Back when Sprint came out with their Simply Everything plans, I said that while it wouldn’t bring Sprint back into the black ink, it would at least appease heavy mobile users who are getting gouged by rising cellular plans. And as we look back on the past year or so that Sprint has had said plans, I was pretty much right. They really didn’t cause a massive influx of customers to the CDMA carrier. However, as Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T start capping and limiting plans, Sprint stands alone.
Alone until now that is. Some new marketing material for upcoming Verizon Wireless cell phone plans has made its way out into the open. Most surprisingly, not more than a few weeks after VZW announced their new capped data plans, a new $69.99 450-minute/Unlimited Text/Unlimited Data plan is revealed on this new flyer. (Paying for everything separate would cost $90+!) For families, there’s a $139.99 version that allows 2 lines to divvy up 1400 minutes while also enjoying the same unlimited text/unlimited data.
**As pointed out below, Sprint still has a leg up on Verizon as their $69.99 plan offers unlimited minutes regardless of carrier as well as unlimited texts and data.
Hopefully Verizon gets around to announcing and releasing these new plans sooner rather than later. Check out the full flyer after the jump…
We all knew it was coming — T-Mobile USA is joining the ranks of AT&T in actively marketing their data restriction policies. While all of the major US carriers have always maintained the right to cut you off if you plowed through a magical, unknown threshold. In the age of smartphone dominance, however, that limit is now finally being more clearly defined — albeit at absurdly low limits. But unlike AT&T’s overly expensive and restrictive data plans, T-Mobile actually does it right. Instead of employing a strict data cap, after which you’ll have to pay for extra data, T-Mobile is using a speed throttling approach.
Under the new plan, eclipsing 5GB in any one month will get your data rate chopped. From the sound of things, it’ll be pretty drastic to discourage further over eating. How much it’s throttled looks to be a little more ambiguous, with T-Mobile stating that it’ll be “based on your device”.
You know, AT&T has received quite a bit of flack in the past for less than stellar call quality, coverage, Customer Service…aww hell, pretty much everything we could count and keep track off. Naturally, sucking so bad so consistently means their bag of tricks has to be running low. Fortunately for them, a new bag has been found — AT&T has quietly raised their early upgrade fees for smartphones. Instead of having to pay the 2-year contract price + $75, under AT&T’s new changes you’ll have to pay the 2-year contract fee + $200! That’s…stupid. They reason that it is because of increased prices on these new fangled, more sophisticated smartphones everyone walks around with.
To some degree, I can understand their decision. If you’re only a few months into a contract and renew for a another new subsidized phone, AT&T hasn’t had time to recoup the cost from the first phone. However, correct me if I’m wrong, I thought you had to be at least 10-12 months into a 2-year contract to qualify for early upgrade. With that said, I would surely assume that 12+ months into a contract would provide ample monetary compensation for the initial subsidy of said phone. AT&T isn’t alone in their douchery, however. Verizon recently raised their cancellation fees citing these same “sophisticated phones” as well as bundling in nominal network upkeep and upgrades. (Mind you, network upkeep has nothing to do with a cancellation fee, nor should it be included in cancellation fees. It’s double dipping on VZW’s part. But that’s a battle for another day.)
Let us not forget that it’s AT&T. If there’s customers to be screwed and money to be stolen, AT&T will find it. You stay class Big Blue…
**The new early upgrade fees DO NOT apply to “basic and quick messaging phones” or the iPhone.
It’s a simple question brought up by a new survey whose results are pretty interesting, though not surprising. Specifically, the survey conducted by Credit Suisse asked users if they would switch to a different carrier if the iPhone became available on that carrier. The big news isn’t the 2% who said they’d switch to T-Mobile or the 3% who would jump ship for Sprint. Instead, the focal point is the 23% of respondents who claim to love Verizon and nothing more.
Surveys such as this have been conducted many times over the last few years, and yet each time I’m slightly amazed at how many people are only on AT&T for the iPhone. (Granted, I’m not loyal to any carrier. I go where the phone is.) With that said, I’d consider T-Mobile’s low score as somewhat inaccurate. A fair share of iPhone users are running unlocked iPhone’s on T-Mobile already, so they’re not in any rush. Nevertheless, it doesn’t have any substantial effect on the numbers — people want options for iPhone carriers. Come on Apple…
There’s out there, and then there’s truly out there in regards to ideas and crazy gadgets. Earphones/mp3 players that can be controlled with you eyes — don’t write them off just yet. In fact, they’ll soon be grouping an eyeball near you.
Thanks NTT DoCoMo, handless operation of your headphones and music will soon be a reality. Operation (leaving technical science out of it) is pretty cool, using the charge between your retina and cornea to determine what exactly it is that you want. Such things as blinking and looking different directions will control playback and volume.
Ya, that’s impressive. Now all I’m waiting for is the eye mounted lasers. Only then will my life be complete. Check out the vid below if you so desperately crave more.
Smartphones have the ability of usually being fairly customizable on the users’ end, allowing various configuration changes and other software tweaks. The biggest reason that such tinkering catches on however is generally dependent on the OS and hardware inside. Because of that, the ability to customize a device varies from handheld to handheld. But what if the typical notion of a smartphone were removed from the traditional plastic shell and shrunken down into a card no bigger than your standard SIM card?
Such is the task and goal behind the “Android SIM’. Shown off by SK Telecom at MWC, the Android SIM may not replace the high-end smartphones (yet), but it will make everything else below it obsolete. The real beauty is that the Android SIM features an integrated CPU, 1GB of memory, and of course, the Android OS — again, all on a SIM card! Impressed isn’t quite the right word…Geeked is more like it.
The big winners of such a card would be lower end phones since you could make them even cheaper by leaving out the processor, memory and OS and instead rely on these little cards to do all the heavy lifting. Such cards are not only cool because of what they can do, but what they’ll lead to. Just think, evolving this Android SIM even further can lead to other cool stuff such a stick on CPU’s, batteries, electrical plugs, etc. Now if I could only get a hold of a few of these…
The mobile internet is becoming an ever increasing see of video, pictures, audio, and all types of other junk thrown in. Come to think of it, the mobile internet is becoming a carbon copy of the traditional desktop internet. To many, that is a very good thing. For those still stuck browsing the mobile web on older smartphones and lesser featured phones with WAP browsers, the internet itself has turned into that infamous “bag of hurt”. Facebook feels your pain.
Today at MWC, Facebook developer Chamath Palihapitiya took the wraps off of “Facebook Zero” — an ultra slimmed down version of Facebook that removes all data intensive applications and features. It’s bare bones with barely anything more than text and colored hyper-links. But to some, that’s a plus. Besides the bird-eating data consuming user, Facebook Zero will also be pitched to carriers for free to offer up on a wider range of cellphones that don’t always benefit from the rich applications that define the smartphone segment.
Looking forward to the Facebook diet? Expect to see Facebook Zero rollout within the next couple of weeks.
How heavy of a smartphone user are you: light, average, heavy, dear god slow it down? For me, I’m always doing something on my phone. It’s the nature of the geek no doubt. At any given point, I’ve got at least half a dozen conversations going on, moderating comments, looking for new topics for articles, and whatever else tickles my fancy at that moment. It is those data intensive tasks and constant pinging of the network that kills smartphone batteries relentlessly. For some time, various groups and scientists have claimed that the next generation battery would save us from the wall outlet situation we face every day. But then it got me thinking, why is it always the batteries fault? Couldn’t the network be made more efficient?
Nokia Siemens Networks thought that very same thing. And when a bunch of scientists/developers/engineers clutter together in a room for long hours, pure geniusness is bound to come forth. And come forth it did.
CPC, or “Continuous Packet Connectivity” as it is called recently celebrated it’s first successful phone call between Nokia Siemens developers. The most interesting point of CPC is that once it’s integrated into a carriers HSPA+ network, battery life for end users on phones has been claimed to increase as much as 100% for data related tasks and up to 50% for voice related tasks.
The way it works is pretty simple and honestly I don’t know how or why it’s taken so long. As most of you know, even when your phone isn’t in the process of sending/receiving a call/voice traffic or any type of data traffic, the radio inside still beams out signals constantly telling itself where it’s at etc. etc. With the use of CPC’s 3GPP Release 7 protocol, (the “discontinuous transmission and reception method”) the device’s transmitter and receiver are shut off to preserve battery life. Supposedly, the end user won’t be able to tell any difference. Read that as basically saying you’ll still get calls, texts, twitter notifications, and so on instantly just as before. Except now your battery will last longer than three hours.
Sign me up! Hopefully cellular carriers see the huge benefits CPC can provide them as well as customer sand integrate this into future network upgrades.
Doesn’t 100% battery life increase without changing a single thing about you, your phone, or mobile habits sound nice?
If there’s one thing about wireless network tests, it’s that they’re constantly being conducted by various groups looking to disprove claims of their competitors while bolstering claims of their own. The last several months of my AT&T contract were hell. Dropped calls increased by day, signal strength was abysmal, and rounding out the trifecta was a trip to a University of Michigan football game when I couldn’t place a single call, text, or call up a web page all day — even with five bars — because the network was so taxed. So I switched to Verizon and got myself a Droid. O happy day. Did I make the right choice? Depends on how you look at the data provided by Root Wireless…
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