I've actually been one of the few satisfied Sprint customers for many years. Over the past few years, they were the only mobile broadband provider who didn't limit mobile broadband to ridiculously low plans like 5 gigs per month, like other carriers. In fact, this was a key selling point, and one of the reasons why I happily stuck it out with Sprint. I know Wall St. analysts have been insisting that Sprint would need to cap such broadband usage at some point, but it seemed like a really short-sighted idea, since the unlimited broadband is really about the only facet of a Sprint account that makes it more appealing than its competitors. And so... of course... it appears to be going away. Here's the email I recently received concerning my "phone as modem" option, which I use often enough:
Basically, with no warning, effective immediately, Sprint has unilaterally changed our deal from one where I was paying for unlimited data via the phone as a modem -- to one where it's capped at a stupidly low 5GB. And, the company even has the gall to then happily tell me (below the screenshot cut off) that this change won't impact how much I pay -- as if I should have expected them to increase the fees while taking away a feature I like.

Considering that unlimited mobile broadband was not only part of the marketing pitch, but also a big part of the reason for why I signed up for the plan I did, this certainly seems like a bait-and-switch deal... and I'd thought that bait-and-switch deals like this were violations of FTC rules, but what do I know?

Of course, on a whim, I wondered if Sprint's marketing had changed... and I did a quick search on "Sprint unlimited broadband" and turned up the following advertisement:


If you can't see it clearly -- it appears Sprint is still advertising unlimited mobile broadband -- highlighting that you can "avoid the data dilemma" and "get truly Unlimited data." Except, um, that's clearly not the case. Changing your plans unilaterally for those who specifically signed up for unlimited broadband is one thing. But continuing to advertise such plans while limiting them and -- even worse, effectively mocking such limited plans -- is simply adding rather obnoxious insult to injury. Sorry Sprint, but you may have finally convinced me it's time to explore other options.

Recently, Verizon came up with a rather clever ad campaign, mocking the iPhone ads that claim "there's an app for that" with ads that showcase Verizon's wider 3G footprint, claiming "there's a map for that," and showing the two services' 3G coverage maps side by side: It does a nice job poking fun at one of AT&T's weaker points: its mobile network infrastructure. But apparently, AT&T is not happy with the ad campaign and has sued Verizon over those ads, claiming that it uses an unfair comparison. That's because the maps only show 3G coverage, and Verizon has significantly greater 3G coverage. However, AT&T feels that the map showing its coverage implies, falsely, that AT&T has no coverage outside of its 3G coverage areas. While you can see why AT&T would make this complaint, it does make you wonder if it's really worth the effort to sue. All it's really doing is attracting a lot more attention to the original ad, which does accurately state that it's talking about 3G coverage, not overall coverage, though you can see why some people might not realize that AT&T's network also includes non-3G areas.

"Sexting," or kids taking nude or provocative photos of themselves and sending them around, is one of the moral panics du jour. While some people are working themselves into a lather over it, one can't help but wonder if Casio is trying to pitch its latest mobile handset to the teen sexter market with a couple of YouTube videos called "Sexy girl in the shower" and "Money shot." The videos have since been yanked, but the former touted the handset's waterproofing and 5-megapixel camera by showing -- no prizes for guessing -- a girl using it in the shower to talk and take a photo of herself. We won't get in to the content of the second ad, but suffice to say it's not something very many companies would be too comfortable with. Sure, showing somebody using a phone in the shower sounds like a great way to promote a waterproof handset, but given the sexting uproar, perhaps Casio's timing (and/or judgment) was a little off.

Over the years, we've had plenty of discussions over the pros and cons of free vs. fee-based WiFi in restaurants and coffee shops, and these days, for the most part, we're happy to see that free has won out in most cases. However, that doesn't mean there isn't room to experiment, and reader Jon, alerts us to a story of a cafe in Holland, called CoffeeCompany, who is constantly renaming its WiFi SSID name with gentle reminders to buy something. Among the names being rotated around:

OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree

It's a cute, and probably somewhat effective way to get the folks hanging out in the coffee shop to feel good about buying something at the shop (though, the cheapskate claim might piss off some).

Matt Marshall over at VentureBeat has an excellent article on AdMob, a top company in the mobile advertising space. Marshall does some back-of-the-envelope calculations to come up with some revenue figures and notes that AdMob is poised to start "minting" money as the mobile web takes off. It may happen, but I wonder if the mobile ad market will really be as big a deal as some make it out to be -- for a few reasons. First, it seems incredibly unlikely that mobile ads get anywhere near the clickthrough rate of web-based ads. Given the scenarios under which mobile content is usually called up (on the go, looking for something specific), it seems likely that mobile ads would get significantly less attention. Second, and more importantly, the concept of "the mobile web" still seems like a temporary invention that is destined to go away. As the iPhone has shown, it is possible to design a rather competent browser that can show "the full web" on a mobile phone. With mobile network speeds increasing, and more handsets bound to offer similar browsing functionality in the not-too-distant future, the distinction between the mobile web and the regular web seem destined to go away. At that point, specifically mobile ads will make even less sense, and the market will simply return to the existing market for web ads.

Two different themes we've discussed here quite often are (1) that movie theaters need to stop worrying about piracy, and focus more on improving the moviegoing experience and (2) that advertising is content -- and it better be good content if you want the advertising to be effective. That's why it's somewhat encouraging to see that movie theaters are now experimenting with much more entertaining and interactive "pre-show" advertising. They're doing things like using motion sensors to have the audience "play" a game as a group, or having them use their mobile phones to vote on certain questions on the screen and immediately showing the results. That latter example may be doubly surprising considering how theaters these days are so anti-mobile phone. Still, while this is a move in the right direction, it's the wrong thing to be focusing on at this point. Improving the overall experience is much more important than making the pre-show ads better, so hopefully this is only one small part of what theaters are working on these days.

Jeff A. writes to let us know that Verizon Wireless is trying to change its policy on what it can do with your calling record info. Basically, it sounds like they want to start selling it to marketers, so they had to change their terms of service. What they did was send customers a letter telling them they had 30 days to call and opt-out of this new plan to hand over your calling records, or you'd have automatically accepted their changed terms of service and Verizon Wireless could hand over the info to advertisers. Of course, many people will probably just see this as junk mail and toss it out, not realizing that they've just agreed to get a lot more advertising sent their way -- and, more importantly, opened up access to (what they thought were) their own private phone records. This is doubly sneaky, because the FCC recently released new rules on how telecoms shouldn't release info to third parties without "explicit consent from a customer." Verizon Wireless seems to think that sending this letter with its fine print and demanding people opt-out within 30 days falls under "explicit consent," though some customers would likely disagree.

For many years, there's been talk about the mobile advertising opportunity, with some advertisers practically drooling over the possibility of sending ads directly to users' mobile phones. It wasn't that long ago that the standard example used at many conferences and trade shows was how you'd be walking by a coffee shop and it would send you a text messaging offering you 20% off on a cup of coffee or a free bagel or something. Of course, that ignored the fact that probably 99% of the people hit with that message would consider it intrusive spam, especially if they were on the go. Luckily, though, some early complaints about such services (and the general anger towards spam, popup ads and other intrusive ads) has made it so many mobile advertisers have realized the focus needs to be on pull, rather than push. That is, as people are using mobile phones more and more for local information, there's tremendous value in putting advertisements that might be relevant to users as they're searching -- rather than simply bombarding them at random. The article does note some experiments with more intrusive push advertising, but set up in a way where the end users have a lot more control and say over the conditions under which they actually receive ads, in an attempt to keep them relevant. For once, it's good to hear of some restraint in the ad industry. Hopefully, it remains.