Three Good Mobile Habits that Facelift Your Life

It’s a fact – the popularity of cell phones or Smartphones is growing at blazing speeds. This multi-functional device offers an amazing capability for connectivity throughout the globe. In simple words, it connects you with social networks, gives access to emails, opens up the World Wide Web, and offers the ability to avoid speaking to someone and opt to send a text message instead.  But, on the other hand, this small handheld device could be decreasing the quality of life. Honestly, I’ve seen the change in our society. Compared to the 50’s, when teens met face to face to gossip about late night dates, their weekly crushes, and more. These chats have been exchanged with real time Facebook status postings. Have you forgotten your mobile phone at the office or home and suffered from anxiety? Here are three good mobile habits that will change your life. 

Keep your mobile phone in your pocket

It’s time to stop using the phone during lunch and dinner. We should start enjoying the moment instead of staring intently at our mobile devices. Talking with friends and family is important part of improving the quality of life.

Turn off social media notifications:

  

When you look at your mobile phone and see 10 messages, 12 notifications waiting for your attention on Facebook or other social sites, you feel an insanely strong impulse to look. Stop letting every message or notification distract you. These notifications produces a deep level of anxiety, which has negative effects on your mind and overall health.

Learn when to shut off your mobile phones:

Whether you are in a concert or at the beach, tell your friends and family members that you are turning off your device for a certain amount of time. Then, keep your mobile phone in flight mode and enjoy yourself. Turning off your mobile phone can be key to your happiness.

Save Money on Cramming-Free Phone Bills

Cramming is the practice of placing deceptive charges on Customer’s monthly bills. They come in many forms and are onerous to detect unless the customer closely reviews his or her monthly phone bill. In 2004, the Arizona Corporation Commission approved rules against cramming, requiring telecommunication companies to erase the charges from customers’ phone bills and give a refund within 45 days from the date the bill is altered.

Recently, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) accused T-Mobile, the U.S.A wireless service provider, of bilking mobile phone users out of hundreds of millions of dollars with bogus horoscope and celebrity gossip SMS charges. “It’s ignominy for a company like T-Mobile to profit from scams against its customers when there were clear warning signs the charges it was imposing were fraudulent, ” said FTC Chair Edith Ramirez. The Federal Trade Commission asked the court to order T-Mobile to stop cramming on mobile bills and provide refunds to customers. Federal regulators are urging customers to review their phone bills for suspicious charges.

“Consumers should not be charged for services that they did not order,” said Travis LeBlanc, acting chief the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, in a statement. “We will coordinate our investigation with the FTC, and use our independent enforcement authority to ensure a thorough, swift, and just resolution of the numerous complaints against T-Mobile.”

Save yourself and your money from cramming:

• Carefully review your phone bills every month.
• Carefully read all promotional materials before signing up for plans or other SMS services.
• If you think that a company’s charges are too high, contact other reliable phone service providers and try to get a better deal.
• Keep a record of your phone services and plans you have requested and used. 

The Federal Trade Commission has been pursuing  third-party merchants who use deceptive or misleading practices for some time, but the action against T-Mobile, a leading wireless service provider, marks the first time the commission has filed such a suit against a wireless carrier.

Mobile Data Roaming Charges Fall by 50pc in EU

On Tuesday, the European Union, an economic and political union of 28 member states that are primarily located in Europe, cut mobile phone roaming charges across the region by 50 percent to revamp the mode of communication across the 28-country bloc. In simple terms, people with mobile contracts from European providers will be charged less to send text messages, make calls, and browse the internet when using their mobile phones in countries within the European Union.

 

European companies have already raised roaming charges for European customers traveling outside the union as a way to counterbalance the lost revenue. The main goal of Europe’s policy makers is to transform the region’s telecommunication network into a pan-regional or geographic network in which customers are not charged extra for using their mobile phones when traveling in other European Union countries.

“The new ruling won’t have a massive impact on the market,” said Jessica Ekholm, an analyst with the technology research firm Gartner, who added that 40 percent of Britons did not use roaming services while traveling overseas. “People still haven’t got used to using roaming abroad.”

The reductions in roaming charges will only affect people who have contracts with local operators like Deutsche Telekom of Germany and Vodafone of Britain. International carriers, American giants like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, will still have control to set their own roaming charges for their customers traveling in the European Union. Europe’s policy makers are attempting to phase out all mobile roaming charges in the region by the end of the 2015.

“This huge drop in data roaming prices will make a big difference to all of us this summer,” Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner in charge of the region’s digital agenda, said recently in a statement. “But it is not enough.”

While mobile data users are set to benefit from the price cuts, telecom operators warn that they will not be able to make costly investments to upgrade their mobile infrastructure.