Consumers win as AT&T backs off on data throttling
AT&T is publicly conceding defeat after treating its long-time customers like second-class citizens, merely because they have an unlimited data plan. On Thursday the company announced changes to its throttling policy, boosting the throttling level to 3GB for customers using the HSPA+ network, and 5GB for those on its LTE network.
There is no other way to describe this than a win for consumers. AT&T was left to defend an untenable position where current customers paid $30 for 3GB of unthrottled data, yet long-time customers paying the same price were essentially cut off at 2GB. The position has already gotten the company sued once, and a judge found AT&T's practice unfair and awarded the plaintiff $850.
China is 'ground zero of efficiency,' says chipmaker Marvell
On Friday, I talked about ZTE's "China First" strategy and how it paid off with big revenue gains at the end of 2011. Monday, chipmaker Marvell revealed the new products in its own "China First" strategy in the mobile data modem space: new Time Division data modems for the bleeding edge Chinese network protocols: TD-HSPA+ and TD-LTE
The products include the PXA1202, which Marvell bills as the world’s first Release 8 TD-HSPA+ modem, capable of 8.2 Mbps downlink speeds; and the PXA1802, a multimode TD-LTE modem chipset for TD-SCDMA and LTE markets capable of downlink speeds up to 150 Mbps.
Guess what? Tiered cellular data plans don't reduce usage!
The practice of data speed throttling and the reasons behind it look less sanguine now following the results of a study showing that on average there is little difference between the data usage of the top five percent on both tiered and unlimited plans. So now what's the excuse?
I have been beating the drum against throttling for much of this month on the pages of BetaNews. First was my response to AT&T's unfair treatment of long-time customers. Then Cisco came out a week later with a study that shows consumers are using more data than the carriers lead us to believe. AT&T of course responded to this, blaming you for its bandwidth issues.
'China first' strategy pays off for ZTE
According to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC) earlier this month, the top five mobile phone vendors, in order, are Nokia, Samsung, Apple, LG, and ZTE, with Nokia and LG gradually ceding their positions to the other three.
ZTE was actually almost tied for fourth place with LG, with fewer than a million units separating their shipment numbers. Now, market consulting firm Frost and Sullivan has said ZTE not only significantly grew in consumer device market share, but it exploded its sales revenues in network equipment as well.
As Google pulls out of Clearwire, is there anybody left to save it?
Google plans to unload its stake in WiMAX venture Clearwire, selling its 6.5 percent stake at $1.60 per share or about $47 million. As a result of the sale, Google will take a substantial hit on its initial investment: the Mountain View, Calif. search company dumped about $500 million into Clearwire in 2008.
With Google headed for the exits, Clearwire is now sent scrambling to find new investors to continue bulding out its planned LTE network. At the moment it appears that fellow investor Intel will grab up some of the shares, but in the end a large portion may make it back on to the open market.
Losing customers fast, T-Mobile USA looks to calm investor's nerves
With the AT&T merger in the rear view mirror, T-Mobile USA faces new problems: mounting customer losses and a lack of clarity on its future path. This uncertainty is a negative for the company, and the carrier attempted to allay some fears on Thursday.
Late Wednesday during its earnings release, T-Mobile blamed the launch of the iPhone 4S from its three biggest competitors as the primary reason behind a massive number of defections in the fourth quarter. The carrier lost a net of 706,000 customers, which also dragged revenues down 3.3 percent to $20.6 billion.
Verizon 4G LTE is down again
Verizon Wireless customers coast to coast are taking to social media and the company's support forums to complain about yet another nationwide 4G LTE outage, at least the fourth in the past three months. The issues started sometime early Wednesday morning and continues through press time.
"VZW is investigating customer issues in connecting to the 4GLTE data network. 3G data, voice and text services are operating reliably", the company writes in a tweet mid-morning on Wednesday. Reports are widespread: outages are reported in Detroit, Phoenix, Indianapolis, and Columbus, Ohio among other locations.
AT&T's excuse for data throttling: You
Cisco's release of its study on mobile data usage proves that throttling at 2GB is not going to work. AT&T's response to it? Woe is us! Data's increasing exponentially, and we're trying!
AT&T says that its data traffic increased 20,000 percent since 2007, with the amount of bandwidth consumed doubling every year since then. "The growth is now driven primarily by smartphones", senior executive vice president John Donovan writes in a blog post. "Add to that new customer additions and the continuing trend of upgrades from feature phones to smartphones, and you have a wireless data tsunami".
Cisco shows why mobile data throttling is a load of crap
If you hate wireless data throttling, thank Cisco for making your argument against the practice that much easier. The telecommunications company says it expects at least 100 million smartphone users to exceed one gigabyte of data monthly in 2012. That is a large group of users with significant data needs.
But wait -- wasn't I just told that the average user doesn't need gigabytes of data, you ask? Yes you were: I wrote about it last week as part of the bigger story of AT&T's plan to screw its longtime customers with unlimited data plans, and the topic has been covered ad nauseum by the tech media at large for years.
Screw you, too, AT&T
Long-time iPhone users, take note. If you have unlimited data, you want to read this: the company will throttle you for more than 2GB of usage in any given month. Do you feel better now about the thousands you've handed over to AT&T for the past several years?
Users are alerted to the throttling via text message. "Your data usage is among the top 5 percent of users. Data speeds for the rest of your bill cycle may be reduced", it reads.
The new meets the old: First LTE to CDMA VoIP handover complete
Qualcomm on Thursday finally came forward to announce an LTE milestone that took place at the end of December: the first voice call to be seamlessly handed over from an LTE mobile network to a WCDMA network using Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC). This is an important milestone because SRVCC lets the LTE-based VoIP/IMS packets be transferred to the legacy circuit-switched domain, unifying the old mobile networks with the new.
This has been one of the big challenges for LTE VoIP for the last four years, and the industry was exploring SRVCC alongside a technique called Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) to offer continuous voice over LTE service. With the ability to hand over connections, VoIP subscribers can roam between LTE and other wireless networks without disconnection.
Thanks, Verizon! Shared data plans are long overdue
We've all been sharing minutes in our family plans. This worked in an age where our phones were dumb, and the most we did was text and occasionally check the web. Times have changed though with all these smartphones in the wild, but the carriers have not. Where's our shared data plans?
Color me shocked, but Verizon is joining that charge. The nation's largest carrier said last month that it was introducing pooled data plans this year, and a new post on Engadget indicates this may be coming sooner than we think. A new section lists "account level data plans". Like your minutes you pay an account level charge, then a per line charge.
Capture and securely store WiFi passwords with Lastpass 1.90.1
Online password manager Lastpass has been updated to version 1.90.1. The cross-platform, multi-browser plug-in, also available as a separate download for 64-bit versions of Windows, adds one major new feature to this release: the ability to capture and securely store WiFi passwords for transferring to other computers.
The password manager allows users to securely store all their various online login details through one convenient, central location, encouraging them to use strong, unique passwords for each site they frequent for security purposes.
AT&T, T-Mobile look to FCC to approve spectrum transfer
AT&T and T-Mobile filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission to gain approval for the transfer of spectrum, a stipulation agreed to as part of the breakup of the planned merger between the two companies. The value of the spectrum is about $1 billion, and is in addition to $3 billion in cash that AT&T will pay T-Mobile.
The nation's fourth largest carrier has repeatedly said it needs additional spectrum in order to compete with its larger rivals as they look towards 4G. T-Mobile is also due a favorable roaming agreement from AT&T, which would also address criticisms of the carrier over lack of coverage.
Don't look now, but 5G may be right around the corner
Even with a majority of wireless consumers not even using 4G technology yet, the wireless industry is already looking to next-generation technologies. The International Telecommunications Union this week awarded both LTE-Advanced and WiMAX-Advanced the "official" designation of IMT-Advanced.
The last major update to the standard was in 2000, when the ITU adopted the umbrella standards for 3G. In order to be designated 3G, a service had to provide peak data rates of at least 200Kbps. With IMT-Advanced speeds increase at least one hundred times, says the governing body.
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