When we started Charge, we wanted to help usher in a future where mobile connectivity was simpler and priced more transparently. We wanted to make it easy for customers to pay only for the mobile services they need.

So we launched our LTE data-only plan for all Sprint-compatible devices in March of last year. This included support for devices like Apple's iPhone and Google's Nexus phones, for which there hadn't previously existed a simple and easy data-only option. This plan remains our most popular, and we're proud to have sold many thousands of gigabytes to many happy customers.

We then added a couple of simple texting and calling plans last May. These plans allowed customers who weren't ready to go fully data-only to keep their phone numbers and use them with Charge. And while those plans have been popular, the regulatory environment for companies offering voice and SMS functionality isn't favorable to small players like us.

And so with that in mind, we are announcing the discontinuance of our texting and calling plans for new device activations as of January 17th, 2017. Current customers will continue to have access to those plans indefinitely, although we may phase them out entirely at some point in the future.

We remain committed to providing simple data-only mobile service and we're disappointed that we have to reduce customer choice. But this move will make operating our business simpler and will free us up to bring you other potentially more interesting connectivity options in the future.

For a long time now we've had some customers with iPhones receive a SIM and activate it from their Charge account, only to report some very strange behavior when they pop the SIM into their device.

The status bar will show "Sprint LTE" for somewhere between two and five seconds, and then the connection will just drop. The status bar will only show "No Service" no matter how many reboots and re-activations and factory resets are performed.

From experience (and our own internal testing) we've learned that this happens almost exclusively on iPhones purchased outside the United States. That's what led us to put a warning up on our device support page saying that international iPhones aren't compatible with Charge.

Until recently we didn't really know why. Sprint wasn't able to tell us much, other than confirming that they see the same behavior from internationally-purchased iPhones and suggesting it's a problem on Apple's end related to something called an "activation policy."

Not satisfied with that answer, we decided to investigate on our own.

On a recent trip to London, our CEO Andrew stopped by the beautiful Covent Garden Apple Store and purchased an unlocked SIM-free iPhone 6, model A1586. According to Apple's LTE compatibility page this model is compatible with Sprint's network in the United States. And indeed, we have customers using that exact model on Charge already.

Andrew brought the iPhone back to San Francisco without opening the box. We activated it on Charge with a Charge/Sprint SIM, just like we would with any other iPhone. And immediately after booting it up, we saw "Sprint LTE" for five seconds, followed by the dreaded "No Service" exactly as our customers had described.

Having replicated the issue, we set out to dig deeper. Could this refusal to maintain a network connection really be a problem on Apple's end? Why would an unlocked SIM-free iPhone bought outside the United States behave differently than an iPhone with an identical model number bought here in the US?

We called Apple support. At first they told us that we should try a backup and restore of the iPhone through iTunes. Even though we pointed out that the iPhone exhibited this strange behavior upon its first boot ever, the agent insisted. So we backed up and restored the iPhone. Naturally this did not result in any change.

So we called back. We were told that the iPhone was probably locked. After pointing out that the iPhone was bought unlocked and SIM-free in the UK and meeting continued resistance, we asked for an escalation to a support manager.

Things moved a little smoother at that point. It was suggested that we manually force a network settings reset on the iPhone. We had already tried this, but we performed the reset again and of course saw no change. We asked whether this might be related to an "activation policy" issue, but our support manager didn't know.

We got off the phone with an agreement that the support manager would investigate internally to see if he could find any other steps towards resolution, and if not would initiate an engineering request to investigate.

We went on to do some more digging while we waited and came across this HowardForums post which suggested a SIM-free iPhone 6 bought outside the US might also have trouble connecting on Verizon's network. This was an important clue, and suggested that the problem might be due to differences in the way iPhones connect to CDMA and GSM networks.

We sent the post to Apple support via email and were told that an engineering request had been opened. After four days of waiting, we got word that Apple engineering had responded to our request and perhaps had resolved the issue.

Apple engineering had altered the activation policy associated with our UK iPhone and enabled it for "multi-mode" network access. On the phone with our Apple support manager, he said that the previous activation policy was incompatible with CDMA networks due to restrictions related to sharing the iPhone's MEID with the network provider. CDMA networks like Sprint's require the MEID as an identifier during network authentication. So any iPhone with an MEID-restricting activation policy will associate with a CDMA network, but not authenticate. Hence the few seconds of "Sprint LTE" that appear, followed by "no Service" forever.

Our support manager said one more backup and restore of the iPhone would give it the new activation policy and that might just solve the connectivity problem. We performed the backup and restore from iTunes one more time and booted up the iPhone. This time, we saw "Sprint LTE" in the status bar and it held firm. We opened Safari and downloaded a web page. Our long battle was over. We had connectivity!

We don't know why Apple is selling non-US iPhones with this CDMA-incompatible activation policy in place, but whatever the reason we feel confident that we know the source of this very unfortunate compatibility issue.

We hope that by posting our findings and a path to resolution we'll give our customers and anyone else suffering from this problem at least a little hope that with enough effort they can use their foreign-bought iPhones in the United States on any CDMA or GSM network.

There are a lot of things inside our homes besides our computers and mobile devices connected to the internet today. Thermostats, coffee machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners can now all depend on an internet connection for critical functions.

And that makes the WiFi router in your home a very important device. It makes sure all your home appliances stay connected, so that you don’t freeze to death or run out of food.

Unless of course your actual internet connection drops. What then?

If you have two wired internet connections with two different providers, you’re in luck. But adding another $75 to your monthly expenses just for the security of knowing you’ll always have a connection probably isn’t worth it for most.

Pairing Charge data-only LTE service with a USB modem like the Netgear 341U makes an excellent backup internet connection that’ll keep you and your appliances connected in a pinch without costing you an arm and a leg every month.

Charge customer Alex has done just that with his Cisco RV320 router. Read on to see how he’s got it all configured.

Netgear 341U configuration

On the Netgear 341U, you unfortunately need to disable LTE for this to work. That's because of the way the Cisco router communicates with the modem. Other WiFi routers may behave differently and may support LTE on the 341U.

Cisco RV320 configuration

You'll need to configure your WAN failover settings from "System Management" > "Dual WAN".

Then you roll down to "Setup" > "Network" and edit the USB device config. Set a DNS Server (Google's 8.8.8.8 will do), the APN (r.cx.ispsn) and leave everything else default.

Finally, change the "USB Failover Settings" to "3G/4G Failover Cold Standby" (or "Warm" if you want to keep the modem on all the time).

Here's the final setup in place. You can see the Netgear 341U poking its head out from behind the Cisco RV320 on the left. Pretty fancy.

For too long, mobile carriers have offered service plans on their terms. Contracts, activation fees, usage caps, absurdly high overage rates and breakage were all standard. We were all beat down into complacency by lack of competition. Things were the way they were, and at some point most of us stopped questioning whether they would ever change. But we didn’t.

Today we’re very excited to announce the launch of our new LTE mobile data service for modern tablets and smartphones. A mobile data service offered on your terms.

We believe people should be free from arbitrary lock-in. So there are no contracts or monthly plans, and all data is prepaid.

We believe people deserve simple and transparent pricing. So there are no activation or overage fees.

Most importantly, we believe people should get to keep what they buy. So your data never expires.

You can sign up today with any existing Sprint LTE-capable device, as well as most modern Apple and Google Nexus devices regardless of carrier. We’ll be working on adding support for GSM devices in the near future.

We hope this is just the first step we'll take towards a simpler mobile future for all of us.

You can read more about the service at https://charge.co or sign up today at https://manage.charge.co to see if your device is compatible.

The number of connected devices in the world overtook the number of people on earth in 2014. The same year, nearly half a billion new connected devices were activated. Among those device activations were smartphones, tablets, mobile hotspots and wearables to name a few. And all those newly-connected devices helped boost mobile data traffic by 55% (pdf) around the world over the next year.


90% of Americans already own a cell phone, 68% being smartphones. So mobile carriers are actually beginning to run out of new customers in the US. Because they want to keep growing, carriers want current customers to buy more devices that need connectivity. And they want those customers to connect said devices to their existing mobile plans.

But is adding your other connected devices to your existing mobile carrier plan really the best option? Mobile carriers typically charge monthly access fees to share data between your devices. But why? Customers aren’t accessing extra benefits. Just the data they will pay for even if they don’t use it all.

This week, Question to Carriers seeks to determine why customers are charged to access data they are already paying for.

Let’s say you just bought a brand new tablet because you’re tired of watching Netflix on your tiny phone screen during your daily commute. You probably dropped somewhere between $300 and $1200 to acquire that shiny new piece of equipment. Now you’re itching to get it up and running, which means you need a data plan.

You have a couple of choices:

A. add the new device (or “line”) to your existing phone plan (more on the “line” tidbit later)
B. create a new plan for your device on its own

So which should you choose?

Well your mobile carrier will certainly try to convince you to add your new device to your existing plan. And at face value that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. You may have had to opt for a bigger data plan already. Remember, we discovered most carriers structure their plans in a way that pushes people to buy way more data than they really need. And since data expires, it makes sense to add another device to utilize all that extra data you had to purchase.

But If you do choose option A, prepare to tack on another $10 or $15 per month in “access” or “line” fees. That’s another $120 or $180 per year. On top of that, you can also expect to pay a one-time device “activation fee” ranging from $20-$45 depending on your carrier. And those additional fees come with no extra data. Remember you’re sharing the data you’re already paying for.

To give you some perspective:

A 20% markup per GB seems like a hefty upcharge to access a service you are already paying for doesn’t it?

Charging a “line” or “access” fee for another phone on your account seems reasonable, since carriers have to give you additional access to voice and SMS services. But charging a fee for a data-only device that only utilizes data you already purchased is completely unreasonable. You aren’t taking advantage of any of those additional services. Data-only devices can’t make cellular calls or send a traditional SMS. So why do carriers make you pay extra to access the data that should already be yours?

Mostly because they can. Not because it actually costs carriers that $10 a month to add an extra device.

So what about option B, buying an individual data-only plan for your tablet? Well, mobile carriers structure their data-only plans much like their phone data plans, which put you on the cusp of always going over or having way more data than you need. Individual data-only plans typically veer towards the latter and force you to buy more data than you actually need for a secondary device. For example, AT&T’s data-only plans start at 4GB.

“Many smartphone users globally are buying larger monthly data plans than they need. On average, 53% of 3G smartphone subscribers and 48% of 4G smartphone subscribers used half or less of their data plan in December [2014].”

via study done by Mobidia/Ovum January-December 2014

Imagine if your electricity provider charged you an extra fee every time you plugged in a new appliance. That sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well, that is exactly what mobile carriers are doing.

Whether it is “device access fees”, “data expiry breakage”, phone financing programs or early termination fees, mobile carriers are constantly finding new and creative ways to extract more money from their customers. The growth in new connected mobile devices only establishes another path for carriers to get into their customers’ pockets.

By now most of us are accustomed to the way mobile carriers price their data plans. We typically drop $20 to $50 each month on a few gigabytes. If we use more than our monthly data allotment we’re hit with inflated overage fees, but if we don’t use all of our data it expires. The next month the cycle starts all over again, whether we had remaining data from last month or not.

But why does data expire at the end of the month? It certainly can’t spoil like the gallon of milk in your fridge. The gigabyte you bought on March 1st is just as usable on April 1st. So why do most mobile carriers expire your data or offer complicated rollover plans rather than just doing away with data expiration?

This week Questions to Carriers seeks to determine why data expires and which rollover options, if any, actually help consumers save.

When you think about things that expire you usually think of perishable foods, not technology. Maybe coupons or credit card reward points come to mind. But expiration dates on discounts or freebies are logical. Expiring data each month doesn’t make much sense. It’s not going moldy. So why do mobile carriers do it?

For the same reason mobile carriers bundle their services together, they expire your cellular data. In the mobile industry it’s called “breakage”. The term describes any service that a customer pays for but doesn’t use. So when you buy 5GB of data but only use 3GB in a month, the unused 2GB you paid for is “breakage”.

Mobile carriers carefully design data plans to maximize the amount of expiry breakage that occurs. They offer plans that are right on the cusp of an average subscriber’s monthly usage in order to push you to buy more data than you really need.

In recent studies from Cisco and Mobidia/Ovum (pdf), researchers found the average mobile device user consumes about 2GB of data per month. Both T-Mobile and AT&T just so happen to offer 2GB data plans. But the next tier jumps up to 6GB and 5GB respectively. If you only want 2.5GB each month, too bad. You’ll have to buy at least 5GB or risk overages.

To make matters worse and to further push you towards bigger plans, carriers don’t prorate data overages. It doesn’t matter how much data you consume above your plan’s cap. You are charged for a full gigabyte of data when you go over by even the smallest amount.

For example, AT&T currently offers a 2GB plan for $30 per month. They charge $15 per GB for overages. So your monthly bill will be $45 if you go over your 2GB data allotment by any fraction of a gigabyte. AT&T’s next data tier is a 5GB plan which costs $50 per month. And that bigger plan is perfectly priced to convince you to pay $5 more for overage “peace of mind”.

But threat of overage fees isn’t the only way mobile carriers sway you to buy more data than you need. A few mobile carriers have started to offer something called “rollover” data too. Currently AT&T, T-Mobile and some Sprint prepaid customers have access to this “perk”, which is a deceptive attempt to make customers feel like their data doesn’t really expire. T-Mobile and AT&T in particular have spent a lot of marketing dollars to convince you not to worry about leftover data at the end of each month because you could use it at a later date.

For AT&T subscribers, any unused data from your plan is available to use in the next month, then it expires. While T-Mobile allows customers to “data stash” up to 20GB of unused data for 12 months. Both seem like fair reasons to get a bigger plan, until you realize that you will likely never touch the data they’re so generously stockpiling for you. That’s because each month you have to get through your current month’s data allotment first.

If you can’t use your older data first, then rollover data isn’t all that appealing. It doesn’t matter how much data you save each month if you never go through your monthly data allotment. You’re still being forced to pay for more than you need. If you veer towards more than the 2GB average usage, you were probably already forced into a bigger data plan. So don’t expect rollover data to ever kick in, unless you drastically change your data usage habits.

And what about people who can curb their data consumption to less than 2GB, so they can avoid buying the bigger plans? Well, rollover data doesn’t look so great for them either. The AT&T bill above is for a rollover customer that typically comes close to using their whole data allotment each month, so they don’t ever roll over much data. This month they went slightly over their 3GB plan’s data cap, but their small amount of rollover data wasn’t enough of a buffer to actually help. They were still hit with costly non-prorated overage charges.

So while mobile carriers do a great job at marketing their rollover data options, it’s actually only helpful if your data usage is highly variable. Or as the Consumerist puts it,

...rollover data is only useful if your data use fluctuates wildly from month to month.

For the average user, that’s simply not the case. Rollover data is not a substitute for data without expiration.

As consumers we should get what we pay for, and that’s data that doesn’t perish. We don’t accept the “use it or lose it” model for other utilities like gasoline or electricity. Why do we accept it for mobile data?

Yay, Turkey Day has finally arrived! It is only the first of a series of eating events (aka family gatherings) that mark the official holiday season in the US. Unbuckle your belts, exercise your bellies and prepare for extended family exposure, Thanksgiving is officially upon us.

We would like to say a special thanks to our faithful Charge Messenger users. And to give you a break from the overly gluttonous, family-filled fun, we used +GIF to discover some great Thanksgiving inspired GIFs.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Stages of Thanksgiving 2015 in GIFs.


Stage Two: +GIF fake it


Stage Three: +GIF slap


Stage Four: +GIF get ready


Stage Five: +GIF eat


Stage Six: +GIF stuffed


Stage Seven: +GIF bullshit


Stage Eight: +GIF Football


Stage Nine: +GIF Nap Time


Stage Ten: +GIF Black Friday


Love,
The Charge Team

Have you ever wondered why mobile carriers bundle all their services together? In a recent Charge blog post, we discovered that the vast majority of activities we do on our mobile devices use data only. But mobile carriers don’t offer data-only plans for phones. In fact, it’s actually pretty hard to find a data plan for a phone that doesn’t automatically include unlimited talk and text. Why is that the case? How come mobile carriers force consumers into bundled plans rather than allowing consumers to choose the service(s) they want? And why can’t we at least choose the amount of each service we want?

First and foremost, mobile carriers care about their bottom line. And a forced bundled plan will make more money for a mobile carrier than giving customers the ability to choose individual services. Second, mobile carriers have a strong hold on customers. There are only four major mobile carriers in the US, all of which have a comparable quality of service. Lack of competition makes it unlikely that customers will find a good reason to switch, and carriers use that to their advantage.

Aside from these two factors, there truly isn’t much stopping carriers from unbundling mobile plans.

In fact, at one point in time mobile carriers only offered voice calling. Do you recall peak and non-peak calling hours? How about free weekend minutes or the Fave 5? Later, SMS became an alternative to voice and carriers began to offer plans with both minute and SMS allotments. Even later, with help from the advent of smartphones, data become a third service offered by mobile network operators. So since each service entered the mobile market at a different time, it is clear carriers could certainly deliver unbundled service.

Actually, prior to serious data consumption via mobile devices, mobile service contracts were relatively easy to parse. Individual and family share plans were simple: you chose specified minute allotments and specified SMS allotments, according to you or your family’s estimated usage. If you only wanted voice that was fine, or you could have both. If you went over your minute or SMS allotment, you were charged for overages on a per minute or per SMS basis.

It wasn't until Apple and AT&T partnered to introduce the iPhone that mobile plans saw a distinctive change. With the iPhone, two services were necessary to unlock its full functionality: data and voice minutes.

“We want to make choosing a service plan simple and easy, so every plan includes unlimited data with direct Internet access, along with Visual Voicemail and a host of other goodies,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO

So the original iPhone service contracts bundled data with voice minutes. But SMS was still unbundled. If you take a look at the original iPhone plans, they were focused on different sized minute plans because voice was the spectrum-hungry service at the time.


Fast forward to today and now there are more smartphones in the US than feature phones. Meaning data usage is now the cause of network congestion rather than voice. So carriers have restructured plans once again, this time with unlimited talk and text and limited data allotments. But wait a minute, why did talk and text suddenly become unlimited? Why can’t we still choose how many minutes and texts we want with our data allotment?

Well, technically in some cases you can. But only with a select few prepaid plans which typically offer either older generation smartphones or feature phones and come with other strings attached. All four major carriers’ postpaid plans (and most of their prepaid plans) include unlimited talk and text. There is no choice for customers. But as we already figured out those services aren’t tied to data. So why are we forced to buy bundled plans?

When you ask this to a mobile carrier representative the answer you typically get is something along the lines of “unlimited talk and text is included”.


But nothing is truly free. Just like phone subsidies weren't really free. Voice and SMS still cost carriers money to provide. So when those services are bundled in or "included", we are consequently paying up-charges for data on our phones. For instance, take a look at T-Mobile’s current mobile plans. The cheapest individual plan for a phone is $50 for 2GB of data. Meaning you are paying $25 per GB, if talk and text are actually “included for free”. Or they are charging for the forced bundled unlimited talk and text. Their tablet data plan on the other hand, costs $20 for 2GB.


The fact is, none of these mobile carrier services are truly tied together nor do they have to be. We know that from history. Mobile carriers just choose to do so because it helps them make more money. As consumers we pretty much have to accept it, which is only one of the reasons most people hate their mobile carrier. But it’s obvious the potential for unbundled plans is there. The question is, will a mobile provider step away from the industry standard of bundled plans to give consumers what they want? There’s no good reason why it can’t happen.

Last week, T-Mobile announced that ⅓ of its calls are now made over VoLTE. Verizon deployed nationwide VoLTE in September of 2014 and in the same FierceWireless article stated it has sold over 35 million VoLTE-capable devices since the launch. The acronym, meaning “voice over LTE” seems to be the latest buzzword within the mobile carrier industry. But what is VoLTE exactly? Is it the same as VoIP?

VoLTE and VoIP are similar but different. VoIP, or “voice over IP”, is a technology that allows voice calls to be routed through any internet connection, such as mobile data provided by your wireless carrier or a traditional internet connection at your home or office. Apps like Skype or Viber are built on VoIP technology. Conversely, VoLTE is integrated directly into your mobile device’s dialer and only works over an LTE mobile data connection.

With VoLTE, customers will experience better call quality, but right now the real advantage of voice over LTE is for mobile carriers. Prior to VoLTE, devices used older network technologies (2G/3G) to route voice calls, and LTE was strictly used for data. This is because voice calls had to use circuit-switching paths and LTE uses packet-switching paths.


VoLTE gives mobile carriers the ability to send both voice calls and data through the packet-switched paths. Routing calls over an LTE network thus enables mobile carriers to free up bandwidth used for voice to further grow their LTE network coverage. Hopefully, this means that older voice technologies which use 2G/3G and are specifically tied to GSM or CDMA will be unnecessary one day.

But in order for that to actually happen mobile carriers probably need to offer the same coverage for LTE as they do for 2G and 3G, and they’ll all need to deploy interoperable VoLTE service. If all of that really does happen, it will make choosing a mobile device a lot easier, since LTE devices with VoLTE support should work on any of the four major US carriers and their MVNO partners.

Unfortunately, like every other major technology upgrade in mobile networking, these transitions take a lot of time and cost a lot of money. Since the transition is slow, devices coming out today typically support LTE as well as one of the older network infrastructures; GSM or CDMA for voice. Though there are now a few devices available that can connect to all three technologies, such as the iPhone 6s and the Nexus 6P. Both of these devices have VoLTE capabilities and come equipped with all the radio receivers required to connect to almost any LTE, GSM and CDMA network. But it’s worth noting these are the most expensive devices available to date.

As for carrier support, currently customers on AT&T and T-Mobile have at least some VoLTE coverage. Verizon is the only carrier that advertises nationwide VoLTE. Meaning customers with one of those 35 million VoLTE devices Verizon has sold this year should technically never have to use CDMA fallbacks. But even Verizon isn’t yet confident enough in its LTE and VoLTE coverage to roll out an LTE-only device. They’ve said that might happen in 2016.

In its current state, it seems there are a few more factors other than an LTE connection for VoLTE to truly replace older 2G/3G voice technologies. So while VoLTE and VoIP are similar in the sense that they both use an internet connection to transmit calls. They are clearly different in terms of usability. VoIP will work on any internet connection, even older 2G or 3G data connections. While VoLTE can only use an LTE data connection.

But assuming your device supports VoLTE, your carrier supports VoLTE, and there’s LTE coverage in your area, you should be experiencing clear calls and fast downloads all at the same time! There’s still one question though. Everyone knows that using a VoIP app on a mobile data connection will count against your data balance. But does VoLTE use your minutes or your data?

Right now it’s a bit unclear. Most media coverage on VoLTE indicates that VoLTE uses your minutes. And because unlimited minutes come with most mobile plans in the US, VoLTE should have no effect on your monthly bill. But none of the three major VoLTE carriers (Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile) clearly indicate this on their websites. And in fact, after a recent conversation with a T-Mobile representative, it seems VoLTE may use your data plan instead.


Now that mobile phone plans are structured around data allotments rather than minute/SMS allotments, it’s important to understand what uses data. Since data usage is really the only service that impacts your monthly mobile bill, it would be nice if carriers made VoLTE billing more clear.

VoIP applications most certainly use mobile data when not connected to a WiFi or a landline connection. That is a fact, but most consumers understand that and can choose a data plan accordingly or decide not to use VoIP if they want to conserve data. VoLTE on the other hand seems to muddy the waters between minutes and data, adding another opaque layer to your mobile carrier plan.

Before turning on VoLTE on your device, check with your carrier to see if it eats into your unlimited minutes or limited data plan which could result in costly overages. You may be surprised.

Today 68% of American adults own a smartphone. That is approximately 216,852,000 of us. But have you really ever thought about how much time you spend using that device? According to recent studies, we spend anywhere from 3.3 hours (pdf) to 4.7 hours per day on our smartphones alone. And based on Ericsson’s 2015 Mobility Report (pdf), the increase in smartphone adoption unsurprisingly directly correlates with a dramatic rise in mobile data usage. According to the report, mobile data traffic around the world rose 55% from 2014 to 2015.


So what are we doing with all that mobile data?

Well we are increasingly streaming video and music, emailing, messaging, navigating and of course social media-ing. One thing we aren’t doing more of though is talking on the phone. Over the years, the number of minutes Americans spend talking on the phone has stayed pretty darn stagnant. Meaning, we aren’t really using our smartphones as “phones” all that often. Instead we are treating them like mini handheld computers that let us stay connected in a multitude of ways besides talking.

And now even the calls we do make are beginning to go over data. Most calls are routed through data in two different ways. First, for those of us who use VoIP (voice over IP) applications such as Skype, Google Voice and Facetime, calls use our mobile data connections, usually 3G or 4G LTE. This eats into our monthly data allotments. Second is the implementation of WiFi calling. Currently AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have WiFi calling features, while late-to-the-game Verizon is still waiting for FCC approval. Offloading calls to WiFi allows mobile carriers to free up their own spectrum and reduce congestion, which makes their networks faster. I have WiFi calling enabled on my phone. And since I spend the vast majority of my time at work or at my apartment (where I have a WiFi connection), the majority of my calls run over WiFi rather than cellular service fallbacks.


Texting (or SMS) can be routed through data as well. In fact, you are probably already using an app that does this, such as Charge Messenger, iMessage or Facebook Messenger. Personally, I haven’t sent or received a traditional SMS since October 13th. And that’s only because I have a friend who refuses to install any messaging apps. She is basically the only person I send a traditional SMS to anymore.

So if everything I do on my device can be routed through data in one way or another, shouldn’t mobile data-only plans for smartphones be an option? That would be nice, but for now mobile carriers still bundle all their services together.


How mobile carrier plans currently work

The modern mobile carrier plan usually highlights a particular data allotment (between 1 and 5 GBs per “line” is common), with unlimited voice minutes and texts bundled in. Carriers market unlimited talk and text as a “free” gift to consumers. In fact, bundling free voice and text is a lot like when carriers bundled device payments with service contracts. Device subsidies seemed like free money, but our service plan prices were higher to make up for it. And even if a customer didn’t want a subsidized device, the price of the service plan didn’t get cheaper. But the subsidy is free, remember!? 😡 Now, instead of “free” devices and upgrades we get “free” minutes and texts.

And just like with device subsidies, current mobile service plan prices are marked up to account for those who do in fact utilize unlimited minutes and texts. If a data-only plan for smartphones were a thing, it would be priced similarly to current tablet data plans that range from $10-$15 per GB. But my current 2GB smartphone plan costs $50. I typically use somewhere between 1 and 2 GB of data each month. So if a data-only plan were an option my mobile service bill would be somewhere in the range of $20-$30. Sounds great right?

Why a data-only plan can work

Tons of other industries are doing away with bundled pricing plans that force people to pay for things they don’t use. Take a look at Metromile, a pay by the mile car insurance company. They understand everyone drives different distances each month. Why should someone who only drives a couple times a month pay the same amount for car insurance as the guy that travels for work every day? It doesn’t make sense. TV streaming services like SlingTV or even iTunes and Amazon Instant Video take the same approach by unbundling channels and episodes from the traditional cable TV plan. These companies understand that people are forced to pay for things they don’t actually want or use, so they give customers new options.

It’s time that mobile carriers do the same. If carriers unbundled their services, I could be happy with a data-only plan while my mom who likes to chat and doesn’t use VoIP apps could choose a minute-heavy option to make all her phone calls. But in order for carriers to change their sneaky ways, we as consumers have to truly understand our usage. How much of traditional cellular service are you really using? Start to pay attention and you’ll probably be surprised. Maybe a data-only plan is already the right fit for you too.

Grumpy Cat is likely the most famous cat on earth with over 8,151,214 Facebook likes to date. For some perspective that is more likes than the San Francisco 49ers, Kendrick Lamar and every single Republican candidate in last night’s GOP debate. So yeah, she is pretty famous.

Introduced to the world in 2012 via Reddit, Grumpy Cat, real name Tardar Sauce, became an instant Internet sensation. Her grumpy expressions began a craze of captioned cat memes and throughout the years earned her accolades such as 2012’s Most Influential Cat via MSNBC and 2013’s Meme of the Year from Buzzfeed. Now over three years since the original Reddit post, Grumpy Cat has proven cat memes are here to stay, giving all cats around the world the power to truly express themselves.

Here at Charge we love a great “angry cat” GIF. So in honor of National Cat Day, we will pay homage to the OG (original grumpy) cat with the top 10 cat gifs discovered by +GIF in Charge Messenger. So without further ado:

10. +GIF Lion Cat


9. +GIF Silly Cat


8. +GIF Working Cat


7. +GIF Cat Selfie


6. +GIF Cats


5. +GIF Mad Cat


4. +GIF Bye Cat


3. +GIF Angry Cat


2. +GIF Over it Cat


1. +GIF Grumpy Cat


The US mobile market is undergoing a ton of change. Just over the past few months we saw Verizon follow T-Mobile’s lead and do away with contracts. All four major carriers now unbundle device payments from service payments. Device manufacturers, like Apple and Samsung, started to roll out their own device financing plans. And data usage continued to skyrocket around the world (pdf), thanks to further deployment of faster network infrastructure.

This progress is great for us. No more contracts and price transparency simplify the process of comparing service providers, and faster data via LTE is obviously awesome.

But now that service and device pricing is simpler, choosing the right device should be simpler too right?

This week Questions to Carriers will take a deeper look into LTE bands and the complications they can create for us when choosing a device.

As we learned in last week’s Questions to Carriers, LTE is currently the fastest widely-deployed mobile data network infrastructure. It’s a single standard that all four major US carriers adopted along with the vast majority of carriers around world. Currently LTE is deployed in 118 different countries on 335 different networks (pdf). This global deployment of LTE means devices shouldn’t be tied to specific and incompatible network infrastructures anymore.

Remember that in the US, AT&T and T-Mobile built out GSM networks, while Sprint and Verizon opted to build on CDMA. This lead to different versions of popular devices specific to each network infrastructure. A device purchased to work with AT&T’s GSM network wouldn’t work on Verizon’s CDMA network and vice versa. Now that all carriers have adopted the single LTE standard, in theory it’s practical to develop a single device that will work on all carriers.

You may have seen Apple’s new iPhone 6s advertised as “carrier-unlocked” and “carrier-free”. These terms refer to two different forms of carrier independence. “Carrier-unlocked” means there isn’t a flag set deep in the system software that prevents the iPhone from connecting to multiple carrier networks. “Carrier-free” means the iPhone has all of the low-level hardware and software required to connect to any carrier’s network. The hardware radio transceivers in the iPhone 6s function on all major network infrastructures, i.e. GSM, CDMA and LTE.

So if you get a new iPhone from Apple you can take it to any network, right? Yep, technically that is true. But unfortunately yet again, the mobile device and service market isn’t that simple. Mostly because carriers don’t want it to be. Instead of installing software or incompatible hardware to lock devices to a specific network, carriers have a possible new opportunity to use specific radio spectrum bands to lock us to their networks.

Understanding Radio Spectrum Allocation

All wireless communication travels via radio waves. Those radio waves are divided into different bands that we call radio spectrum. In the US, radio spectrum is a public good owned by the government. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates all commercial spectrum and allocates specific spectrum bands to specific technologies, such as 3G and LTE. The FCC also allocates spectrum bands to industries such as TV broadcasting and satellite radio. Each industry can only use the specific bands allocated to it by the FCC to avoid interference with other industries and other networks.

The FCC only licenses more spectrum when necessary, meaning carriers can’t just get more spectrum when they want to expand their networks. Spectrum licensing is done through spectrum auctions held by the FCC. But spectrum auctions happen rarely, and not nearly often enough for US carriers that are in a constant race to offer the fastest network with the most coverage. So instead of waiting for auctions, sometimes carriers opt for partnerships with companies in other industries that use spectrum. Hence we are starting to see deals like the acquisition of DirecTV by AT&T.

When new bands are approved for mobile communication through mergers or partnerships, carriers and device manufacturers have to work together to create devices that function on these new bands. Take LTE for example. When MetroPCS first deployed LTE in the US there were only a few different LTE bands. Now five years later, all the major carriers have modified their networks, bought more spectrum and partnered with other industries opening up a flood of new LTE bands. When you take a look at the iPhone 6s specs you will see that it functions on some 20+ different LTE bands.

But wait a second. It looks like there are still multiple iPhone 6s models. If it's truly "carrier-free", shouldn't there just be one?

You’ll notice models A1633 and A1634 support one LTE band the others don’t: band 30. Back in 2012, AT&T acquired $600M worth of spectrum that was allocated to satellite radio communication. Later that year, AT&T and SirusXM radio submitted a request to the FCC to reclassify the spectrum for use in mobile communications like LTE. The FCC accepted the request and reclassified some of the underutilized satellite radio spectrum, which AT&T is now rolling out as LTE band 30. AT&T’s band 30 is super-fast since no other carrier uses it, and it reduces congestion across AT&T’s other LTE bands.

Radio Spectrum Effect On Devices

So what does this all mean for our mobile service and devices? AT&T officially began deploying LTE on band 30 last month. If you happen to live in an area where band 30 is already deployed and you bought a band 30 device, you’re currently experiencing data transmission bliss.

The new iPhone 6s models without band 30 do in fact work on the AT&T network using AT&T’s previously-licensed LTE bands 2, 4 and 17. Verizon and T-Mobile also use band 2 and 4. So Apple isn’t lying when it says its devices are “carrier-free”. And there are a handful of other devices out now that are similarly “carrier-free” with band 30 support, including the Nexus 6P and the Galaxy S6.

But AT&T’s band 30 reveals a potential new way for carriers to restrict consumers’ ability to switch networks. Will they try to create devices that only support their specific LTE bands?

They definitely could. It’s clear that some device manufacturers like Apple want true carrier freedom for consumers. Apple is building devices with receivers that function on CDMA, GSM and a whole slew of LTE bands so that we can switch carriers any time we want to.

What isn’t so clear is whether carriers will work with new phone manufacturers who don’t care so much about carrier freedom in order to build devices specific to their spectrum. If AT&T wants to partner with a manufacturer to create a device that only supports band 30, nothing’s stopping them.

So while all carriers support LTE technology now and devices are unbundled from service plans, we know there are more changes coming. We have seen mobile carriers go to great lengths to restrict the freedom of their customers, from two-year service contracts to arbitrary device locking. Now we are seeing upgrade programs coupled to service plans, so what’s to stop carriers from continuing to try to trap us in other ways? Not much, besides voting with our wallets to buy carrier-free devices from manufacturers who are transparent.

The complicated waters of industry mergers, radio wave classifications and spectrum auctions certainly make the constantly-changing mobile industry tough to navigate. The only way to keep carriers from crippling consumer choice is understanding service and devices. Hopefully device manufacturers won’t succumb to carrier pressure, but some will likely partner with carriers once again. It’s clear that carriers are losing at least some of their power with help from Apple and Samsung. As consumers it’s time we also cement our stance and continue to demand truly carrier-free devices.

Back in August we officially rolled out Charge Messenger for web alongside important upgrades to our iOS and Android apps. Since then our team has been hard at work making updates and integrating feedback from you to make Charge Messenger the best it can be on all platforms.

Today we are excited to unveil a major redesign of Charge Messenger for iOS. The redesign delivers a more intuitive interface that will be familiar for most long-time iOS users. You’ll notice we’ve introduced more typical navigation patterns and recognizable icons which make starting new conversations, importing contacts and modifying settings simpler than ever.


If you’re an iPad user you’ll notice some even bigger changes. We’ve reworked the main app interface into a split navigation screen which dramatically reduces wasted visual space in landscape mode. Now it’s easy to see your list of ongoing conversations on the left and your active conversation on the right. Like this:


The new conversation creation interface also lets you send Charge messages to phone numbers that aren’t yet in your address book. Of course in order to get the message your recipient will need to install Charge, but we make it easy by offering to autofill an SMS invite for you.

And don’t worry, +GIF hasn’t changed. The GIF button is still there to make your messages more fun. ;) The new simple and streamlined Charge Messenger just makes it even easier to discover and share GIFs with friends.

There are design updates coming to Android too! More intuitive navigation, a simpler conversation creation flow and the ability to message anyone with a phone number are all on the way. Stay tuned!