Archive for: 1xrtt
In the market for a webOS device? What about kicking it up a notch to a more “mature” version of webOS in the form of a Palm Pre+ or Pixi+ ? If you had any reservations because of the price, drop it. Verizon is either feeling the webOS love or they have warehouse upon warehouse chock full of these things. Either way they’re dead set on moving as many webOS devices as possible. Don’t believe me? Well then, ask yourself if they are in fact aren’t desperate to sell sell sell, why would they feel the need to drop the Pre+ down to $49.99 w/ a new 2-year contract? The Pixi+ comes in even lower at $29.99 w/ a similar 2-year plan. At these prices, it would be utter stupidity to get any other version of webOS as Verizon’s offerings are now the cheapest, and by far the fastest.
I always wanted to give webOS at least some attention. Is now the time to do so? Anyone have new plans featuring webOS in their immediate future?
Precentral
It used to be that you only were rewarded if you actually accomplished something worthwhile. The better you did, the more compensation. Nowadays however, we live in the age of bank bailouts, auto bailouts, tax cuts for those who don’t need it and so on. Failure is the best business as it gets you the most money. Sad really.
Along those lines, when we hear the name “Sprint”, failure is generally an accepted word that follows quickly soon after. In their defense, Sprint has managed to at least slow down the bleeding of customers over that last quarter or two. But losing customers quarter after quarter is hardly a reason to celebrate, much less reward the CEO for “performance”.
So what exactly is the price of failure? In Sprint’s case — $12.3 million. Now, it’s important to note that isn’t an outright cash amount but instead the total amount of compensation when all things are taken into account. Things such as 401(k) contributions, private jet flights here, there, and everywhere, security services, etc., etc. It’s also worth highlighting that while this compensation for performance is still grossly high, it is down from the previous year to the tune of 13%. Progress, but still a long way to go.
Why highlight this? There’s no real need actually. But I figured since we still here offhand comments about various bailouts around various different industries, why not highlight an exchanging of cash that in much the same as the other examples, is a ridiculous case of lost priorities.
Think ‘ol Hesse should have been paid so much for failing to convince millions of people to jump on board with his company, much less even retain the customers he he currently has?
Cellular-News
Say what you will, 4G is coming this year to the masses (relatively). It’s going to be awesome. Sure, 1st gen products are usually just betas. But are you going to sit there and tell me you’re going to pass up a chance to pick up a 4G phone, whatever it may be, and be part of the “exclusive” first 4G crowd? I know I want to be. To me, and you, and probably a few others, Verizon’s late-2010 4G rollout is the beginning of exciting stuff. For AT&T, it’s another reason to cut the other guy down (as every carrier does).
In AT&T’s eyes, Verizon’s early lead doesn’t mean anything most notably because the phones themselves are going to suck. At least from the start. Big Blue goes on rationalizing their position saying that because of the insane power requirements for the blazing fast 4G waves, the phones will either (1) last 20 minutes on a charge when actually being used or (2) be “fat bricks”.
Now, the term “fat brick” is pretty relative as is “thin”. In the case of the iPhone 3G, I hear people constantly saying how they love how super thin it is and even would be interested in a thinner model. I guess I’m one of a dying breed who prefers my phone to be thicker than a piece of paper and not have to worry about snapping it in half when I sneeze on it. Apparently I’m old. Not to mention, holding these molecule thin phones is far from comfortable. I don’t have big hands — far from it — but clam handing these pieces of plastic day in and day out is starting to get annoying.
So, if Verizon’s first 4G phones are “fat bricks” — good. I could use a little mass in my mobile life. All too often manufacturers get fixated on jumping on this stupid thin is in bandwagon when doing something as simple as sticking a larger battery inside would add a much greater value. But I digress…
As we come upon the 4G rollout, I’ll happily sit back and bask in the limelight while holding my two fat bricks. Care to join me?
Think of a world where opposite beings such as T-Mobile and Sprint worked together? Weird isn’t it? The odd pairing might not be such an uncommon thing in the near future. In efforts to boost network capacity and resilience, T-Mobile is rumored to be in talks with Clearwire in a potential partnership. So far, Sprint has been the only major carrier to make use of Clearwire’s 4G wireless technology. The speed is there for sure. But having T-Mobile and Clearwire/Sprint more or less working together is, well, weird.
Sprint and T-Mobile in particular are competitors. Another thing to keep in mind is that T-Mobile, while not exactly “bleeding customers”, isn’t exactly booming. For Sprint, the outlook is even worse. Taking two under performing or stagnant companies and combining, them whether through a buyout or partnership isn’t exactly the best of choices for any party involved.
Through it all, the speed increases are hard to ignore. T-Mobile users in particular probably are blinded more so than Sprint users as they’re still fairly new to this whole high speed thing. Promises of leapfrogging ahead of the competition may seem like an awesome goal to rush towards. But partnering up with Sprint…? I just don’t see success at the end of that tunnel.
Phone Scoop > Reuters
At first, hearing a friend talk of a Verizon employee trying to encourage him to buy an iPad seems a bit odd with the whole AT&T 3G thing and all. Don’t forget that a 3G-less model is available. And how exactly is VZW tied in? MiFi. The little 3G/WiFi router hotspot that takes any VZW 3G connection and regurgitates it back to end users as gadget loving WiFi. Rehashing the past, many people have already accomplished such unholy matrimony’s with iPhone’s and MiFi’s, so it’s not too hard to see this stretching over to iPads.
Now you see — we can have our cake and eat it too! (That is if good tasting cake happens to come in the form of a slim glass and plastic tablet gadget). I can certainly applaud Verizon for making the best of the situation. They may not get direct income from iPad sales but buy golly, they’ll sure clean up shop after the shop keeper has gone home. Any iPad hopefuls suddenly have a lightbulb moment…looking at a possible Wifi-only iPad w/ VZW MiFi combo?
Electronista
[Image Source]
Whether you want to get overly technical and explain how LTE isn’t technically 4G or simply don’t care, begging on hands and knees for something faster to come along, one thing is for certain: we all want LTE. Article after article has been written, telling of how LTE will save the planet and maybe even aid in solving world peace. But how does it actually fare in real world scenarios? I mean, the on paper maximums show speeds as high as 100Mbps/50Mbps up/down respectively.
The debbie downer in the group will quickly point out that the real world speeds Verizon is seeing are far from their maximums (12Mbps down/5Mbps up constant | 40-50Mbps down/20-25Mbps up peak). Such views while valid, are rather short sighted. I mean, if you find yourself complaining about data speeds that are several times faster than what we poke along with right now, nothing will ever make you happy.
As for myself, I can’t wait to pick myself up a nice LTE data card late this year early next. Even at only12Mbps, mobile web browsing will be much, much faster.
Electronista
I’m sure many of you have heard about Skype’s buddy buddy deal with Verizon Wireless and the subsequent vanishing of Skype’s mobile apps in various mobile app stores. Windows Marketplace, Nokia Ovi Store, Apple App Store, Android Market — they all have seen Skype disappear/lose functionality/fail to gain new functionality within the last week. For instance, Apple’s Skype has long been promised to gain 3G VoIP support after Apple and AT&T finally got a few ducks to line up. After the announcement, that added 3G VoIP support is looking more and more distant. Even worse however is Nokia’s Ovi store which saw Skype get completely removed. When Venture Beat questioned Skype on the decision, a spokesperson had this to say:
Skype has made a decision in the United States to not promote the Skype for Symbian app through the Ovi Store. We did this so that we could drive more attention to the recently announced Skype and Verizon Wireless agreement. This was a marketing decision — plain and simple
Obviously, some large sums of marketing and sponsorship money traded hands, with Verizon paying rather hefty dough to get the top spot in Skype’s eyes. At first, Skype and Verizon both win. The VoIP market and mobile internet crazed world will gobble this up. But over the longer run, I see this deal hurting Skype more than it hurts. To be fair, the other mobile platforms highlighted above aren’t “losing” Skype. They’re just losing easy Skype downloads via their standalone app stores. Anyone will still be able to go to Skype via their mobile browser and download their platform’s respective Skype client. But how many “casual” mobile users out there will go to where everyone says the most and best apps are (again, their mobile platforms app store) and not see Skype? Most of those users won’t think to search outside of the app store. They’ll just download something else.
That right there is a bad, bad thing for Skype. With their new Verizon deal, they’re effectively making it many times harder to get their app and service on mobile devices. For a techie like your or I, we know countless sources for mobile apps and such. Farmer Joe off the street — not so much. It’s really disheartening to see a great VoIP service potentially sabotaging themselves all for some cash up front. Do you think Skype will continue their dominating position in the VoIP world, especially considering the mobile sphere? Or is Skype literally committing suicide by cutting off easy access to millions of customers?
How about some self horn tooting to round out the night, eh? Tonight’s grand display of self love is brought to you by Verizon Wireless. Mind you, their back patting session is could actually be warranted. With AT&T’s less than stellar year, Verizon has been boasting of not only being better coverage wise for 3G, but also being lightyears ahead of the competition when it comes to 4G. Specifically, Verizon claimed that by the end of 2010, 25-30 markets would be fully blanketed with 4G. By 2013: look for the entire 3G footprint to be converted to 4G. Will they deliver?
According to VZW’s CTO, Tony Melone, the 2010 4G goals are “looking better and better each day, not worse”. Well, someone sure is confident aren’t they? Cutting through the PR fluff, VZW does have a robust and massive 3G footprint, so the talk we’re hearing from them now concerning their next gen network is pretty plausible.
If something in the form of a “con” must be taken away from all of this, it’s the simple fact that these early 25-30 4G markets won’t see any form of 4G voice — it’s all data baby. Verizon is up front about it, saying that they’re unsure at the moment if the 4G network will be able to handle both data and voice. Kudos to VZW for not sugarcoating/lying about network capacity. Personally, I never actually “talk” on the phone. Text/email/IM is really the best/only way to get a hold of me. Many people are not like me however and live by the spoken word. Fair enough. Yak it up all you want. Just know that for the foreseeable future, voice traffic on VZW is strictly 3G.
That’s ok though, more 4G goodness for what really matters — data. 
Engadget
- February 24, 2010 2:40 pm
By the time we start seeing unannounced devices showing up in carriers’ retail inventory systems, an imminent launch of said product is usually a given. With the HTC Incredible in mind and it’s awesome Android goods stuffed inside, we can only wait…impatiently. For the record, the Incredible will become the new “flagship” Android device on Verizon once it drops in the near future. The biggest talking points of course being the 1GHz processor and Sense UI, giving Android a prettier, yet darker face.
While it’s not a concrete, “Hey, the Incredible is coming on *insert date here*”, it is nonetheless, another drop in the bucket. Any early Android adopters (read: Droid owners) going to say sayonara to the DROID in hopes of taking the new hotness for a ride?
BerryScoop
