Looking for a way to save your enterprise or government organization tens of thousands of dollars a month or more on wireless mobile communication use? First off, it’s going to take some discipline and innovative management for your cellular communication services to become more cost efficient and less prone to abuse. Cell phone and handheld usage can bleed a corporation’s IT communications funding dry without so much as a turn of the head, or at least until it’s too late.

They’re Everywhere …

It’s more common than not for a large organization to have employees carrying company owned devices such as cellular phones, pagers, PDAs, and Blackberry devices. All these wireless devices meant to increase employee productivity are more than likely draining funds and ultimately decreasing actual corporate productivity. It’s an ever increasing telecommunications expense on a road to disaster.

One is Better …

One way to better manage corporate employee mobile communication cost is to buy ALL cellular services through ONE provider. Buying through one provider gives your organization the chance to receive volume discounts. If you are giving your employees the opportunity to purchase their company wireless device themselves on the corporate account, you are opening the door to higher rates and actually taking away control from the company as a whole.

Close To Home …

Secondly, audit not just the usage, but who uses the mobile communications. You need to investigate exactly who is a necessity mobile user and who is not. An office employee who spends most of their time within corporate headquarters and who is not prone to traveling; may very well be responsible for inflated mobile usage. An employee calling friends and even relatives overseas is not entirely uncommon. This kind of abuse has been known to accumulate to a bill well over a $2,000.00 in a matter of days with just one employee.

Allowance, Not Just For Teens Anymore …

It’s important to weed out vanity from necessity. If the hardship of striping cell phones and their usage from employees is too hard to bear, consider revising this strategy. A method that can be effective is allotting an allowance to employees on their usage. In other words, set up a preset amount of acceptable minutes per month per employee type. If any employee goes over their allotted amount of minutes, it is garnished from their paychecks. Many companies have deployed this method to curb abuse with much success.

Reward the Good …

In addition to an allowance program, a rewards program could be put in place as well. To sweeten the sour, award the employee with the least amount of minutes a percentage of the company savings. Let it be announced beforehand and you may find employees trying to conserve so they can take home a larger paycheck. To make it more viral, perhaps first, second, and third place winners every month. That will ensure that employees know more than one employee each month will go home with a fatter paycheck. Increasing the odds always helps feed the fever. Works in Vegas, right?

Easier Said than Done …

Now, keeping track of who is who and who calls what can equal to a big headache and ultimately take more time and money to manage. Luckily there are some companies out there that make a living from auditing and managing wireless bills or supplying the firmware to do so. While costs associated with such services vary, they are valuable and more importantly; save money. Some of the companies that provide these services include Let’s Talk www.letstalk.com, Traq www.traq.com, and Vercuity www.vercuity.com.

Carriers Feel Your Pain …

Aside from these companies that audit, track, and manage wireless usage, the mobile communications industry has seen the aches and pains of employee abuse. Many cellular carriers now offer more cost effective wireless options for large employers knowing of employee abuse and the minutes (money sacrificed. In other words, lower rates for the higher volume to curb the cost of abuse whether or not it is taking place.

One of the better cell phone providers for corporate services is Nextel. They offer over the phone ordering exclusively for corporate volume clients for all products and services which include some good plans for busy mobile users. You can call them toll free at:
1-866-720-4177 Business Code: 15376 Reference: LL UNLIMITED

There are many options when you want to find cell phone numbers on the Internet. Although none of them are guaranteed, with a little bit of work, and a lot of luck, you might find the cell number that you’re looking for.

These Internet-based services for finding cell phone numbers are broken into three major categories. The first category is Reverse Cell Phone Number Lookup. This service attempts to give you the name of the cell phone subscriber when you provide the cell phone number.

The second catagory is the Cell Phone Directory service which works a lot like the white page telephone number lookup services. These sites will look for a cell phone number when you provide them with a name.

Although many of these services look like they are free, you often have to pay a fee once the site determines that they might have a match. “Might” is the key word here because, due to the fact that many people have the same name, the service might find a cell phone number but it could be for a different person that you were looking for.

The third category use investigators to attempt to find the cell phone number. These investigators will usually call the person’s regular phone number, or the phone numbers of the person’s friends, neighbors, or employees, and make up a pretense for trying to find the cell phone number. While this method does have some successes, make sure that you know what the fee is if they fail to find the cell phone number. You might end up paying the same price either way.

Some companies will tell you that they have access to a special “cell phone number” database that they use to find cell phone numbers but, as far as anyone in the cell phone industry knows, there is no such database that’s available to the public.

Prices for paid services that find cell phone numbers range from $25 to $100 and up. $75 seems to be the average. Some of the “Instant Investigator Software” web sites look like they are a bargain because they offer do-it-yourself software for around $30, but there’s a catch. This software acts like a search portal into paid information sites. So, although you pay $29 for the software, all it lets you do is access web sites that charge even more money to find a cell phone number. So you’re not getting much for your money in this case.

Start your search to find cell phone numbers on Google. Use the search term” “find cell phone numbers” and you’ll be off to a good start.

I’m surprised there aren’t studies done about road rage and the use of cell phones. I get irritated by cell phone users driving badly. I just want to pinch their little heads off. I’ve seen no road rage statistics, but I have seen comparisons between cell phone usage, drunken driving, and resulting accidents.

David J. Hanson, Ph.D. says, “A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that drivers who used mobile phones while driving were four times more likely to crash than those not, a rate equal to that for drunken driving at the .01 level.” Dr. Hanson also points out, “Those who die in traffic accidents are just as dead whether killed by drug use, fatigue or falling asleep at the wheel, alcohol intoxication, or inattention caused by cell phone use while driving.”

Many people would like legislation passed to limit the use of cell phones in automobiles. But, a news feature from the National Conference of State Legislatures argues the point, “Opponents also argue that little evidence exists that wireless phones are more distracting than other normal activities in the car, such as eating, grooming or using the radio.” However, one could argue that eating and grooming while driving shouldn’t be listed as normal activities. I agree.

I think that any activity, which diminishes driving ability including phone calls, alcohol consumption, shaving, putting on makeup, eating hamburgers, and drinking hot coffee, should be eliminated for the safety of the driver as well as other drivers.

Diminished concentration on the road can lead to carelessness, accidents and road rage.