After AT&T had abandoned its unlimited data offering just before the launch of the iPhone 4, the carrier allowed customers already on the unlimited offering to retain their plans while offering new tiered plans to new subscribers. At the time, AT&T just cautioned that it would begin to throttle users who were in the top [...]
T-Mobile USA, the nation’s fourth largest wireless provider and the carrier known for unlimited data plans with throttling in lieue of overages, is now further restricting its ‘unlimited’ plan offerings when users roam domestically. Unlike international roaming, domestic roaming occurs when a customer stays in the U.S. but enters a geographic area where T-Mobile may [...]
According to a leaked screenshot to Engadget, Verizon Wireless may be getting ready to deploy its family shared data plans soon. The carrier had promised the feature would be coming this year, and now it looks like employees are seeing the feature in their online training material. It appears that sharing data would cost $9.99 [...]
Are consumers rushing out to get LTE phones for the same reason they run out to get the next camera with more megapixels when the sensor isn’t any better? Are they running out to get a LTE capable phone for the same reason they upgraded the CPU in their desktop from a 1.33 GHz to [...]
Sprint is in the midst of a transition from 4G WiMax technology to LTE to drive the future of its mobile broadband product line and services. While the Now Network remains the sole carrier of the four largest national carriers to offer truly unlimited, unthrottled 4G data plans, it’s still unclear if the same unlimited [...]
After speculations that Asus would be introducing a 3G GSM variant of its Transformer Prime flagship quad-core tablet this Spring, Asus is coming forward and saying that no such model is part of its roadmap. Users looking to obtain the Transformer Prime will have to settle for the WiFi-only model, which will be available in [...]
In addition to introducing the LTE editions of the Galaxy Nexus and the LG Viper for its network, Sprint also showed off a mobile hotspot for its LTE network that it is building out. The Sierra Wireless Tri-Network Hotspot will be compatible with Sprint’s 3G CDMA Network, the legacy 4G WiMax network, the 4G LTE [...]
When Verizon Wireless had launched 4G LTE devices around a year ago, those devices commanded premium price points, launching at around $250-$300. Thanks to the maturing 4G LTE technology, more carriers into the LTE space, and competition, we’re beginning to see prices for devices softening, which will hopefully lead to more adoption of LTE devices [...]
There were rampant reports that Sprint, despite its commercials and prior statements, would begin throttling customers on its network. Dow Jones reported that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says that customers who are in the top 1% of data hogs will be throttled, or capped on their download and upload speeds. Hesse and Sprint’s PR team [...]
With each successive generation of iPhone hardware and iOS software, Apple mobile users are finding it increasingly easier to consume more data. Thanks in part not just to the availability of digital content ranging from apps, ebooks, digital magazines and newspapers, audiobooks, podcasts, videos, TV shows, movies, and more, the upgrades that carriers like AT&T [...]
Set back by a number of recent 4G LTE outages that is marring Verizon Wireless’ reputation as ‘America’s Most Reliable Network’–per the company’s previous marketing campaigns surrounding its 3G network–the carrier has finally gone on record to explain what is happening, what it is doing to prevent the problems in the future, and what it’s [...]
MVNO mobile service provider Republic Wireless, which launched with a strings-attached fair use unlimited offering for $20 per month, entered a lot of heat when customers and press found out that its definition of unlimited voice and data meant unlimited over WiFi. The company has heard user complaints and has changed its policies in a gesture [...]
Confirming our earlier San Francisco, California speed tests for Verizon’s launched 4G LTE network against AT&T’s un-announced soft-launched LTE network in the city’s downtown shopping center, it appears that AT&T’s LTE speeds are edging out Verizon’s speeds. The result, even in its early stages, is quite impressive as we–and perhaps the rest of the geek [...]
In a consolation prize for AT&T, which was forced to withdraw its bid from acquiring rival T-Mobile USA after opposition from consumer groups, rivals, and the government, the carrier was granted FCC approval for acquiring the 700 MHz spectrum owned by Qualcomm that was used for the now defunct FloTV service. As part of its [...]
In the past, GSM owners of the iPhone could either choose to stick with AT&T for 3G HSPA coverage, or opt to unlock their devices through whatever means and use it on T-Mobile’s more economical plans in the U.S. on 2G EDGE service. Now, the nation’s fourth largest carrier is making the choice a little [...]
U.S. wireless carrier Sprint is updating its latest BlackBerry Bold 9930 and BlackBerry Torch 9850 smartphones to BlackBerry OS 7.1, which brings mobile hotspot capabilities to these new BlackBerry devices on Sprint’s 3G Now Network. Mobile hotspot capabilities would allow these BlackBerry phones to share their 3G mobile broadband connections over WiFi to other WiFi-capable [...]
I took the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket for AT&T’s 4G network out for a test drive in San Francisco, California earlier today to see what speeds AT&T’s unannounced but soft-launched 4G LTE network was delivering. After hearing early chatter that AT&T had already begun to soft launch its LTE network in San Francisco, California, [...]
LightSquared, which counts big names like Sprint and Best Buy as some of its partners, is looking to deliver 4G LTE mobile broadband services to both its own customers and to customers of others who may purchase the wholesale service. The company recently made bold statements, promising reductions in customers’ bills for data charges by [...]
Though Verizon Wireless executives have hinted about family data plans, or shared data plans, in the past, CEO Lowell McAdam has finally gone on record to give the initiative a launch timeline sometime in 2012. Under family data plans, users with multiple data-hungry devices–including tablets, embedded computers and notebooks, netbooks, USB modems, MiFi and mobile [...]
T-Mobile USA is preparing an update for its HTC Radar 4G Windows Phone 7 device that would bring a number of new features to the smartphone, including the much requested Internet sharing capability known as tethering. Though tethering was baked into Windows Phone 7 Mango, Microsoft had left the inclusion of such feature up to [...]
File sharing site Tucows is planning to launch its own mobile virtual cellular network called Ting, which will piggyback on Sprint’s network. Ting plans to offer tiered voice, messaging, and data without contracts nor overages. The way the system works is that if a customer uses more voice or data than their plan allocates for, [...]
Since netting the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S on its network, Sprint customers have complained that the iPhone runs slower on the Now Network than Verizon’s, which operates a similar CDMA/EV-DO 3G network, and AT&T’s, which runs a GSM/HSPA+ 3G/4G network. The good news is that Sprint is listening to vocal customers and the carrier [...]
Joining the MiFi from Novatel and Overdrive franchise from Sierra Wireless, Sprint is launching its own branded mobile hotspot router on its 3G/4G WiMax network in the form of the Sprint Express. The device was leaked before and was thought, at the time, to be a smartphone, but it is a compact mobile hotspot router [...]
While Sprint is still pushing on for unlimited data plans on phones and smartphones, the Now Network has unveiled lower pricing and more tiers to bring mobile broadband data within the reach of consumers who are eyeing tablets, netbooks, notebooks, and mobile hotspot routers with embedded 3G/4G chips on the carrier’s network. Sprint claims that [...]
In a recent InStat survey of 1,208 respondents, 75% of those polled say that 4G is an important feature when considering their next smartphone, but those same respondents also do not truly understand what 4G really is. The idea of 4G has been blundered by the marketing departments of various U.S. carriers that the definition [...]
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse made the bold claim that the iPhone, newly added onto the Now Network, is more efficient at handling data than the carrier’s popular line of Android smartphones. In an earnings call, Hesse says that the iPhone uses about half of network resources compared to Apple’s rival smartphone platform, Android, and it [...]
Sprint, the nation’s third largest carrier, will be making its transition from its 4G WiMax technology to the broadly used LTE network for 4G mobile broadband in 2013. LTE has been adopted by Sprint’s larger rivals, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, but Sprint’s employment of LTE Advanced, rather than LTE, should help the Now Network achieve [...]
Verizon Wireless may be close to implementing a family or shared data plan, doing for data plans what wireless carriers are now doing for family voice minutes. Essentially, it is speculated that Verizon Wireless will soon offer a bucket of data, where consumers can choose on which device(s) they would want to consume that monthly [...]
A number of new devices were outed on Sprint’s inventory computer system. A leaked screen shot of the system shows that two new devices from Huawei and one laptop from Lenovo will be headed to the Now Network, though at this point it’s unclear if those devices will be 3G, 4G WiMax, or dual-mode 3G/4G [...]
Following today’s announcement of the iPhone 4S by Tim Cook and team, we now know that Apple will create one iPhone model with CDMA and GSM radios built-in that can either be used on AT&T or Verizon and Sprint in the U.S. Though Apple describes the iPhone 4S to have 4G-like speeds, the iPhone-maker is [...]
It looks like AT&T is making good on its promise that if you’re among the top 5% of data users on its network, you’ll most likely be throttled to reduced speeds for the duration of your billing cycle. The carrier had stated that the policy change will go into effect at the beginning of October [...]
As smartphone ownership grows, faster 4G LTE networks go live and apps made for high-speed data arrive on our phones — the average amount of data used will jump. Today, the average smartphone users chugs through just 15MB of data a day, but by 2020, the average user could be plowing through 1GB of data [...]
Speaking at a recent technology conference, Verizon director of network technology Praveen Atreya says that the next-generation of 4G LTE is already on the carrier’s road map for the future. After Verizon finishes its deployment of 4G LTE across the nation, the carrier will be upgrading its network infrastructure to the faster LTE-Advanced technology. Rival Clearwire, [...]
Users of Verizon’s 3G network with unlimited data and who consume an excessive amount of data downloads and uploads each month are now subjected to throttling. The move by Verizon Wireless follows the steps of its rival AT&T and the carrier, like AT&T, claims that this latest change will only affect about 5% of its [...]
Microsoft has ambitious hopes and dreams for Windows 8, its next computing platform that’s designed not only to compete with the rising popularity of Apple’s mobile iPad tablet and the plethora of ARM-based Android slates, but also to mark the next generation of PC computing in a post-PC world. With declining PC sales, due in [...]
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12 iPhone Photography Accessories – Lenses, Stands, Filters and More To Enhance Your Photos
Apple made a lot of shutterbugs happy with the camera upgrades in the iPhone 4S — more pixels and a bigger sensor means an even better “best camera” to carry everywhere. Want to take the iPhone even further than that? With some additional accessories and apps you can turn this device into a mobile photo and video studio worthy of your enhanced skills.
Droid RAZR MAXX First Impressions and Unboxing Video
The Droid RAZR is just months old, but Motorola has already seen fit to introduce another mmber to the RAZR family, the Droid RAZR MAXX. The Droid RAZR (review) was known for a super thin design and Kevlar back, but it lacked in the battery life department. We saw 11-12 hours of battery life in [...]
The Next Nexus: What It Needs to Stay Ahead of the Pack
Late last year, Google and Samsung released the third rendition of the Nexus smartphone. The first of course was the HTC-made Nexus One which arrived in 2010 to great fan fare. Then, in late part of 2010, the Samsung-made Nexus S launched which eventually became available in two variants, the regular Nexus S and the [...]
iHome iB40 Headphones: Decent Sound at Budget Price
If you’re looking for a budget set of headphones that still produce decent sound and rich bass, then you should give the iHome iB40 Headphones a look. They’re comfortable, have an understated look, and produce good sound for the money. I hate ear buds! When I’m around the house and want to listen to some music [...]
Droid 4 Review: Incredible Keyboard, Awesome Speeds
The Droid 4 is the most recent of Motorola’s Droid line. The original Droid kicked off the Android revolution on Verizon, so it is good to see that the company is still thinking of users who want a physical keyboard. The Droid 4 marks the first time Motorola has included Verizon’s super fast 4G LTE [...]
Samsung Series 7 Slate Review: First Impressions
These days whenever someone mentions the word “Tablet” visions of the iPad or something similar dance in their heads. Not that long ago a tablet was something quite different: a Windows-based slate computer. Since the rise of the new idea of the tablet there have been a few Tablet PCs trying for relevance in an [...]
