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Comment by bmon | Hacker News Reader

Now I'm not too experienced, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a signal strength reading part of the wireless protocol? If your signal strength takes a consistent dive over a small period of time (as you walk out of the building) you could engage the cellular connection to at least supplement the pope wireless connection.

Or how about if some x% of packets were lost/failed checksum you revert to cellular?

Both of these would likely require changes to the wireless drivers but they don't seem too unachievable.

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Sure, but that's assuming you can detect the weak signal, boot up the cellular antenna, negotiate a new connection to the nearest towers (after discovering them) and connect to the internet.

I'm making a bit of an assumption here, but I think if Apple or Google could detect spotty wifi quickly enough to boot up the cellular antenna, they would be. I think the issue is more that by the time the phone can tell there is a problem there isn't enough time to bring up the cellular antenna and connect before service is interrupted.

I can't say I know much about cellular networks either, but in my opinion having the cellular antenna connected to the network at all times would greatly simplify the handoff when wifi gets spotty. The ability to use both to download/upload is just icing on the proverbial cake.

I'm not sure how it works exactly, but Google's own cellular company, Google Fi, promotes the fact that they use WiFi when available, even for phone calls, but can switch quickly to cell when needed. Phone calls are not interrupted when switching. I especially like this setup because my cellular reception is poor at work, but I can use my employer's WiFi to receive calls and data. Phone call clarity is better on WiFi than cellular but sometimes there is a bit of lag that reminds me of calling overseas using geosynchronous satellite connections in the 90's.

Great prices also. Since I'm almost always using WiFi, the $20 a month for global unlimited text and phone calls with a $10/gig data rate means I only spend about $25 a month for my smartphone service. You can only use a subset of Google phones, but I find my Nexus 5x fits my needs. I also always get Android updates right away, if I want to install them.

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