Parents who fear giving their teens or younger children a "credit card with an antenna" are getting some help from carriers who are introducing services that help parents control their child's cellphone use. The NYT has a detailed story on the various plans available, including T-Mobile's new "Family Allowances," plan launched today, similar to AT&T's "Smart Limits" offering. Verizon ( NYSE: VZ), too, has one in the works, leaving Sprint ( NYSE: S) as the only major carrier without one. For a monthly fee, the services allow parents to cap the number of minutes and text messages, block certain phone numbers, and even limit the time of day when the phone can call out. T-Mobile's plan has an introductory price of $2 a month, while AT&T's cost $5. But the NYT points out that AT&T's has more features, and more flexibility.
So, what's behind the introduction of these plans? According to Yankee Analyst Jill Aldort, it's only the very old and the very young who don't have phones. The plans are a way to ease parents' anxieties over cellphone bill "sticker shock," even if they don't actually set any limits. Apparently, a recent Nielsen survey showed that most parents with cellphone toting 8-12 year olds don't bother with parental controls. ( Release).
Thanks to SpoofCard, AT&T and T-Mobile now owe some cash in the state of California, and the rest of us have been given one more reason to lie awake at night. The service -- of questionable non-illegal value -- reports your Caller ID phone number as anything you like, and injunctions filed in Los Angeles demand that the carriers stop advertising their voicemail services as being secure, considering that they can be set to rely on the calling phone number alone to connect to a specific voicemail box. For their indiscretions, AT&T will be coughing up $59,300 and T-Mobile owes an even 25 grand; meanwhile, SpoofCard's parent company will pay $33,000 for advertising its service as being legal in 50 states even though it's not.
