BaldwinTel

How Does Verizon's New Unlimited Voice/Text and Shared Data Plan Change Your Phone Bill Budget?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email  

Finally. One of the biggest phone companies on the planet did something that will make the life of a Southern California business owner a little easier -- or did they?

Click here to read the Verizon Wireless press release that states that they are eliminating all their different "buckets of minutes" rate plans in favor of just letting all their customers talk and text all they like for one flat monthly price.

"All you can eat" talk and text. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

If all your employees do is talk and text a lot this new plan certainly is good. Except your employees don't just "talk and text". What they seem to be doing mostly these days is "apping" it up with every data drinking phone app they can figure our how to download onto their phones.

"Cha Ching" (That's the sound of you paying for your employees' mobile data usage through Verizon's new "shared data" pricing -- which is the other half of their new pricing package.)

 

Will Your Business Wireless Phone Bill Go Up or Down?  Yes...

In effect, Verizon simply held up a mirror to its old pricing package and said, "This is the new package". Where they used to have unlimited data and metered voice and text, now they have metered data and unlimited voice and text.

To learn how this will affect business wireless phone bills I called two people I know that run business wireless expense monitoring and management companies, Moe Arnaiz from eMobus out of San Diego and Josh Lipton from Advantix out of Texas.

US Soldier Gets $16,000 Wireless Phone Bill for Data Roaming -- Is Your Phone Bill Properly Protected?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email  

 This story from California about a US service man getting a $16,098 phone bill from his wireless cell phone company got me thinking on three different levels.

First, I thought that could easily happen to my phone bill since I have two sons about the same age as the US soldier in the story who both use their cell phones for just about everything you can think of except talking.

Second, what was the guy really doing with his phone that jacked the bill up so high and do I or any of my employees do the same thing?

Third, are there any safety measures set up on my own business wireless cell phone accounts (I use Verizon for seven business cell phones) to prevent the same sort of "bill shock" from showing up in my mailbox next month.

 

How Much Data Does the Average Employee Use or Need Every Month?

Surprisingly little I think. I honestly had no idea (nor did I seem to think I needed to care) since I still had Verizon's "unlimited" data plan on most of my businesses smart phones.

After printing out the summary pages of my business cell phone bill for the last four months I discovered that for seven business cell phones the total was under five gigs of data per month total. The range was quite large though as my own personal data use was under 200 megs a month (just 20% of one gig) while my oldest employee (over 70 years old) used seven times what I used at 1.4 gigs.

(It took me a while to discover what "business use" a desk bound 70-year old employee would have for 1.4 gigs of data usage per month. We narrowed it down to either streaming Pandora radio for several hours per day and/or the Scrabble dictionary app.)

I was somewhat relieved to discover though that even the most data hungry power users I knew (all three of my teenage kids and even my brother-in-law who's always video-Skyping his kids from the road) used under 2 gigs a month each - a lot of data but certainly manageable - I think (right?)

 

How Do You Create a $16,098 Cell Phone Bill?

So now that I've got a handle on my own business cell phone and data usage I go back to thinking, "How'd this poor US serviceman jack up his cell phone bill to over $16,000?"  Well if you read the story, it turns out the guy used 1.6 gigs of data in just six days while on leave visiting his parents.

How Can Enterprises Safely Migrate Away from Blackberry to iPhones, Android & iPads? A Subject Matter Expert Interview

By Dan Baldwin

Blackberry outages have been well documented over the past several months as has been the outcry of unhappy Blackberry enterprise business customers.  The obvious questions begged by these headlines include:

What's preventing Blackberry customers from moving to the iPhone or the Android platform?

Does Blackberry have a monopoly on enterprise-class mobile security?

What does a migration strategy away from Blackberry look like?

To help answer these questions, and understand the related issues, I recently spoke with Moe Arnaiz, CEO of eMOBUS, a Telecom Association subject matter expert for enterprise mobility solutions.

To learn more about how your business can effectively migrate away from Blackberry to iPhones, iPads or Android devices contact your independent telecom agent or channel sales partner and ask them about the migration strategies suggested in this interview.

Following are the questions I posed:

1.  Please give us a history of Blackberry's perceived monopoly in the mobility space for enterprise businesses.  What is Blackberry layering on top of an AT&T, Verizon or Sprint phone number that makes it "so secure" for enterprise customers?

2.  What are some of the applications being used that requires such a high level of security by enterprise customers?

3.  How is it that Apple's iOS mobile operating system and Google's Android mobile OS are so inferior to the Blackberry BES mobile operating system?

4.  What's at the crux of Blackberry's recent outages?

5.  Can enterprise mobility customers get sufficient security such that a migration away from Blackberry is conceivable?

6.  How would a migration from BES to iOS, or Android, take place?  Is it justifiable?

7.  What is eMOBUS' role in the whole MDM arena and how do enterprise mobility customers use eMOBUS along with the wireless carriers and mobile equipment manufacturers?

 

Download the Interview MP3 Audio

Click here to download the MP3 recording of the audio interview

 

Listen to the Audio Now 

 

 

Print & Read the Interview Now

Click here to download a printed copy of the interview.

 

  Dan Baldwin:  Blackberry  outages have been well documented over the past several months, as has been the outcry of unhappy Blackberry enterprise business customers. The obvious questions begged by these headlines include: 

What's preventing Blackberry customers from moving to the iPhone or the Android platform?

 Does Blackberry have a monopoly on enterprise-class mobile security?

 What does a migration strategy away from Blackberry look like?

Here to help us answer these questions and understand the related issues is Moe Arnaiz, CEO of eMOBUS, a mobility management company. eMOBUS is a carrier and device neutral mobility management company and solution provider for enterprise businesses.  Moe, thanks for speaking with us today.

Verizon Wireless is on Santa's "2011 Naughty List" for "Bill Shock"

By Dan Baldwin

It looks like Verizon Wireles is going to get a bunch of coal in its stocking this year. The question is, "Does Verizon Wireless care?"

Hard to say.

Consumer Reports unveiled its 2011 Naughty & Nice Holiday List this week and Verizon Wireless made the list.

Following is what CR reported:

"The company tells the Federal Communications Commission that it voluntarily provides ample warning to customers who seem about to exceed their monthly allotment of minutes, messages, or data, so a mandatory rule that would make it issue such alerts isn't necessary.

But we caught Verizon doing -- and admitting to -- something else.

Can Enterprise Customers Migrate From Blackberry Without Sacrificing Security?

By Dan Baldwin

Blackberry outages have been well documented over the past several months as has been the outcry of unhappy Blackberry enterprise business customers.  The obvious questions begged by these headlines include:

What's preventing Blackberry customers from moving to the iPhone or the Android platform?

Does Blackberry have a monopoly on enterprise-class mobile security?

What does a migration strategy away from Blackberry look like?

To help answer these questions, and understand the related issues, I recently spoke with Matt Coffy, Owner of Slash Wireless, a carrier and device neutral mobility device management company and solution provider for enterprise businesses.  Matt is a SME or "subject matter expert" for Business Phone News in the area of mobility management.

Following are the questions I posed:

1.  Please give us a history of Blackberry's perceived monopoly in the mobility space for enterprise businesses.  What is blackberry layering on top of an AT&T, Verizon or Sprint phone number that makes it "so secure" for enterprise customers?

2.  What are some of the applications being used that requires such a high level of security by enterprise customers?

3.  How is it that Apple's iOS mobile operating system and Google's Android mobile OS are so inferior to the Blackberry BES mobile operating system?

4.  What's at the crux of Blackberry's recent outages?

Reduce Four Big IT Headaches With "WEM", our Wireless Expense Management Solution

By Dan Baldwin

With having to manage my own IT (information technology) in my own company since I started it, I know for sure that any IT director's job headaches would be reduced if he or she could simply eliminate:

1. Problem people, and

2. Problem equipment 

But because there would be no need for IT directors if there were no problem people or equipment, IT directors are cursed with the headaches that come with people and equipment:

3. People using equipment, and

4. The costs associated with people using equipment

 

How to Eliminate the Trivial Wireless Device Headaches

Fortunately,  a bunch of mobile device experts who love nothing more than pouring over and auditing stacks of cell phone bills and juggling mobile devices have come up with an automated solution (backed up by the human experts) to relieve IT directors of the four main trivial (but not cheap) wireless management headaches.

Click the first video below to see how eMobus has designed their "WEM" or wireless expense management solution (they call it "TEM" in the video) to resolve the wireless headaches experienced by IT departments juggling hundreds of mobile devices.

Looking to Eliminate Phone Lines by Plugging Your Cable Internet Into Your Old PBX Phone System? Call Us!

By Dan Baldwin

In today's economy, many Southern California based multi-location business owners and decision makers find themselves either trying to expand without a lot of cash or trying to downsize to save more cash. Whether due to expansion of contraction though, every monthly overhead item gets a thorough "scrubbing" especially nettlesome invoices like business phone line bills, broadband cable Internet bills and the like.

When looking at separate phone line & Internet bills, many business owners ask, "What happened to making phone calls over the Internet? Why am I paying separately for business phone lines and business Internet service? Can't I get rid of my phone lines?"

 

You Can Cancel Your Business Phone Lines to Save Money ...

If you look at your normal business phone service bill from the telephone company you'll see that you're paying for three separate services:

1. Phone calls,   2. Phone numbers, and 3. Phone lines.

Those of you who have already tried VoIP phone calling at home using Vonage, Skype, magicJack or some similar residential grade "alternate phone service" know that you can easily substitute your phone line with a broadband Internet connection. Phone numbers and phone calls do not have to go over phone lines as they're "transport medium agnostic."

If you pick apart your business phone service invoice from your local phone company you'll see that the "phone line" part makes up the majority of the costs. You're paying for the "phone line pipes" all the time whether they're being used for phone calls or not.

The actual phone call usage portion of most phone bills and the hidden cost to "rent the phone number" for the month are really very small. This can be plainly seen on successive phone bills when a month of heavy calling is about the same as a month with very few calls.  

When it comes to your classic phone company phone bill - you're "paying for the pipes". This alone is not bad except you're also paying separately for your broadband Internet connection. It's time to "double up" and dump the cost of your phone lines if you can swing it.

Is it Hard, Legal (or Safe) to Connect My Phone System to My Business Cable Internet?

No, it's not hard. Yes, it's legal (confirm this with your cable company). Yes, it's safe - if you do it with a business "SIP Trunking" provider that has turned this new business phone service practice into an art form.

If you've connected a magicJack at home you already know how "hard" the connection process is. Instead of plugging your home phone into the phone line jack on the wall you plug it into the magicJack device and then plug the magicJack device into a USB port on your computer. The software on the magicJack device then connects your regular home phone to "real dial tone" using the Internet connection plugged into your computer.

After about a minute after connecting the magicJack you pick up the receiver on your phone and make a normal phone call. Incoming calls make the phone ring just like before.

Now of course magicJack is only residential quality so you don't want to use it for businesses calls. It actually works fine for business calls (I used my magicJack for business calls for about a month) until someone uses the Internet connection to watch a Netflix movie or swap vacation photos with friends on Facebook.

How to Find & Eliminate the "Junk Fees" on Your Phone & Data Invoices

By Dan Baldwin

Is your phone company shaking you down in Uncle Sam's name?

Remember when you signed the contract for your Southern California based multi-location business phone service or broadband Internet service? Remember how you were promised a certain price for the service you used over the course of the contract? Remember how you checked it the first couple invoice cycles and decided you were getting what you promised?

What about the "taxes" and "surcharges"? 

Many business phone and Internet customers think there's nothing to be done about the "taxes" that are on their business phone bills or wide area data network invoices. And that's exactly what the phone and Internet companies want you to think. 

If you call the customer service department of your phone company and ask them to explain all your "taxes and fees" you'll likely be left with the impression that your humble phone company is nothing more than the middle man collecting all those fees and then remitting all those fees to the government.

But are they?

Is more than 10% of your total phone bill needless "junk fees" that the phone company is keeping?

Maybe.

How do you know?  You need to ask an independent telecom agent, phone bill auditor or IT consultant.

 

Is more than 15% of your phone or data bill made up of items you did not contract for?

Pull out your most recent phone or Internet bill and come up with the total for all the usage, equipment and "line charges" you contracted for in your signed agreement. Everything else is "taxes, fees and surchrges" that are likely not mentioned in your signed agreement.

If "everything else" is less than 15% of your total then you're most likely doing OK. If the total "junk" is more than 15% then you need to ask your provider some hard questions like:

1. What's a "high cost area", "PIC-C" or "non-RBOC" fee?

2. Which of these surcharges or fees are not mandated by some government entity?

3. For each tax, fee or surcharge, what percentage is passed onto the government?

4. Of the fees or surcharges that you retain for "overhead", which were detailed in my agreement?

5. Does your tariff state you can add any fee or surcharge you want even in the middle of my term agreement?

 

The "Real" Taxes

What are the "real" taxes that you really can't get out of paying? Following are the top three. Click here for the FCC's explaination of what you really have to pay.

1. The Universal Service Fund or USF -  Click here to read the Wikipedia explanation of this non-usage charge on your phone bill.  Click here to view the FCC page that stipulates what this charge will be on your phone bill.  A decade ago this non-usage fee was under 6% of your total phone bill. Today it's a 14.9% tax charged against your interstate and international usage. (But not your intrastate usage).

How to Control Your Carriers Without Switching Carriers: Meet TeleSource

By Dan Baldwin

Multi-location business owners, IT managers and telecom decision makers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County and the Inland Empire are frequently solicited by voice, broadband Internet and data network salespeople to change their business phone company or their broadband Internet/data carrier because the customer will save money and/or get better service (and because it's the only way the salesperson will get paid for helping and servicing the customer).

But while switching broadband Internet providers, data carriers or business phone companies helps the sales consultant get paid, it's really the last thing that a multi-location business customer with a complicated telecom voice and data network needs or even wants to do. The real action that business customers want to take is to simply figure out how to get their existing voice and data carriers to perform the way the customer hoped they would when the customer originally decided to switch from their old carriers to their existing carriers.

In other cases, the customer may want to switch providers but can't because they're bound by contract to their existing carrier for many more months or years. So how can frustrated business customer "pay" a telecom agent, channel sales partner, equipment VAR ("value added reseller") or computer network integrator to help them with their existing contracted carriers if they do not want to switch or can't switch carriers - but they still want help? Get TeleSource involved.

 

The "Telecom Expense Management" Master Agency

Many telecom agents only think, "Which carrier can I get this customer to switch to?" TeleSource thinks, "How does this customer want their telecom expenses managed?" TeleSource has built their personnel divisions around helping multi-location business customers outsource the following telecom expense management functions:

1. Service and Equipment Auditing - "What do we own? What are we paying for? Why do we have it?"
   
   
2. Service Invoice Review, Approval & Payment - "Is this invoice correct? Do we need to dispute these suspect charges? Did we get last month's credits?"
   
   
3. New Location Planning, Ordering & Installation - "Who do we call to get all the voice, Internet and data service and equipment installed on time for the new locations opening next month?"
   
   
4. Telecom, Internet & Data Help Desk - "Who can our users call to get their stuff fixed?"
   
   
5. Technology & Change Management - "Who helps us make sure we're subscribing to the right technology solutions today that will enable us to easily migrate properly to larger or better solutions tomorrow?"
   
6. Local Phone Company Management - "Who can we work with to get our multiple local phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, Century Link and Qwest to work together for our benefit?"

As you can see...