The mobility Landscape is changing. make sure you are taking advantage of the best plan for your business
A lot is changing with the mobility landscape. Verizon and ATT are moving to plans with no charge for overages, similar to the plans traditionally offered by T Mobile. This is great for predictable billing but now you pay for a committed high speed plan and when you hit your plan limit you are throttled to 2G speeds. As a result, you could be in the middle of a presentation at a trade show (or watching House of Cards), and suddenly begin buffering.
Another move we are seeing is all of the cell phone providers are moving toward equipment installment plans instead of subsidized pricing with a 2 year contract. So instead of a free phone with a 2 year contract, you are paying monthly for your device. Now you have more decision points.
Speaking of devices…. The Apple iPhone 7 hits the streets this week.
They added an hour of battery life, better selfie quality, and a shiny new color (jet black) which is only available on the devices with upgraded storage capacity. Apple removed the headphone jack to make it thinner- and now you can’t charge and listen at the same time without Bluetooth headphones. Any Bluetooth headphones will work but it sounds like users may have a better experience using headphones with a W1 chip, which is available in Beats or Apple AirPods.
Because of the speed of this roll out, a number of business applications don’t work with the iPhone 7. One example we’ve seen so far is the Avaya Communicator and we’ve heard a patch isn’t anticipated for 3-4 months. Additionally, there are some concerns of another #bendgate.
If you still feel the bug go ahead and buy. A number of pre-orders shipped yesterday and business customers can typically return a device within 30 days.
Samsung’s recall on the Note 7 has been in the news as well.
If you have a Samsung Note 7, call your carrier and you can switch to a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge as a permanent device with a credit or they can send you a loaner device and when the new non exploding Note 7 comes out they will send it to you.
Finally, IOS 10 hit the streets. This is great news for people who love emojis, though there have been reports of the update bricking older phones. Also beware the storage requirements of the RAW photos which allow you to save all the data from your camera in an uncompressed format. It will allow you to do more editing of photos, but the large files will take a huge toll on your memory. Battery is always a concern for iPhone users. Early reports are that there will also be an initial hit to your battery life with the new upgrade but it should settle out after a few days and you may actually see some improvements.
Wi-Fi Assist is another hot button. This feature toggles Wi-Fi and your data connection constantly looking for the better connection and many users are seeing it driving an increase in data usage. The good news is that you can easily turn WiFi assist off in your Settings. Ifyou have an iPhone go to Settings-Cellular it is all the way at the bottom of the list. Android has versions of Wi-Fi assist as well and that can also be turned off, google to find out how to do it on your version.
Regardless of device or platform, the mobility team at ARG is on top of things and here to help. Give us a call to see how our experts can improve your corporate cell phone experience and let you focus on what you do best.
