In a new twist on old pre-paid data plans, WalMart and TruConnect have partnered to offer “Internet on the Go.” The service offers pre-paid 3G data in small buckets for use with a MiFi. The data you purchase never expires, so it’s attractive for occasional use. Read more »
Sprint wants its Nextel customers to move to its CDMA network so it can hasten the inevitable retirement its old iDEN systems. To coax customers over, Sprint is offering them three times the coverage they currently get with their Nextel phones. Read more »
InterDigital has been shopping its patent portfolio around for while, and on Monday it revealed it had a taker. Intel has scooped up 1700 of its patents for $375 million, bulking up the chipmaker’s intellectual property holdings in the increasingly critical mobile networking sector. Read more »
T-Mobile USA has a well-deserved reputation for having the hungriest smartphone users in mobile, but now it’s offering proof. The typical smartphone user on its network consumes an impressive 760 MB per month. For HSPA+ 42 smartphones that number increases to an astonishing 1.3 GB. Read more »
Verizon’s new “Share Everything” plans use one bucket of data for up to 10 devices on an account. Instead of buying a data plan for each device, one monthly charge covers voice, messages and data to be shared. And it will likely save you money. Read more »
France’s Bouygues Telecom is working with virtual hotspot network Devicescape to give its smartphone customers seamless access to 8 million open Wi-Fi access points globally, replicating – at least fractionally – one of the key differentiators Iliad’s Free Mobile has on the competition: a 4 million-node offload network. Read more »
Lenovo is taking a new approach to make its ThinkPad laptops more appealing to consumers and enterprises: Lenovo is also selling no-contract wireless data. Called Lenovo Mobile Access, the service provides an 3G connection to ThinkPads for as short as 30 minutes, costing $1.95. Read more »
It took 12 years for 3G technologies to touch half of the world’s population, but getting to 85 percent coverage will only take another five, according to wireless infrastructure vendor Ericsson. In addition, Ericsson projects LTE networks will cover half the globe’s population. Read more »
In a bid to encourage more customers to use their mobile phone as a wireless hotspot, Sprint has revamped its mobile hotspot tethering services on smartphones. There’s a new lower-priced plan but it will cost more per gigabyte. So will the new $50 plan. Read more »
Apple may be planning to add 3G data support for FaceTime on iOS devices, based on some recently published screenshots. Many have wanted FaceTime on a mobile broadband instead of Wi-Fi networks. But I’m not sold that it’s a good idea. Here’s why. Read more »
T-Mobile is the per GB charges for its no-contract data plans.The overall price of the low-capacity one week plan is now rising to $15, but customers it provides 3x the amount of broadband. There is also a new middle-tier plan, making for three monthly plan options. Read more »
This probably won’t shock you, but tablets connected to 3G and 4G networks consume a lot more data than their smartphone equivalents. However, on Tuesday video optimization vendor Bytemobile reported exactly how much: iPads eat up three times more data than iPhones over the cellular network. Read more »
The first official casualty reports emerged this week in Free Mobile’s price war against Frances’ mobile powers that be. Orange reported a 615,000 subscriber loss. But while people are flocking to Free in droves there are signs of trouble ahead for the upstart operator. Read more »
By analyzing data from a live 3G network in a major city, the mobile network analytics firm Actix has found that only 5% of iPads are used outdoors. iPads account for just 1% of data sessions, they use 4X more data than an average 3G device. Read more »
Eighty-five percent of the global population owns mobile phones. This report forecasts the global handset market, examining the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific. Drivers include an increased number of subscribers in developing countries and the rollout of 3G and 4G wireless networks. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The number of new LTE devices is up 76 percent in the past three months but tablets, not smartphones, are driving more of this growth. Carriers are mistakenly feeling the strong need to fight back against lower-priced, no contract Wi-Fi slates as tablet sales rise. Read more »
A recent ComScore survey of smartphone owners in the U.S. and U.K. shows that iPhone users are far more likely than their Android-toting counterparts to take advantage of Wi-Fi networks when available. But the same thing is true for iPad users. What accounts for the difference? Read more »
Approximately 90 percent of all tablets in the U.S. relied on Wi-Fi over 3G mobile broadband last year, according to industry analyst Chetan Sharma. The data suggests that carriers aren’t a needed distribution chain for slates for several reasons: long-term contracts and redundant data plans. Read more »
After leading the world in smartphone sales, the U.S. reign is over. China will take over the top spot this year and has no plans of looking back. India and Brazil are also moving up, bringing a “second coming of the smartphone” to the world. Read more »
The industry has moved beyond starry-eyed soothsaying about a world of 50 billion connected devices to start talking about how these mammoth networks of objects and appliances would actually work and how they would be managed. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
T-Mobile isn’t just launching a sizable LTE network in 2013, it’s becoming the Grim Reaper for 2G technology as we know it. T-Mobile has unveiled a plan to radically reshape its networks, shutting down the majority of its GSM capacity to focus almost entirely on 4G. Read more »
Tablets represent the next evolution in the advancement of mobile computing, and by 2015 or 2016, the tablet will begin to replace the laptop and the desktop operating systems market will begin to level off or perhaps decline. Our latest forecast examines these trends in detail. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Your LTE phone is just as adept at eating battery power as it is at eating bandwidth. Last week, I wrote about the many ways that LTE devices are far more power hungry than their 3G predecessors. Now let’s look at what’s being doing about it. Read more »
LTE phones are the fastest things on the airwaves, but they can also suck a battery dry in a few hours. Here are five reasons why your new Samsung Galaxy Nexus or HTC Vivid is going dead right after lunch time. Read more »
Mobile VoIP provider Rebtel crossed key milestones on Friday, indicating that the VoIP market is growing. Rebtel, which offers low-cost and free calls over 3G and Wi-Fi, cracked the 15 million user mark and claims its average revenue per user is three times greater than Skype’s. Read more »
Just a week after Motorola was awarded two significant victories in a German court over Apple, the companies’ luck have changed. On Friday, a judge ruled he would not grant an injunction against Apple products on the basis of a 3G/UMTS patent claimed by Motorola. Read more »
The FCC is trying to get rural Americans online, and to help, later this year carriers can apply for part of a $300 million fund to bring wireless broadband to the heartlands. Only it’s not the heartlands, as the nifty interactive map shows. Read more »
Airvana is suing Ericsson for $330 million, claiming the wireless giant has reneged on its licensing deal and is instead selling a “knock-off” version of Airvana’s 3G technology to Verizon Wireless, Sprint and other CDMA operators. Read more »
Android held on to its title as the most-popular smartphone platform in the U.S. in the last quarter, but when it comes to sales of specific… Read more at paidContent »
On average, 100 million people watch the Super Bowl. With connected devices everywhere, we’ll be tweeting about it and sharing thoughts on social networks. So will fans at the game. Here are some staggering numbers showing how Super Bowl 46 is ready for such mobility. Read more »
Mobile data is picking up momentum in Latin America as the number of 3G connections in the region doubled in 2011. Operators in Latin and South America are shutting down their CDMA networks, replacing them with UMTS systems, resulting in a huge surge in data adoption. Read more »
Next month, consumers in smaller towns and cities across the U.S. will have access to their first LTE network as U.S. Cellular ramps ups its commercial 4G service. The regional CDMA operator will start selling a tablet in March and a Galaxy smartphone in April. Read more »
Another piece in Apple’s worldwide expansion looks like it might at long last be coming into view: the leading CDMA operator in China, China… Read more at paidContent »
Machine to machine networks, sometimes called the Internet of things, are the logical extension of today’s connected society; but creating such a network will require multiple technologies; telcos to open up their networks; governments to figure out a way to assign unique numbers for each device on the network and new rules to protect security and privacy. Read more »
T-Mobile may soon begin restricting roaming data usage to cut down on the amount of packets its customers consume off the carrier’s networks. If true, the new caps could affect many of T-Mobile’s customers, though the size of the impact on each customer may be small. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Japan’s eAccess isn’t deploying any old LTE network. It’s going for broke, pushing the upper limits of the technology to launch a network that can support speeds of 300 Mbps. That makes Verizon’s LTE network, which can breach 25 Mbps on a good day, seem pokey. Read more »
China Telecom is getting very near to launching Apple’s iPhone 4S on its network, according to a new report. China Telecom subsidiary Beijing Telecom said it will likely offer a CDMA version of the iPhone 4S by the end of February or the beginning of March. Read more »
Mobile operators insist we are fast approaching a mobile datapocalypse where their networks will no longer be able to meet mobile broadband demands. But are these claims of a spectrum crisis red herrings? A couple of telecom industry commentators think so, and they’re calling the carriers out. Read more »
Did you know that Bulgaria has the highest level of broadband adoption, at 96 percent? Or that the average connection speed in South Korea is 16.7 Mbps versus the global average connection speed of 2.7 Mbps? Some findings from Akamai’s latest “State of the Internet” report. Read more »
