George Bardissi

Did you know that cellular companies are barely making money on voice plans? Apparently the big operators like Verizon and AT&T are making fractions of a penny per minute in actual profit. I am sure when you are the conveyer of billions of cellular minutes each month, that are being used up by an ever growing and hungry consumer base, you will see a nice high number in profits or so one would think. However, let's set the record straight and identify the fact that as of 5 years ago cellular companies were making exponentially more than they are today and they are not happy with the loss in revenue.

So, how did the cellular companies adjust to regain and recoup the lost profit? The answer is add-on products like text messaging, picture message, and data plans. It is very clear that cell phones are more than just phones for over 50% of cellular subscribers in the US alone.

Processing text messages costs the cell phone companies almost nothing yet they charge quite a bit for people to be able to send one. According to multiple sources about 72% of all cell phone customers in the US have a texting plan which is about 207 million Americans. More text messages are sent daily than phone calls are made. On average a person sends 357 text messages versus 204 phone calls per month. For something that costs virtually nothing for the cellular companies to provide, they definitely have found a money maker and are milking it without question!

Even more than text messaging the cellular or wireless industry has been inundated with internet or data traffic. It has more than consumed the airwaves that we rely on for cellular technology and has been growing far beyond the capacity the cellular providers were ready for due to devices like smart phones, data cards, tablet pc's, etc. The airwaves are so clogged up now that the FCC is looking to take some satellite spectrum or frequencies and auction them off to the cell phone companies because there just isn't enough space to handle the growth. Well, the obvious question is, "what are the cellular providers going to do about the problem and what effect will their solution have on you and me".

We now know that the cellular companies are in dire straits due to the proliferation of data traffic and the fact that they were not prepared for the overwhelming amount of use by cell phone users all over the world, to the degree that their systems just cannot handle the overload. So, what did AT&T Wireless do to combat the huge data demand from devices such as the iPhone and iPad?

Instead of trying to make things more efficient they decided to take away unlimited data or internet packages. AT&T believes that devices like the iPhone are more computers with phone capability rather than phones with internet capability and now they have changed their pricing model in order to capitalize and make more profit. This change came mere days before the launch of the new iPhone 4 and the iPad. Why is unlimited data so important?

Imagine you have a 600 minute cell phone plan and you go over your minutes. Unless you have something similar to AT&T's Rollover minutes you are probably going to get hit with some outrageous per minute fee like 3 to 10 cents per minute for each minute over the 600 minutes during "peak" time. Let's apply this idea to data plans. For people who get a lot of email and attachments, or who listen to the radio on their cell phone, or are using a data card to get online they can very easily go over the limit and get charged 6 -10 cents per kilobyte over their limit. Just to put this in perspective, a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes and a megabyte is 1000 kilobytes. The average digital picture size is 5 megabytes and the average email size is 5 kilobytes.

AT&T claims that most data users do not need an unlimited package and use less than 400 megabytes every month and this is why they decided to discontinue the unlimited package and lower the cost of a "limited" data package in order to make things more affordable for customers. Why didn't they simply leave the unlimited data package alone and come up with a lesser expensive limited data package for customers that do not need unlimited? Why do customers now need to watch their cell phone internet usage like their cell phone minutes? There are many cases where customers were slammed with multiple thousands of dollars in data usage from cell phone companies upwards of $10,000.00. I know this is an extreme case however there has to be a red flag at some point and it looks like the customer, in the end, will get hurt!

Well, I am not an AT&T subscriber so what does this have to do with me, you ask? Verizon Wireless has already hinted that they are going to follow suit in cutting their unlimited data package as well. Verizon has yet to pull the trigger as they don't want to cut the cord as abruptly as AT&T has however at some point in the not so distance future it will happen. If the top two carriers in the country press the red button to kill the unlimited data plan the question then becomes, will the other carriers follow behind them? There is no clear answer to that question. Maybe other carriers like Sprint, T-Mobile, and lower tier carriers like MetroPCS, Cricket, Boost Mobile, and so on may find it a selling feature to bring subscribes over to their side. The only problem is that the cell coverage areas for high speed data, from the lower tier carriers, does not compare to the top two carriers.

The bottom line is that you need to seriously pay attention to what is going on and babysit your cell phones or else you could end up with an outrageous cell phone bill one day. I am sure at some point you have either gone over your minutes or your text messages. Well, now be ready to go over your data package. This is yet another mechanism for the cell phone companies to generate profit as cell phones are becoming less phone and more multimedia devices. BE AWARE AND YOU WON'T DESPAIR!!

That's right! You can read all of the interesting tidbits on the wonderful world of information technology and more online. Just go to thereporteronline.com and hit the blog section and there we are.

Bardissi Enterprises would like to extend our sincere thanks to our new customers who have contracted with us for the provision of managed information technology solutions and service. We are pleased to be providing IT Solutions for the following new companies:

• Diaspark, Inc
  Edison, New Jersey
• Techgui, LLC
  Overlook, New Jersey
• Haycock Township
  Quakertown, PA
• Strategic Wealth Partners
  Doylestown, PA
• Open Door Management
  Doylestown, PA

Our July business spotlight shines on New Jersey Spine Specialist of Summit and Montclair, New Jersey. The practice is headed by Doctor's Mark Drzala and Mitchell Reiter and specializes in Cervical Spine Procedures, Lumbar Spine Procedures, Thoracic Spine Procedures, Scoliosis & Deformity Surgery.

New Jersey Spine Specialist has been recognized, by its peers for a third consecutive year, as being leaders in the orthopedic surgery field in the state of New Jersey. One of the hallmarks of the practice is the doctor's attention to straight forward and in-depth patient evaluations aimed at not only determining the patient's problem, but to also provide accuracy in developing the best course of treatment as well.

Dr. Drzala and Dr. Reiter believe whole heartedly in education and use this to constantly to be at the pinnacle of delivering the most professional treatment regimens that are tailored to meet each patient's individual needs. Although there are certain spinal conditions that may indicate absolute surgical indications, the doctors exhibit a very conservative approach, by nature, and will typically exhaust non-operative treatment options whenever possible prior to considering surgical intervention. Patient participation is another unique aspect of the treatment philosophy that New Jersey Spine Specialists patients will experience as Doctor's Drzala and Reiter firmly believe that their patient's should be actively involved in the decision making process with regard to their care and treatment regimens.

New Jersey Spine Specialist prides itself on the fact that all of their patient treatment plans are tailored to meet each patient's individual needs, which means that the patient will get most professional, quality care available. So, if you're in need of expert medical care for medical issues relative to the spine, New Jersey Spine Specialist is the practice that you need and your pain or discomfort they will relieve.

New Jersey Spine Specialists, LLC
33 Overlook Road, Suite 305
Summit, NJ 07901
908-608-9610
NJSpineSpecialists.net