5 ms·

Otherwise people would use it for IoT infrastructure. I certainly would.

fullstackchris 3y ago
That's exactly what my mind jumped to when seeing this (free IoT!), can almost expect someone will try to build some sort of automated video watcher to work around this caveat and abuse it :)
- kristopolous 3y ago
  that's fine. small abuse isn't worth the cost to enforce. abuse at scale, however...
  - rubyfan 3y ago
    Around 2000 there was a dial-up service called Juno. It took about 15% of your screen to show a rotating banner ad and had some time limit for use. As far as I recall every restriction was implemented in the client. As such there was a really easy workaround to connect directly without using their software and bypass every restriction. A guy I know used that workaround and at some point got a letter in the mail from them because he was in the top 1% of users of the service which was very costly to them so they terminated the account. My hunch is even small scale abuse of a system can have a big effect. Even if it seems small it still might be impactful.
    - brnt 3y ago
      Reminds me of free dotcoms back in the late 1990s just up until the dotcom bubble burst: free but with a frame with a banner. 14 year old me enjoyed learning how to load (and then design around) my own page in that frame.
    - kmu526 3y ago
      Juno was great. There was another company similar to Juno with the same idea which I think started with an "N" if I remember correctly. My dialup of choice was MetConnect. It was entirely free and fast no ads just dial in and use the Internet.
      - terinjokes 3y ago
        NetZero, who eventually bought Juno after they went under in the dot-com bubble.
        daveloyall 3y ago
        I set up a local BBS-like system and used the real NetZero* dialer to call it and attempt to log in. Then I changed my password and repeated the process several times. That gave me the key to the Caesar cipher they used for the password.. so I could create a fresh account with a scrambled password any time I wanted. At runtime, in the OS-provided ad-free dialer, I'd use the unscrambled password. I also pre-created some accounts with unscrambled passwords like "apple" and "bicycle" to share with friends. NetZero* ceased operations mere weeks after I started this.. Hm. (* Was it NetZero specifically, or some clone? I forget..)
    - philistine 3y ago
      We weren't technically savvy at all, but still found a loophole. There was a version of the software that crashed after you had successfully connected. As long as you didn't update, you were ad-free.
vachina 3y ago
This infra would probably last a week max.
progbits 3y ago
Are there cheap LTE+ embedded modules that support eSIM? All the ESP32/Arduino boards with mobile data that I've used in the past required a physical SIM card.
- universa1 3y ago
  mhm, at least for older phones there is stuff like: https://esim.me/ https://esim.me/ no clue if it works to set the card up in a phone and then use it in a board?!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- landgenoot 3y ago
  nrf9160
michaelmior 3y ago
I haven't actually made use of this yet, but Google Fi lets you purchase additional data-only SIM cards for $5 or $10 and then the data gets billed at $1/GB at the same rate without any minimum. So if you're only sending a few KB a day, you pay almost nothing.
- devmor 3y ago
  Does the price for 1GB apply if you use only 50kb of data during the billing period or is it prorated?
  - gooseyman 3y ago
    I had fi for several years. IIRC it was billed as $.01 per megabyte. If I used 341MB, my bill was $3.41. I think you would still pay for the full MB though.
    - devmor 3y ago
      Good to know, thanks! Probably not something I’d want to use for a super low bandwidth application like hourly gps updates but definitely viable for something a little more “active iot”.
    - michaelmior 3y ago
      As a current Fi customer, I believe that's correct. But I think this is also aggregated across all devices. So if you use 1KB on 5 devices, I think you only pay $1. There's also a limit of 4 data-only SIMs.
liftm 3y ago
Guess my IoT devices will have to learn how to watch videos.
- FloatArtifact 3y ago
  That's what I was thinking :)

That's exactly what my mind jumped to when seeing this (free IoT!), can almost expect someone will try to build some sort of automated video watcher to work around this caveat and abuse it :)

kristopolous 3y ago
that's fine. small abuse isn't worth the cost to enforce. abuse at scale, however...
- rubyfan 3y ago
  Around 2000 there was a dial-up service called Juno. It took about 15% of your screen to show a rotating banner ad and had some time limit for use. As far as I recall every restriction was implemented in the client. As such there was a really easy workaround to connect directly without using their software and bypass every restriction. A guy I know used that workaround and at some point got a letter in the mail from them because he was in the top 1% of users of the service which was very costly to them so they terminated the account. My hunch is even small scale abuse of a system can have a big effect. Even if it seems small it still might be impactful.
  - brnt 3y ago
    Reminds me of free dotcoms back in the late 1990s just up until the dotcom bubble burst: free but with a frame with a banner. 14 year old me enjoyed learning how to load (and then design around) my own page in that frame.
  - kmu526 3y ago
    Juno was great. There was another company similar to Juno with the same idea which I think started with an "N" if I remember correctly. My dialup of choice was MetConnect. It was entirely free and fast no ads just dial in and use the Internet.
    - terinjokes 3y ago
      NetZero, who eventually bought Juno after they went under in the dot-com bubble.
      - daveloyall 3y ago
        I set up a local BBS-like system and used the real NetZero* dialer to call it and attempt to log in. Then I changed my password and repeated the process several times. That gave me the key to the Caesar cipher they used for the password.. so I could create a fresh account with a scrambled password any time I wanted. At runtime, in the OS-provided ad-free dialer, I'd use the unscrambled password. I also pre-created some accounts with unscrambled passwords like "apple" and "bicycle" to share with friends. NetZero* ceased operations mere weeks after I started this.. Hm. (* Was it NetZero specifically, or some clone? I forget..)
  - philistine 3y ago
    We weren't technically savvy at all, but still found a loophole. There was a version of the software that crashed after you had successfully connected. As long as you didn't update, you were ad-free.

vachina 3y ago

This infra would probably last a week max.

progbits 3y ago

Are there cheap LTE+ embedded modules that support eSIM? All the ESP32/Arduino boards with mobile data that I've used in the past required a physical SIM card.

universa1 3y ago
mhm, at least for older phones there is stuff like: https://esim.me/ https://esim.me/ no clue if it works to set the card up in a phone and then use it in a board?!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
landgenoot 3y ago
nrf9160

michaelmior 3y ago

I haven't actually made use of this yet, but Google Fi lets you purchase additional data-only SIM cards for $5 or $10 and then the data gets billed at $1/GB at the same rate without any minimum. So if you're only sending a few KB a day, you pay almost nothing.

devmor 3y ago
Does the price for 1GB apply if you use only 50kb of data during the billing period or is it prorated?
- gooseyman 3y ago
  I had fi for several years. IIRC it was billed as $.01 per megabyte. If I used 341MB, my bill was $3.41. I think you would still pay for the full MB though.
  - devmor 3y ago
    Good to know, thanks! Probably not something I’d want to use for a super low bandwidth application like hourly gps updates but definitely viable for something a little more “active iot”.
  - michaelmior 3y ago
    As a current Fi customer, I believe that's correct. But I think this is also aggregated across all devices. So if you use 1KB on 5 devices, I think you only pay $1. There's also a limit of 4 data-only SIMs.

liftm 3y ago

Guess my IoT devices will have to learn how to watch videos.

FloatArtifact 3y ago
That's what I was thinking :)