These are arcs

These are arcs

These are bars

BY

203-569-9432 | [email protected]

Arcs & Bars Let me paint you a picture. . . You're on a long car ride. Your children have been remarkably quiet for an extended period of time rather than shrieking and tearing at each other's epiglottis. You say, "Kids, what are you doing?" They say, "Nothing." You say, "I noticed that. What kind of nothing are you doing?" If they say, "Looking at Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook.", stop the car. Take their phones and immediately call child services to put them up for adoption. Why? Because while they and your wireless service provider are enormously content with the current state of the world, you are about to go to the poor house or assume the life of a migrant worker no different from the Jode family in Grapes of Wrath. Why you may ask? Well, they have been burning through the gigabytes of your data plan and simultaneously all of the funds in your bank accounts faster than termites can chew lumber. . . and I know because I learned the hard way. Technology is a fascinating thing. The ability to afford the latest gadget, gizmo or widget has absolutely no bearing on the owner's ability to use or understand it - and one of the most flagrant demonstrations of that reality is the cellular telephone data plan. Frighteningly few people truly understand what they've purchased or exactly how it works. So let's review. . . If you look at your smartphone, or as in my case, the not-so-smartphone, you've got arcs and either bars or dots - enormously simple visuals. The arcs represent the wifi the wireless networks that might be available to you at any given location, say your local coffee house, library or possibly even your neighbor who didn't realize that without a password on his wireless network, he was broadcasting, "Free Eats" to the entire neighborhood. . . and every kid whose parent thought they were upstairs doing their homework because as good parents, they'd locked down the home wifi - was actually engaged in another battle in World of Warcraft and failing algebra. So the arcs, the wifi, are usually free internet access - until you get to some tropical resort and the hotel you've booked is trying to extract every last penny out of your wallet that they can, so they charge you for connecting to their wifi because they are the only Bud Freund | 127 West Trail, Stamford, CT 06903 | 203-569-9432 | [email protected]

game in town - but for free internet, as we see in most facilities, you put in a password, agree to whatever terms and conditions you'll probably not read, but contain something to the effect of, "I promise not to go to websites that advocate the overthrow of the military industrial complex and if I do, you can have all the money in my bank account, the deed to my house, the title to my car and I agree to place my family into 7 years of indentured servitude". Hey, if you've never read the EULA - that "terms and conditions" document that is on almost every website and software package is called a EULA (the end user licensing agreement) - how would you know? How would you know? Where was I? Oh yes, using free internet outside your home or business. . . So you put in a password and off you go to your heart's delight looking at whatever and whomever you please provided the signal being sent to your particular device of choice - be it smartphone, tablet or laptop - is strong enough to pull down whatever you're trying to see. And of course, your children know that you determine the strength of a signal by the number of arcs you see. One arc and every movie you look at will look like that old TV show, Max Headroom.

Four arcs and you'll be able to do live video chat with your friend who's taking a year off to find himself - and see Europe - and is Facetiming with you in front of the girl in the window in De Wallen, Amsterdam's Red Light District. . . "Dude, check this out. . . Girls are doing shit like this all the way up and down the street. And around the corner is a café where you can buy hash and get stoned LEGALLY!!!! It's fucking wild!!!" The bars or dots - depending on the age and style of your phone - aren't much different. If you have bars, you have internet. . . with one tiny, but significant exception. Just like your house has a meter for measuring electricity and every month you get a bill depending on the amount of electricity you've used, your smartphone - while connected to a cellular tower that's providing internet access. . . and email. . . and texts. . . and whatever else you might be downloading, nod, nod, wink, wink,nudge, nudge, knowwhat-I-mean, know-what-I-mean, know-what-I-mean, know-what-I-mean - your smartphone is also connected to a meter that's tracking the amount of data you've

Bud Freund | 127 West Trail, Stamford, CT 06903 | 203-569-9432 | [email protected]

downloaded from the cellular towers and is matching that to the data plan you purchased. So if you signed up for a two gigabyte data plan, and your children have Instagramed 8 gigabytes of data on the road to Kalamazoo, Michigan, your cellular service provider is going to BILL YOU MORE!!! LOTS MORE!!!! Didn't the salesperson explain that to you? If not, don't be surprised, two things have probably happened. First, they probably did explain the billing plan, but in the most confusing way possible so you would look at them blankly, like deer in headlights, and say, "Oh, OK.", and sign the contract.. And second, as a result of your primitive knowledge of technology - digital immigrant that you are - you probably got SERIOUSLY RIPPED OFF. There is a third possibility. . . which is that you tried to go, "on the cheap" ("We'll never use THAT MUCH data.". . . Yes, yes you will.) and like soooo many other digital immigrants, learned the hard way. So let's review. . . Your cell phone service provider has sold you a block of data - almost like the bi-weekly salary that gets "automatically" deposited into your bank account that you get to "spend down" every month. And at the end of every month, your cellular service provider resets the meter and you get to "spend down" your data allocation again. Got it? Now here's an interesting thing. . . We'll try to explain this as a simple technology math problem. . .Johnny has 4 gigabytes of data to use every month. He downloads 2.4 gigabytes of data in July. How much data does he have left? If you said 1.6 gigabytes, you're wrong! At the end of the month he has NOTHING. The meter resets to 4 gigabytes. AND. . . with rare exceptions, the 1.6 gigabytes doesn't "carry over" for Johnny to use in August - which "should" mean that instead of August's monthly allocation being just 4 gigabytes to burn through, Johnny "should" have 5.6 gigabytes. . . since Johnny paid his cellular service provider for the data usage. Isn't technology math interesting? AND. . . And, if Johnny were to go over his 4 gigabytes of allocated data download - as mentioned previously, he'd be billed for the overage. . .

Bud Freund | 127 West Trail, Stamford, CT 06903 | 203-569-9432 | [email protected]

. . . oh you can rest assured that a cellular service provider will bill Johnny. Why? Because they are tracking EVERYTHING!!!

Oh and by the way, that Verizon incident was in 2008, seven years ago. Here's a question. . . Do you think that in the past seven years there's been more snooping or less snooping? And if you're stumped for an answer, here's one to consider. . . Edward Snowden. So let's review. . . Your cellular service provider sells data plans of varying sizes and costs. If you go over your monthly allocation, you spend more money. If you stay under your monthly allocation, it doesn't carry over to the next month. Any questions?

Bud Freund | 127 West Trail, Stamford, CT 06903 | 203-569-9432 | [email protected]