carriers

Can prepaid carriers quench consumers' smartphone thirst?

Relief is a little iffy for contract-free customers thirsting for smartphones.

Weak quarterly earnings for prepaid carriers, like leader MetroPCS, TracFone, and Cricket-owner Leap Wireless, are making the ability of these second-tiered carriers to act effectively as alternative smartphone providers to the big-four operators a little murkier.

Why? As CNET Senior Writer Roger Cheng noted, the overall growth of tier-two customers is slowing--even dropping, in Cricket's case--and in addition, smartphone-seekers appear to be signing on to other options, including prepaid plans with the major carriers like T-Mobile, or dropping down to government-subsidized feature phones in response to financial … Read more

Rumor: iPhone 5 out for carrier testing

As the rumor mill surrounding the impending release of Apple's iPhone 5 continues to churn, wireless carriers find themselves in the mix, reportedly testing the latest version of the iPhone for network compatibility and stability.

The Guardian (U.K.) has filed a report saying that its sources claim that carriers have received the highly secure boxes that contain the iPhone 5 testing units from Apple.

"The next iPhones go for their testing inside locked and sealed boxes so that the carriers can carry out checks on their network compatibility in their labs."

The boxes are rarely opened … Read more

Ask Maggie: On Amtrak Wi-Fi and Droid Bionic

Internet access on the go for business travelers is like water to a fish; it's a necessity.

So it's not surprising that thousands of passengers who travel up and down the Northeast corridor on Amtrak's Acela Express train are ready to pull their hair out when the free Wi-Fi is so sluggish it brings their productivity to a halt. In this week's Ask Maggie, I offer an explanation for the painfully slow crawl that is known as Wi-Fi on the Acela. And I offer some hope that things might get better as new 4G wireless networks … Read more

Verizon edges out T-Mobile, AT&T in customer care

For the past few years, T-Mobile and Verizon have traded the crown for customer care. This time, Verizon has again snatched that title, according to data from J.D. Power and Associates' semiannual survey, which was released today.

Verizon Wireless tallied a score of 770 out of a 1,000 possible points, just 4 points ahead of T-Mobile, with 766. Sprint followed with a total of 752 points, and AT&T ranked just behind, with … Read more

Report: China Telecom to offer iPhone this year

Apple's reach in China could soon be growing.

Citing anonymous sources, Reuters reported today that China Telecom will be getting Apple's iPhone by the end of this year. The move would make Apple's cell phone available to an additional 106 million subscribers.

Apple already offers the iPhone in China through carrier China Unicom. The two companies inked a three-year agreement to offer the device there, beginning with the iPhone 3G in 2009. The carrier got the iPhone 4, Apple's latest generation of the device, less than a year later.

In a research note to investors this … Read more

Ericsson demos faster LTE speeds of almost 1Gbps

Ericsson yesterday demoed a new version of LTE technology that's 10 times faster than today's current standard and delivers speeds of nearly 1 gigabit per second.

Conducted in the company's home base of Sweden, the demonstration of LTE Advanced was presented to the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS). Using existing commercial hardware, Ericsson was able to use a test frequency provided by the PTS to show off certain features of LTE Advanced for the first time.

One feature of LTE Advanced that Ericsson demonstrated was carrier aggregation, which combines signals from multiple carriers to achieve a … Read more

How a 3G iPod Touch could change the game

The iPod Touch has always played second fiddle to the iPhone. Most people can't even get the name right. More often than not I hear it referred to as the "iTouch." When asked to describe it, though, the explanation is invariably the same: "It's an iPhone without the phone."

The truth is that the iPod Touch lacks much more than just the iPhone's ability to dial phone numbers. It's missing a GPS receiver, a high-quality camera, a native text messaging app, and most of all, it's missing a cellular data connection. Still, considering that the device sells for as little as $200 with no contract and offers 90 percent of the iPhone's features, it seems inevitable that Apple would close the gap some day by integrating 3G.

We've seen products like the ZTE Peel attempt to address the iPod's lack of 3G, but the result is bulky and still burdens you with a two-year contract. The same goes for MiFi-style 3G/4G puck solutions. They're inelegant, require separate charging, and always come with a contract attached.

Will 2011 be the year Apple integrates 3G into the iPod Touch? The skeptic in me thinks that no carrier would agree to it and that Apple wouldn't cannibalize iPhone sales to make a 3G iPod Touch happen. But then again, the steps the company has made with the iPad's data plan, and the advancements it has shown for iOS 5, set the stage perfectly for just such a product.… Read more

O2 snubs PlayBook over 'customer experience' issue

Today is the first time customers in the U.K. can walk into a store and buy Research In Motion's new tablet, the PlayBook. Turns out, not every wireless carrier in the country is enthusiastic about offering it to customers.

U.K. carrier O2 made waves today when it sent e-mails to customers who had previously inquired about the PlayBook saying it "would not be selling" RIM's tablet. The reason, O2 said, is "unfortunately there are some issues with the end to end customer experience," according to an e-mail seen by Engadget.

An O2 … Read more

5 reasons an unlocked iPhone is important

The quiet release of an unlocked iPhone by Apple yesterday marked an important chapter in the history of a device that's gone on to become an enormous part of the company's business.

When Apple first launched the iPhone, the carrier component was one of the biggest parts of the story. Apple had wrangled back control over the software on the device, yet U.S. customers were relegated to AT&T, a situation that persisted until this year with the release of a CDMA iPhone for Verizon's network. Now, you can get an iPhone on 200 carriers … Read more

Has text messaging peaked?

Wireless carriers could face some serious trouble if emerging trends in text messaging continue, a new report from the Wall Street Journal contends.

Citing a recent study from the CTIA, the Journal pointed out that 1 trillion text messages were sent in the U.S. during the second half of 2010. That number, while impressive, was up just 8.7 percent compared to the first half of 2010, representing the smallest gain ever in SMS use.

For the top two carriers in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T, things are even more disconcerting. According to Journal, the average … Read more