DISQUS

While that takes care of about 95% of the problem, it still doesn't sort out issues with NAT :)

While I agree with this in theory, I have a hard enough time keeping up with the people I already follow. If I followed anywhere near the amount of people you or Calacanis follow, there is no way I could even attempt to read everyone's tweets, much less try and respond to them.

Here's a great example that happened to me today: I SMSed a colleague about a meeting we were both attending. He was late and I SMSed to remind him. I didn't get his response until about 15 or 20 minutes AFTER he joined the call. Note that having that long of a delay is fairly unusual, but it does happen from time to time. Both of us are on AT&T, albeit in different parts of the country.

A few years ago on T-Mobile, back when they were delivering voicemail notifications as SMS, I stopped using T-Mobile because their voicemail notifications were unreliable. This is the CARRIER sending me an SMS and that didn't work reliably.

It's a rumor at this point. Just hope it happens sooner rather than later as I can finally tell people where to by the phone I carry around. ;)

All the major carriers now offer this plan--announced within hours of each other. T-Mobile's $99 offer includes unlimited SMS as well.

One has to wonder how coordinated this effort truly was. Sprint was toying with their unlimited plan publicly first, the Verizon stuff was rumored, then everyone announces on the same day.

The market will be fun to watch, that's for sure.

Congrats! I'm about 40 subscribers behind you. ;)

Being charged for inbound calls is an artifact of the fact that you are not charged for "local" calls when calling from a landline in the U.S.. Since the FCC didn't want there to be a distinction between mobile and fixed lines, the mobile operator charges for both incoming and outgoing calls, at least on most plans.

I get continually frustrated with my brethren at Nokia for not pushing for a stronger physical presence in our shops. Not just the operator shops, but places like Best Buy, WalMart, or Costco. To break the mentality that you can only get those phones in Europe, people have to be able to SEE the damn phones!

97 posts in a week? Maybe at that point, I need to check into Bloggers Anonymous. :)

Towers are a lot more spaced out here in the US, even in large metro areas. Where I live in Gig Harbor, my AT&T signal goes between three different towers. Going by what Google Maps tells me with their new tower-based location service, I am probably over 2km from the tower I connect to most often. Occasionally I connect to a nearer one, but it's 1.5km.

Even when I was driving through Tacoma, which is a bit larger of a city, I was surprised at how far apart the towers were spaced.

Not having a ton of towers and having them spaced out as far as they are leads to dropped calls, unusable signal in buildings, etc.

Part of the problem is we have a lot more NIMBY (not on my backyard) twits here in the US that refuse to put cell towers up because it "obstructs my view" or "we think they cause cancer in lab rats" or some other BS reason. Usually the higher median income prevalent in the area, the higher the NIMBY quotient is.

I say, screw 'em. Put those damned towers where I can see them. Everywhere! :)

Thanks for vote of confidence, Luca. Being a professional blogger is hard work. ;)

I didn't really announce it, unless you follow me on Jaiku. Thanks for noticing!

voip-weblog.com looks like it's been around since November 2005 and has had a few different bloggers on it in it's day.

It's more than that: the $59.99 is plus taxes and surcharges. You can tack on another $10 or so to that total.

The N95 version has been pulled for whatever reason. I haven't noticed any issues with it myself. GPS definitely locks in faster!

You described me to a tee. I don't have an "official" title. In fact, if I'm asked what it is, I probably couldn't tell you. However, I do have influence and respect, something I've worked hard to earn as a telecommuter.