Cellphone users need to start practicing safe smartphoning

Lifestyles

Discussion

COMMENTING ON STORIES:

Welcome to our story comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including the unpopular ones. We only ask that you keep your conversations clean, civil and on the topic of the story you are commenting on.

Coinciding with our websites redesign, we launched our new story comments feature through Disqus.

Disqus gives users the ability to log into our story comments feature so that they may be able to track their conversations, receive emails when their comments get a reply or to even have your comments update onto your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

For the time being, our story comments feature will continue to have the ability to post comments anonymously. We reserve the right to require registration in the future using your name and verified email address.

Not all comments are deemed printable. Some are disqualified at the newspaper’s discretion for a number of different reasons. Please follow our Online Rules of Conduct at all times.

RULES OF CONDUCT:

We reserve the right to remove comments that are unacceptable, to wit:

1. False and inacurate statements.
2. Personal attacks. Explicit name-calling.
3. Harassing, harmful, vulgar, obscene and defamatory language.
4. Threatening statements or statements that suggest violence.
5. Hate speech of any kind.
6. Intolerant comments on religion, race, age, gender, sexual preference or disabilities.
7. Accusations of criminal activity.
8. Content that is harmful to children and minors in any way.
9. References to any type of sexual activity and other private matters.
10. Random and inflammatory statements that are off topic.
11. Advertising of any kind.
12. Typing in all caps.

WE ENCOURAGE REASONABLE AND COURTEOUS COMMENTS THAT:

1. Create conversation on issues of interest and concern to fellow readers and local community members.
2. Express opinions and contrarian views.
3. Stimulate debate with respectful language.
4. Stay within the boundaries of these rules.

WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SUSPEND OR TERMINATE ACCESS FOR:

1. Violating any of these Online Rules of Conduct.
2. Deliberately disrupting discussions with repetitive messages, meaningless messages or spam.
3. Misrepresentation of identity or impersonating another user.

WE WELCOME:

1. Flagging violations of these rules that you observe to our attention.

MONITORING:

We monitor comments regularly Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Approval of comments outside of this time (including weekends) will be sporadic.

comments powered by Disqus

September 24, 2011

Cellphone users need to start practicing safe smartphoning

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Sat Sep 24, 2011, 03:30 AM EDT

So, cellphone user, what do you mostly use your phone for?

If you answered "talking to people," then you're in the minority.

Some time back in 2009, the amount of data used for phone calls on cell networks was surpassed by the amount of data used for things such as streaming radio and video, text messaging, email and other digital services.

That's why you don't see advertising ballyhooing how many "minutes" you can get on a cell plan any more. Talking _ minutes, if you will _ is not as important as it used to be.

What is important now is the amount of data you can use each month.

Which brings me to the point of this column.

And my rant.

Be aware of how much data you use. It matters now.

The big cell carriers have already ditched the "unlimited" data plans like hot potatoes. Once the first one did it, the rest of them didn't take long to follow. If you're not already grandfathered in, phoney don't play that game.

There's only one which still offers unlimited data, T-Mobile, and it may well be eaten up by AT&T soon, if the carriers get their way.

Surprisingly, the government has decided that it may not be in the interests of consumers for that game to play out. Imagine that. The cellphone industry folks trying to eliminate competition. They couldn't be doing that, could they?

So, for quite a while now cellphone companies have been selling devices that will do all kinds of nifty things using the Internet, for prices which are relatively cheap considering the functionality.

They've been getting everyone used to having unlimited data plans, or at least cheaper data plans, so that everyone would develop the habit of using data on their devices more or less with impunity.

Now, they're saying the party's over. We're going to charge you by the amount of data you use. And we're setting higher minimums for data plans, too. No more of this cheap stuff. Give us your dough.

It almost seems like some kind of a bait-and-switch tactic, or if not that, like a drug dealer announcing the end of the free samples.

Now that they have you, they're going to begin the squeezing. You're going to have a limit on the amount of kilo-mega-giga-bytes you can use, before they assess an overage charge. Kind of like missing your payment on a credit card and getting hit with a big fee.

Be mindful of how much data you're using. Want to listen to Pandora? Or stream a movie to your TV from your phone? Watch YouTube videos? All these things use lots of data.

Be especially careful if you use your phone as a wireless access point for a computer, this can use up data like crazy. Depending on what you download, files can be multi-gigabyte size very easily. You can use up a whole month's worth of cell data in one sitting, no problem.

I'm trying to drive home the point that smartphone users have to become more careful. Call it safe smartphoning if you will. Like so many other things in the world, things aren't always as they seem. Just be aware of what you, and your kids if you have them on a family plan, are doing.

The cell companies are beginning to play hardball. So we have to get a good mitt to catch what they throw at us.

Bruce Endries is former systems manager at The Daily Star. He can be reached by e-mail at techgp@thedailystar.com. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/techgp.