Mobile phone question

[shimi]

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Zvi Grauer <zvi.grauer at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am a happy user of Samsung mini with android, and golan telecom service.
> However, my wife is looking for a better phone (we live abroad in the
> process of moving to Israel), and was told to look for refurbished older
> models of Apple's iPhone - without a SIM (chip) in the US for the best
> prices.
>
>
Be advised that some phones (this is especially true for Apple products in
the US, with their AT&T deal, I think...) are locked to the original
Cellular Carrier that sold them to the customer; As such you'll not be able
to use them in any other carrier, unless you break them, a task you may, or
may not be, successful in. If you're not successful, then it would be a
pricey paperweight...


> Any advice which model is most cost effective, and what technology it has
> to have in order to be used in Israel (GSM, G3, G4, what not - I don't know
> what all this means, quite frankly)?
>
>
The 2nd issue is the frequencies; Not all companies work with all of them.

Not all companies provide 2G (everything that sits on Pelephone's
infrastructure - Pelephone themselves, Rami Levy, HOT Mobile, Cellact -
will not work on < 3G phones)

See list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_country_code#I (and
verify with other sources for the carrier you finally select; I have seen
errors there regarding Golan, which I fixed...)

What it mostly means (for you, as a user) - the higher the "generation",
the higher maximum bandwidth you can get with the cell tower; That does not
mean that a network with "3.9G" will necessarily give you better Internet
performance than a 3.5G network - it really depends on how much BW they get
to their cells, and how many customers (ab)use it besides you...

Old 2G phones probably have better reception than the new smartphones, due
to usage of the sub-1GHz spectrum. Rumor has it, that those frequencies
penetrate walls better... they also definitely have a much longer battery
life, due to the huge colorful LCD screens power consumption... but
unfortunately, 2G won't be here forever; Eventually carriers will want to
clear this spectrum for other stuff, given the very low amount of
subscribers still using it - something that already happened in the US, and
I do not see a reason for it not to happen in Israel.

HTH,

-- Shimi
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