
Charge, a phone company with features for nerds - stanleydrew
https://charge.co/for-nerds
======
rsync
Can I have _no voicemail_ ?

That's a feature I really want and it's not easy to do.

If you configure a mobile phone line without voicemail, it will _not_ just
ring and ring and ring (as I hoped it would) - instead, the caller gets a
message that "the number you have dialed is not accepting calls at this time"
... or some other message (depending on the carrier) that makes it sound like
you don't pay your phonebill or something.

I want my phone to ring and ring and ring until the caller gives up. I _think_
I can do this with the twilio API, but man that's a lot of work for something
(seemingly) simple.

edit: this is the discussion I found that makes me think I could accomplish
this with twilio: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22410430/twilio-
respond-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22410430/twilio-respond-to-
incoming-call-by-ringing-forever)

~~~
stanleydrew
Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have
it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed.

We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now
that I think about it.

~~~
DiabloD3
And this is how you run a company, everyone please take note. User feedback is
actually seriously considered and responded to in an acceptable manner.

~~~
joosters
It's great to see someone from a company pop up in a discussion to help out a
user, but this is absolutely _not_ the way to run a company. It leads to the
Google approach to support, where you can only get a non-automated reply _only
if_ you raise enough stink by on social media, or happen to know someone who
works there.

Now, each individual case where an employee unexpectedly helps out is great,
but this is NOT 'how you run a company'. You should focus on getting your
general customer service and support lines to be good.

I've never dealt with this company before, or even heard of them until today,
so their normal lines of support might be great. This isn't meant to be a
specific criticism of Charge.

However, it does seem odd to me that a phone company appears to give no
contact phone numbers on their web site. That's not a good sign!

~~~
stanleydrew
Phone support is a hard thing to do well. And we have a pretty high bar for
support. So I know this sounds like a dodge, but we really are waiting until
we can confidently roll out strong phone support to push it.

For now, whenever a customer has a problem that can't be solved via email, one
of the founders will call.

Obviously that doesn't scale, so we need to figure out phone support, but
we're aiming for what I call "Zappos-level" quality and that's easier said
than done.

------
nowprovision
Ha, love it that someone went out and registered [http://your-carrier-is-
hijacking-dns.com/](http://your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com/)

~~~
Vexs
That's great- earlier it led nowhere, now it leads to rickroll. So now there's
an actual cellular company rickrolling people.

~~~
Macacity
no, the site on the charge website has the tld .io

------
DiabloD3
Aaaand they are a Sprint MVNO. Sprint has a pretty bad network in most of the
US.

Maybe they'll pull a Google-Fi and make themselves available on more networks.

~~~
Johnie
Just wondering.. Can an app pull off the carrier switching function of Fi or
is it an OS level functionality?

~~~
untog
Google Fi also makes extensive use of wi-fi for texting and calls, which
definitely requires OS-level hooks.

~~~
DiabloD3
As far as I can tell, a lot of that magic isn't in the OS that way, as in,
they are using "Wifi calling", which AT&T and Verizon also support on limited
handsets (ie, Apple only, even though all modern Android phones support it
fine.

A lot of their multiple device calling magic seems to be done entirely in the
backend.

I'm not saying there ISN'T magic in the OS specifically for Google-Fi, but
they seem to be trying to use as much standard magic as possible before using
their own.

Although, it'd be nice if a Google engineer actually confirmed if my
suspicions are right.

------
post_break
Nerds use data, and this pricing structure basically punishes them for it. I
have unlimited data and 7gb tethering with T-Mobile and unless they do
something stupid or close their doors I will just keep throwing money at them.
I managed to snag it at $50 a month too.

~~~
icelancer
Is that plan available still? I am on their $30/month plan for 5GB but would
switch to your plan in a second. Got links?

~~~
ryan-c
I have unlimited data/calling/text and 5GB of tethering per month for $50/mo
with T-Mobile, but it's a grandfathered in plan that they put me on when they
stopped offering plans with limited voice minutes (I had the lowest allowance
possible) about two years ago.

------
maximsch2
Price is not competitive with T-Mobile 5GB @ $30/mo plan. I guess the only
interesting use case is for low-bandwidth use on data-only plan just to get a
device connected.

~~~
stanleydrew
That $30 T-Mobile plan is the plan I used to have before I started the
company. I actually found that I was using way less data than I thought.

Just looking at my Charge dashboard, for the last week (which wasn't
atypical), I used ~120MB.

Doesn't matter how many GBs are in your plan, if you don't use them, the price
per GB is still high.

~~~
icelancer
Pretty sure 120 MB/week is atypical for tech nerds. I have the T-Mobile $30/mo
plan and reach the cap every other month, and have to renew early to get LTE
speeds. And I'm on WiFi at home and work.

~~~
vinay427
Perhaps it is atypical, though I spend a lot of time on my phone and don't go
through more than 1 GB/month because almost all of my browsing involves text
and images, with videos usually only while I am indoors (generally over WiFi).

------
mataug
I was initially quite intrigued, They have some great nice to have features
but are missing some useful must haves when compared to Google Fi such as

1\. WiFi calling, Extremely useful, Many places that I go to have terrible
reception and calling and texting via WiFi has saved me many times.

2\. Simple international calling / travel plans. I use this a lot and again
WiFi calling + international roaming on Google Fi has saved me boat loads of
money.

3\. Hangouts integration exceptionally useful again because you can use
hangouts to make / receive calls & texts even if your phone dies or breaks.

Yes it costs $3 more and that isn't a big issue if they can improve on Google
Fi.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Is it just possible to do WiFi calling using Hangouts? I'd rather do that,
personally.

~~~
jccalhoun
yes, i use google voice for this. i just hope they don't kill it!

------
nudpiedo
The question is: in which countries are you operating? US only?

Is there any SIM as a service in a Linux host or behind some REST interface?
(for the creation of bots) Could I have multiple telephone numbers/identities
in a single SIM?

If not, does anyone now where to find those kind of services?

~~~
ndmrs
If you are looking for a web to cellular API check out twilio[1], seen it
recommended by a lot of people and am planning to use it for a few projects I
have in mind.

disclaimer: Not affiliated.

[1][https://www.twilio.com/](https://www.twilio.com/)

------
mattbee
If you're in the UK, Andrews & Arnold have been providing "nerd SIMs" with
proper networking and configurable voice services for years. Not that they're
easy to configure or cheap :) but -> [http://aaisp.net/telecoms-
sip2sim.html](http://aaisp.net/telecoms-sip2sim.html)

------
walrus01
The $3/month for an active SIM with billed-as-you-go data in $ per GB rate is
a great deal like the "Ting" MVNO:

[https://ting.com/rates](https://ting.com/rates)

For something like emergency OOB access via HSPA+/LTE modem into critical
infrastructure it's hard to beat $3-4 per month per active SIM card, when the
actual amount of data moved in a month might be less than 50MB.

------
hobarrera
> When you mistype a URL we don't sell your mistake to a bottom-feeding DNS ad
> network. If you see a search results page with ads when you click your-
> carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com, you'll know you have a problem. A problem you
> wouldn't have with Charge.

I heard about this about a decade back. Is this still happening anywhere in
the world?

~~~
justabystander
Yes. Many ISPs still do this, both mobile and wired. The latest one I saw was
Frontier (in the US).

------
LeoPanthera
Free (or, no premium) international roaming and wi-fi calling on T-Mobile are
now essential features for me.

One thing I've always wished for was for my phone to have a routable IP
address and not be behind NAT. A&A offers this in the UK:
[http://aaisp.net/telecoms-mobile-data.html](http://aaisp.net/telecoms-mobile-
data.html)

~~~
advertising
I've enjoyed that for awhile now as well with T-Mobile. Except being in Japan
more frequently as of late, the 2g speeds for free are great for essentials
(messaging, maps, email) but damn I'd love a better package for LTE speeds
that isn't like $50 for 200mb or whatever it is.

Maybe I just need to do more research.

~~~
vinay427
I was looking up the T-Mobile international roaming high-speed upgrade pricing
for my own use so I might as well post it here:

Single-day pass: $15 for 100MB

7 day-pass: $25 for 200MB

14-day pass: $50 for 500MB

~~~
advertising
I blow through that 500MB in 2 - 3 days is the problem.

A better, but not very cheap solution is to just rent a wifi hotspot for
around $8 - $10 / day if you're on a short trip. Get 1 gig / day as well.

I'm just going to get a japanese plan once I live here.

------
IgorPartola
So my family consumes a lot of data. I mean on the order of 15-25 GB/month.
That would get prohibitively expensive for me. Moreover it would be more
expensive than my AT&T bill. Do you have any plans to provide better bulk
pricing?

------
jdc0589
For regular phone use, this seems like a worse version of Google Fi; granted,
it supports more devices. Data is $3 more expensive per GB, and Sprint is your
only option, vs Sprint or TMobile with Fi.

Someone fill me in if I'm missing something.

~~~
blhack
Google fi turns me off because it seems to somehow be related to google voice.

I turned on a google voice number like 7 years ago, and used it essentially as
a spamcatch. I still want google voice for something things (and would happily
pay a few bucks a month for it if I needed to).

But I want google voice nowhere near my _actual_ cell phone. I could decline
to attach my cellphone to my GV number, but that means getting rid of my GV
number, which still isn't something I want to do.

~~~
ikeboy
Get a new Gmail address?

------
sargun
This seems pretty expensive actually. $13/GB + $20 per month versus my Verizon
plan that's ~$120/mo for 12GB of data. This plan would turn into $170. I
usually go to about 60-80% of my data plan (tethering and such), which at the
lower bound still doesn't make sense.

~~~
M4v3R
Are all data plans in the US so expensive? I live in Poland and I pay around
$12/month for unlimited LTE (32Mbps down, 20 Mbps up in my area). $13 per
month seems absurd.

~~~
maxerickson
More or less. At least 4g. There's tens of millions of people willing to pay
the current prices so they don't go down.

------
niij
If I signup for the data only plan ($3/mo) and purchase 1GB ($13) of data;
does that data expire?

For example, if I want to use only 100MB/mo could I pay $3/mo for 10 months
with a single 1GB data purchase at the beginning to cover all 10 months?

~~~
nickmccann
[https://charge.co/data-only](https://charge.co/data-only)

About midway down the page it says: "Your data never expires, so stock up!"

------
mrfusion
I don't understand how the [http://your-carrier-is-hijacking-
dns.com/](http://your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com/) url works. Am I supposed
to see Rick Ashley?

~~~
jwmerrill
I think Charge meant to use it to show you what happens when you visit an
unregistered domain.

This being the Internet, someone registered it and pointed it at Rick Astley.

~~~
Bromskloss
Maybe the ".invalid" [0] top domain would have been appropriate here.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid)

------
ikeboy
I'm paying no monthly fees on Ringplus for a decent plan (3500 min/sms/mb).
It's not so simple to get, they have "flash promos" with good plans, but if
you sign up for promo emails at
[https://promos.ringplus.net/](https://promos.ringplus.net/) you should be
able to catch them (one's going on today and tomorrow).

The only catches are a weirdly structured sign up fee (minimum top up for most
plans, and now they have member+ only plans, which costs $120 for lifetime,
but was different in the past), and their radio program, which replaces the
outgoing ring tone with ads/music/news/etc (you can configure it a bit).

I've been using it for months and there's no other catches, which is great.

The future of phone service is free.

~~~
niij
How is this even possible? Their site seems so sketchy.

~~~
ikeboy
They do charge random startup fees, and they have ads on every call you place,
but only before it's picked up.

~~~
subhobroto
The topup fees go straight to your account balance minus the taxes.

You are able to use that balance for any overages.

They did start charging upgrade fees for a few promotions but that is often 0
too.

------
sandworm101
Ok, yes. I clicked on the OP's "your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com" link. I was
wonder how it would react to my using OpenDNS. Good joke. Not the results I
was expecting.

~~~
16th_hop
I think something is up with the site, see URL of the Rickroll:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ#sup_Charge,_got_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ#sup_Charge,_got_a_bug_bounty?_cuz_I_just_found_an_earworm_in_your_site)

~~~
niccaluim
Someone just registered the domain today as, I suspect, a practical joke:

    
    
       Domain Name: YOUR-CARRIER-IS-HIJACKING-DNS.COM
       Registrar: GOOGLE INC.
       Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 895
       Whois Server: whois.rrpproxy.net
       Referral URL: http://domains.google.com
       Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C1.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
       Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C2.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
       Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C3.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
       Name Server: NS-CLOUD-C4.GOOGLEDOMAINS.COM
       Status: ok https://icann.org/epp#ok
       Updated Date: 22-may-2016
       Creation Date: 22-may-2016
       Expiration Date: 22-may-2017

------
a_small_island
>* Voice and SMS are unlimited up to a reasonable amount. We reserve the right
to terminate service in cases of fraud or abuse at our sole discretion.

From the "unlimited" notes for voice and text

~~~
Karunamon
Ugh.. Then it's not "unlimited". Unlimited means "without limits", not "with a
limit we won't tell you".

I can't wait for people doing this to get sued for false advertising.

------
hackney
I'm down. Not clear on the $20/month with the $13/GB plan. Is that $20 for the
acct and then an extra $13 per gig per month and does it rollover (the gigs)?
Anyways, apparently your co. only accepts iphones and nexus devices, or
something. I won't be able to unlock mine 'til Nov. and based on my imei it at
present is not compatible. Bookmarked.

------
amelius
> Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

Looking at this Venn diagram [1], it appears the company tagline is saying
something negative about their customers. Perhaps better to change that into
"for geeks".

[1]
[https://c8.staticflickr.com/5/4117/4889135495_e91b886fcd_b.j...](https://c8.staticflickr.com/5/4117/4889135495_e91b886fcd_b.jpg)

~~~
KnightHawk3
Google (youtube/chrome) says "stats for nerds" and nobody cares, I don't think
anybody really cares about being called a nerd.

My friends and I often refer to each other as nerds and I hear it's quite hip
with the youths these days.

------
mrfusion
I'm having trouble finding a hotspot for this. Would this work?
[http://www.bestbuy.com/site/boost-mobile-franklin-
wireless-4...](http://www.bestbuy.com/site/boost-mobile-franklin-
wireless-4g-lte-mobile-hotspot-black/4683900.p?id=1219812005607&skuId=4683900)

Why does this one say boost mobile?

------
Fastidious
Sprint? No, thanks.

------
goda90
I'd like to see cell plans targeted at remote "Internet of Things" usage. Say
you have some sensor that you want to transmit X bytes back to the server
every hour. Instead of paying for a bulk set of gigabytes you pay for the
bandwidth and frequency you use the network.

~~~
ajpgrealish
Most major providers around the world have M2M/IoT offerings but you normally
need high volumes to get their interest. I work for a company that have
20,000+ devices deployed across Africa using less than 1MB per month with a
very reasonable tariff.

For lower volumes and DIY projects there are many re-sellers such as Aeris,
Particle, Wireless Logic and more

------
listic
Is $50 per month considered little for the USA?

> The average Charge customer spends less than $50 per month with us.

~~~
el_benhameen
Yes. For two lines with a reasonable data plan on the cheapest network, I
spend about $120 a month. On the larger carriers (last I checked) it'd be
closer to $150-170.

~~~
ac29
How much data do you use? I have 2 lines with 6GB LTE each for a total of
$80/month (plus taxes, etc) on T-mobile.

------
amluto
This sounds like a great deal for a hotspot or for a simple internet-connected
device.

------
bpchaps
Bug report - the email registration doesn't like nonstandard fqdns like .io.
:)

~~~
goddardcm
Could you shoot me an email (chris at charge dot co) with some more details on
this? Was unable to reproduce this behavior.

------
ptoolan
I'm a big fan of them, after having checked out Charge a couple months ago.
The fact they're CDMA made it impossible for me to use their network though.
Can't wait for a GSM option to come along.

------
pmorici
Looks like a nice enough interface but all my m2m devices use GSM & SIM cards.
Besides being slightly cheaper this doesn't seem better than ting which
supports both GSM and CDMA devices.

------
qz_
>sup_Charge,_got_a_bug_bounty_cuz_I_just_found_an_earworm_in_your_site

>security

------
wpietri
Interesting!

Anybody know of a way to get a lot of devices with no per-month charge, just
per-byte? I have a project in my notebooks that would use cell data as a
backup, and $3/month is still prohibitive.

------
catwell
Reading the HTML source made me smile:

    
    
        <!-- Viewer Discretion is Advised -->
        <div class="full-screen-graphic">

------
mrfusion
Would you guys consider offering an emergency phone plan? Maybe voice only say
60 minutes a year for something inexpensive like $10 or $20 per year?

~~~
mrfusion
It could actually be an untapped market. Inexpensive backup phone.

------
jldugger
$3/gb more expensive than Google Fi, and I'm not sure what's compelling about
it for that additional ten percent.

------
domrdy
Haha, I wish all telco companies would list their tech stack as part of their
feature list on their homepage!

------
hammock
Funny to see them market themselves as a "phone company" as opposed to
wireless service.

------
ashitlerferad
The may be Gophers but do they do not support gopher://

------
swrobel
Oh cool, so you're like Google Fi but 30% more expensive!

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Google Fi only works with Nexus 5x, 6, and 6P. Charge works with any Sprint-
compatible phone including iPhone.

------
aaronsnoswell
Great. When are you coming to Australia?

------
jszymborski
Presuming US only, no Canucks?

~~~
ape4
I like [http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/](http://www.speakout7eleven.ca/) in
Canada.

~~~
dylz
> Our affordable data add-on rate is 100MB for $10

what..

~~~
jszymborski
Yah... I'm not seeing many ways in which this is comparable.

------
gcatalfamo
Any plans for EU?

------
nathan_f77
Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but if a company calls me a nerd or a geek,
then it sounds like an insult. So it makes me feel slightly bad, and is not a
great first impression. I think advertisers should stop doing that.

Also, why would a voice/messaging company write most of their software in Go,
instead of Erlang (or Elixir)? That would make more sense to me.

Also, those are not even features! Congratulations on your basic SSL best
practices.

~~~
stanleydrew
Didn't mean to offend. We consider ourselves nerds, and mean it
affectionately.

And I will accept your sarcastic congratulations on "basic" SSL best practices
with pride. I think you'll find that HPKP implementations are currently still
very rare, and I do not consider it "basic".

~~~
nathan_f77
That's cool, I'll get over it! I still don't really like the word "nerd", but
to be fair, I did struggle to come up with a better title.

And sorry for the sarcasm, it does look like you're doing everything right.

When you say almost all your software is written in Go, is that including the
telecom stack? I just didn't think Go was ready to compete with the Erlang VM
in that arena.

