Mobile, Data Usage | featured news

SBA Communications Corp. agreed to buy more than 3,200 cell tower sites from closely held TowerCo for $1.45 billion in cash and stock, as it looks to capitalize on the rising demand for wireless data services.

On Sunday, AT&T is reconfiguring its mobile data plans in way that will anger many customers but may actually please others. It’s raising its smartphone and tablet data plan rates, while simultaneously offering customers a better deal on the data they do consume.

You want it. You want it desperately. You want it desperately, but you don't even know what it is. Such is consumer desire for 4G data connectivity in mobile handsets. Call it proof positive that the phone carriers' marketing efforts have paid off -- this despite slow 4G infrastructure roll-outs, and actual 4G data rates that fall far, far below the promise of the 4G spec.

Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections, according to the Office of National Statistics.

Verizon Wireless plans to scrap its unlimited data plan for new smartphone subscribers beginning Thursday and replace it with monthly packages that range from $30 to $80.

An MSNBC investigative report, and related lawsuit, claims that AT&T has “systematically overstated” the data usage of iPhone and iPad customers. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, seeking class action status, hired an independent computer firm to compare the actual amount data used by iPhone and iPad customers with the amount that AT&T bills users for.

In time for the widely expected launch of a new iPhone model, carrier AT&T Inc. is pulling in the reins on data usage by its customers with smart phones and iPads....

AT&T says it has worked hard to improve its much-maligned third-generation (3G) network over the last eight months — erecting hundreds of new cell towers, using better-performing wireless spectrum, and souping up its cell sites across the country — and the results of our latest 13-city, 3G network performance tests suggest that the network has indeed undergone a drastic makeover.

AT&T said it will introduce "incentives" to encourage iPhone customers to cut back on data usage, as it battles growth in wireless traffic and perceptions of network problems.