Smartphones Are Not WiFi Devices
Greetings, I was excited when Cox began offering Mobile Wireless service, that I could bundle it with my Home. Internet connection, reducing complexity and going with a provider I know and trust. Cox issued a Google Pixel and I'm set up on the mobile network. During Christmastime I began having connectivity issues and fears about malware, and I took a few moments to consider what services I needed. In the process, I discovered that smartphones on Cox Mobile service are expected to use Mobile Data only. At home with Panoramic WiFi, I had been connecting the Pixel to that home network, but the cable-modem data is metered and accounted separately from Mobile Data. Now this surprised me as a consumer, because I always considered Android phones as just another versatile computer, but fits in a pocket, runs unique apps, and features many modes of connectivity. And many of us have moved away from Landline service or VoIP in favor of just the mobile wireless SIM service. My first Android device was WiFi-only, which was cool with home WiFi or public WiFi most places I went. My Pixel phone is not designed as a Mobile Only-device. Android devices make significant distinctions between metered WiFi, unmetered WiFi, and Mobile Data connects to the Internet. In Europe for decades, many/most Internet providers metered and capped all usage, and there were overage charges, and those consumers hopefully have experience in good management of bandwidth usage. But American's don't really, and this represents a Cost of Living increase across the board. Smartphones aren't optional; every business and service I interact with promotes their Mobile Apps in the app stores, and SMS message phones are required, and voice calls haven't gone away. And Mobile Apps can't be run on a typical desktop or notebook computer, so even at home, I'm using my smartphone and its data, constantly. So it makes sense to the providers and the respective backbone/cellular networks that phones should be accounted and treated separately, but for me as a "Power User" it's a difficult adjustment to accept, that this phone won't be using WiFi at all, and figuring out most of all, how to configure it so that uploads don't fail or that it decides a download is "too big" or "too often" for a Mobile Network connection, because the Pixels that Cox is selling do indeed assume that their users have frequent, ubiquitous WiFi access.Solved87Views0likes8Comments