The reasons for such an ambitious plan includes the ability access new markets and create business growth in fields in all areas of the US that would require broadband access in order to thrive.  Applications such as distance learning, telemedicine to giving users broadband access for the first time, in fact the chairman sites 100 Mbps as NOT the ultimate goal but he would like to shoot past and provide even higher speeds to consumers, perhaps such as Google’s recently announced initiative of 1 Gpbs speed for up to 500,000 customers.

There are significant obstacles that exist for the plan which are primarily due to the technology available today.   According to electronista:

Current cable modem service often peaks at 25Mbps and is typically expensive at this rate; new DOCSIS 3.0 modems can reach 100Mbps but are only available in a few areas and are so far only served 50Mbps connections. Verizon is the best prepared with its fiber optic FiOS network but would need to complete more upgrades to reach the 100Mbps speed across most of its network.

Internet providers have also traditionally been resistant to any moves to supply broadband to many rural areas that would be needed to reach the 90 percent coverage target, going so far as to sponsor “astroturf” (fake grassroots) organizations and engaging in frequent lobbying to discourage mandates for service in these areas. The advent of 4G is expected to mitigate some of this as it substantially lowers the cost of covering a remote area, although LTE and similar standards may provide much less than 100Mbps in practice.

While the exact method for deployment isn’t necessarily very clear, the plan is potentially good news for the end user.  What companies participate and how this plan is executed will be something we all should watch.  Wireless technology such as WiMax may offer a solution to help make this plan a reality and allow broad deployment, but keep your eyes peeled and those broadband hungry applications ready.

This morning, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) has announced their intentions of creating a unified open platform that would allow develops of applications to create an application program one time and that app would be able to be deployed to work on any carrier, device and operating system – universally.

The number of companies backing the WAC are 24 and include some of the biggest names in the wireless business today.   Of the largest names participating include AT&T, China Mobile, Orange, Verizon, Sprint and device manufacturers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.  Such an idea, if successful would be an incredible dream for mobile developers as it would allow them to create an application one time rather than have to redesign the same application for different platforms and networks.

While some view it as a huge announcement that could potentially change the face of the applications, there are a few who view it as a potential disaster.

We’ll leave the pundits to argue whether such an organization’s grand plans will actually work or fail, what is obvious to us is absolutely certain, mobile devices are NO LONGER simply communication services that can be regulated from a spreadsheet.  There is potential for your organization to at the very least incur added charges to your monthly bill to, at the worst case  incur a data breach or malware attack from a rogue app.

The role of the mobile device is quickly changing, it is your responsibility to find the right way to manage those devices such as a software application that knows everything from keeping a mobile device policy, average departmental spend and accounting for inventory control.  An automated program can alleviate those type of headaches.  Talk to your telecom management firm to learn more about your options and how you can get ahead of the ever-changing mobile landscape.

The article goes on to state that “the per-victim cost for a data breach involving a lost or stolen laptop was $225 in 2009, 10% higher than the average total cost of a data breach and 5% higher than the cost of a breach caused by a malicious attack.

1.  Missing out on discounts.  When you pool your company’s total spend are you missing out on the newer discounted rate structures that the cellcos are throwing out nowadays?  We’ve seen some dramatic discounts and additionally your company may be able to access added rate cuts by associations or rate plans that are available to your company.  In some cases, we have seen that while the company was reimbursing their employees a flat dollar amount each month, if they had pooled their plan together, it would have been less costly to take advantage of a group plan that they qualified for.

2.  Employees not getting a phone at all.  In some cases, we’re actually seeing that some employees are either just pocketing the money and not getting a phone at all or trying to keep the spend below the reimbursed amount.  In one extreme case the employee was trying to “game the system” by checking out a company-owned phone and still getting the reimbursement.  Sometimes, employees are simply just not willing to actually use their phones because even though they are being reimbursed, the belief is that they are still paying for the phone and look to “profit” from the reimbursement, rather that view it as a business tool.

3.  Security and liability. Phones have essentially turned into miniature versions of our desktop and laptop computers.  Employees can easily access their email, applications and sensitive corporate information from their phones.  With individual liable phones, regardless of what you put on paper, it is nearly impossible to standardize on handsets, carriers or implement restrictions on those phones.  In one case, an employee actually gave a child their cell phone because his daughter was going to camp, and when it was critical that that employee be contacted due to an emergency, they couldn’t find him.  Additionally today, many companies don’t consider that applications on smartphones can be downloaded just like software on your computers can contain viruses, trojans and worms that could potentially be a security breach for your companies “secure” data and make government compliance a headache.

4.  The prepaid and/or restricted access phone.  Depending on your employee and their personal view on the mobile phone reimbursement, they may opt for a phone with severe restrictions or be prepaid.  Restricted phone can mean limited network availability, inability to make or receive text messages, poor network coverage when you need to access your employees.  In the case of the prepaid phone, if your employee really needs to get in touch with you, or vice versa, and they’re run out of minutes – what do you do?  Employees don’t necessarily view the best interests of the company when it comes to wireless liability.

5.  Employee satisfaction and their viewpoint. In one case an employee pulled me aside to ask if their company was going through a tough financial crisis and if they were going to be okay.  I was puzzled because he was asking me such a question, I ask him why he thought that.  “Because they have been trying to reduce costs and when they did this making us get our own cell phones a lot of us started talking.”  The employees perception was that the company was going out of business rather than simply trying to control costs, it doesn’t matter how you spin it, because how you implement and let the employees know, don’t assume everyone is on the same page.  Additionally, many employees view this responsibility as a shortcoming of their employer because they don’t want to manage this.  It’s not about the reality of the situation many times, it’s the perception, so be aware.

6. Lost revenue. In a case where one company told me about why they stopped the individual liable phones program came from a story that was quite costly.  Every sales person was expected to carry their own cell phone and the company would pay them for a flat-rated unlimited plan.  It made sense at the time to control costs, but when a few top sales reps left the company and headed out to the competition, they learned a couple of months later that along with that move the sales reps took the deals they were working with them too.  They lost something  to the tune of SEVERAL MILLION DOLLARS of ANNUAL revenue.  In a paraphrased quote from my client, “That was the dumbest move I ever made, and now that we’re back to corporate liable, we issue phones that are approved by us and when an employee leaves, we keep the phone, the number and any sales that might happen.”

The truth of the matter is that as a telecom cost recovery company, our goal is to help our clients reduce their costs and eliminate headaches.  For many clients, the perception that it is easier for THEM to manage rather than think about what an employee’s viewpoint might be.  A professional organization such as our will show you how to eliminate that headache and still get the best bang for your buck.  We enjoy showing our clients various options, make sure you choose what’s right for your company.

Such a move by Apple is significant as this will allow users to treat their voice calls as bits of data that can be transmitted without incurring additional charges (on an unlimited data plan) for using minutes and driving revenues up for the iPhone carrier here in the United States.

This is an important announcement for those of you who use Skype and want to save your minutes for your calling.  Skype will undoubtedly be updating their application to take advantage of this new feature, if you’d like to try it today download the iCall, Fring or Acrobits application and start calling right away.

Google’s voice application may now allow users of their service to now try out that service, as of today you can access that application by going to m.google.com/voice.

Hopefully, this trend will continue and we will see more applications on different platforms follow suit, in the meantime, stay tuned.

According to CNNMoney, “Verizon Wireless said early Friday it will lower prices on its unlimited wireless plans.  Later in the day, AT&T followed suit.  Verizon cut its unlimited family talk and text plan from $229.99 to $149.99 and its nationwide unlimited voice plan was reduced to $69.99 from $99.99.  An unlimited family voice plan will cost users $119.99, down from $199.99, and nationwide unlimited talk and text plans were lowered to $89.99 from $119.99.”

Regardless, we’re monitoring wireless rates for all carriers and how that effects our clients and interested parties.  While the number one and two carriers do battle, it means good news and cost savings for all consumers as price compression also affects the competitors where you will find changes with smaller players as well.  Pay attention to your bills, when your contract runs out, if you’ve recently signed a contract with either carrier, you may want to pull out the paperwork, give them a call and see if you can take advantage of this new pricing because more than likely, they won’t be calling to tell you how to reduce your  bill.

According to the report “The glitch – the result of a routing problem at the family’s wireless carrier, AT&T – revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.”, it goes on to indicate that “In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn’t appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers’ warnings that there are many ways online information – from mundane data to dark secrets – can go awry.”

This exposes what we in the industry have known for some time, even though you may practice safe internet privacy security, potentially your carrier can blow it all – and you are exposed.

This report probably has you shaking your head thinking “Wow, that’s crazy, I hope that doesn’t happen again”, or “AT&T better get their act together.” but let me ask you this – what if you’ve already been compromised?  What if it was your account these women accessed?  Or worse, what if some hacker who didn’t alert the media just kept on digging through your private information and found something that you wouldn’t want published on the internet?

I’ve been in the industry for over 2 decades and I’ll readily admit when I was on the other side working for some of these telecommunications carriers we saw things that would absolutely stun you – yes it really does happen.  These things NEVER made the paper and at times some of these failings were frightening.  I’m also here to tell you that most of us will glance over this article and think – that’s horrible, shrug your shoulders and move on.

If you’re a manager within a company, I’m giving you this warning – you’re not as secure as you think.  You need to be aware of what you’re exposing online and how your employees are accessing specific information and what they’re putting online.  As more and more companies chose their vital services to be run via  “cloud computing“, it is extremely important you know all risks associated with doing so and what you can do to limit your exposure to data loss.

If you’re reading this article and you’re concerned about protecting your privacy, continue to do the safe things such as changing your passwords, using encryption when possible or  simply keep what you want to keep private OFF the internet.  You won’t be able to do a thing if a carrier slips up, but try and minimize the damage by reducing your exposure and risk.  Be safe out there.

It’s technology uses the the radio frequencies that wireless carriers have paid billions of dollar for.

It would work only with GSM-based devices and would seemingly be a great attractor of lawsuits from wireless companies, however according to ABC News, Borislow claims wireless licenses don’t extend into the home.  Keep a lookout for this device in the spring or summer of this year – this could be very interesting

Where you could once search via the web using the search box and select search engines such as Google, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia etc.  You now only have one choice – Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Why?

I think that the $500 million dollar reason that is being reported is probably the driving force.  Although giving their customer’s a lack of choice from a phone company is nothing new, back in January earlier this year, according to an official Bing blogpost, “Verizon Wireless subscribers in the U.S. will be able to use Live Search on their mobile devices to find information on local business and shopping information, access maps and directions, find ringtones and other mobile products and services. This partnership will give Verizon Wireless customers great search results and provide targeted, relevant mobile advertising to enhance the overall mobile computing experience.”

So it seems that not only will the choices be limited on the Storm 2, but other Blackberry devices and smartphones will also be changed if operated on Verizon’s network.

It would seem illogical to infuriate a user base by doing something like this, but this gives me the opportunity to point out a couple of things we’ve warned our clients about from time to time:

1.  Your carrier (teleco, cellco, cableco etc) will work to create deals that serve their primary interests alone because they still believe you will not be outraged enough to do anything about it.  While a seemingly unsubstantial change such as changing the search engine you can use on a Blackberry may seem slight, the major constructs of the plans you can choose from, hidden fees that they charge, how they operate their network receive less attention at times.  Because it is easy to confuse and dilute what a carrier does to your service without great outrage, they continue to do it.  It is the small minority that actually take the time to really understand their services that can control the phone companies, rather than the other way around.

2.  You should NEVER trust that everything works smoothly to your providers and give them carte blache over the money you give them.  We’re in the process right now of finishing up some work for a client of ours that HAD great trust in their telecom companies that provide them service.  After 3 months of work we have concluded that they are currently paying redundant fees, their billing contains multiple errors and that new plans introduced by the carriers over the years had their sales rep actually worked on their behalf would have saved them substantial money throughout their time with their carriers.  The most shocking thing about this was how surprised they were to learn about this.  We are aware of the phone companies practices and none of this was surprising to us.

If you think that this small change is tough to swallow – you haven’t even STARTED to learn about what your carrier is really doing to you!  If you haven’t torn apart your bills, and TRULY taken a microscope to your services – now is the time!

Now if you’re currently using AT&T, you won’t see sudden cutoffs on your data where it will stop working, rather, AT&T is attempting to rein in “excessive” data use by  forcing customers to pay premiums for high usage or optimal quality of service.  It seems that 3% of their smartphone customers currently chew up 40% of their network capacity.

According to a Rethink-Wireless Article, Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s head of wireless indicated “We’re going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don’t crowd out the other customers in those same cell sites,” he said, though he was short on actual details of how this would be achieved.

What this will do is create two areas for the consumer to be concerned with:

1.  Learn what applications are the bandwidth hogs and mitigate your current usage

2.  Application developers will have to re-write applications and design future apps to be more conservative with data usage.

AT&T is not the only mobile carrier concerned with customer usage of it’s data services.  Sprint/Nextel CEO Dan Hesse commented at its investor conference: “When you think about postpaid …. it’s not just going to be your phone. It’s going to be your camera, your iTouch, your gaming device – they’re all going to become wireless, so what’s going to be the right plan for those? As we move into 4G, it’ll be much less about minutes and more about gigabytes as the main driver of what customers are buying per month, because it’s going to be VoIP oriented. Minutes will be largely irrelevant.”

Regardless, the future of wireless is about to change and for some, it’s dramatic change.  If you thought a flat-rated plan was your answer to leveling your wireless costs- guess what?  It’s only about to get more complicated.