Wireless Carrier | featured news

Federal, state, and local law enforcement requested about 1.3 million cell phone records from wireless carriers in 2011. It's the first time cell phone carriers have reported on the staggering surveillance numbers. Millions of innocent Americans are having their privacy invaded via the dragnet requests.

Verizon’s new data plans announced on Tuesday are expected to be followed by others in the industry as wireless firms focus their attention on charges for Internet data, according to analysts... The new plans, to launch June 28, are expected to motivate families to get more devices onto a single plan, according to analyst Craig Moffett, of Sanford C. Bernstein. That business strategy benefits the biggest wireless carriers — AT&T and Verizon Wireless — and presents new problems for competitors trying to chip away at those firms’ dominance.

Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest cellphone company, is dropping nearly all of its phone plans in favor of pricing schemes that encourage consumers to connect their non-phone devices, like tablets and PCs, to Verizon's network.

America’s largest wireless service provider plans to cut 1,700 jobs by offering its technicians and call center employees buyouts. Verizon Communications announced last week that it would reduce its nationwide workforce by 1 percent, and if enough workers don’t accept the buyouts, it will resort to involuntary layoffs. Verizon paid chief executive Lowell C. McAdam more than $22.5 million in 2011, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of executive compensation.

Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be launched by all of the Big 4 national U.S. wireless carriers this month, starting at $199, the phone maker said Monday.

U.S. consumers have had their fill of expensive, contract-based phone plans. Figures from T-Mobile USA on Thursday, added to earlier reports from other companies, indicate that the U.S. wireless industry lost subscribers from contract-based plans for the first time in the first quarter. Contract-based plans are the most lucrative ones for phone companies. The industry default over the past several decades, they account for the vast majority of revenue at the big phone companies.

When Verizon Wireless started selling the iPhone, AT&T sounded a defiant note, saying that its customers would remain loyal. A year later, it's clear that the Verizon iPhone has crimped AT&T's stride. Verizon had little problem attracting new customers before it started selling the iPhone. In fact, it was the only wireless carrier that managed to keep up with AT&T's iPhone-fueled growth.

AT&T Inc. on Monday said that it had agreed to sell a majority stake in its Yellow Pages business to the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital for $950 million.

Verizon and AT&T have agreed to stop “cramming” consumers' telephone bills with unauthorized third-party charges, Sen. Jay Rockefeller announced Wednesday. The move comes after a Senate investigation revealed last year that consumers were hit with $10 billion in fraudulent charges due to the practice over the past five years.

AT&T is in talks to sell a majority stake in its Yellow Pages business to Cerberus, in a deal that would value the business at as much as $1.5 billion. TPG has also held talks about buying the business.