Electronics, Wireless Carrier | featured news

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.

As unlimited data plans fade away, services and applications are being designed to help users manage their consumption.

AT&T Inc. backed away from an unpopular service policy after smartphone subscribers complained that the company placed unreasonable limits on its "unlimited data" plans....

Verizon and AT&T will sell a version of the upcoming iPad that runs on their newest fourth-generation wireless networks, as the battle to cash in on big investments in mobile broadband heats up.

Mike Trang likes to use his iPhone 4 as a GPS device, helping him get around in his job. Now and then, his younger cousins get ahold of it, and play some YouTube videos and games.

Wireless carriers have us right where they want us. When there are only four significant national providers in the US, there’s only so much competition for our business. So when they all band together (even if only in mindset) and decide on a “new rule,” customers are forced to play along.

For the third time this month, Verizon Wireless is experiencing data service outages for some users of its 3G and 4G networks in various places around the country, according to customer reports.

AT&T acknowledged that it could not overcome opposition from the Obama administration to creating the nation’s biggest cellphone service provider. The company said in a statement that it would continue to invest in wireless spectrum, but could not overcome resistance from both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. It added that American wireless customers “will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled” by the regulators’ decisions.

Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and six other state attorneys general join the Justice Department's antitrust suit, say the deal would result in less competition in the wireless market.