U.S. wireless subscribers overpay on service

by Marguerite Reardon

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The average U.S. wireless subscriber is overpaying on his or her cell phone bill by $336 a year, according to a study by BillShrink, a search engine designed to help people find the best service deals to meet their needs.

About 80 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers miscalculate how many anytime voice minutes, text messages, and megabytes of data they need, BillShrink found. As a result, consumers are purchasing wireless plans that don't fit their needs and are actually costing them more money. Collectively, this results in the wireless industry pulling in an extra $79 million for services consumers don't actually need or use.

"It's interesting to see what people estimate their usage to be and what they actually use," said Schwark Satyavolu, co-founder and CEO of BillShrink. "Despite the best efforts from the FCC and the carriers to create transparency in wireless fees, we've found that people are becoming even more confused about how to right-size their cell phone plans."

BillShrink offers a tool on its Web site that analyzes people's cell phone bills to find the best plan to fit each customer's needs. Satyavolu says that while new tiered service offerings give consumers more choice, finding the plan that fits individual usage patterns can be tricky.

The company analyzed data from more than 230,000 individual bills that had been submitted through its service from December 2009 to December 2010. BillShrink compared actual wireless usage from these cell phone bills versus people's estimated cell phone use to reveal some key findings.

First, when it comes to voice minutes and text messaging, consumers tend to overestimate how much they need. Satyavolu said the average consumer thinks he or she needs about 711 voice minutes per month but in reality uses only about 651 minutes. The average consumer also estimates he or she needs about 2,566 text messages but actually sends only about 1,555 messages per month.

Right-sizing a voice plan is especially tricky, since anytime voice minutes don't mean the same thing to every carrier. For example, some carriers don't count calls made to other cell phone users on their same network, or they may allow subscribers to designate certain friends' or family members' numbers part of a special calling circle, which also may not count against anytime minutes. And still, many carriers don't start their free nights and weekends at the same times.

"You can't just buy the same number of minutes and text messages on one carrier and expect to have the same usage on another carrier," Satyavolu said. "They all count the anytime minutes differently."

Meanwhile, consumers tend to underestimate how much mobile data they use. The average consumer thinks he or she uses about 54MB of data per month but actually uses about 81MB of data. Even though consumers are underestimating how much data they use, they're still using far less than what they're paying for.

Today, three of the four major U.S. wireless operators offer tiered data plans. Verizon Wireless started offering a promotional data plan in October that includes 150MB of data for $15 a month. It ended the promotion last month. And now only offers smartphone customers the option of a $30 unlimited data plan.

AT&T offers a 200MB plan for $15 a month. And T-Mobile USA just recently introduced a 200MB plan for $10 a month.

Even though data usage among U.S. wireless consumers has increased by about 94 percent from December 2009 to December 2010, according to BillShrink, the average wireless subscriber in the U.S. is still far below the cap offered in the lowest tier of cell phone service. What's ironic is that many consumers still believe they need an unlimited data plan.

"I'd say that 150MB to 200MB of data per month is plenty more than most wireless consumers actually need," Satyavolu said. "But if you read the blogs, you'd think the move toward tiered data plans is the end of the world. The reality is that it's a small fraction of people who really benefit from unlimited plans."
Marguerite Reardon
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Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies.

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U.S. defended Egyptian activist's YouTube videos

By Declan McCullagh

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U.S. State Department officials successfully pressured Google to restore a YouTube video showing torture and murder by Egypt's state police, a WikiLeaks cable reveals.

The Cairo embassy and the State Department's bureau of democracy, human rights, and labor "worked to convince Google to restore" a prominent blogger's account that was suspended in late 2007, the recently released cable says.

Nearly a year later, the same blogger contacted the State Department to report that "YouTube removed from his website two videos exposing police abuses," including a woman being tortured at a police station and Sinai Bedouin allegedly shot by police and thrown in a garbage dump.

The cable doesn't reveal the blogger's name, but it appears to be Wael Abbas, who disclosed at the time that his YouTube channel was suspended due to complaints and the videos he uploaded replaced with this message: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

There was no evidence that Google's decision was prompted by President Hosni Mubarak's state security apparatus. Rather, Abbas encountered a more prosaic obstacle: YouTube's terms of service and community guidelines, which prohibit "graphic" violence. The guidelines say "if a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information."

YouTube said in a statement at the time that Abbas could re-upload the videos if he added that context: "In this case, our general policy against graphic violence led to the removal of videos documenting alleged human rights abuses because the context was not apparent...(If Abbas chooses to) upload the video again with sufficient context so that users can understand his important message we will of course leave it on the site."

Abbas, a democracy and anti-torture activist, was subsequently targeted by state security and was convicted last year of "providing a telecommunications service to the public without permission." The International Center for Journalists presented him with the Knight International Journalism Award. Videos on his now-restored YouTube channel have received nearly 44 million views.

The State Department dispatch doesn't say what Google employees were involved in the discussions with Google, but one not-fully-redacted line mentions the name "Pablo." Pablo Chavez is a senior policy counsel in Washington, D.C. who works on topics including censorship and free speech.

Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Disclosure: McCullagh is married to a Google employee not involved with this issue
 

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Arab marching to the beat of their own drums

DIPLOMATICALLY SPEAKING By DENNIS IGNATIUS duta.thestar@gmail.com

Arab citizens now marching to the beat of their own drums

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THE mass demonstrations that continue to rock the Middle East are not just a threat to the region’s entrenched despots — they represent an unravelling of the American imperium no less.

Some long-held assumptions about the political inclinations of Arab citizens are also being challenged.

Over the last 60 years, the United States and its Western allies progressively advanced their dominion over much of the Middle East by deposing unfriendly or uncooperative regimes and propping up friendly governments through political and military alliances.

What evolved was a system of local satraps who were deeply unpopular with their own people but supportive of America’s broader regional objectives — control over the region’s oil wealth, protecting Israel’s security and containing radical Islam.

Lost in the midst of this grand strategy were both the interests of the people themselves and the very principles of democracy that once earned America admiration and respect in the developing world.

The grand failure of American diplomacy was that it never found a way to reconcile its own strategic interests in the region with the hopes and aspirations of Arab citizens.

Particularly after Islamists won elections first in Algeria and then in Gaza, it chose to put its faith in a few ruthless dictators instead of genuinely working to empower civil society and developing strong national institutions.

It was a case of security and stability trumping democracy and development. Many, both local and foreign, warned that such a strategy was unsustainable but hubris overwhelmed wisdom, especially during the Bush years.

Now that the day of reckoning has arrived, Western governments are rushing to find common cause with the Arab street.

France, Switzerland and Italy, for example, quickly closed their doors to deposed Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and his family and froze their assets. Canada is presently seeking to evict Ben Ali’s family members though it was happy to give them permanent residence when they ruled Tunisia.

As the shouts for “hurriyya” or liberty grew louder on the streets of Egypt, Western capitals gushed with sudden admiration for its citizens. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unabashedly said that America had been on the side of Egyptians for the past 30 years!

How hollow and shallow all this must sound to Arab citizens.

They may be poor and oppressed but they are not stupid. They know who stood with their oppressors all these years. They know it’s easy to kick a despot when he’s down but it takes real conviction to stand up to one when he’s at the height of his power.

Despite this, there has been a remarkable absence of anti-American or anti-Western rancour on the streets of Arab cities. Thus far at least, there are no chants of “death to America.”

On the contrary, Arab citizens appear to be generally looking to the West for support and sympathy. What they want is not more pious platitudes but unequivocal support, pressure on the security forces not to resort to violence and a firm commitment to real and meaningful democratic change.

Of course, there is always the possibility that Islamic radicals might come out of the shadows and seize power as they did in Iran after the Shah was toppled. Iran’s mullahs are certainly wishing for this, forgetting that there is a restlessness for change on their own streets, as witnessed last year following flawed presidential elections there.

The last thing the Arab world needs, after decades of oppression by secular despots, is yet more oppression by religious zealots. They need to move forward into modernity, not backward into past mirages. But this is something that Arab citizens themselves will have to grapple with.

The sooner strong democratic institutions — a free press, an impartial judiciary, a transparent, accountable and responsive governance system — are established, the better they will be able to resist both forms of tyranny.

For now, it must certainly speak volumes about their politics that the cry for what the American Declaration of Independence so eloquently called “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” united, galvanised and energised the Arab street to a degree that Osama bin Laden and his ilk can only envy.

Change has come not in response to Obama or Osama but in response to their own yearning for freedom and dignity.

America and the West must now support an orderly transition by taking a clear stand. Once Arab citizens are convinced that the West is committed to genuine change, they are more likely to be trusting, for example, of an interim administration in Egypt, pending free and fair elections.

What is also urgently needed is a bold and visionary development agenda, a new Marshall Plan even, that will help transform the Middle East into a dynamic region of growth and prosperity. It is the only way to ensure lasting stability in this important region. It will be a lot cheaper than another war.

Whatever happens, Arab citizens now see themselves differently. They are sending a clear message that they will not allow Western priorities to take precedence over their own hopes and aspirations for a better future. They are marching to the beat of their own drums and there is no going back to the days of the American imperium.