Mobile phone question

[E.S. Rosenberg]

2013/7/27 shimi <linux-il at shimi.net>:
> 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...
I may be wrong but iirc the US like Israel established the right in
law of the customer to have his/her phone unlocked/jailbroken without
that affecting warranty...
>
>>
>> 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)
HOT == MIRS so you could theoretically use a iDEN phone with them...

Orange and Cellcom (including golan) based companies still support GSM
(2G), however for a player like golan it is reasonable to expect that
they will not put up their own 2G network so when/if they get full
coverage in an area 2G connectivity may very well be lost.

>
> 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...
Let's be clear, 3.5G and 3.9G are just marketing terms to separate the
higher bandwidth 3G applications (3G is regular UMTS, 3.5 HSPA, 3.9
HSPA+ all are 3G technology).

4G is LTE and/or WiMAX (but WiMAX afaik is almost dead), some carriers
have started to set up LTE networks but they are still very
experimental.

Regards,
Eliyahu - אליהו
>
> 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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