Lost your cell? Your address book could be saved
By Jason Buckland, Sympatico / MSN Finance
Yesterday, we used this space for some much-needed hate against the big wireless phone providers and their disregard for our chequing accounts. Today, we offer a pat on the back.
I stumbled across this Wall Street Journal story about major U.S. mobile carriers offering a pretty handy service to automatically back-up users’ contacts and address books in the event they lose or damage their phone.
For about $2 / month, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will sync with your cell anytime you change or add a new contact and, if your handheld goes missing, they can beam that updated list to a new phone once you get one.
I wondered how info like this had flown under my radar, and immediately thought about the time my friend Nick got drunk one night, left his BlackBerry with a cabbie as collateral while he went inside to get money for the fare, passed out instead and had the taxi take off with his phone.
His address book? Gone. Recently, I too had my cell stolen – wiping clean all my collected numbers – which, uh, really sucks. So while I’m late to the party, I’m intrigued by mobile backup, and wanted to find just what stage this service is at in Canada.
Turns out, each of the big three cell companies – Rogers, Telus, Bell – started offering mobile backup just last year, releasing various stages of the service for various prices.
Bell and Rogers will backup all your contacts and addresses for $3 / month, automatically updating and storing them in an online server you can view, edit and print at your own leisure. Telus’ mobile backup set-up is the same, but only costs $2 / month.
Rogers is the sole provider that offers a sort-of premium service for $5 / month that also backs up all your “user-generated content,” which essentially means saving your cell phone pictures and videos on top of your address book.
While not all phones support mobile backup – click here to check out which Rogers phones work, here for Telus and here for Bell – this is a pretty intriguing service that’s probably going to gain steam as Rolodexes go the way of Prison Break’s enjoyability and more people start storing business contacts on their cells. A Telus rep I talked to while doing some research for this post said users on their mobile backup system have grown steadily since they introduced it a few months ago in December.
I don’t know anyone who uses mobile backup yet, but I’m certainly considering it myself.
Posted by: andrewstation | Mar 10, 2009 1:25:03 PM
If you have a Windows mobile phone, which all the major carriers sell for the same cost as a Blackberry and less than an iPhone, you can automatically back-up ALL data/info to your PC. No $2/mo. cost which is a total rip off.
As well, if you lose your phone, you can call it, enter a special code and erase all your personal info.
Posted by: Steve | Mar 10, 2009 3:36:27 PM
So Rogers/Bell charge a minimum of $36/year to backup your data, Telus 'only' $24 or a 'premium' service for $60. Syncing to your PC usually free. A Tera Byte of storage costs Rogers/Bell/Telus less than $100 and Bell/Rogers/Telus will be using your data allowance for backup data transmissions. Looks like another raping by Canadian Cellphone carriers. Did I mention that if you have a pay as you go phone in the UK most companies carry the balance forward and incoming calls are free? On the Three network you get 5000 min free skype to skype every time you top up $20. Cell phone bills aren't something I miss from Canada, Access fees, 911 fees, Roaming fees, Administration fees, Rude customer service fees.....
Posted by: John | Mar 10, 2009 8:12:26 PM
I work for one of the big 3, and it amazes me how often people come into the store crying over losing their contacts, and I strongly believe this service will only be useful to those who are constantly losing their cell phones and probably shouldn't own anything worth more then 50$, and with the major increase in smartphone users people should know how to back up their data anyway.
It's a very simple process to back up your Treo/Win Mobile/BlackBerry and fairly reliable. If anyone is doing any sort of business via a cell it's more then likely on one of the three I just mentioned and they have to take it upon themselves to charge the phones(it's the same process)......PLUG IT IN...as long as your setup is correct on your PC...just plug it in every night and it will back up your data on your own computer for FREE and guess what else...it will even charge your battery.
In this "tech age" we live in...backing up should be something everyone already does daily!
Posted by: Brad | Mar 10, 2009 10:07:59 PM
I can't believe anyone can recommend this service on top of the already stupid rates we pay in Canada for cell service especially when with some phones a free alternative exists.
How about the carriers build this into the System Access fee of $6-$7.95 a month that they already charge on top of their already high monthly fees.
Posted by: savantadmin | Mar 11, 2009 11:13:20 PM
I checked up on the various serviced office available and their prices are pretty competitive. Any recommendations?