Spectrum of Greed

The real question is, “Why not in the US?”  Some might blame the lack of US sales on the crappy network service that has plagued the iPhone lately, or suggest that at it’s very high price the market for people that want to shell out that kind of dough for a phone is saturated, but the reason isn’t so simple.  (continue reading…)

If you are a wireless executive, this guy is VERY scary!

It is that time of year when everyone starts to think about spooky things, so who can blame Charles Golvin for making the comment that headlines this article?  Golvin is principal analyst with Forrester Research, and he made that remark regarding the reaction of wireless companies to the FCC’s current plan to extend Net Neutrality rules to include wireless providers.  The gentleman to our left here is not the star of the new “Saw” movie, or Halloween 57, or Friday the Thirteenth, part 34 - he is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.  And he is the really, really spooky dude who is causing the big bad wireless providers to seriously reconsider how safe it is to go out and loot the general public with their standard trick or treat activities.  The New York Times talked about it a month ago, and just today the FCC approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Net Neutrality.  This is to those who are advocates for Net Neutrality a day to celebrate, not a day to fear!  Check out the joyous coverage at Savetheinternet.

(continue reading…)

They are the antithesis of grassroots organizations, the ‘wolves in sheeps clothing’ - big business telecom organizations posing as ordinary citizens in order to convince both legislators and the unsuspecting public that Net Neutrality, open wireless standards &  iPhone independence are NOT good for consumers.  FreePress has launched a new information campaign to expose these fake grassroots organizations for what they are, just as things are heating up on the FCC playing field in Washington.  According to a Computerworld article, several related investigations are now being made into current wireless industry practices by the FCC.  As extensive as the FreePress list of organizations is, believe it or not there are more.  In the state of Michigan, the Consumers for Innovative Technology group is one more that could be added to this list.

Click on the puppeteer arms above to learn more about each of the puppet masters that are putting on quite a show in Washington.

Wireless Revenue Juggernaut

It is past April fools, but I couldn’t resist.  AOL isn’t really charging per IM - but cell phone providers are.  As a means to grasp what is going on in the text messaging world, downloading the song Complication by Nine Inch Nails would cost $9,512.50…if you paid current text message rates of .24 per 140 characters of text sent.  That’s right - IMing on a cell phone generates big bucks!  SMS, or text messaging, is the fastest growing part of the cell phone providers product portfolio, and the least costly to provide.  Compared to downloading music or video, the little text messages barely make a blip on the traffic monitors of internet service providers.  This means BIG margins for those that provide text messaging services.  This explains why in America’s toughest economy in more than a decade, cell phone provider profits were up substantially.  Maybe AIG isn’t the only place that a little outrage should be directed.

Gregg Christofferson, who’s 13 year old daughter Dena sent 10,000 texts to friends in the course of a month and received a similar number, received a shocking bill for $4,756.25.  The total amount of data that was moved by the wireless ISP for this charge?  2.67 Megabytes.  If Comcast or another wired ISP charged this for people using IM, the nation would be outraged.  Dad was understandably outraged, and took his frustration out on his daughters cell phone.  Great headlines for the media to play with, but shouldn’t we look a little harder at these incidents?  (continue reading…)