Got and activated my SIM card tonight. One regression that I knew was coming but that I wasn't quite mentally prepared for was the loss of Sprint's excellent Google Voice integration. Being able to have my GV number show up from my mobile phone when I'm using the cellular network was really nice. The one other Voice-related limitation that I wasn't aware of is that T-Mobile prepaid phones, for whatever reason, can't do conditional call forwarding, which means I can't have the voicemail for calls to my cell number sent to Google Voice.

This is sort of a bummer, because though I plan to have everyone keep calling me on my GV number, a lot of people will just use recent calls to call whatever number I called them from last, which might be my cell number. My hope is that T-Mobile does full Google Voice integration in the future, but who knows when that'll happen. A bit of a sad loss of functionality, but, alas one I'll accept to cut my bill in half.

In terms of coverage, cellular calls at home seem fine so far. 4G at home (not terribly important because of wifi, of course) is a bit shaky -- it seems to flicker between HSPDA and 3G periodically -- but when it has an HSPDA fix, throughput is very solid. I'll see how coverage is in and around the office and around town over the coming days.

I can confirm that mobile hotspot tethering works -- just did some light web browsing to confirm it, and at least initially no issues with T-Mobile intercepting requests. Will probably have a chance next weekend to give it a more rigorous test.

Anyway, looking good so far.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff