Giving the Gift of a Good Education

In the words of B.B. King, ‘the beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.’

That’s why this season, PicCell Wireless has chosen The Hilde Back Education Fund (HBEF) to receive our 2011 holiday donation. The HBEF is a charitable community-based organization that assists children from disadvantaged communities to access secondary school education in Kenya.

Making it count

For every call made on a PicCell phone this December 25th, PicCell is giving $0.10 towards scholarships for these Kenyan students!

We are proud to contribute to this noble effort and everyone to make a donation this year. Click here to make an HBEF donation and make a difference in a young student’s life. Thank you.

Happy Holidays from PicCell Wireless!

Proposed Cell Phone Ban for American Roads

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended a nationwide ban on the use of cell phones while driving. The ban would apply to all hands-free and hand-held phones, but devices installed by the manufacturer would be allowed. If adopted by states, the NTSB ban would apply to all non-emergency calls and texts by any driver on the road. Passengers cell phone use would not be affected. Read more.

Cell Phones Fights Isolation and Poverty in Remote Areas

In Jeffery Sach’s book, The End of Poverty, he states "The cell phone is the single most transformative technology for development," This observation was made after he toured sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 and studied the poor conditions, noting a lack of cellular technology in more isolated regions that also had poor drinking water, feast-and-famine crop cycles and rampant malaria infections. "Poverty is almost equated with isolation in many places of the world”, Sach’s states in his book. Years later, cell phone service is widespread and ownership is reaching as high as 30% in some previously isolated areas. As this technology grows, it makes it easier for those in remote areas to call for medical assistance, operate a small business or manage personal banking and savings.

Check out Jeffery Sach’s book, The End of Poverty

Blackberry Service Outage

Millions of Blackberry users were without data our messenger service across much of Europe, the Middle East and Africa today. Research In Motion, the company that brings the Blackberry products and services to the public, apologized to the affected users and stated they are looking in to it. The BlackBerry is growing in popular throughout Europe and the Middle East, where many international business users prize the phones for their vaunted security features. In July, BlackBerry reported it had added 1 million customers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa market in less than three weeks.

Mobile Phone Access Varies Widely in Sub-Saharan Africa

According to Gallup.com, fifty-seven percent of the adult population -- or more than an estimated 151 million people -- have mobile phones across the 17 countries Gallup surveyed in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010. The percentage of adults with mobile phones ranges from a high of 84% in South Africa to a low of 16% in Central African Republic, signaling the potential for tremendous growth in the industry on the sub-continent.

Mobile phone access in sub-Saharan Africa ranges widely by country. At the same time, men, those with higher education levels, urban residents, and those with higher per capita household income generally are more likely to have mobile phones. The challenge for the mobile phone industry is to expand from this base to rural and poorer areas, where cost will likely remain an obstacle to growth.

See the details.

Night Rider Turbo-Boosts into an $8,000 AT&T Bill

Watch the Hoff go off on AT&T for his $8,000 dollar cellular phone bill. It sounds like he could use a better deal on international phone service. If his talking car, ‘Kit’, hasn’t already, we would like to recommend Hasselhoff turn the hassle off with AT&T and contact PicCell Wireless for a much better deal on international roaming.

See Hoff Go Off

PicCell Wireless Average Customer Care Hold Time Less Than 30 Seconds

Who likes to wait on hold? We at PicCell Wireless sure don’t and we strive to minimize our customer’s hold times when they call us for help. So, how are we doing? According to a new survey from J.D. Power and Associates, the average hold time for clients contacting their American mobile providers is 4.5 minutes. PicCell is proud to boast hold times of less than 30 seconds! The average hold time from January 2011 – July 2011 for calls from PicCell clients was 23.5 seconds, with monthly averages ranging from 14 to 32 seconds. Read more.