Tag Archives: phone spam

Weekly output: free MLS Season Pass via T-Mobile, Twitter snuffs out transparency reports, MWC preview, spam calls, Android data-safety labels, fake reviews, mobile edge computing

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BARCELONA–Ten years after my first trip here for the telecom trade show then called Mobile World Congress, I’ve learned a lot about the event, the wireless industry and this lovely city. Alas, I cannot say as much about dealing with jet lag.

2/21/2023: Here’s How to Get a Free MLS Season Pass From T-Mobile, PCMag

I wrote up a quick explainer of this process after stepping through it on my own phone.

Story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini; lead art is a color-shifted image of Elon Musk2/22/2023: Twitter’s transparency reporting has tanked under Elon Musk, Fast Company

I can’t take credit for noticing that Twitter had not posted a transparency report since last July–the Washington Post’s Cristiano Lima brought that to my attention a few weeks ago–but I did get some justifiably-angry quotes from digital-rights experts about this latest casualty of Elon Musk’s chaotic reign. A few days later, Rolling Stone picked up on this subject and got some good quotes from former Twitter staffers.

2/22/2023: Episode 8 – Previewing MWC 2023, Liberty On the Line

I joined this Liberty Comms podcast–hosted by Liberty CEO Elena Davidson, with the other guests being telco analyst Charlotte Patrick and Telecoms.com editor Scott Bicheno–to talk about what I’m expecting from the event and share some MWC tips. Of course, my advice started with taking the metro.

2/23/2023: If You Think Phone Spam Is Bad in the US, Try Picking Up in Argentina, PCMag

I wrote up a study of spam calls–which can include both unwanted calls from legitimate businesses and outright fraud–among dozens of countries that found that U.S. callers actually don’t have things too bad.

2/23/2023: Don’t Trust the ‘Data Safety’ Labels on These Android Apps, PCMag

I got an advance on this Mozilla study of how the privacy labels in Google’s Play Store compare to the privacy policies of their developers, then updated the post with a comment from Google. Big surprise, Google was not happy with it. I imagine the company was even less happy with Gizmodo’s more scathing coverage of this study.

2/24/2023: Fake Online Reviews, CQ Researcher

My former Washington Post business-section colleague Kathleen Day quizzed me for this piece and quoted me once in it.

2/26/2023: The Interoperable Mobile Edge: New monetization opportunities for operators and enterprises via the Telco Edge Cloud, MEF Global Forum

I took part in a brief discussion at the Mobile Ecosystem Forum’s afternoon event with Summit Tech chief sales and marketing officer Doug Makishima, STL Partners principal consultant and edge practice lead Tilly Gilbert, and Bridge Alliance senior vice president Ken Wee about mobile edge computing–think cloud computing, except fast 5G connections let telecom firms push the remote processing much closer to the customer or device in question. As a student of digital privacy, I said I was most interested in “MEC” because of how it can allow personal data to be processed and then deleted much closer to its source than traditional cloud architectures often permit.

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Weekly output: Streaming freebies, robocalls, Facebook privacy (x2), NAB Show (x2), watching baseball online

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Happy Easter! I spent most of the past week staying with my in-laws in California, thanks to it being a spring-break week at our daughter’s school. I wish I’d had more downtime, but my laptop had other ideas.

3/26/2018: Have a cell phone plan? You could get Netflix or Hulu for free, USA Today

My editor suggested that I write about the various streaming-media freebies that the big four wireless carriers now offer with at least some of their subscriptions. Having spent an unnecessary $20 last year on an MLB At Bat subscription because I didn’t think to cancel its automatic renewal in time to cash in on T-Mobile’s free MLB.tv deal (which then and now includes that app’s premium option), I agreed that we should remind readers of these possibilities.

3/26/2018: Robocalls are worse than ever, but help is on the way, Yahoo Finance

I attended a half-day event at the Federal Communications Commission two Fridays ago about the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission’s attempts to stop illegal robocalls, and I learned a lot. Besides, I had not set foot in the FCC’s offices in a shamefully long time.

3/27/2018: Facebook privacy, WTOP

D.C.’s news station called me up to chat about Facebook’s latest privacy failings, including the way some of its Android apps would sync your SMS and call logs to Facebook if you allowed them to sync your contacts (fortunately, I did not). We would have done this via Skype, but my laptop was still inoperative and the Skype Android app crashed every time I tried to run it on my Pixel.

3/28/2018: ATSC 3.0, IP take center stage at NAB Show 2018, FierceCable

I wrote two short curtain-raiser posts for my occasional client FierceTelecom about the National Association of Broadcasters’ upcoming show in Las Vegas. This one focused on the upcoming ATSC 3.0 standard for broadcast TV that should bring Ultra High Definition to the airwaves–along with some interesting data possibilities.

3/28/2018: From 8K to VR, the future is on display at NAB Show 2018, FierceCable

This one, in turn, covers a group of exhibits meant to spotlight various advances in video technology. After writing it, I kind of regret not being able to cover NAB–but I have a schedule conflict, and ATSC 3.0 shows no sign of being a customer reality this year anyway.

3/29/2018: Facebook privacy, Al Jazeera

By now, I had my laptop back from the dead, so I could do this interview with the Arabic-language news channel via Skype from my in-laws’ living room–which, conveniently enough, had a bookshelf in the right spot to provide me with a reasonably professional background.

3/29/2018: Sorry, baseball fans: These TV networks strike out at online streaming, Yahoo Finance

I had to revise this post on the afternoon of baseball’s opening day when the Mets’ SNY regional sports network finally acknowledged reality and signed distribution deals with three online video services. That leaves seven franchises with sports networks stuck in denial about cord-cutting, D.C.’s among them. So it looks like the first Nats game I watch live will be Thursday’s home opener, which I’ll see from the stands instead of on a screen.