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iPad mini Replacing iPhone with iPad mini...VOIP tips?
- Thread starter lifeboy001
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Kind of a dead thread, but thought I'd toss in here.
I got turned on to Line2 almost a year ago and was admittedly rather hesitant to start. I started with the seven day plan on a new number, but nobody knew the number, so it was like having a tree fall in the forest. I kept poking at it though and because a friend is on it, started using it more.
A few months later, I took the plunge and ported my main number to it. My reasons were simple: unlimited calls and texts on Line2 were the same price as unlimited texts alone on AT&T. With that being true, why not just give it a whirl and get a free phone number out of it? I liked being able to use my desktop computer with full speakers as a something approaching the quality of a high-end enterprise speakerphone. At this point, LTE had not made it to my home city yet and I had a T-Mobile PAYG account for mobile service.
Making calls from the T-Mobile account and having them appear from the Line2 CID (now my main number) was kind of brutal. I could do it, but not if I was chewing gum at the same time.
In fall, I spent two months in the republic of Turkey and was blown away at what happened. After picking up a Turkcell 3G SIM with data, my calls on Line2 (from Turkey) were amazingly clear. The quality of Line2 has nothing to do with their service and everything to do with the quality of the data. People had no idea I wasn't in the US.
When I got back, I got an iPhone 5 because of the ability for LTE data in my pocket. Once again, calls over Line2 were crystal clear. Because I need tethered data and didn't want to be bothered with the maintenance of a jailbroken phone, I bought the 5GB AT&T plan on top of the basic $40 a month. My bills were about $105 a month plus $10 for Line2, which isn't terrible for that much capability, but it was still more than I wanted to spend.
A month or so ago, my laptop keyboard went on the fritz and I realized I had no backup to work from. I bought an iPad Mini with potential intent to just return it after my laptop was fixed, but had been thinking about the whole iPad-as-phone thing for a long time and thought I'd give it a try, so I got the mini with LTE data. Everything Just Worked as expected, so if I was going to keep it, I had to consider what AT&T was going to do about my existing term commitment on my relatively new iPhone 5.
When I called them, I acted friendly but aloof (the kind of person that installs applications on their desktop, you get the picture) and asked the very helpful AT&T rep about lowering my bill. He said that, yes, I only had used ten mobile calling minutes in the previous two weeks, but unfortunately my billing plan was as low as it could possibly go. So I asked him about removing the phone number to save $40 a month and he said "well, you can do that with an iPad, but not with a phone".
So I asked if I could switch without incurring the ETF. He said yes, as long as I kept the account going for the term of the commitment, I would not incur the ETF. My next question was "gee, what would I do with the expensive phone now? Because it's locked, right?" Amusingly, he said "Well, I'd just put it in a drawer in case you ever need it", but I asked if "my girlfriend could re-register the phone with AT&T" and he said "yes, that's fine".
In other words, at that point, AT&T was not going to unlock my phone for me, but they would not restrict it from being used by a non-family member on a different account. This was key. A few short days later, I had the phone sold on eBay for the same price I paid for the iPad Mini with LTE and equivalent memory.
At that point, he did the configuration change and I swapped the SIMs between the phone and iPad before we hung up the phone. It might have taken fifteen minutes in all.
At this point, for $50 a month plus taxes for AT&T data and $10 a month for Line2, I have 5GB of tetherable data, unlimited text and voice minutes in the US as well as having a tablet that I can carry when I don't want to carry the laptop. Even better, I paid $299 for the subsidized phone, but sold it for the same price as the 32GB iPad mini with LTE. Basically, I got an unlocked and subsidized iPad Mini that is practically unlimited in every regard I need out of it for half of what I was paying to carry the phone each month.
Okay, so this sounds too good to be true. There are some caveats:
Some upsides: Turn-by-turn directions with an iPad Mini are a dream. The screen is large and clear and not a nightmare to focus on while driving. Reading PDFs or ePubs is obviously a lot better with the bigger screen. It's a tablet after all, so all that stuff is going to rock. Using Line2 means that one isn't letting Google do voice-to-text transcription of all your calls and treating your personal information as the product being sold. Etc.
Anyway, I hope that helps others in their consideration of this. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the experience and if the downsides don't strike you as a big deal, you'll love the savings and functionality that the setup provides.
I got turned on to Line2 almost a year ago and was admittedly rather hesitant to start. I started with the seven day plan on a new number, but nobody knew the number, so it was like having a tree fall in the forest. I kept poking at it though and because a friend is on it, started using it more.
A few months later, I took the plunge and ported my main number to it. My reasons were simple: unlimited calls and texts on Line2 were the same price as unlimited texts alone on AT&T. With that being true, why not just give it a whirl and get a free phone number out of it? I liked being able to use my desktop computer with full speakers as a something approaching the quality of a high-end enterprise speakerphone. At this point, LTE had not made it to my home city yet and I had a T-Mobile PAYG account for mobile service.
Making calls from the T-Mobile account and having them appear from the Line2 CID (now my main number) was kind of brutal. I could do it, but not if I was chewing gum at the same time.
In fall, I spent two months in the republic of Turkey and was blown away at what happened. After picking up a Turkcell 3G SIM with data, my calls on Line2 (from Turkey) were amazingly clear. The quality of Line2 has nothing to do with their service and everything to do with the quality of the data. People had no idea I wasn't in the US.
When I got back, I got an iPhone 5 because of the ability for LTE data in my pocket. Once again, calls over Line2 were crystal clear. Because I need tethered data and didn't want to be bothered with the maintenance of a jailbroken phone, I bought the 5GB AT&T plan on top of the basic $40 a month. My bills were about $105 a month plus $10 for Line2, which isn't terrible for that much capability, but it was still more than I wanted to spend.
A month or so ago, my laptop keyboard went on the fritz and I realized I had no backup to work from. I bought an iPad Mini with potential intent to just return it after my laptop was fixed, but had been thinking about the whole iPad-as-phone thing for a long time and thought I'd give it a try, so I got the mini with LTE data. Everything Just Worked as expected, so if I was going to keep it, I had to consider what AT&T was going to do about my existing term commitment on my relatively new iPhone 5.
When I called them, I acted friendly but aloof (the kind of person that installs applications on their desktop, you get the picture) and asked the very helpful AT&T rep about lowering my bill. He said that, yes, I only had used ten mobile calling minutes in the previous two weeks, but unfortunately my billing plan was as low as it could possibly go. So I asked him about removing the phone number to save $40 a month and he said "well, you can do that with an iPad, but not with a phone".
So I asked if I could switch without incurring the ETF. He said yes, as long as I kept the account going for the term of the commitment, I would not incur the ETF. My next question was "gee, what would I do with the expensive phone now? Because it's locked, right?" Amusingly, he said "Well, I'd just put it in a drawer in case you ever need it", but I asked if "my girlfriend could re-register the phone with AT&T" and he said "yes, that's fine".
In other words, at that point, AT&T was not going to unlock my phone for me, but they would not restrict it from being used by a non-family member on a different account. This was key. A few short days later, I had the phone sold on eBay for the same price I paid for the iPad Mini with LTE and equivalent memory.
At that point, he did the configuration change and I swapped the SIMs between the phone and iPad before we hung up the phone. It might have taken fifteen minutes in all.
At this point, for $50 a month plus taxes for AT&T data and $10 a month for Line2, I have 5GB of tetherable data, unlimited text and voice minutes in the US as well as having a tablet that I can carry when I don't want to carry the laptop. Even better, I paid $299 for the subsidized phone, but sold it for the same price as the 32GB iPad mini with LTE. Basically, I got an unlocked and subsidized iPad Mini that is practically unlimited in every regard I need out of it for half of what I was paying to carry the phone each month.
Okay, so this sounds too good to be true. There are some caveats:
- One has to take calls with a BT headset or earbuds.
- Apple hasn't made the APIs to monitor the buttons on the headset or the earbuds public. So even though one is walking around with a dorky headset on, there's no way to use it to answer a call coming in over the iPad that's in your bag (or hang up the call after it's done).
- There is no camera flash on the iPad. Pictures that require flash aren't an option, nor are the flashlight apps (it's back to lighting up a darkened room the old school way with the screen).
- There's no linear motor in the iPad, so there's no setting calls to vibrate. You will be embarrassed at times as your iPad starts making a ton of noise.
- Line2 does not integrate with iMessage. This one is a really annoying oversight on the part of Apple, and it's unclear why they can't allow verification of numbers through an SMS (which Line2 would support just fine).
- The iPad doesn't fit in one's pocket. Going drinking with it is probably a bad idea, but finding your friends without a phone can be a disaster these days.
Some upsides: Turn-by-turn directions with an iPad Mini are a dream. The screen is large and clear and not a nightmare to focus on while driving. Reading PDFs or ePubs is obviously a lot better with the bigger screen. It's a tablet after all, so all that stuff is going to rock. Using Line2 means that one isn't letting Google do voice-to-text transcription of all your calls and treating your personal information as the product being sold. Etc.
Anyway, I hope that helps others in their consideration of this. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the experience and if the downsides don't strike you as a big deal, you'll love the savings and functionality that the setup provides.
Last edited:
Same here
Orangesauce,
I did almost exactly the same.
I bought a Verizon iPad mini, signed up for line2.com, and had my phone number ported over. I sold the iPhone, paid off the early termination fee, and had $50 left over. Now I pay $10 a month for line2, and choose the date plan month to month. Unless I'm travelling, the $20 a month plan is enough.
And for me, the iPad mini does fit in the pockets of my work pants and all of my jacket pockets. For more casual living, it fits just fine in my cargo pants and my cargo shorts.
I don't think you mentioned another caveat: there is no 911.
I totally happy with this arrangement.
Orangesauce,
I did almost exactly the same.
I bought a Verizon iPad mini, signed up for line2.com, and had my phone number ported over. I sold the iPhone, paid off the early termination fee, and had $50 left over. Now I pay $10 a month for line2, and choose the date plan month to month. Unless I'm travelling, the $20 a month plan is enough.
And for me, the iPad mini does fit in the pockets of my work pants and all of my jacket pockets. For more casual living, it fits just fine in my cargo pants and my cargo shorts.
I don't think you mentioned another caveat: there is no 911.
I totally happy with this arrangement.
That's a very good point, that instead of spending $50 a month for data and avoiding the ETF, you paid the ETF up front and have a breakeven point that's less than a year out.
So I guess it really depends on how much data one uses each month to decide where that breakeven is. I bet you're right I could save money by just paying off the ETF and doing what you did here.
Yes you can, if unlocked and JB, PayG is 10 cents per min.
use: iPhone Configuration Utility.app
Samsung D407 (or unlocked model D406)
newer, not as good voice IMO: A107, available unlocked also
either is 10c / min with PayGo
Highly recommend voip.ms to provision your line, and the free 3CXphone app to talk on your iPad. Setup is easy; see this: http://unvexed.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-roll-your-own-with-voip-for.html
We cut our phone bill by 95% this way.
You'll need good WiFi though, or a solid data connection.
We cut our phone bill by 95% this way.
You'll need good WiFi though, or a solid data connection.
You can use a bluetooth headset or the earbuds, but the call control on either doesn't work until Apple gets it fixed and publishes the APIs. So you can't accept or finish the call with the button, which kind of sucks. But other than that, it works mostly as you'd expect it to.
But why you get yourself in all this trouble if you can use Skype with Skypout credit? Is your SIP/VOIP method better? If you leave this SIP app running all day on your iphone, battery will drain in just hours? This is what happens with Skype...
? What trouble?
I've not tried a battery run-down test but it hasn't been an issue for me in my usage.
Voip.ms provides you the equivalent of a landline. If you want to make and receive calls from anyone anywhere, it's a simple and ridiculously cheap way to go. And you can keep your current landline number if you want. You can even keep your current landline phones-- just connect them to an analog telephone adaptor like the OBi110 or PAP2-NT.
I'll have to research on all what you are saying, but what is the benefit of using this SIP / voip.ms instead of Skype? Is the call quality better than Skype? Is it cheaper or supports more countries than Skype?
I'm not an expert on Skype, though I've used it a little.
I went the VoIP route as a (much much MUCH) cheaper alternative to my homes' landlines. I was able to port my home number to the VoIP service and continue to use my Uniden wireless phones when at home-- no smartphone or computer is needed to make or receive a call, since the little $50 Linksys or Obi analog telephone adaptor runs 24/7. But I can call "from" my home line anywhere in the world over WiFi using an app like 3CXPhone or Whistle on my iPhone, iPad or Mac. Since I travel extensively, that has saved me big bucks from London to Frankfurt to Shanghai.
For all intents and purposes, for both calling and receiving calls it's just like a landline. But with our usage, my monthly phone bill went from typically $35-40 to $3 or so per line. With two properties, that added up.
Other benefits:
- It was easy (with voip.ms) to set up a voice prompt system for incoming callers. This can be used to route calls to specific extensions (sub-accounts in voip.ms vernacular), for example the app on my iPhone or my Mac.
- I set up the voice prompt on voip.ms for the home line to require the caller to press 1 to ring our home phones, or 2 to leave a message, with no timeout rollover to voicemail. This simple measure eliminates 99% of robo-callers! We'd get dozens of those a week in the run-up to any election on our old landline. They're totally blocked now, as are telemarketers and wrong numbers.
- Voicemails are emailed to us. So nice. We actually received a disturbingly abusive voicemail once; it was nice to have the recording readily available for our subsequent discussions with the caller's superiors...
- The 3CXPhone app runs well on a 3G data connection. So, I can use it when on the road in the U.S. (where I live) to make international calls that otherwise would cost a fortune. It appears to recipients that I'm calling from my home, and it costs the same (that is, pennies). Alternatively, if for some reason I don't have a cell decent data connection or WiFi, I can use my cell phone to call my home number as-usual, press a 3 in that voice menu I mentioned earlier, and type in a code: voila, my international call is routed that way, again for pennies.
- Voip.ms offers an inexpensive option to register my home VoIP lines for e911 service. So in an emergency, my call for help will be routed correctly and will display my home address to responders.
- Voip.ms call quality is superb.
Now, maybe you can do all these with Skype. Dunno. Skype does have a benefit in that your calls are encrypted to its servers; VoIP generally is not. Skype also port-hops so it's more difficult for ISPs and countries to block. And setting up a VoIP solution is a bit of geek's project. But it's not difficult.
And y'know... the two aren't mutually exclusive. I have the Skype app on my iPhone, iPad and Mac, but I just don't use it much. It's nice to know it's there, though.
A final point: I can't say enough good things about the service and support from voip.ms. Absolutely stellar group. Callcentric also gets good reviews from its users, but to my eye voip.ms had more flexible options (there's that geek factor again!) so I went with them.
P.S. When a friend was looking for work but didn't want to use his company-paid cell phone line to make and receive calls from prospective employers, I set him up with the 3CXPhone app and an extension/subaccount on my voip.ms with its own dial-in number. Cost me about a buck fifty and took a load off his mind.
Also note: VoIP of any sort is not legal in all countries. On reflection, I'm rather sure I broke some serious laws on one occasion when I was within one such country's borders and needed to make several calls back to the U.S.! Ooopsies.
Thanks for this really interesting information! I've been helping friends get set up with http://openwrt.org, for instance, one that has a very large place and wanted both a guest and a private network with separate WiFi for each. By connecting two OpenWRT boxes via a tagged VLAN trunk, both routers could share a single ISP connection, rebroadcast the wifi of both networks on different channels from different locations, and generally have an enterprise grade network at home. By adding Asterisk on the routers, DID numbers from voip.ms could be terminated and routed. It would also be easy with an FXO card to terminate the intercom phones that his apartment building uses to more than just one phone in the house.
Happy to help. Look up the VoIP topic on http://unvexed.blogspot.com for more info and war stories.
Meanwhile, impressive you're thinking to add SIP termination/routing to your router hardware-- talk about the geek factor! That's very powerful stuff you're talking about. You can set up an industrial-class PBX that way. That's way more than I've done. For IP phones, that'd be all you need, too. To use your old-timey analog phones as I did, you'll need an analog phone adaptor like the Obihai or Linksys/Cisco hardware I mentioned. They're readily available in any case.
Have fun! You'll save pots of money compared to landlines, too. AT&T keeps sending people to my door every few months, trying to lure me back with pretty nice deals by their standards... I tell them I have VoIP, and they reflexively chirp that they can offer me VoIP too. It's fun to watch their faces fall when I tell them how my VoIP runs about three bucks a month....