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Geektox posted:Yeah, Koodo (Telus) and Bell used to be CDMA but they all switched to GSM a few years back. They switched to HSPA.  A GSM-only phone will not work on their network.
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Mar 22, 2013 06:50
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less than three posted:They switched to HSPA. Oops. Also it's worth noting that if you are getting an iPhone 5, wafflehound, only the AT&T model will be able to get LTE here in Canada.
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Mar 22, 2013 07:04
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Geektox posted:Oops. Also it's worth noting that if you are getting an iPhone 5, wafflehound, only the AT&T model will be able to get LTE here in Canada. I'm assuming you're referring to a non-CDMA phone here? less than three posted:They switched to HSPA. I've literally never heard of HSPA but I assume an iPhone will work.
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Mar 22, 2013 15:24
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teethgrinder posted:She's switching from Mobilicity which has just been utterly useless. They keep blaming everything but their lovely network for her lack of reception everywhere in downtown Toronto. I get good reception everywhere in downtown Toronto  . Voice quality is a different matter.
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Mar 22, 2013 15:41
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ZShakespeare posted:Yeah, I'm reasonably certain all of our providers do that except maybe some obscure ones that still use cdma. (I think they all do the 10% off thing too, though I don't know about Rogers/Fido) Rogers does a 5$ off every month for every plan without data and 10$ for plans with data, so it's usually more than 10% off.
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Mar 22, 2013 17:03
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Wind mobile is apparently going up for sale soon. This sounds like potentially good news to me, as long as Robellus don't get their dirty hands on it. It seems unlikely that they would, even as toothless as the CRTC is right now. Isn't more spectrum going up for auction soon? At the worst, it seems likely that Wind iwll be sold to some other foreign backers and nothing will change. There's also a chance that Mobilicity's owners could buy it up. I could see a merger of the two being a good thing - an expanded network and lower costs after redundancies are removed. If the two brands remain separate, there's a chance they could raise prices and stop competing, but that seems unlikely with Robellus' discount brands around. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
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Mar 22, 2013 18:13
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eXXon posted:I get good reception everywhere in downtown Toronto I can see some people complaining about Nexus 4 reception online, but I can't really judge whether it's the phone's fault. Most people don't seem to have trouble and I haven't really noticed the savvier people on SA complain.
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Mar 22, 2013 20:41
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eXXon posted:Wind mobile is apparently going up for sale soon. This sounds like potentially good news to me, as long as Robellus don't get their dirty hands on it. It seems unlikely that they would, even as toothless as the CRTC is right now. Isn't more spectrum going up for auction soon? I think it's more likely that Rogers, Bell, or Telus rolls in with a dump truck full of burlap sacks with dollar signs on them just so that they can return to regular business and not have to offer discount plans to compete. I'd expect Mobilicity to follow suit too. After Orascom I'd be surprised if any foreign telecom would be crazy enough to invest in this market.
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Mar 22, 2013 20:59
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WAFFLEHOUND posted:I'm assuming you're referring to a non-CDMA phone here? Yeah basically as long as it's not Verizon or Sprint phone it'll be fine.
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Mar 22, 2013 21:12
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teethgrinder posted:Outdoors it's fine, but indoors, where we live, where she works, everywhere we go it's brutal. She's tried it with both a Nokia e73 and Nexus 4. I get some reception indoors and at underground subway stations (in the middle of the Bloor station platform, for example). I probably get worse signal than I used to with Rogers but it still usually works if I'm close to a window. Otherwise, Mobilicity/Wind only have high frequency parts of the spectrum now, and they're more easily absorbed by anything, so they're going to have worse reception deep inside buildings regardless of what phone you use. More towers can only help so much if there's several metres of concrete between you and the nearest tower, so it's not really an issue with the network as much as MobiWind not having any low frequency parts of the spectrum. Maybe one day they will. ZShakespeare posted:I think it's more likely that Rogers, Bell, or Telus rolls in with a dump truck full of burlap sacks with dollar signs on them just so that they can return to regular business and not have to offer discount plans to compete. I'd expect Mobilicity to follow suit too. After Orascom I'd be surprised if any foreign telecom would be crazy enough to invest in this market. The quotes in the articles I read claimed that Rogers isn't interested. They have dump trucks full of money but they're probably saving some for the next spectrum auction and I hope/pray the CRTC would actually deny their bid to buy Wind if it ever came to that.
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Mar 22, 2013 21:40
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eXXon posted:The quotes in the articles I read claimed that Rogers isn't interested. They have dump trucks full of money but they're probably saving some for the next spectrum auction and I hope/pray the CRTC would actually deny their bid to buy Wind if it ever came to that. So it'll be Bell or Telus then. They can't have some random company driving down prices. In other news it looks like we'll get our AWS iPhone just in time for Wind and Mobilicity to get bought up and have their pricing brought in line with industry standards.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:40
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ZShakespeare posted:So it'll be Bell or Telus then. They can't have some random company driving down prices. In other news it looks like we'll get our AWS iPhone just in time for Wind and Mobilicity to get bought up and have their pricing brought in line with industry standards. The AWS iPhone has the potential to really change the balance of power in the market. I hope it gets pushed out the door before things shift too dramatically with Wind/Mobilicity... And I'm optimistic it might because T-Mobile looks to be having their iPhone event tomorrow.
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Mar 26, 2013 05:20
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Nope, not an AWS iPhone. T-mobile just launched an LTE network compatible with the existing iPhone. Wind and Monilicity (and our telecom industry) is still screwed.
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Mar 26, 2013 18:17
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ZShakespeare posted:Nope, not an AWS iPhone. T-mobile just launched an LTE network compatible with the existing iPhone. Wind and Monilicity (and our telecom industry) is still screwed. Goddamn it. Without the iPhone, Wind and Mobilicity are going to wither away and eventually get acquired by Robelus.
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Mar 26, 2013 19:11
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According to T-Mobile it does support HSPA+ on AWS, so I'm not sure where he heard otherwise. edit for source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/t-mobile-says-its-iphone-5-has-hspa-on-aws-bands/ edit2: well now this is just getting confusing, apparently old iPhone 5s won't support AWS but the new version of the A1428 (yeah, same model number) will support it after it launches on april 12th? sounds like it might be tough to get a working AWS phone in Canada http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/iphone-5-att-aws-unlocked-plans-t-mobile/ DarkJC fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 19:56
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I was going by the verge. But hey, if that works maybe something will happen. I know most certainly that the current iPhone doesn't work on AWS E: Ok yeah, this is pretty cut and dry now. http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/apple-t-mobile-capable-iphone-5-goes-through-fcc-testing/ ZShakespeare fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Mar 27, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 20:36
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So... I'm bad with money and confrontation, basically Rogers' ideal customer. I'm paying $68/mth including tax for the 6 GB bundle and no add-ons. (200 or so minutes, My10, SMS, free evenings; no voicemail or call display). I've recently set up a budget and plan to get out of debt, but I'm paying way too much for my phone. Basically I need to get retentions to offer me a discount. I've been off a three-year contract for around half a year. I own my phone outright (unfortunately I'm pretty sure it only operates on Rogers... S2 LTE) Should I basically tell them I'm switching to Wind or Mobilicity? Unfortunately rates on Bell and Telus don't seem any better than Rogers. I only need a gig of data, and hardly use phone minutes. 2 gigs would be nice. Or should I honestly just tell them I need to cancel/reduce it because I can't afford to pay their rate?
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Mar 27, 2013 19:01
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teethgrinder posted:So... I'm bad with money and confrontation, basically Rogers' ideal customer. I'm paying $68/mth including tax for the 6 GB bundle and no add-ons. (200 or so minutes, My10, SMS, free evenings; no voicemail or call display). The phone won't even work on Fido despite them using the same network/towers? Fido has unlimited minutes/texts/canada wide calling + call display/VM/2gigs for $60 with no contract. Surely rogers can do something to meet/match that for a long time customer? http://www.fido.ca/web/page/portal/Fido/MonthlyPlans/Group2 edit: Didn't see you said including tax. Fido's $50 plan would probably save you a bit.
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Mar 27, 2013 19:16
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Durrrrrr yeah it probably would work on Fido. Although annoyingly even though I paid full price for my phone, it came locked to Rogers. I can probably fix that on my own as it's Android. And yeah, the $50 plan looks good enough.
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Mar 27, 2013 19:38
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S2 LTE will work on Bell/Telus (I don't know about LTE, but 3G and what they call 4G will work) as long as you can get Rogers to unlock it.
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Mar 27, 2013 20:51
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If you're getting your phone unlocked anyway take a look at Koodo and Virgin's offerings (specifically Virgin's Silver plans) https://shop.koodomobile.com/plans/plans/index.html http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/plans/monthly1.html?itcid=LP:142 They're both pretty much identical offerings (even their promotions, what a coincidence...) but I'm on the $25/month Virgin silver plan, and I like it cause if money is really tight you have the flexibility of just not using data at all. I think they both offer 10% off the base monthly price if you bring your own phone as well.
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Mar 27, 2013 22:43
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That Virgin silver plan looks perfect. And honestly, I can suck up not using data for a few months. That's a really cool feature, and the pricing isn't awful (at least compared to Canada's other offerings).
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Mar 27, 2013 23:25
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Yeah, I'm on that plan with virgin. Once I started tracking my data use I've been using less than I thought I would and I'm saving even more.
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Mar 28, 2013 01:42
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Turns out I'm still on contract, caused by switching to 6 GB whenever that was offered. Lovely. First tried to tell me that the phone I bought full price caused it, so maybe I shouldn't have even believed her. I'm now at $50/mth for 1 GB and all the add-ons I could use. I've been missing call display and voice mail. Virgin would have realistically been $45/mth + $100 cancelation. The cancelation fee isn't even terrible, but I really do use around 800 MB data on average. Hopefully my company is going to pay my cell bill soon anyway.
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Mar 28, 2013 16:25
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This is literally why every time I call Rogers to make a change to my account I record my call and have the rep double or triple verify that the change won't put me back on contract. I can't wait for Rogers to try to tell me that switching my iPhone 3G to a 4S I plan to buy on Craigslist will somehow re-up my contract 
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Mar 28, 2013 17:58
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Holy hell those are cheap. I'm paying $80 a month for similar plans from Bell. Time to get on the phone with retentions. I just bought a nexus 4 so I think I'm good to move to whoever.
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Mar 28, 2013 18:05
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My dad has this old LG pre-paid Telus phone. I want to give him my old unlocked 3GS, but his phone had no SIM in the SIM slot when I removed the battery. Will Telus sell me a SIM card if I go in a store? And how much are they?
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Mar 31, 2013 14:03
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Secx posted:My dad has this old LG pre-paid Telus phone. I want to give him my old unlocked 3GS, but his phone had no SIM in the SIM slot when I removed the battery. I can't see why not. They're  edit: They may require your dad to be the one to do it if it's his name on the account, and they may require the iPhone present to activate.
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Mar 31, 2013 14:50
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Secx posted:My dad has this old LG pre-paid Telus phone. I want to give him my old unlocked 3GS, but his phone had no SIM in the SIM slot when I removed the battery. As OilSlick said, yeah they will. You can swap his number over to the SIM for free if you do it online as well, assuming he has an online account or makes one.
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Mar 31, 2013 15:01
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Welp, my three-year ( ) contract with Telus is finally ending next month. I've decided to go with a new phone while I'm at it because I can't stand to use this Blackberry for any longer. Thankfully, my birthday is also coming up and my parents offered to buy me a new phone as a gift! This makes money less of an issue.A friend of mine recently bought a Nexus 4 and it looks amazing. I'm interested in getting one of those myself, but it seems like none of the providers here sell it. That's fine; I can get it from Google just like he did, but I'm pretty stupid when it comes to cellphone providers so I want help clearing something up: My friend said all I have to do is ask for a SIM card (I currently do not have one) from my provider and then I can shove it into my phone and it will work without much problem. Is that all there is to getting a phone obtained from elsewhere to work with your provider? Now on to provider questions! Information: I live in Western Canada and travel semi-regularly to rural areas of the east coast. I find that Telus has functional coverage in these parts, but that immediately knocks out WIND and Rogers. Aforementioned friend highly recommended Koodo and their plans seem pretty good. I'm not sure what counts as "data" with my current plan (Promo Voice and Data Flex 60+), but I use Twitter, Facebook (the apps) a lot and I like to use email when necessary. Now that I'll be replacing my Curve 8530 with a Device that can Do poo poo I'll likely be browsing and using maps a little bit more. I'm at day 27/31 in my usage cycle right now and have used 307MB of data (out of 1GB max), sent/received about 200 messages (unlimited), and I rarely ever use it for calls if I can help it (but if I do, it's most likely to be home family and therefore long-distance, or otherwise for professional purposes such as setting up appointments). Unfortunately the amount of minutes used is not being reported in my account. I also like to use my phone for email and I tend to receive a few of them per day. This was a typical-use month for me. My bill is currently $85-$100 (I know...) per month and I am very interested in reducing that! The $45 Virgin plan and the $45 Koodo plan are very similar and seem to be right for me, considering I don't actually talk on my phone for very long. Extra data on the Koodo plan is half the price as it is on the Virgin plan, which is making me lean for that. I assume that, considering their parent companies have decent coverage in the east, I don't have to worry much about their differences? What do you think? After doing some research, the Koodo plan is very appealing, but I'm concerned about buying a phone and using it with them. Is it really as easy as doing the SIM card thing my friend mentioned? Thanks! Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Apr 3, 2013 |
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Apr 3, 2013 21:05
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Yeah, just buy a Koodo SIM, pop it in the Nexus and you're on your way!
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Apr 4, 2013 02:45
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less than three posted:Yeah, just buy a Koodo SIM, pop it in the Nexus and you're on your way! That's good to know, thanks! Is there anything I should know about my plan of choice? I can't help but be paranoid about  hidden fees. Unless I can hear some convincing reasons to not go with them, Koodo is my final choice. Actually owning my phone means I don't have to go with a contract, right?Another question: My Telus contract finally peters out on May 2. What happens then? Is my deal with them automatically terminated, or do I have to contact them and tell them I'm switching providers or what?
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Apr 4, 2013 03:53
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Mak0rz posted:That's good to know, thanks! Is there anything I should know about my plan of choice? I can't help but be paranoid about When your contract expires you shouldn't contact them to tell them you're leaving. You just need your account info then go to koodo and get them to transfer your number. That will automatically cancel your existing plan with your former provider. I believe there are or were some providers who were known to lock your account which prevents transfers if you notify them that you are terminating your account with them? Not sure if that still happens but it was kind of a dick move. That said, I don't know how to time it best to minimize getting double billed for a month of service from your old provider. Maybe they prorate your cancellation date now or something? I can't remember.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:03
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On may first or so look around for a best activation deal for Kodoo, often Best Buy or Real Superstore give gift cards and such. Then walk in buy the sim, pick a plan(10% off a month for bringing your own phone), and tell them you want to port your current phone number. They punch it into the computer, the porting auto cancels your Telus contract. If you want to start accumulating Tab money for future phone upgrades and stuff ask for a referral from existing user, it's free 25 for both of you if you get the code before activation.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:07
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Squibbles posted:I believe there are or were some providers who were known to lock your account which prevents transfers if you notify them that you are terminating your account with them? Not sure if that still happens but it was kind of a dick move. Never heard of it happening, never had it happen in five years of selling phones, and if it did I'd punch that carrier in the dick for ruining my sale. Of course if you cancel your line completely then there is no number to port and will have to get a new number (if it's possible to get it back it's more trouble than it's worth) When porting, just make sure you have your account number. That's usually all that's needed.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:21
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quote:Just port over your old phone number. Oh, uh. One thing I forgot to mention is that I started this plan on the east coast and it has a number for that region. I will not be keeping it.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:25
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Porting is just an easy way to cancel with another provider. You can change your phone number with kodoo once every billing cycle anyways.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:31
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OilSlick posted:Never heard of it happening, never had it happen in five years of selling phones, and if it did I'd punch that carrier in the dick for ruining my sale. Of course if you cancel your line completely then there is no number to port and will have to get a new number (if it's possible to get it back it's more trouble than it's worth) Huh, I'd swear I've heard horror stories of transfers being denied because of providers locking the number when the account was going to be terminated. Then again, don't believe everything you read online I guess 
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Apr 4, 2013 04:49
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Mak0rz posted:Oh, uh. One thing I forgot to mention is that I started this plan on the east coast and it has a number for that region. I will not be keeping it. Even better. Set a cancellation for the last day of your billing cycle with TELUS. Go into Koodo the day before and sign up with a new phone number. No porting or giving of TELUS account info required.
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Apr 4, 2013 05:19
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I just got a text message from Rogers (?) telling me I can get a free Kindle Paperwhite 3G if I upgrade my phone and re-up my plan or something. I don't need one, but is this a legit thing they're doing, or just some sort of scam SMS?
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Apr 4, 2013 05:24
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