Mobile Messaging 2.0 » ATT: a hosted discussion on mobile messaging, devices, and user practices and trends

AT&T Reimburses Florida Consumers for “Free” Content

by Darla Mack

March 3, 2008 at 10:53 am · Filed under ATT, Carriers, Content

Sometimes we consumers rarely pay attention to the available content that comes from our service providers… although we should because sometimes its ridiculously overpriced.

AT&T consumers in Tallahasse, Florida will be happy to know that AT&T will be issuing refunds for fraudulent charges due to purchased content that was advertised as “free”.

According to Cellular News, consumers were billed for services like ringtones and text messaging that were advertised as free. AT&T has agreed to pay thousands of Florida consumers.

Under a settlement that was announced by Florida Attorney General, Bill McCollum, AT&T Mobility, a unit of AT&T will also pay the state $2.5 million and contribute $500,000 toward consumer education on safe Internet usage.

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Shock and Awe as US Carriers War Over Unlimited Plan Offers

by Debi Jones

February 19, 2008 at 8:12 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, News, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, ATT, Carriers, Voice, Rate Plans, T-Mobile

Hours after Verizon Wireless announced their unlimited calling plan for $99, AT&T responds with a $99 plan of their own. And not to be outdone, T-Mobile USA this afternoon announced a $99 calling plan and then ups the ante by adding unlimited messaging. Sprint, the other of the top four carriers, has yet to release their nationwide unlimited plan. The question is: will they further up the ante and put pressure on these shiny new flat-rate plans?

Verzion’s Offer Details Verizon Wireless Logo

$99 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
$119 - Nationwide Select Unlimited (voice, SMS, MMS)
$139 - Nationwide Premium (voice, SMS, MMS, VZNav, VCAST, email)
$149 - Nationwide Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and data)
$169 - Nationwide Global Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and international data)
$199 - Family plan with two lines, $99 per additional line
Subscribers not required to extend their contract to select these new offers.

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AT&T’s Offer Details

$99 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
$134 - Nationwide Unlimitied with unlimited messaging and Media Net
New customers can choose month-to-month or 12-24 month contracts

T-Mobile USA’s Offer Details T-Mobile USA Logo

$99 Nationwide Unlimited (voice, SMS and MMS)

So Sprint? Last May Sprint began offering an unlimited rate plan bundling nationwide voice, web access, email and messaging for $119. The offer has been limited to markets in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Tampa, Fla., and parts of Northern California and Western Nevada. Today Sprint claims they have no plans for expanding their unlimited plan beyond these markets. The office pool betting opens at COB today. Place your bets on an announcement for tomorrow morning. Anyone?

Winners: Power Users
Losers: Stock Prices Fall for All Four Top US Carriers
Yawners: Non-Power User Mobile Subscribers

Carriers strike quickly to eliminate Verzion’s differinator on price announced this morning, and up the ante each time. Craig Moffett, analyst at Sanford C. Berstein, compares Verzion’s bold move on flat-rate plans to Sprint’s long distance flat rates for landlines in the 1990s, removing confusion from pricing plans, making them easier to compare and hastening a rapid decline in prices. Today’s standard for long-distance is either free or as a feature in a service bundle.

Let the games begin!

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The Network Effect: A Thought after CTIA

by Ewan Spence

October 30, 2007 at 8:13 pm · Filed under SMS, ARPU, ATT, Twitter, Microsoft, Instant Messaging, Orange, CTIA

To me, coming from a number of European Conferences, CTIA was a bit of an eye-opener. Not because of the location (itâ€™s hard to find fault with Moscone South in San Francisco), nor with the scheduled presentations and round tables put on by the organisers and attending companies at the event. The eye opener was the influence that the US networks have over their networks, the infrastructure, and the handsets available.

Every network, naturally, has to look out for the bottom line; but at the same time there should be a certain amount of respect for customer, developers, and handset manufacturersâ€¦ basically the entire chain of the system. American networks, in my view were incredibly authoritarian â€“ but I suspected that part of that was due to the distance I am from the US. After sitting through a number of presentations, and walking the show floor taking to every part of the chain, I have to wonder what the future of mobile messaging will be?

A quick example â€“ the AT&T Tilt, a Windows Mobile smartphone that Iâ€™ve been spending some time with - has the usual set of applications and features onboard. But when I try to use the Instant Messaging client, Iâ€™m told that connecting via the built-in WiFi client is not allowedâ€¦ why not connect over the air and use your cellphoneâ€™s data plan? Youâ€™re happy for IE to use Wifi but not the IM?

Iâ€™m sure the carriers will have a nice PR friendly answer as to why, but Iâ€™m also sure that the answer will come down to â€˜we donâ€™t want to loose a single cent from our SMS revenues.â€ And I think this â€˜mustâ€¦ notâ€¦ cannibalizeâ€¦â€™ is going to be a big problem for any innovation that may occur in the space. When (not if) the next step comes along, Iâ€™m worried that itâ€™s going to completely pass us by because itâ€™s not going to be financially acceptable to a few companies with massive leverage on the system.

Twitter, driven by SMS, should be embraced. Whereâ€™s my option of a $5/month all you can twitter on top of a regular SMS package? Why, after being around for 18 months, and in the heavily trafficked world of widely adopted Web 2.0 services since Feb/March of this year, is this not available? I mean it does nothing to impact the network code, itâ€™s just SMS, and it drives more traffic for the networks? Itâ€™s one isolated example, but Iâ€™m sure you can all come up with more. Maybe you can even come up with a service that has been amplified by the networks?

I think mobile messaging has a future, and I think that we will see a new form in the future. But in my opinion it will be in spite of the networks, not because of them.

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Introducing the iBrick, for our Most Eager Customers

by Ewan Spence

September 25, 2007 at 5:51 pm · Filed under Devices, Platforms, iPhone, ATT, Apple, DRM

The news that Apple will potential â€˜brickâ€™ (to render a piece of technology as functional as a brick) any of the iPhones that have been unlocked and modified by their owners is something that Iâ€™ve both been expecting, and that Iâ€™m decidedly unhappy about. In no way am I a fan of Apple (as Iâ€™m sure some of the other writers here will attest), but while Apple are arguably within the rights of the software agreements that they placed in front of the user, the legal minefield of subsidy, unlocking, DMCA acts, and a million and one other things mean that there could be very choppy waters ahead if they go ahead with a controversial firmware upgrade.

All of this is horribly reminiscent of the war that Sony has been fighting against the owners and third party developers on the Sony Playstation Portable. The PSP, with a 480×288 screen, USB and WiFi connectivity, and huge amount of portable horsepower proved an irresistible lure to the bedroom coders, and they started to work out how to get their code running on their devices.

But while Sony closed down the loopholes, and provided more carrots to try and get people to upgrade to the latest firmware (adding in a Web Browser for version 2.0, adding streaming for podcasts at 2.6, the ability to save podcasts to the memory stick in 2.7, Playstation One emulation in 3.0, and so on); ensuring that each blockbuster game required the latest version; and generally playing whack a mole as coders continued to find tiny chinks in the code (classically, a buffer overrun in the code to display a picture ultimately led to the first major â€˜crackâ€™ in the system), they never took the route that would see them switch off a PSP. Any bricking was because the hackers were exploring with no official guide to the system.

The company that asked us to â€œThink Differentâ€ is about to embark on a huge game of cat and mouse with some of the brightest minds and collective wisdom on the planet. Apple need to be lucky every single time. The hackers need just one of them to get lucky, just once, and everything will open up again. And the process will begin again.

Herding lolCats would be easier than keeping the iPhone closed.

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Here’s What You Can (And Can’t) Do About Mobile Text Spam

by Russell Shaw

September 17, 2007 at 6:18 pm · Filed under SMS, Privacy + Security, ATT, Carriers

On his Red Tape Chronicles blog, MSNBC Internet scam blogger Bob Sullivan sets his sights (and his site) on the putrid, stinky world of text spam.

After noting some of the comparatively few and egregious instances, of mobile spam attacks, Bob then provides perspective on the issue from spokespeople for the four major mobile carriers in the U.S.

Distilled:

T-Mobile says that because it uses spam software which enables consumers to add their own text filters, text spam is minimal on T-Mobile.

Verizon Wireless recommended the option of shutting off text messages sent from Web browsers or via e-mail. “After thatâ€™s done,” Bob notes Verizon spokesperson Jeff Nelson as saying, “only cell-phone-to-cell-phone texting is possible, and it’s nearly impossible to run a spam campaign because spammers need automated tools and e-mail programs to send thousands of messages at a time.”

Sprint users can call customer service and shut off texting, as well as go through the website to ban text messages from individual numbers.

AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular, also will shut off texting for those customers who request it.

Sullivan ends his piece with three pieces of advice for mobile users who have received -and/or do not want to receive, mobile text spam:

Turn off texting if you never use it and your carrier offers that option. By default, almost all phones are text-enabled now.

If you might eventually want to use text messaging, get on the cheapest plan possible. Many carriers offer a few hundred messages for $2 to $3. I hate to recommend adding a service you might not use all the time, but predictable bills are better than surprises. Even $5 a month is better than one unexpected $45 bill that shows up after teenager suddenly discovers â€œhow 2 txt.

â€Call and complain when you get text spam. It’s the only way to motivate your carrier to stay on top of the problem.

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You might be paying $1,000 per MB for SMS

by Debi Jones

July 27, 2007 at 3:18 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, ATT

Many mobile prepaid service plans in the US still require a per SMS charge. Most charge for sending and receiving and include a premium charge for sending to other countries. Have you ever sat down to figure out how much you’re really paying for this frictionless and convenient mode of communication?

The Plans

$.15 send & $.15 receive - domestic
$.20 send & $.15 receive - international
$4.99 200 message bundle
$19.99 unlimited messages

$.10 send & $.10 receive domestic to other Verizon phone
$.15 send & $.15 receive domestic to other carrier
$.25 send & $.10 receive international
no bundles

$.10 send & $0 receive
$5.00 unlimited messages

$.05 send & $.05 receive
$4.99 200 message bundle
$1.99 50 message bundle

A Bit of Math

SMS max message size is 160 characters. One character equals one byte. There are 1024 x 1024 or 1,048,576 bytes in 1MB.

So there are 1,048,576 / 160 or 6553.6 SMS messages in 1MB of data.

NOTE: this assumes you use all the characters available in every message which none of us do. Some examples of really short messages show up on my phone frequently like “Ready?” “You home?” “Let’s go.” For illustration purposes and easier math, I’m assuming all 160 characters per message are used.

Calculating message traffic per MB these prepaid subscribers are paying the following rates.

Fun Facts

$983.04 per 1MB of message data - domestic
$1310.72 per 1MB of message data - international
$163.84 per 1MB of message data - 200 message bundle

Note the unlimited amount depends on how many are sent, but for illustration lets’s say you sent and received 1000 SMS. You’re per MB charge is $131.07.