Be Excellent To Each Other

So you've got a 5GB data allowance, your phone says you've used 4GB, but it's lying?

My phone does has a disparity between the app that tells me how much data I've used and the EE website. The website is about 400Mb in my favour.

Gaywood once explained to why there's no real way for your mobile operator to accurately know how much data you've used.

I'd explain it to you, but, you know, it was in Gaywood-ese. I understood about one word in five. Best believe I heard them all, though

What we need here is a Gaywood.

Actually, I used to work for a company who provided a tool to mobile and PSTN phone operators to validate that the prices they were charging on each tariff was correct. It worked for voice but they didn't have a clue for data.

I somehow had forgotten this, although to be fair it was 2006/07 when I worked for them.

Does Three have crappy coverage where you live/work Grim...? Because otherwise you should really be on Three. I'm on The One Plan and it works out amazingly well for me - I regularly tether to my phone with no problems at all. I apparently managed to burn through 18GB of data in one day late last year with no extra charges or throttling or anything.

Look what I found!!!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2952&p=177914&hilit=mobile+data#p177914

You're a poor Gaywood substitute. We want loud science.

Amusingly, I've now no idea what explanation I might have offered. I can hypothesise a few though. Your phone is going to know, absolutely, the exact bytes out of the interface; that's part of the Linux kernel. Your operator might give you some traffic for free though (operators sometimes do deals with specific sites to render the traffic unbillable). If the operator grabs data from a peering partner, but that data doesn't reach your phone (flakey network, say, or you go out of coverage) then I bet you get billed for that data. This could also cause retransmission which would compound that double-counting. And there's also caching; could be the cell operator is reading ahead on media streams and caching for you somewhere within the cell network (probably an edge cache near your tower); again, charging you for data that might never make it to the phone if you terminate the stream.

Or, as myp said some time back, could just be their systems suck and they're running on a bunch of assumptions. Accurately tracking everyone's usage to the byte would require enormous system load. Maybe they take some shortcuts along the way.

The upshot is --which I've only just remembered-- you can contest it quite easily and say it never happened. Unless their tools have become a lot better in the last few years (which I doubt), they'll just refund you.

I am in "live chat" with "Santi" now.

It has no edit button. I spelt "byte" with an i.

Kill me now.

The Computer Police will be round shortly to take your Computering License off you. You can apply to retake the Computering Test as soon as the mandatory punishment period has expired.

Santi isn't budging! He keeps telling me I should "BALANCE" to some number to see my remaining stuff.

He's not quite getting it

"Okay, just to confirm that the details of your usage are being taken from your SIM card and which is tamper proof."

HMM

I'm calling bullshit!

Me too, but I need some big-word proof.

Ask them how they ensure reliable and accurate tracking of mobile data usage - ie which RA company do they use?

I need you to be me, Myp. Come to my house so we can type to them together.

If only.

Just say you used to work in Revenue Assurance and know that tracking mobile data usage is complex and prone to errors and that you'd like to contest the charges.

And what if he says "Oh, me too! How's Smitty doing?"
Should I say "Fine!"
Is there a Smitty?
What if it's a trap?!

I'd be very doubtful if they called your bluff. Most of the people I spoke to in support didn't even know what RA was.

I have bought a Note 3 Hopefully it should be with me by the weekend.

£390 for a Note 3 with 64gd sd card, fact fans.

Remember about this then to get a free case or whatever: http://www.samsung.com/uk/galaxygifts/

I got mine too early

According to your post in this thread you got your Note on Feb the 18 which puts you right in the window for this surely?

"We are sorry you are too early to claim for this promotion, please come back later. Claims must be received between 0 - 28 from your invoice date. Any claims submitted outside the correct claim period will be rejected."

I'm not actually sure what that means.

Yeah, that's some pretty confusing shit no doubt.

It doesn't seem to be saying you bought your phone too early though, more that you're trying to make the claim too early (i.e. some period has to expire after the purchase before you can make the claim). Why that would be the case though fuck knows, and that flies in the face of the "Claims must be received between 0 - 28 from your invoice date." part of the message as well.

ETA: No, wait, I'm being a tit and forgetting you bought yours last month not this month. Yeah, as it was more than 28 days ago you're too late but their error message is also fucking terrible.

0-28 what???

Is an accurate answer for "how many girls I've slept with".

[edit]And boys.

I'd be annoyed if it were 0-28 femtoseconds.

I got the same message, but I think I got my new phone on the same day as Grim...

Mine is via a dude on eBay, I'll see if I can get the invoice from him.
I went for a UK phone in the end, as it seemed safest.

Philips are releasing TVs with Android built-in apparently. This strikes me as a good idea as it means you'll always be able to play back downloaded stuff (even as codecs and whatnot advance) and you'll be able to keep up with stuff like iPlayer and Netflix apps without needing the TV manufacturer to maintain specific apps. I do wonder though how you'll control it...

And you'll need to buy a new TV every two years because Philips will stop supporting android updates for older models

Your malware will be able to mine Doge Coin while you watch TV!

http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-se ... in-payout/

The Note 3 is here, very nice it is too!

Different bloody charging and usb connection cable to everything else I have though!

It works fine with standard micro-USB connections; the port is a new standard to allow faster charging and data transfer over USB 3.0 but you can ignore that and just use it as normal if you want as it's completely backwards-compatible.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/469687 ... -explained

Eh, as long as the apps you use don't stop supporting older versions it doesn't really matter.

Ahhhh! thanks.

Mr Grim... You have plexpass don't you? Is it worth it? It might be the easiest way to get my videos onto my phone.

Too late, i've just signed up for a year...

Cor... this is a bit good innit.

I can tell it to always have the next 5 episodes of a show locally converted and synced, and it keeps that 5 episode buffer as I watch them. Lovely.

The battery on this phone is a beast! I've been arseing around with it a lot due to newness, played a few games of marvel, have all the google now business etc... turned on, and i've been downloading Plex content wia wifi constantly for the past 4 hours, and i'm still at 70%.

Plus, it fits in my pocket just fine.

Grrrrrrr. Someone in my office noticed today that Three has rolled 4G out to the area of the city my office is in and everyone in my team who's with Three picked up a 4G signal. Everyone except me that is. It quickly transpired that in the Network Setting for my HTC One Max there isn't even an option to pick up an LTE network; I only have two options in there (WCDMA only or GSM/WCDM auto) while everyone else with a recent handset has at least one more that mentioned LTE.

I checked Amazon (as that's who I bought the phone from) and they only have a single listing for the phone; though somewhat suspiciously it's completely lacking in any real technical specs for the phone and certainly doesn't mention what bands etc it can deal with.

I talked to a live support person from HTC who took my IMEI and said it was indeed a 3G variant I had as I suspected. However I did another live chat shortly after to ask for more info and the second person said that my handset was LTE capable, but the options available in Network Settings were driven by what your SIM card was capable of (i.e. Three had given me a 3G only SIM so I should talk to them). However I swapped SIMS with one of the other guys who's getting 4G and I still only got a 3G connection so that's blatantly bollocks. Also, one of the other guys in the office has an HTC One on O2 and he's just got a 3G plan with them but he's still at least got the LTE network option so it's definitely got fuck all to do with the SIM card.

I'm now at the stage where I need to check actual box the phone came in when I get home tonight and, assuming it is 3G only, I'll have to chance my arm with Amazon. Although the listing doesn't mention LTE it doesn't not mention it either (as it's got fuck all info at all) and I think it was a fair assumption on my part that the single variant they'd be offering would be the 4G one. Hell, I can't even think why HTC would be offering a 3G variant for the UK; as it's all backwards compatible it just seems stupid.

I'm mentioning all this just to sanity check my thinking with you good and knowledgeable Beexers. Am I right in assuming I've somehow ended up with a non-LTE capable version of the phone, or is there some way to change the available network options? Is pursuing it with Amazon the best bet here? Not that I expect to get anywhere but I might as well try.

I had this very same problem with the iPhone 5 and Vodafone.

The same problem in that it wouldn't pick up their 4G? Or the same problem in that your phone might not actually have been 4G capable?

I'd guess that it isn't just as simple as swapping in a new sim and 4G appearing. Try Three first and see what they say, I expect they may have to send a config down to your phone?

The iPhone 5 is LTE-capable, unfortunately not at the frequencies that Vodafone use. If I switched to 3 or EE I would be fine.