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HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
My first guess is something wrong with Google Fi data only this morning when you tested. I'm using T-Mobile for YEARS now with no such issues: 5G most of the time, 5GUW some of the time and occasionally in a place that falls back to LTE. I've had no trouble taking/making calls and I've had some instances where I've received spontaneous feedback about the quality of the sound- like it's better than typical.

Since you are in a simple testing mode, why don't you turn off cellular and test a call over your wifi? This will rule out/in Google Fi and/or perhaps the iPad itself. Wifi should absolutely work fine. I do it very often myself. That will let you hear the call quality and get your test contact on the other end to tell you how well you sound to them.

If that works fine, maybe retry the cellular option again tomorrow. Perhaps today just had some glitches? Or maybe Google Fi doesn't like Google Voice (though that seems unlikely for obvious reasons). I know the T-mobile network is just fine on latency for me but I also know that T-mobile network varies widely by geography (as can AT&T and Verizon too).

Earlier, was it you who claimed you regularly use about 50GB per month? Are you north of 15GB by now? Because I looked it up and see this...

GoogleFi.jpg

Could any of that be in play and affecting your data and/or latency? If so, perhaps give it fresh test on Sep 1 when potential throttling "slowing down speeds significantly" are not in play.

As to the no-SIM 911 concern, do many people carry cellular devices around with no SIM? Again, that $25 option on iPad mini provides year-round continuous connection to cellular, so if I need E911, I'll be able to use it at any time. I have no particular need to not be connected though- admittedly- I do let the it expire and just use wifi for short stretches until I definitely need cellular again (sometimes that's a few weeks). If I was really worried about 911 availability, I wouldn't do that and thus always have E911 active.

I have to believe that just about anyone who subs this in for iPhone so that it is doubling as their phone would be very likely to maintain a continuous cell service connection and thus always have a SIM/E-SIM in play (and thus E911 always available).

There are a number of reasons this is not as good as iPhone. I shared a pretty good bulleted list back in post #7. So anyone who wants to talk themselves out of it, can easily do so for any of those reasons and likely some left out. However, for those motivated, there can be a good list of reasons to see telephony as just another app... like making an iDevice also be a flashlight, tape measure, iPod, guitar tuner, map, etc.

Again, Mac can stand in as a phone too for anyone who would always have their Mac with them and can carry some kind of cellular option for when they are outside of free wifi zones. I've done that too in the distant past. It works well too. The same device would make iPod Touch double as a phone as well. All any computing tech needs is a fairly good internet connection and a VOIP app.
 
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Richard8655

macrumors 68000
Mar 11, 2009
1,925
1,372
Chicago suburbs
Also, iirc, cellphones have access to emergency calling even when there's no SIM as long as cellular coverage is available. You don't get that option on the iPad.
I believe that's correct, as an FCC mandate. No cell phone service or SIM card needed, just have a working cell phone in range of a cell tower signal. My friend, who had an aversion to paying for anything, carried a cell phone with no service plan in his car's glove compartment just for emergencies. Not sure how long that lasted.
 
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rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,904
13,229
My first guess is something wrong with Google Fi data only this morning when you tested. I'm using T-Mobile for YEARS now with no such issues: 5G most of the time, 5GUW some of the time and occasionally in a place that falls back to LTE. I've had no trouble taking/making calls and I've had some instances where I've received spontaneous feedback about the quality of the sound- like it's better than typical.

Since you are in a simple testing mode, why don't you turn off cellular and test a call over your wifi? This will rule out/in Google Fi and/or perhaps the iPad itself. Wifi should absolutely work fine. I do it very often myself. That will let you hear the call quality and get your test contact on the other end to tell you how well you sound to them.

If that works fine, maybe retry the cellular option again tomorrow. Perhaps today just had some glitches? Or maybe Google Fi doesn't like Google Voice (though that seems unlikely for obvious reasons). I know the T-mobile network is just fine on latency for me but I also know that T-mobile network varies widely by geography (as can AT&T and Verizon too).

Earlier, was it you who claimed you regularly use about 50GB per month? Are you north of 15GB by now? Because I looked it up and see this...


Could any of that be in play and affecting your data and/or latency? If so, perhaps give it fresh test on Sep 1 when potential throttling "slowing down speeds significantly" are not in play.

As to the no-SIM 911 concern, do many people carry cellular devices around with no SIM? Again, that $25 option on iPad mini provides year-round continuous connection to cellular, so if I need E911, I'll be able to use it at any time. I have no particular need to not be connected though- admittedly- I do let the it expire and just use wifi for short stretches until I definitely need cellular again (sometimes that's a few weeks). If I was really worried about 911 availability, I wouldn't do that and thus always have E911 active.

I have to believe that just about anyone who subs this in for iPhone so that it is doubling as their phone would be very likely to maintain a continuous cell service connection and thus always have a SIM/E-SIM in play (and thus E911 always available).

There are a number of reasons this is not as good as iPhone. I shared a pretty good bulleted list back in post #7. So anyone who wants to talk themselves out of it, can easily do so for any of those reasons and likely some left out. However, for those motivated, there can be a good list of reasons to see telephony as just another app... like making an iDevice also be a flashlight, tape measure, iPod, guitar tuner, map, etc.

Again, Mac can stand in as a phone too for anyone who would always have their Mac with them and can carry some kind of cellular option for when they are outside of free wifi zones. I've done that too in the distant past. It works well too. The same device would make iPod Touch double as a phone as well. All any computing tech needs is a fairly good internet connection and a VOIP app.

Cellular coverage and speed is like real estate. What matters is location, location, location.

Speedtest for T-Mobile (T-Mobile $10/5GB and Google Fi Unlimited+) is like that every day at my office. Downstream speeds are okay (good enough for YouTube) but the upstream sucks.

AT&T has so-so signal, too, with Verizon being the best. There’s no wifi at the office apart from personal hotspot on the iPhone.

At home, I get great speeds with T-Mobile. It’s even faster than Charter cable.

I use 50GB+ on AT&T as that’s more reliable than TMo at my office. For the current service period, I’ve only used 3.34GB on Google Fi. I keep Google Fi mainly to test T-Mobile’s network, for my parents’ iPads (4 free data-only SIMs) and free international roaming.

As for E911, that’s only good as long as you have data. With cellphones (including dumb phones), 911 is always available even if you’re outside of your service provider’s coverage area as long there’s cellular coverage from other carriers.

As I mentioned earlier, I need Verizon data if I want to go full VoIP only and ditch the iPhone. The cheap T-Mobile plan (or really any TMo plan) doesn’t work well where I use cellular data most. Verizon iPad unlimited data plans are just as expensive as iPhone ones.
 
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sparksd

macrumors G3
Jun 7, 2015
9,964
33,959
Seattle WA
Cellular coverage and speed is like real estate. What matters is location, location, location.

Speedtest for T-Mobile (T-Mobile $10/5GB and Google Fi Unlimited) is like that every day at my office. Downstream speeds are okay (good enough for YouTube) but the upstream sucks.

AT&T has so-so signal, too, with Verizon being the best. There’s no wifi at the office apart from personal hotspot on the iPhone.

At home, I get great speeds with T-Mobile. It’s even faster than Charter cable.

I use 50GB+ on AT&T as that’s more reliable than TMo at my office. For the current service period, I’ve only used 3.34GB on Google Fi. I keep Google Fi mainly to test T-Mobile’s network, for my parents’ iPads (4 free data-only SIMs) and free international roaming.

As for E911, that’s only good as long as you have data. With cellphones (including dumb phones), 911 is always available even if you’re outside of your service provider’s coverage area as long there’s cellular coverage from other carriers.

I have the same T-Mobile plan for my cellular Mini 6 here in Seattle where their 5G coverage is really very good but I see the same - good downstream speeds but poor upstream, always in the low single digits Mbps (same with my 14PM).
 

Shortpay

Suspended
Aug 17, 2023
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If you have no use for SMS or cellular calls (not IM like iMessage or VoIP like Facetime Audio) then you could use any iPad as a giant iPhone.

I saw an interview of arnold schwarzenegger saying he uses an iPad and not an iPhone. He uses a dumb flip phone for SMS & cellular calls.
 
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rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,904
13,229
I have the same T-Mobile plan for my cellular Mini 6 here in Seattle where their 5G coverage is really very good but I see the same - good downstream speeds but poor upstream, always in the low single digits Mbps (same with my 14PM).

Lol, there have been times (usually lunchtime) when my pings on T-Mobile were 10,000ms+ and upstream was 0.8Mbps (Los Angeles).
 
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Greenmeenie

macrumors 68020
Jan 14, 2013
2,114
3,297
I used my ipad mini as a phone for a long time. All the way up until 2020 when i got my first iPhone. I was grandfathered into the original iPad’s unlimited data plan from AT&T for 10 years. I transferred it from the original ipad in 2010 to the first iPad mini in 2012 and kept transferring it to a new iPad mini every couple of years. It really worked well as a large iPhone! I used a bunch of different VOIP apps for free phone service. I also used Apple’s facetime. It was great. Very portable for an ipad… but the screen was so much bigger & more enjoyable to do work on. But using the ipad mini as a phone worked really well! I didn’t hold it up to my ear like a phone(that would look silly) 😂 But i used speaker or headphones. People could leave voice messages. And of course you could text people just like on a phone. The ipad mini was small enough to slide into a jacket pocket or cargo pants with no problem. I still use an iPad mini as a portable digital sketchbook & for websurfing… but use my iphone for calls most of the time now. My iphone plan is thru mint mobile and I only pay $15 a month.
 
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