What To Do When You Get a SPAM Text Message

I've been getting these daily it seems. The Federal Trade Commission has a set of guidelines you can use. Here's FTC recommendations on what to do when you get a spam text message:

• Delete any texts asking you to confirm or provide personal information. Legitimate companies don’t ask for information like account numbers or passwords by text or email.
• Don’t reply, and don’t click on links provided in the message. Links can install malware and take you to spoof sites that look real but whose purpose is to steal your information.
• Don’t give out any personal information in response to a text. A spammer wants access to your Social Security number, credit card numbers, and bank and utility account numbers to open new accounts in your name.  
• Report spam texts to your carrier. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint or Bell subscribers can copy the original text and forward it to 7726 (SPAM), free of charge.
• Review your cell phone bill for unauthorized charges.Report them to your carrier.

Some Sweet Bandwidth - Update Your AT&T 4S iPhone

Back from vacation today and my wife did a software upgrade to iOS 5.1 on her AT&T Wireless service iPhone 4S. Sure enough her indicator now reads "4G" (upper left hand corner) and she's getting some pretty nice bandwidth. Here's a screen shot after running the speedtest.net app.

As a comparison, here's the same test run on my AT&T 3GS iphone.

I'm also updated to iOS 5.1 but no "4G" for me on my older phone.

Is it really "4G" on her phone? Well - no. It's running a 3G service called HSPA+ (sort of 3G on steroids - up to 56 Mbit/s downstream and 22 Mbit/s upstream) which AT&T is using to get over the bandwidth hump until LTE rolls out. I've written about 4G services fairly extensively - follow this link to read my older posts.

Regardless, that's some sweet bandwidth. If you've got an iPhone 4GS running on the AT&T network, be sure you're up to date on upgrades. As for me and my almost 3 year old 3GS - I'm stuck in the "3G" world until I upgrade my phone. The 3GS does not have a HSPA+ radio in it.

How can you check which iOS version you are running on your iPhone? On your phone select "Settings", "General" and then "Software Update". You should see a screen like the screen shot from my 3GS below. 

If you are not up to date follow the instructions on the Apple website. 

Study: iPhones, Backups and Toilets

Retrevo.com's got an interesting new Gadgetology study titled iPhones, Backups and Toilets, What's the Connection?  

The study focuses on cell phone security and who is the most unprepared. Here's some highlights:

• 39% of Android owners haven't done anything to prevent someone from misusing data on their cell phone if it were lost or stolen (compared to 30% of BlackBerry owners and 26% of iPhone owners).
• Only 32% of Android owners think their cell phones can get malware and 27% don't know.
• 36% of iPhone owners think their cell phone can get malware and 30% don't know.
• If they lost their cell phone today, only 18% of Android owners would use a recovery service to get their cell phone. back, compared to 28% of BlackBerry owners and 37% of iPhone owners. 39% of Android owners don't know how they would get their cell phones back, compared with 31% of BlackBerry owners and 26% of iPhone owners.
• BlackBerry (62%) and iPhone (61%) owners are the most likely to have password protection on their cell phone, compared to Android owners (only 49%).

Retrevo also asked: Have any of the following ever happened to you or someone you know?

• 36% of people said they had, or knew someone who has "Dropped a cell phone in a toilet".
• 31% of people said they had, or knew someone who has "Had a cell phone fall in a pool, lake or other body of water".
• 44% of people said they had, or knew someone who has "Dropped a cell phone on the floor and had it break".
• 30% of people said they had, or knew someone who has "Spilled coffee or other liquid on a cell phone".

U.S. Slow Path to 4G Technologies

Last week I wrote about AT&T and Verizon plans to roll out fourth generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology. Today, Rahul Gaitonde, Deputy Editor at BroadbandBreakfast.com had a short post titled U.S. Slow to Catch On to LTE Technologies

In addition to AT&T and Verizon plans, Rahul's post mentions Sprint's WiMax (a competing 4G technology to LTE) and t-Mobiles HSPA+ (sort of 3G on steroids - up to 56 Mbit/s downstream and 22 Mbit/s upstream) deployment.

His post also mentions that Vodafone Germany announced that by December it will offer service in 1,000 municipalities and another 1,500 by March 2011. Also, TeliaSonera launched a network in Norway in September 2009 and a second network in Sweden in December 2009.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless Upgrade Rollout Plans

FierceWireless had a good short post yesterday titled AT&T to launch LTE by mid-2011 that detailed Fourth Generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) plans for AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The AT&T details come from a presentation by AT&T Operations CEO John Stankey at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2010 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference. Here’s some highlights from the post:

AT&T 3G

• Is readying a nationwide HSPA+ (this is 3G technology) upgrade for this year, which AT&T executives have said will allow the carrier to deliver real-world download speeds of 7 Mbps. In the meantime, the carrier continues to upgrade backhaul to cell sites it has upgraded to HSPA 7.2 technology.
• Network upgrade efforts have been hampered by continuing parts shortages from key vendors. Stankey said company is currently dealing with $300 million worth of backlogged network equipment.
• By Oct. 1, will have added 600 additional radio carriers in San Francisco, which has been a trouble spot for the company.

AT&T 4G (LTE)

• Currently conducting LTE trials in Baltimore and Dallas and is is spending $700 million in capital expenditures on LTE this year.
• Stankey said AT&T is working on a different kind of implementation for LTE than other carriers, and needs to carry forward its UMTS services (3G) to ensure that voice and data services can work simultaneously on both UMTS and LTE.

Verizon Wireless 4G (LTE)

• Intends to launch 25-30 commercial LTE markets in the fourth quarter of this year, covering 100 million POPs. Verizon has said it plans to double the number of its LTE markets 15 months after its initial launch this year.

Check out the FierceWireless post for details and to see key slides from Stankey’s presentation.

New Pew Report: The Rise of the Apps Culture

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a new report on September 15 titled The Rise of the Apps Culture. The report takes a look at cell phone use in the United States and how it has increased and changed over the past decade. The project surveyed 1,917 cell phone users. Here’s a list of some of the key findings from the report:

• Eight in ten adults today (82%) are cell phone users.
• About one-quarter of adults (23%) now live in a household that has a cell phone but no landline phone.
• 11% of cell phone owners are not sure if their phone is equipped with apps.
• 35% of adults have cell phones with apps, but only two-thirds of those who have apps actually use them.
• 29% have downloaded an app to their phone, and/or
• 38% have purchased a phone with preloaded apps
• App use still ranks relatively low when compared with other uses of cell phones.
• One in ten adult cell phone users (10%) had downloaded an app in the past week; 20% of cell phone users under age 30 download apps this frequently
• One in eight adult cell phone users (13%) has paid to download an app
• Among cell phone users with apps, the average adult has 18 apps on his or her phone.

The report also includes data from a December 2009 Nielsen Company Apps Playbook survey that included 3,962 adult cell phone subscribers who had downloaded an app in the previous 30 days. Here’s some basic findings from the Nielsen survey:

• Most recent apps downloaders said they used their apps daily but for short periods of time, and used them in a variety of situations.
• Different people may use apps in different ways.
• Cell phone screen real estate is valuable.

Check out the entire 46 page Pew report PDF linked here for details.

When Blocked Caller ID Calls Are Not Really Blocked

You may think turning off, or blocking, your caller ID can make you anonymous to the person you are calling. Well...... it can but..... not really. Linda Scott out at the Education Development Center in Newton, MA paased along a link to a service called Trapcall. This service can be used to unmask blocked and restricted calls, allow users to blacklist harassing callers, and can also record incoming calls. There is no software to install and the service will work on mobile phones from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

Here’s a piece on how TrapCall works from a 2009 Wired article:

TrapCall takes advantage of a loophole in Caller ID blocking that’s long benefited corporate phone customers: Namely, calls to toll-free numbers are not blocked, because those calls are paid for by the recipient.

TrapCall instructs new customers to reprogram their cellphones to send all rejected, missed and unanswered calls to TrapCall’s own toll-free number. If the user sees an incoming call with Caller ID blocked, he just presses the button on the phone that would normally send it to voicemail. The call invisibly loops through TelTech’s system, then back to the user’s phone, this time with the caller’s number displayed as the Caller ID.

The caller hears only ringing during this rerouting, which took about six seconds in Wired.com’s test with an iPhone on AT&T. Rejecting the call a second time, or failing to answer it, sends it to the user’s standard voicemail.

And, here’s a short video from HousholdHacker demonstrating the service:

If you think this stuff is not very popular take a look at the YouTube view counter for the video - almost 2.4 million views as of today.

In my 2003 book Introduction to Telecommunications Networks I wrote the constitutionality of caller ID has been repeatedly challenged in court with people having three major concerns:

• The right to be left alone
• The right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures
• And, the right to not be subjected to unreasonable government intrusions

Privacy works both ways for me. I don’t think I’ve got much to hide so don’t worry too much about having to block my caller ID. If I do have concerns about my number getting out I’ll just use another phone with a public number. If someone does call me from a blocked number, I typically just let it go to voicemail.

An App For That? Mobile In Airplane Mode For Car

I saw a nasty accident a couple of hours ago. A guy in a car in front of me was using his cell phone and rear-ended the car in front of him. I stopped and both people got out. Nobody appeared to be hurt but both cars had to be towed away.

The accident has helped me decide that - from now on when I'm alone in the car - my phone is going into airplane mode before I start driving. If I do this I do need to remember to take my phone out of airplane mode when I get to where I'm going and get out of my car. It has me thinking about a few interesting phone apps:

1. A bluetooth enabled airplane mode function. When the car starts the phone goes into airplane mode. When the car is shut off the phone goes out of airplane mode. This app would only work for cars that have bluetooth installed.
   
2. For cars that don't have bluetooth - a phone app that could be tied to the GPS radio. When the car is moving the phone goes into airplane mode. When not moving the phone goes out of airplane mode. This one would require some sort of timing offset to prevent people from picking up their phones when stopped at a light, stuck in traffic, etc. It may also be a problem when trying to walk and talk on the phone at the same time.
   
3. An app that allows the user to put the phone into airplane mode for a set period of time. I did find an iPhone app that does this called aTimeTool. This app requires the iPhone be jailbroken which I haven't done yet. There are probably other apps that do this - i'll do a little more looking when I have more time. I like this type of app - It would allow me to set my phone to airplane mode for 30 minutes when leaving my house for work and automatically go out of airplane mode 30 mins later. That's just about the amount of time it takes me to get to the door of my building. I would not have to remember to take the phone out of airplane mode. I could also use an app like this when at meetings and other functions.
   

I've done minimal searching on the web and only for iPhone apps that can turn airplane mode on and off. I'm not sure what is available for other phones like the Android.