Starting February 16 for a limited time, Business and Government customers with 1-12 voice lines who buy an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus on an eligible T-Mobile ONE voice plan can get $150 OFF (via mail-in rebate). What to Know
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There has not been anything exciting from T-Mobile since Last Year. Sure, they ran an iPhone and Samsung Galaxy BOGO deal, but so did all the other carriers. This morning, they finally broke something that I can get behind... After all, who doesn't want a FREE Line of service? Use it as a back-up, for the kids, or just for emergencies. New and existing postpaid customers, including employees, and T-Mobile for Business customers with less than 12 Voice lines who have 2 paid voice lines on a qualified T-Mobile ONE family plan and activate 2 additional lines of service can get 1 of the additional lines free. That means 2 new lines of service for the price of 1! Verizon recently brought back their iPhone BOGO deal. Buy one and get a second one of equal value for FREE! Contact Dr Wireless to take advantage of either of the above offers.
Since the FCC Chairman repealed Net Neutrality, I've been concerned that the public no longer has a regulatory body looking out for their best interests. Apple, LG, and Google have all recently found out that the next worst thing to a multi-million dollar FCC fine is a giant class action law suit.
LG recently settled their "BootLoop" suit. Anyone with an LG G4, LG V10, Nexus 5X from 2015, and 2016’s LG G5, and LG V20 may be eligible to collect up to $700 off for a new LG SmartPhone. Unless you were stranded on Gilligan's Island for the last two months, you've likely heard about Apple's "Throttle Gate" fiasco. They admitted embedding software that would slow down speeds on processors in the iPhone 6, 7 and SE series without disclosing to the public. Now, Google is feeling the wrath. Allegedly, they have been selling Pixel devices knowing that there is a defect with the microphone. Soon after it's release, hundreds of Pixel owners reported not being able to make calls, record audio with the camera app, or use Google Assistant because of a hardware fault that affected the microphone. Google management finally admitted there was an issue. They are now dealing with a class action suit as well. What all this means is it pays to stay of top of these things. Unlike recalls, the end user is not always located to be notified. Hopefully, these suits will be a good learning experience for companies that try to covertly hide these kinds of issues, rather than immediately admit, confront and rectify them. Okay, so maybe not Top Secret but hopefully I got you to read this far. This month, we are trying out a new "quicker" news format. Please let me know if you prefer this style to our previous one. This is what's happening so far for the month of February... Here's a simple way to know if the iPhone you are buying is new, a replacement, a refurb or a personalized model. How to make your Android Phone as fast as an iPhone.. ESPN to release a mobile sports streaming service this Spring for $4.99 per month. Goldman Sachs talking to Apple about a program for their clients to finance iProducts through them. T-Mobile sued by customer for porting his number out without his authorization. Apple's SIRI now has iPad competition... Cortana finally comes to the iPad. Latest Apple iOS 11.3.2 Beta "Battery Management" feature lets you un do Apple's processor slowing. Think we have it bad? A new French law makes it illegal to text, even if you are pulled over on the side of the road. The biggest wireless show, Mobile World Congress, debuts the latest Android models in Barcelona February 26th Rumor has it that Apple is considering a refund for those who paid $79 for a battery replacement. Unlike Apple, Bokeh Portrait effects are available on mid-line models too, not just their Expensive Flagship models. How to easily transfer contacts from Android to Android. This works for single as well as entire contact lists. Dr Wireless now has cloud business voIP Phone solutions for less than $20 per month. Why pay more to get less? If you're concerned about SAR (Saturated Radiation) from your cellphone, a new study shows Phones are safe. If you ever wondered which brands have the highest SAR levels, it appears it's mostly Chinese and Korean models. If you're iPhone X cannot answer the phone or see who the caller is when it first rings, you are not alone. If your business phone system is not UCAAS, you are paying too much and getting too little as far as features. As an independent wireless dealer, Dr Wireless represents many companies. My opinion is that Verizon and T-Mobile are the two best performing wireless carriers. Have you ever wondered how T-Mobile and Verizon can both claim simultaneously that they have the fastest 4G LTE speeds? It's actually very simple. There are four major bench mark testing labs with various testing techniques. For some unknown reason, OOKLA and Open Source always rate T-Mobile fastest and best. JD Power and Rootmetrics always rate Verizon best. When you see a T-Mobile advertisement like above, you can be sure it was OOKLA or open source who did the ratings. At the end of the day, both of these carriers are nearly identical in their offerings and quality of service. The real choice should boil down to one thing - International Travel versus rural coverage.
T-Mobile is by far, the better choice for global travelers. That's because they offer FREE text and data in over 140 countries. Mexico and Canada are considered local on all newer plans. Voice calling in these countries ranges from $0.20 to $0.30 per minute compared to up to $5 per minute with other carriers. No need to call the carrier to ad "bolt-on" roaming plans either. You don't see those old annoying Verizon Wireless comparison maps anymore because T-Mobile spent $435 million on 700mHZ infrastructure in 2016 and $8 billion on 600mHZ infrastructure that is currently being rolled out with new devices to support it. That being said, if you drive cross country for a living, I think Verizon would still be my first choice. As an independent professional wireless consultant, we make sure you chose the right provider and set everything up for a seamless transition. It doesn't cost any extra to get the red carpet VIP treatment from professionals as we are partnered with all the major carriers. Doctor wireless clients don't stand in store lines like peasants. That's because we take all the information over the phone and have your carrier of choice deliver to your home or office. Contact Dr Wireless for a free rate plan analysis. The level of internet-related thievery has never been higher. This problem is like cancer and can strike anyone. Like car theft, the bad guys will strike those who are careless, gullible or just plain stupid. In other words, if you leave that MacBook Pro in visible sight on your front seat while shopping at the mall, you're tempting fate. The same can be said about cyber crime. If you leave your windows unlocked, don't be surprised if you have unexpected visitors. One of the biggest problems I run into is businesses that get hacked and want to know how it happened and how to avoid it. Don't think that your business is not big enough to be targeted. Most smaller businesses don't need to worry about being targeted ransomware but large businesses, and government public sector organizations need to be very vigilant. The bad guys rely on their prey to be careless. That means don't write your passwords down and put them under a kleenex box, or in a book on your desk. Businesses also need to make sure that their employees never insert any kind of USB zip drive devices or visit the types of sites (porn and free stuff) that are notorious for malware and viruses. Permissions are the other big problem that most people overlook. Out of convenience, many folks grant site permissions as it's much quicker to gain access using your log-in credentials from another site (FaceBook, Google, Yahoo, etc). The problem is if you're compromised, it's not for just one site. For that reason, minimizing permissions and utilizing 2-stage authentication is the my wise advice. It goes without saying, but never click on links in e-mails unless you trust the sender and know it's really from them. Just because you recognize the name of the sender is not enough. The bad guys hope you don't know about being able to run your mouse over the name of the sender to see the actual e-mail address. That's because while the senders name is usually legit, their e-mail is always bogus. I was notified that there is currently a Netflix scam so bad, the police are warning the public. If you ever get a warning e-mail that your account has been compromised or suspended, do not click on any provided links. The same holds true for virus or malware warnings. If you ever get one, never click ok to "fix it". One of the only negatives to me moving from iOS to Google OS and my Samsung S8+ is I periodically get popups asking me to download cool applications for my S8+. Sometimes I will get a virus/malware warning telling me to click to fix. The first thing I do is close the browser. I then re-open it and clear the cache. Problem solved! There are all kinds of scams but the most common ones are the ones that are easiest to avoid. Over 40% of small businesses will be impacted by cyber crime. At last estimate, there were about 45 Class Action lawsuits leveled at Apple over their "Battery Gate" fiasco. That does not include Apple's legal woes in other countries. This, combined with weak sales on the newer iPhone 8 and X models has many Apple stockholders deeply concerned. If you missed all of the excitement, we covered it in older blog posts. Several of my colleagues also explain the issues pretty well. Here are a few links that explain why Apple is in trouble with the government and their iPhone owners. Everyone with an iPhone 6, 6s or SE should immediately have Apple replace their batteries. Even if your phone has not exhibited battery problems, this will likely speed up your processor and undo Apple's throttling.
Apple quietly fixes battery glitch without notifying users. Apple stores overwhelmed for their $29 battery offer. Remember, this all came to light when a Reddit user discovered when replacing his original battery, his processing speed picked up substantially enough to notice. When Apple was confronted with this, they amazingly confessed. They did not come out and say that this was done to stimulate sales on newer models as many folks believe. Apple said the reason for the software feature was added was to prevent unexpected iPhone shutdowns, not to encourage users to update to a newer iPhone. They apparently figured that while a phone with this "software" will take longer to launch apps and would display lower frame rates, it would also be less likely to randomly reboot. "As we told our customers in December, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades," Apple said in the statement. The next few months should prove interesting. Apple's legal problems with Qualcomm, their processor manufacturer, forced them to begin buying Intel Chips instead. I'm still puzzled as to why Apple would rely on their biggest rival, Samsung, to provide their AMOLED screen displays on the iPhone X and future models. These screens are far superior in brightness and resolution to Apple's old school LED displays. I'm no genius, but have some advice for Tim Cook. Everyone agrees that Apple's iOS, while not perfect is still the industry's standard. Unfortunately, probably for the reasons above, they have always lagged behind the Android camp as far as screen size, resolution, and processor speeds. Apple needs to go back to their bread and butter. The iPhone 4s/5s/SE chassis was definitely their best. It was pocket friendly and the best one-handed usage experience, bar none. The problem was these devices had a small 4" screen with enormous bezels blocking valuable space. I'd bring out a whole line of SE models. They could offer their current budget version which is an iPhone 6s in sheeps clothing (original 4s/5s/SE housing) as their leader model. A step up might be replacing the original screen with a bezel-less larger LCD screen and possibly the guts of the iPhone 7. The highest end SE model might feature the guts of the iPhone 8 or X, the same AMOLED screen but in 4s/5s/SE body style. Everyone is nostalgic and this would probably help Apple go after the low-medium price demographic. While I loved my iPhone 6 and 6s+, it was impossible to use them without a case. That's because the wider and thinner design meant danger and was sure to slide out of my hand. The newer models are more fragile, regardless of what Apple claims. All I put on my 5s model was a tempered glass screen saver I still have it sitting on my desk and it looks great. |
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March 2021
CategoriesAuthorJoel Saltzman has over twenty years of wireless industry experience. He is currently CEO and Chief Wireless Analyst for Dr Wireless. |