>> >> acquisition would be good for coverage since with a combined network,
>>>>> >> only one of those areas would have no coverage at all.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > those are rural areas where people rarely go, which is why there's not
>>>>> > much coverage there.
>>>>>
>>>>> But lots of people go through rural areas. Lots of people go to
>>>>> Yosemite, Kirkwood Ski area, & Glacier National Park, and lots of people
>>>>> drive up the coast through far northwestern California. I chose Hamburg,
>>>>> MN, only because some friends of mine live there (they are on T-Mobile)
>>>>> and they came on a trip up the Pacific Coast with us in July. It was
>>>>> very annoying to be calling them and often having the call go to voice
>>>>> mail because of the lack of T-Mobile coverage.
>>>>
>>>> there are 300 million people in the usa. how many go to yosemite or
>>>> glacier every year out of those 300 million? it's not enough for at&t
>>>> and t-mobile to care.
>>>
>>>Glacier: 2216109 last year
>>>Yosemite: 3.5 million a year
>>
>> Would it be safe to assume that those are visitor totals?
>>
>> If so, how many are US citizens? I know when I go to a National Park
>> I'm much more likely to hear people speaking languages other than
>> English.
>>
>> Second, of the visitors who live in this country, how many are at&t
>> customers, or T-Mo customers, or even Sprint customers? A few
>> thousand? A hundred thousand? Not nearly enough for the carriers to
>> worry about.
>
>Why do you have to live in the US to have a cell phone?

I assume you meant to ask, why do you have to live in the US to be a
customer of one of our wireless providers? I suppose the answer is
that it mostly depends on their respective billing policies. Maybe
they want their customers to have a billing address in this country to
make collections easier. *shrug*

>I know when I travel abroad I buy a burner and a local SIM
>
>EVery time I have been to Glacier, and it's 7 or 8 times as we used to
>have close by relatives, the visitors were very white and mostly american.

I visited Glacier about 25-30 times between 1991 and 1997 and I
definitely heard non-English far more than not. I suppose both of our
experiences are valid.

--
Paul Miner


== 4 of 5 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 9:26 pm
From: Todd Allcock


At 22 Aug 2011 19:13:29 -0700 SMS wrote:
> On 8/22/2011 6:12 PM, nospam wrote:
>
> > there are 300 million people in the usa. how many go to yosemite or
> > glacier every year out of those 300 million? it's not enough for at&t
> > and t-mobile to care.
>
> In 2010, over 280 million people visited national parks. In 2010, over
> 4 million people visited Yosemite, and 1.6 million visited Glacier
> National Park.
>
> It's clearly enough for AT&T to have put in a cell in Yosemite Valley.
> Verizon and Sprint rely on a roaming partner. T-Mobile has no coverage
> at all (other than 911).


Verizon uses a roaming partner because they have no license to operate in
that area.

There are opposite examples, of course. Large swaths of New Mexico
(including a good chunk of highway between Santa Fe and Roswell) have no
Verizon service but both AT&T and T-Mo have coverage because the sole
carrier there (Plateau Wireless) happens to be GSM rather than CDMA, so
Verizon can't roam on them.

My own neighborhood, a twenty year-old subdivision in suburban Denver had
no Verizon or AT&T service when I moved here in 2003, but had decent
Sprint, T-Mo and Nextel service. Verizon finally had coverage by 2005 or
so, and AT&T a year or so after that. (That situation shook my faith in
the supposed superiority of 800MHz carriers!)


== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Mon, Aug 22 2011 11:16 pm
From: AJL <128945nomail@none.com>


On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:38:57 -0600, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:

>If you recall, the original definition of "roaming" was simply using your
>phone outside your home market... you paid roaming charges when
> traveling outside your home area even in areas covered
>by your own carrier.

Yep, I'm still on one of those Verizon voice plans. It's called a
Legacy plan because it hasn't been offered to new customers in several
years. If I'm anywhere outside my home metro area I'm charged roaming
for voice calls, even if I'm on a Verizon network. Interestingly, I
also have unlimited data on the same phone and there are no extra data
charges no matter where I am (in the US) or whose network I'm on...


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