Latest news with #Arnett
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why these actors and ‘SmartLess' podcast hosts want to help you pay less for cell service
The latest celebrity start-up trend is no longer tequila. It's telecom. Actors Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman — who host the popular 'SmartLess' podcast — are launching a wireless service as an alternative to pricier unlimited data plans from major carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. The decision to start the company, called SmartLess Mobile, came from a simple realization: while industry giants generally push unlimited plans, most people don't actually use that much data. Even if they're glued to their phones. 'Most Americans spend almost 90% of their time under Wi-Fi. Their mobile device very seldom actually uses the actual wireless network,' said SmartLess CEO Paul McAleese, a telecom industry veteran who co-founded the company with the actors. Research published last year by the consultancy group OpenSignal found that most mobile customers spend between 77% and 88% of their on-screen time connected to a Wi-Fi network. SmartLess Mobile offers wireless plans starting at $15 per month for 5 gigabytes of high-speed data, going up to $30 monthly for 30 gigabytes. By contrast, starter unlimited plans from the major carriers range from around $35 to $65 per month. McAleese said he and Arnett started discussing the idea after the actor bought a new phone for his teenage son and was sold an unlimited plan that cost around $70 monthly. (Arnett previously served as a spokesperson for Canadian telecom giant Shaw Communications; McAleese is the company's former president.) 'And (Arnett) goes, 'Geez, it's awfully expensive,'' McAleese said in an interview with CNN. 'And I said, 'Your boy spends almost his entire life under Wi-Fi. He's at home, he's at school … he's never going to be on the network. Why would you buy all that?'' SmartLess Mobile joins a growing slate of celebrity-backed wireless carriers, including Consumer Cellular, with longtime spokesperson Ted Danson, and Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile, which was acquired by T-Mobile in 2023. These providers, known as mobile virtual network operators (or MVNOs), lease access to a major telecom provider's spectrum — SmartLess plans will run on T-Mobile's 5G network — and can often charge lower prices because they don't have to manage the physical infrastructure. The services have gained popularity as cell phone technology has advanced. Most phones now have digital SIM cards, making it easier for consumers to switch carriers without having to visit a retail store. And the proliferation of Wi-Fi infrastructure everywhere from subways to restaurants means many people have lesser data needs. If their partner network goes down, MVNOs do risk being the ones customers blame for losing missing service. And limited data plans aren't necessarily for everyone — ride-share drivers and delivery couriers likely use a lot more data than people who work from home or from an office with a Wi-Fi network. But the primary 'uphill battle for any MVNO is to stand out in the space,' said Jeffrey Moore, principal at wireless industry research firm Wave7, because the industry giants have much more name recognition. Major carriers also entice customers with deals on new phones, which they practically give away for free if consumers join their network. Smaller carriers 'have to stand out either in terms of offerings or in terms of marketing,' Moore said. That's where celebrity endorsements come in. SmartLess already has a significant built-in audience; the podcast ranks among the top 20 most popular shows on Apple Podcasts. And Arnett, Hayes and the SmartLess podcast have more than 2 million combined Instagram followers. 'Whether by luck or by design, they also have a brand name that has both 'smart' and 'less' in the name,' McAleese said, 'which, if you're going to be a challenger brand in this day and age, those are two pretty good head starts.' The team plans to start discussing SmartLess Mobile on the podcast in the coming weeks, he said. And the SmartLess hosts' involvement in the new carrier goes beyond typical celebrity endorsements, McAleese said. Hayes, Arnett and Bateman had already turned down the opportunity to lend their names to other types of products, and they've been involved in everything from financing to marketing the new company. 'They rely on the category for what is now one of their primary professional pursuits, which is the podcast, this is how people consume their product,' McAleese said. 'These guys are master storytellers, and they have the brand ethos of sort of an honest broker. I think it's just a perfect marriage.' Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
"SmartLess" podcast hosts launch new phone company
"SmartLess" podcast hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, have launched a new phone company, the celebrity trio announced Tuesday. Called SmartLess Mobile, the direct-to-consumer wireless service promises to be "data-sane and refreshingly BS-free," according to the announcement. The launch represents the first product spinoff for the popular interview podcast, which reaches millions of listeners each month. SmartLess Mobile is billing itself as a low-cost phone carrier that will save customers money by scaling back mobile data they don't use. "If you're using less, you should be spending less," Arnett said in the statement. SmartLess Mobile plans start at $15 a month and run up to $30. Customers can lock in their price in for life and won't deal with price hikes a few months in, according to a spokesperson from the SmartLess Mobile team. The new company is attempting to distinguish itself from other phone providers like AT&T and Verizon that charge higher premiums for coverage. The company's tagline — shared on it's website — befits this mission: "Don't get outsmarted. Get SmartLess." "If you own your phone, spend most of your day on Wi-Fi, and are on an unlimited data plan, moving to SmartLess Mobile could literally cut your monthly bill in half," said Hayes. The new carrier will run on the T-Mobile 5G network, with service extending throughout the contiguous United States and Puerto Rico. A map on the newly-minted website showcases the extent of the network's 5G coverage. The new phone company, which is a digital-only brand, allows people to keep their original phone numbers, according to the company statement. "Most Americans can bring their existing number with them just by scanning a QR code, and the whole process takes just minutes," according to the announcement. In addition to Arnett, Bateman and Hayes, SmartLess Mobile founders include Paul and Jeni McAleese, leaders in the wireless industry. Paul McAleese, who previously led Shaw Communications, is listed as CEO of SmartLess Mobile on his LinkedIn, while Jeni McAleese's LinkedIn lists her as chief brand officer. The lead investor behind the new phone enterprise is Thomvest Asset Management. Arnett, Bateman and Hayes join the ranks of other celebrities, including Ryan Reynolds, who have on taken leading roles at phone companies in recent years. Reynolds serves as the face Mint Mobile, which was acquired by T-Mobile two years ago for $1.35 billion. Australian reporter covering Los Angeles protests shot with rubber bullet by police officer LAPD chief speaks out about deployment of military forces to anti-ICE protests Can Trump deploy National Guard without governor's approval?
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Eanes ISD releases new info after teacher arrest
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A former elementary music teacher at Eanes Independent School District who was arrested in February on charges of Possession of Child Pornography is now being charged with Sexual Performance by Child under 14, according to court records. In February the Texas Department of Public Safety executed a search warrant at Zachary Barnett's residence and seized a total of 13 digital devices according to the affidavit. Among those files— the affidavit said DPS found more than 8,000 pictures and videos of female students from Barnett's class. Former Eanes ISD music teacher arrested in connection with online crimes against children 'Violated our trust, exploited our students and naturally that is very upsetting,' said Eanes ISD Superintendent Jeff Arnett. The affidavit states that the 'images zoomed into the female students' skirts, their underwear, and their crotch area.' Parents KXAN spoke with tell us they worry about where the images could end up. 'They [DPS] have worked with national organizations to determine that none of our students images were uploaded and they have taken the additional step, making sure if there were any images of our children that were out there, those would be removed and we are trying to follow those processes with them as well,' Arnett said. In a letter to parents at Cedar Creek Elementary, Arnett addressed the latest information released to the district. 'Especially upsetting, is the new detail revealed in the Travis County warrant that Department of Public Safety (DPS) authorities identified and began surveillance of Barnett on Jan. 13, 2025, while knowing he was a teacher in our school. This was a full month before Eanes ISD police and administrators were made aware of his crimes. Had we been notified at that time, we would have immediately removed him from the classroom and avoided further exploitation of our students. Regrettably, we were not informed for several weeks as the investigation of him began, which is dismaying. While we cannot correct DPS's decision, we have told them of our extreme concerns regarding their delayed notification.' – Jeff Arnett, Eanes ISD Superintendent Some parents told KXAN they don't believe the district is doing enough to keep them informed or keep their kids safe. 'This has now spanned about eight weeks for our district, so we have been living this along with the parents,' Arnett said. 'We learned about it at the same time they did. We were disappointed in not being notified about the investigation until a month after DPS officials first learned about this activity.' KXAN reached out to DPS for comment about the investigation, as well as what they are doing to make sure images were not shared online, but we have not heard back at this time. We will update this if a statement is received. There are online resources that can help parents and victims dealing with similar cases. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children offers a CyberTipline, as well as Take It Down, which helps remove nude, partially nude or sexually explicit photos and videos of underage people by assigning a unique digital fingerprint — called a hash value — to the images or videos. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
How a can of Coke and day-old cake led to iconic photo that went around the world
By 1975, the AP's bureau had shrunk as well, and as the North Vietnamese Army and its allied Viet Cong guerilla force in the south pushed towards Saigon, most staff members were evacuated. Arnett, Esper and Franjola volunteered to stay behind, anxious to see through to the end what they had committed so many years of their lives to covering – and conspiring to ignore New York if any of their managers got the jitters and ordered them to leave at the last minute. 'I saw it from the beginning, I wanted to see the end,' Esper said. 'I was a bit apprehensive and frightened, but I knew that if I left, the rest of my life I would have been second-guessing myself.' On April 30, 1975, the monsoon rains had arrived and Arnett watched in the early morning hours from the slippery roof of the AP's building as helicopters evacuated Americans and selected Vietnamese from the embassy four blocks away. After catching a few hours of sleep, he awoke at 6.30am to the loud voices of looters on the streets. An hour later, from the rooftop of his hotel, he watched through binoculars as a small group of US marines that had accidentally been left behind clambered aboard a Sea Knight helicopter from the roof of the embassy – the last American evacuees. He called it in to Esper in the office, and the story was in newsrooms around the world before the helicopter had cleared the coast. 'I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans – we're all the same.' George Esper, AP journalist Franjola and Arnett then took to the streets to see what was going on, while Esper manned the desk. When they got to the US Embassy, a mob of people were grinning and laughing as they looted the building – a sharp contrast to the desperation of people the day before hoping to be evacuated. 'On a pile of wet documents and broken furniture on the back lawn, we find the heavy bronze plaque engraved with the names of the five American soldiers who died in the attack on the embassy in the opening hours of the Tet Offensive in 1968,' Arnett recalled in an email detailing the day's events. 'Together we carry it back to the AP office.' At 10.24am, Arnett was writing the story of the embassy looting when Esper heard on Saigon Radio that South Vietnam had surrendered, and immediately filed an alert. 'Esper rushes to the teleprinter and messages New York, and soon receives the satisfying news that AP is five minutes ahead of UPI with the surrender story,' Arnett said, citing AP's biggest rival at the time, United Press International. 'In war or peace, the wire services place a premium on competition.' Esper then dashed outside to try and gather some reaction from South Vietnamese soldiers to the news of the capitulation, and came across a police colonel standing by a statue in a main square. 'He was waving his arms, 'fini, fini', you know, 'it's all over, we lost',' Esper remembered. 'And he was also fingering his holstered pistol and I figured, this guy is really crazy, he will kill me, and after 10 years here with barely a scratch, I'm going to die on this final day.' Suddenly, the colonel did an about-face, saluted the memorial statue, drew his pistol and shot himself in the head. Shaken, Esper ran back to the bureau, up the four flights of stairs to the office and punched out a quick story on the incident, his hands trembling as he typed. Stories flow as Saigon falls Back on the streets, Franjola, who died in 2015, was nearly sideswiped by a Jeep packed with men brandishing Russian rifles and wearing the black Viet Cong garb. Arnett then saw a convoy of Russian trucks loaded with North Vietnamese soldiers driving down the main street and scrambled back into the office. ''George,' I shout, 'Saigon has fallen. Call New York',' Arnett said. 'I check my watch. It's 11.43am.' Over the next few hours, more soldiers, supported by tanks, pushed into the city, engaging in sporadic fighting while the AP reporters kept filing their copy. Loading It was about 2.30pm when they heard the rubber sandals outside the office, and the two NVA soldiers burst in, one with an AK-47 assault rifle swinging from his shoulder, the other with a Russian pistol holstered on his belt. To their shock, the soldiers were accompanied by Ky Nhan, a freelance photographer who worked for the AP, who proudly announced himself as a long-time member of the Viet Cong. 'I have guaranteed the safety of the AP office,' Arnett recalled the normally reserved photographer saying. 'You have no reason to be concerned.' As Arnett, Esper and Franjola pored over the map with the two NVA soldiers, they chatted through an interpreter about the attack on Saigon, which had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City as soon as it fell. The interview with the two soldiers turned to the personal, and the young men showed the reporters photos of their families and girlfriends, telling them how much they missed them and wanted to get home. 'I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans – we're all the same,' Esper said. 'People have girlfriends, they miss them, they have the same fears, the same loneliness, and in my head I'm tallying up the casualties, you know nearly 60,000 Americans dead, a million North Vietnamese fighters dead, 224,000 South Vietnamese military killed, and 2 million civilians killed. And that's the way the war ended for me.'
The Age
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Age
How a can of Coke and day-old cake led to iconic photo that went around the world
By 1975, the AP's bureau had shrunk as well, and as the North Vietnamese Army and its allied Viet Cong guerilla force in the south pushed towards Saigon, most staff members were evacuated. Arnett, Esper and Franjola volunteered to stay behind, anxious to see through to the end what they had committed so many years of their lives to covering – and conspiring to ignore New York if any of their managers got the jitters and ordered them to leave at the last minute. 'I saw it from the beginning, I wanted to see the end,' Esper said. 'I was a bit apprehensive and frightened, but I knew that if I left, the rest of my life I would have been second-guessing myself.' On April 30, 1975, the monsoon rains had arrived and Arnett watched in the early morning hours from the slippery roof of the AP's building as helicopters evacuated Americans and selected Vietnamese from the embassy four blocks away. After catching a few hours of sleep, he awoke at 6.30am to the loud voices of looters on the streets. An hour later, from the rooftop of his hotel, he watched through binoculars as a small group of US marines that had accidentally been left behind clambered aboard a Sea Knight helicopter from the roof of the embassy – the last American evacuees. He called it in to Esper in the office, and the story was in newsrooms around the world before the helicopter had cleared the coast. 'I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans – we're all the same.' George Esper, AP journalist Franjola and Arnett then took to the streets to see what was going on, while Esper manned the desk. When they got to the US Embassy, a mob of people were grinning and laughing as they looted the building – a sharp contrast to the desperation of people the day before hoping to be evacuated. 'On a pile of wet documents and broken furniture on the back lawn, we find the heavy bronze plaque engraved with the names of the five American soldiers who died in the attack on the embassy in the opening hours of the Tet Offensive in 1968,' Arnett recalled in an email detailing the day's events. 'Together we carry it back to the AP office.' At 10.24am, Arnett was writing the story of the embassy looting when Esper heard on Saigon Radio that South Vietnam had surrendered, and immediately filed an alert. 'Esper rushes to the teleprinter and messages New York, and soon receives the satisfying news that AP is five minutes ahead of UPI with the surrender story,' Arnett said, citing AP's biggest rival at the time, United Press International. 'In war or peace, the wire services place a premium on competition.' Esper then dashed outside to try and gather some reaction from South Vietnamese soldiers to the news of the capitulation, and came across a police colonel standing by a statue in a main square. 'He was waving his arms, 'fini, fini', you know, 'it's all over, we lost',' Esper remembered. 'And he was also fingering his holstered pistol and I figured, this guy is really crazy, he will kill me, and after 10 years here with barely a scratch, I'm going to die on this final day.' Suddenly, the colonel did an about-face, saluted the memorial statue, drew his pistol and shot himself in the head. Shaken, Esper ran back to the bureau, up the four flights of stairs to the office and punched out a quick story on the incident, his hands trembling as he typed. Stories flow as Saigon falls Back on the streets, Franjola, who died in 2015, was nearly sideswiped by a Jeep packed with men brandishing Russian rifles and wearing the black Viet Cong garb. Arnett then saw a convoy of Russian trucks loaded with North Vietnamese soldiers driving down the main street and scrambled back into the office. ''George,' I shout, 'Saigon has fallen. Call New York',' Arnett said. 'I check my watch. It's 11.43am.' Over the next few hours, more soldiers, supported by tanks, pushed into the city, engaging in sporadic fighting while the AP reporters kept filing their copy. Loading It was about 2.30pm when they heard the rubber sandals outside the office, and the two NVA soldiers burst in, one with an AK-47 assault rifle swinging from his shoulder, the other with a Russian pistol holstered on his belt. To their shock, the soldiers were accompanied by Ky Nhan, a freelance photographer who worked for the AP, who proudly announced himself as a long-time member of the Viet Cong. 'I have guaranteed the safety of the AP office,' Arnett recalled the normally reserved photographer saying. 'You have no reason to be concerned.' As Arnett, Esper and Franjola pored over the map with the two NVA soldiers, they chatted through an interpreter about the attack on Saigon, which had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City as soon as it fell. The interview with the two soldiers turned to the personal, and the young men showed the reporters photos of their families and girlfriends, telling them how much they missed them and wanted to get home. 'I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans – we're all the same,' Esper said. 'People have girlfriends, they miss them, they have the same fears, the same loneliness, and in my head I'm tallying up the casualties, you know nearly 60,000 Americans dead, a million North Vietnamese fighters dead, 224,000 South Vietnamese military killed, and 2 million civilians killed. And that's the way the war ended for me.'
