If you live in the 760 area code (soon to be the 760/442 area code overlay), you can practice dialing the area code and number on all calls beginning May 2, 2009. You must dial the area code and number on all calls beginning October 24. Those who currently have 760 numbers should keep the same area code. New overlay area code 442 numbers will become effective on November 21.

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Can people can tell where you are just because your cell phone is turned on?

On March 26th, New York Times columnist Bob Tedeschi featured UCAN's phone cost study to highlight the difficulty in assessing phone costs.  He focused on the wireless aspects of our report but he totally "got" the message.  He calculates that, for example, if you were on a calling plan where you paid an average of 26 cents a minute and you switched to a prepaid plan charging 10 cents a minute, a new phone would pay for itself after about 167 minutes of calling rather than 560 minutes of calling on a "bucket plan".

His conclusion is spot-on correct..... the cell phone companies can be doing a much better job in helping consumers navigate the actual costs for phone service.   What he didn't add was that regulators should be doing more to push wireless carriers to start fully disclosing actual cost data about wireless phones.   Tedeshci's article is worth reading (see below) but you don't need to read the article to get the point:  if you don't use all of your bucket of minutes on your cell phone every month, you may be better served by looking carefully at pre-paid wireless plans.  The UCAN study referenced by the NY Times can be found here.

checking for phone lines and telecom features you're paying for but didn't know you had