$25/month unlimited internet....interested?

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by 95f5334j

After contacting GLiNet tech support, I purchased a 5V 3Amp raspberry pie power supply. It's been working flawlessly to power both pieces. I've also used each plugged into their own USB power supplies and connected the phone wirelessly to the router..... phone stays fully charged and no performance issues.

Thanks!

Take care,
Stu

[mto502]

Originally Posted by Tom_M

I just found this out. I have two phones which were purchased from Visible. One is a ZTE Blade 11 Prime and the other is a Motorola one 5G UW ace. I checked and both allow more than one connection. I don't recall if I ever checked but am pleasantly surprised. I have a wireless router and have been using it for a while. Perhaps I no longer need it.

I was about to order the router but now I think I'll wait and see if we can get away with just the phone. I'm looking at ordering the Blade X1 5G. It was $160 about a month or so ago, then it went up to $200, and now it's back to it's original price of $240.

[emcee]

re: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/25-m...ml#post6367955

Originally Posted by emcee

I'm going to try this one. If it doesn't work I'll return to Amazon and cancel the visible line.

This was a fail. The phone bootloader was locked to TracFone sims only with no hope of changing it.

[gsgriffin]

Originally Posted by 95f5334j

After contacting GLiNet tech support, I purchased a 5V 3Amp raspberry pie power supply. It's been working flawlessly to power both pieces. I've also used each plugged into their own USB power supplies and connected the phone wirelessly to the router..... phone stays fully charged and no performance issues.

For only a couple of dollars more, you can get a 3.5 or even 4amp power supply on Amazon when searching for "Raspberry Pi 4 power supply". The nice thing about having a higher rated amp output is that each device you plug in will only draw what it needs. Unlike voltage (over-voltage is not good!), high amperage will not hurt anything. The amperage rating is the maximum output possible...not what is forced on the device.

In addition, many times these are listed as more capable than they are. Thanks to our utter dependence on China for all things electrical and their complete lack of honest marketing, chances are fairly high that devices don't output at their rating. Go for the 4amp output to play it safe and hopefully have enough for whatever phone you may have.

[dkperez]

Has anyone in here purchased a Pixel 6a FROM VISIBLE, and gotten it to work in 5G? And how can you tell when it's in 5G?

[docj]

Originally Posted by dkperez

Has anyone in here purchased a Pixel 6a FROM VISIBLE, and gotten it to work in 5G? And how can you tell when it's in 5G?

I have a Pixel 6 Pro and when it is receiving 5G it clearly shows that at the top of the screen.

[dkperez]

I'm sure somebody will pop up and explain how just because you have 5G doesn't mean you ACTUALLY get 5G... I may be in a microscopic spot where this 10 square feet DOESN'T actually get 5G even though I'm looking at the tower out the window. But, here's the situation.

I’m one of the Visible customers who’s phone was deemed by Visible as “non-compliant”, so I had to buy a new one. Got a Pixel 6a since there’s such a push to NOT buy any phone that DOESN’T do C-Band.

Where I’m located, about 600 meters (so under a half mile) from the Verizon tower the phone is using, I’ve never had more than about 2 bars on any VISIBLE phone. The Pixel is no different than the $79 Blade.

Checking Verizon coverage map, I’m in the middle of a town-wide pink sea of 5G with interspersed spots of ULTRA 5G. About 2 blocks from here is a local Verizon Store that says ALL their 5G phones have GREAT 5G in the store, outside the store, all over town.

Phone was bought FROM Visible, even though the price was significantly higher than elsewhere, specifically so I WOULD NOT give Visible support any excuse if there’s a problem. Phone came from Visible, SIM came from Visible.

Phone arrives, set it up, activate it, do normal stuff. No 5G. It just says LTE next to the signal bars. Walk outside, no 5G. Remembering entries in here about having to “turn on” the 5G I go find out how, and find that I CAN’T. The line on the settings menu to specify the network, that’s there on Verizon phones is NOT there on this phone.

Start the dreaded chat. Person comes on and says she can fix it. Much time gets spent with her asking several times where I got the phone and SIM. Finally accepts that IT’S THEIR PHONE AND SIM. Then questions whether it’s a 5G phone because “some Pixels aren’t”. Eventually comes back and admits it SHOULD have 5G.

She SAYS “Verizon doesn’t matter VISIBLE IS DIFFERENT”. And that I CANNOT turn on the 5G, but she can. She can fix the phone. Goes away for a few minutes comes back and…
Has me power the phone off, sit for 60 seconds, power it on, turn on airplane mode for 60 seconds, turn it off, then make a phone call. Still says LTE.
Says she’ll fix it and goes away again.
Repeat at least 3 more times.
Nothing ever changes. Just says LTE.

All this has now been going on for about an hour and a half.

She has me check the system settings, and the phone WANTS to do an update to Android 13. She latches onto that and says the UPDATE will FIX EVERYTHING. So, I stay ON THE CHAT while the phone spends just over an hour updating itself - it's doing the download on Visible so the speed never gets over 7-8 Mb/s.

Finally, the phone finishes, and we start doing the shut down, wait, boot, turn on airplane mode, wait, turn off, make a phone call routine, and - IT JUST SAYS LTE.

Finally she says there’s nothing else she can do. It looks like “Visible gave you a 5G phone that DOESN’T DO 5G.”

OH…

Then we spend another half hour with me giving her information because she’s going to “escalate” this and I’ll be hearing from the escalated support people BY EMAIL WITHIN A COUPLE HOURS.

Finally after just over two and a half hours, she again guarantees me I'll be hearing from someone by email WITHIN A COUPLE HOURS.

That was at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Needless to say, there hasn’t been any email from the mythical “triage” group or anyone else..


I'm walking over to the Verizon store at lunch to see if I have 5G there.

[docj]

Originally Posted by dkperez

I'm sure somebody will pop up and explain how just because you have 5G doesn't mean you ACTUALLY get 5G... I may be in a microscopic spot where this 10 square feet DOESN'T actually get 5G even though I'm looking at the tower out the window. But, here's the situation.

I’m one of the Visible customers who’s phone was deemed by Visible as “non-compliant”, so I had to buy a new one. Got a Pixel 6a since there’s such a push to NOT buy any phone that DOESN’T do C-Band.

Where I’m located, about 600 meters (so under a half mile) from the Verizon tower the phone is using, I’ve never had more than about 2 bars on any VISIBLE phone. The Pixel is no different than the $79 Blade.

First of all the number of "bars" displayed on ANY phone is just a coarse, relative measure of the signal strength. Modern phones are usable over a ranger of more than 50 dB in signal strength. That's a factor of 100,000! There's no way that a simple display can accurately depict that. There's also no reason to think that the display on any specific brand and model of phone correlates with the display on any other model of phone.

As for being near a tower, that doesn't make all that much of a difference. Cellular signals don't get better just because you are close. Regardless of what the Verizon coverage map shows, the tower, no doubt, has a "footprint" that isn't a circle around it. Typically, towers have "lobes" of coverage that are pointed in various directions. For example, is the tower near a major highway? If so, it's likely that the primary beam is focused along the road.

There are plenty of us who have 5G-capable phones that rarely see 5G service. But 5G isn't the only way by which a modern, top-of-the-line phone can improve your service. Phones such as my Pixel 6 Pro and your 6a can increase download speeds by using advanced features such as "carrier aggregation." At my home my phone doesn't receive 5G but over the past year our 4G/LTE service has improved to where is consistently is in the 30-50 Mbps range.

Too many customers continue to think of 5G as what they need to have in order to get fast cellular service. That isn't always the case.

[smiller]

Virtually everything the CS agent told you and put you through is nonsense. Your phone is most likely just happening to be choosing an LTE channel for some reason, no way to really know what is going on for sure without knowing what channel you are actually on (you can download an app like LTE Discovery if you're curious.) But as above it's not really something to get all that wrapped up about in any event because at this time a 5G connection won't necessarily be any faster than LTE, and depending on location even C-band may or may not be all that different.

The Pixel 6a is quite capable of 5G and as you move around you'll probably see the icon appear, FWIW. But if you are seeing decent speeds then you might as leave well enough alone as CS isn't going to be able to do anything but waste your time.

[dkperez]

Thanks for the replies...

As far as CS and actually being helpful, my expectations are very low, so since the person wasn't noxious I figured it was worth trying. And in truth, I'd have been more surprised if the mythical genius group had contacted me and offered to do anything than I was NOT to hear from Visible.

Yeah, I know most of what the phone says is vague and just an approximation. I figure NO bars is bad and a lot of bars is better.

As far as speed on Visible, it is what it is. Just now, at 6:20 a.m., I ran fast.com and got 1.9 Mb/s on 4G - there's no 5G within a block of here. That's about normal and good enough for browsing or to feed a small, SD tv. The data-only, cheap Blade A7 Prime running it's own router and sitting a foot from the Pixel got 21 Mb/s at the same time, and they'll both fluctuate wildly from minute to minute. About the only time I care about actual speed any more is when they get so slow they can't even run 480 p tv without buffering, or the browser can't download some file.

If I need higher speeds I switch to the DSL home network, which is about 15 Mb/s at times on a good day.

As far as the Pixel 6a, is there some OTHER Visible phone, in the same price range ($350), that has C-Band (in the hope of some possible future improvement), and is likely to provide perceptibly, consistently better general performance? I'm guessing the phone isn't the problem?

[mfredm]

Last year when I purchased my Blade X1 5G, I was parked across the street from a police station with a cell antenna on the roof. When I got the phone activated, it clearly showed 5G on the screen, full bars. It was running on channel 2 with -60db signal. After doing numerous speed tests, the 5G data rate was not much better than the 4G, 40Mb, versus 25Mb. On the phone was a setting to choose either 5G or LTE, so I could switch back and forth. After 2 weeks, the phone did an update, that Visible said was required. The ability to switch between 5G and LTE was removed, that screen disappeared. Since then I have only occasionally seen 5G. I will say that since I got the new sim for the $30 plan, my speeds have increased dramatically where I am now. From 25Mb, to sometimes over 125Mb.

[Caymanedge]

Ok so I need to upgrade my Visible plan to one of the two new plans. I currently use the Visible SIM in my Pepwave router and it's worked well. Has anyone done this? I need to keep a physical SIM and I'm concerned I won't be able to do it. Thanks

[hansbkk]

What part do you think might go wrong?

[hansbkk]

OK I was told that TTL mangling the hotspot with a router no longer works to bypass the 5Mbps limit.

But they had the old party plan?

What are the variables involved in getting that to work? I really would prefer to work through phone tethering not putting the SIM a router.

Single hotspot client is not an issue...