BUCKS WATCH
AT&T, MCI, and Qwest Fees On the Rise - The end of the financial quarter seems to be a popular time for telecom carriers to raise the fees they charge their subscribers. For instance, effective March 14, AT&T will be raising the cost they charge on a number of popular local calling features for local telephone subscribers in Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon. The monthly cost for the Complete Maintenance plan, a bundled offer that includes inside wire maintenance and telephone equipment replacement will increase by one dollar to $6.95 per month ($7.95 per month in North Carolina). The standalone inside wiring maintenance plan will increase by one dollar to $4.95 in Montana and Oregon and by fifty cents to $6.00 in North Carolina. The cost for voice mail will increase from $5.95 to $6.95 per month in all three states. AT&T’s Voice Mail Plus (standard voice mail with expanded message capacity and additional features) will also increase in cost from $6.95 to $8.95 in all three states.
For more information on these AT&T fee increases, click herei. MCI Nationwide long distance subscribers who have chosen the company as their state-to-state (including interLATA) long distance carrier will also be seeing a significant fee increase soon. Effective April 1, subscribers on the MCI Nationwide Unlimited plan will see their monthly plan fee increase by three dollars to $27.99. MCI Nationwide 300 Plus subscribers will see their monthly plan fee increase by two dollars to $12.00. The monthly plan fee for MCI Nationwide 200 Plus and MCI Nationwide Instate customers will increase by one dollar to $10.99 and $6.95, respectively. For more information on these increases, click hereii.
Finally, Qwest, which raised its payphone surcharges for most long distance subscribers in January, is extending the fee hike to 55ยข for all subscribers making non-coin calls from a payphone, effective March 25. For more information on this increase, click hereiii . Right now is a good time to start shopping for a new long distance plan. With the number of telecommunications carriers likely to dwindle in the next year thanks to industry mergers, pressure on companies to offer the lowest cost deals possible may soon decrease. A good way to compare plans and find the best deal for you is with TRAC’s popular TeleTips consumer guides and rate comparison charts. These publications cover long distance, wireless, VoIP, and 10-10 dial around services, among others, and are available for purchase on TRAC’s website. For more information, or to order, visit www.trac.org.
WIRELESS WATCH
Spam Makes Up Nearly Half of U.S. Mobile Phone Text Messages - Forty-three percent of wireless text messages are spam, according to numbers released this week by Wireless Services Corporation, a mobile data company which manages between 15 and 20 percent of all text messaging traffic in the U.S. "Everyone hates spam, whether it lands in your e-mail mailbox or mobile phone," said Rich Begert, president and CEO, Wireless Services Corporation. "But with mobile spam, consumers have to pay for the delivery of annoying, unwanted messages to their personal phone. Even worse, some of the spammers will try to trick you into making an expensive call or will attempt to change the device settings on your own phone." The problem of mobile phone spam is global and on the rise, as a recent survey of mobile phone users and mobile services professionals conducted by the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland shows. It found that eight out of 10 mobile users surveyed had received unsolicited messages and are more likely to change operators than change their cell phone number to deal with the problem. At the moment, there are few if any ways that mobile phone users can protect themselves from wireless spam. The FCC has banned cell phone spam, but most spammers get around this by sending their text messages from overseas, often via global SMS networks. Fighting the problem has generally stayed at the carrier level. For more information on the Wireless Services Corporation study, click hereiv.
WIRELESS WATCH
Tips on Spotting Counterfeit Nokia Cell Phone Batteries - In response to a rash of injuries caused by counterfeit cell phone batteries, Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone giant, has begun placing a coded hologram on all new mobile phone batteries. Consumers who have purchased a new Nokia cell phone can check to make sure that their battery is the real thing by scratching off the ink coating at the edge of the hologram and entering the twenty-digit security code at Nokia's authentication websitev. For consumers with older Nokia phones, the company offers some additional tips on spotting fake batteries. Batteries whose printing is smeared or which has overly dark ink should cause concern. Misspelled or inaccurate wording on the battery should also be a tip-off that the battery is a counterfeit. Additionally, non-original batteries may be labeled as “Replacement battery for [model number],” “For NOK [model number],” “NK [model number],” "For use with [model number],” “Compatible with [model number],” or “For Nokia [model number].” Nokia recommends that users who suspect that they may have a non-Nokia produced battery stop using that battery and return it to an authorized Nokia dealer who can inspect the battery for authenticity. A list of Nokia mobile phone dealers can be found herevi. For more information on how you can protect yourself from counterfeit mobile phone batteries, click herevii.
INTERESTING LINKS
FCC Main Page: http://www.fcc.gov
FCC Complaint Form - http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
List of State Regulatory Commissions: http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15
What do you think? Got a tip you want to share? Nominate your "Scam of the Week" and your "Tip of the Week" - If we select your submission, we'll give you a one-year free membership in TRAC and acknowledge your contribution by name in TRACNotes. Send an e-mail to trac@trac.org to submit your ideas!
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©2005 Telecommunications Research and Action Center. TRAC grants unlimited rights to reproduce TRACNotes or any information contained in it provided attribution is given as follows: "Source: Telecommunications Research and Action Center. http://www.trac.org"
Endnotes
