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31 votes
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Top US senator calls Salt Typhoon ‘worst telecom hack in our nation’s history’
37 votes -
Undersea telecom cable between Lithuania and Sweden damaged
38 votes -
Daisy, the AI granny wasting scammers’ time
27 votes -
Italian court orders seizure of real estate and vehicles in pirate IPTV investigation
5 votes -
SS7: A mobile network operator protocol with scary vulnerabilities
29 votes -
Telegram to disclose phones, IP addresses at authorities' requests
15 votes -
US FCC closes “final loopholes” that keep prison phone prices exorbitantly high
44 votes -
Cheap phone plan with international service?
I am going to be living in France for the next year. I want to keep my US mobile phone number, and I would like it to be somewhat usable while I am out of the country, but I can't find an...
I am going to be living in France for the next year. I want to keep my US mobile phone number, and I would like it to be somewhat usable while I am out of the country, but I can't find an affordable way do set this up. I am hoping someone here has some more insight for me.
I am going to be buying a French mobile phone plan (most likely through Orange) that will cover my data usage, along with a local number for calls and texts. I already have either whatsapp or imessage set up for calls and texts to/from my family in the US. Ideally, I would like to have my US number on a second sim on my phone. I wouldn't need any roaming data for that sim, just calls and texts, and my actual usage will be very small.
Here are the solutions I have explored:
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Porting my number to Google Voice. This is probably the best solution, but I would like to avoid google if at all possible. This costs only $20 with no monthly fees. This would require me to use a separate app for this number. If possible, I would like to be able to use the iPhone system apps for calls and texts.
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Some MVNO with international roaming. So far the best I have seen is Ting mobile. It costs $0.30 per minute calls and $0.12 per outgoing text. This pricing would be perfect for my extremely low usage. However it requires a $10/month pay as you go plan which is more than I want to pay.
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IoT sims (although I am almost positive this won't work). These appear to be sms and data only, so for my usage they would be sms only. Telnyx is the service I found that actually supports esim (my phone has only esim). I am having trouble with the console, but I am trying to get an esim on my iphone. If this can work, it would be only $2/month plus usage, which would be perfect.
Are there any other possible solutions that I should look into?
17 votes -
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AT&T says criminals stole phone records of ‘nearly all’ US customers in new data breach
26 votes -
Minnesota repeals law that protected ISPs from municipal competition
22 votes -
Cyber security: A pre-war reality check
34 votes -
Was there a trojan horse hidden in Section 230 all along that could enable adversarial interoperability?
16 votes -
AT&T announces $7 monthly add-on fee for “Turbo” 5G speeds in US
26 votes -
The forgotten war on beepers
20 votes -
Sweden's public sector has ditched Big Tech in the name of privacy as a major telecom provider unveiled a new secure collaboration hub
14 votes -
Jails banned visits in “quid pro quo” with prison phone companies, lawsuits say
32 votes -
AT&T widespread cell phone outage in US
27 votes -
I got a spam call and the automated voice that requests their reasoning for calling was my voice AI generated
13 votes -
The hidden world of undersea cables
15 votes -
4G networks - does SMS and standard voice calls still work if 3G/2G networks are shutting down?
Hey all, Over here in Australia (imagine in USA and a few other countries), the 3G/2G mobile networks are being shutdown. My carrier Vodafone is gradually shutting its down with Dec 15th 2023...
Hey all,
Over here in Australia (imagine in USA and a few other countries), the 3G/2G mobile networks are being shutdown. My carrier Vodafone is gradually shutting its down with Dec 15th 2023 being the final closure date. The 4G network will have VolTE but my device (LG V20) does not appear to support VolTE nor does it look like i can update the firmware easily (if at all) to do so.
Anyone else have this issue with their phone? (i realise it will be older ones)
Question about VolTE though - will sms and standard voice calling still work on 4G on my device or similar devices without VolTE ?.
thanks
Nig24 votes -
The $2,000 phones that let anyone make robocalls
17 votes -
How a tiny pacific island became a global capital of cybercrime
13 votes -
The most insane “robocall mitigation plans” that US telcos filed with the FCC
50 votes -
Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is to axe between 9,000 and 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 to cut costs
8 votes -
Huawei accused of building secret microchip factories to beat US sanctions
19 votes -
A new weapon in the war against robocalls
42 votes -
Telstra’s Starlink deal could signal a new era of connectivity in hard-to-reach places
7 votes -
Looking for advice on getting a cheap prepaid plan in the US for a couple of months
I have someone visiting the US from out of the country. They have a Google Pixel 6a, just need a temporary plan for a month or two. Mostly they're going to be home within wireless range, we're...
I have someone visiting the US from out of the country. They have a Google Pixel 6a, just need a temporary plan for a month or two. Mostly they're going to be home within wireless range, we're just looking for a little bit of data while going out. I imagine a few tens of MB/mo will suffice. Has anybody tried to do this recently? What should I expect to pay? I'm looking on Amazon, and the reviews seem filled with stories of being sold pre-expired SIMs.
12 votes -
AT&T, AST SpaceMobile claim first smartphone-to-satellite phone call
3 votes -
Hackers claim they breached T-Mobile more than 100 times in 2022
8 votes -
Hayes command set history: The tech that dialed in a million modems
5 votes -
The predatory US prison phone call industry is finally about to be fixed
15 votes -
How the FCC shields US cellphone companies from safety concerns
6 votes -
I built an artificial intelligence that not only calls scammers to waste their time, but can steal their account information to help get them shut down (and it's working)
8 votes -
‘Supercookies’ have privacy experts sounding the alarm
12 votes -
Two US senators propose ban on data caps, blasting ISPs for “predatory” limits
18 votes -
Rogers CEO says service back online for most Canadian customers, blames outage on 'network system failure'
17 votes -
SMS phishing is way too easy
6 votes -
Is anyone else receiving a staggering amount of spam calls recently?
For the record, I am Canadian and for all I know, maybe this only pertains to Canadians, maybe it only pertains to me. But I've been receiving a large amount of calls that just end up with no one...
For the record, I am Canadian and for all I know, maybe this only pertains to Canadians, maybe it only pertains to me. But I've been receiving a large amount of calls that just end up with no one on the other end, or just sounds of busy call centers, or 'wrong number calls' which are happening far too frequently for it to be a mistake. Anyone else experiencing this?
12 votes -
Big Telecom convinces Missouri lawmakers to block funding for broadband competition
5 votes -
Suicide hotline shares data with for-profit spinoff
25 votes -
Hark back to the late 1990s with this re-creation of the dialup Internet experience
6 votes -
Secret military telephone buttons
7 votes -
Google releases “disable 2g” feature for new Android smartphones
19 votes -
Company that routes SMS for all major US carriers was hacked for five years
27 votes -
US phone companies must now block carriers that didn’t meet FCC robocall deadline
18 votes -
Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
15 votes -
Documenting the last pay phones in America
12 votes -
What are your ISP support experiences?
I just wanted to see what everyone else’s experience has been working with your ISP. I recently had a horrible experience and wanted to see if anyone else can relate and maybe just vent a little....
I just wanted to see what everyone else’s experience has been working with your ISP. I recently had a horrible experience and wanted to see if anyone else can relate and maybe just vent a little.
My recent experience: I moved to a new town, and I had been experiencing issues with my internet dropping out, as we all probably have had at some point, and I contacted Cox communications through their chat app. After multiple attempts to fix it, they finally sent a tech out to find that the coax connectors at the pole were rusted out. He replaced them but it wasn’t fixed completely. The tech dismissed it and said to just use it for now and I wouldn’t notice. So I did, and it wasn’t great at first, but it actually slowly got better and was good for a while until the last couple of weeks. This past week every single night it would drop out. I watched the connection drop while I was trying to watch mythic quest (great show btw) and every night for the past week the internet was unusable in the evenings. I then contacted Cox again multiple times, got a credit refunded back to my account and they wanted to do the whole reset modem thing again, so I did just to get to the next steps. Again they said use it and see if it improves, so I did, and it didn’t. I contacted them again, and again the modem reset, so I got fed up and filed a complaint with the FCC while I was chatting with this guy and he had the nerve to try and sell me home automation at the end of our chat!
The next day goes by, a woman from their escalation lines contacts me about my FCC complaint and they send a new tech out. Turns out Cox never buried my original line in conduit, so the line was probably damaged underground as it was sending a weak return signal. The tech ran a new drop from a different tap and used the thickest coax I’ve ever seen. So far it’s been good after the new drop, but it took multiple chats and calls with two different field technicians and an FCC complaint to get it fixed. The worst part about it is Cox Communications is the only broadband ISP in my area other than Starlink and I seriously considered Starlink. So if you read this far, thanks! Please share your experiences if you’d like, or if you want to vent that’s okay.
15 votes