Apple may be selling millions of iPhones but there’s no denying Android is a hot platform with 160,000 phones activated daily. Carriers are bringing high-end Android smartphones to the market, and this comparison of the top six should make that purchase decision a little easier. Read more »
T-Mobile brings HSPA+ to 18 new markets today, enabling 4G-like speeds on current devices. A T-Mobile representative told me what such speeds are doing to data demand — in some cases, boosting traffic by seven times — but said the network can handle it. Read more »
In the growing sea of Android smartphones, how does a carrier differentiate new handsets from all the rest? Hardware isn’t the most effective way, but software opens up near-infinite possibilities. And T-Mobile’s new myTouch 3G Slide is an outstanding example of the software approach. Read more »
Owners of smartphones get excited when word arrives the phone’s software has a new update available. It’s always a good thing to get the latest software for the smartphone. Nothing can damper that good feeling; except having to repurchase software that the update wipes out. Read more »
T-Mobile’s first-quarter financial results show that the carrier is slowly losing customers, but that’s not the focus of the game T-Mobile is playing in 2010. Instead, the mobile operator is betting big on a fast, 3.5G wireless broadband rollout this year, hoping to raise ARPU. Read more »
T-Mobile introduces three new handset chargers that boast a faster recharge time — between 20 and 50 percent. The devices all support the Micro USB standard and each provides a second USB port to recharge other personal consumer electronics that use USB for power restoration. Read more »
Okay, we admit it: We’re a little sad today that GigaOM didn’t win a Webby, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from checking out the long list of web video sites and ventures that did. In fact, web video was one of the big winners of this […] Read more »
T-Mobile USA today introduced the myTouch 3G Slide, but while at first blush it may appears to be an incremental upgrade to the currently available myTouch 3G in the form of three hardware changes, its software functionality makes clear this upgrade is more than just incremental. Read more »
T-Mobile today said it would eliminate its 5 gigabyte per month cap on its mobile broadband service. So is real competition coming to the wireless industry, or is this the end of flat-rate mobile broadband? Both. Read more »
GPS navigation maker Garmin is trying the smartphone game again with a new model for T-Mobile. Only this time, Garmin is using Google Android. How can a GPS company compete with Google Navigation on a handset? There’s one key advantage that Garmin is able to offer. Read more »
We hear far too often of travelers who travel abroad, only to get hit with ridiculous charges from their U.S. carrier for firing up the laptop to get online. I think it’s time to stop these charges which amount to nothing more than legal theft. Read more »
T-Mobile USA bumped Yahoo in favor of Google as the default search engine on some handsets, and AT&T tapped Yahoo over Google to power search on its first Android handset. The moves underscore the importance that carriers continue to play in mobile search. Read more »
The Apple iPad has a new chip, a new data pricing plan and a new SIM format to get onto the carrier network. Since I was curious about the micro SIM, I visited Gemalto, which sold about 1 billion SIM cards last year, to learn more. Read more »
At the Mobile World Congress today, T-Mobile introduced the first device that can take advantage of the carrier’s HSPA+ network. The webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick is aptly named because it’s like a mobile broadband missile. Take a look at my hands-on experience. Read more »
T-Mobile may just manage to have one of the fastest mobile broadband networks for a short time, as it rolls out HSPA+ upgrades across its network this year. For the scoop on the network and which areas will get 21 Mbps down first keep reading. Read more »
Got a Nexus One with a T-Mobile SIM and data plan? Folks all around the country are reporting a complete data outage, so you might want to switch over to Wi-Fi, if possible. What gives? Read more »
As part of a recently created pro-consumer task force at the Federal Communications Commission, the agency is sending out letters asking the top four wireless carriers and Google about their early termination fees. Read more »
Checking out a new comparison chart on wireless pricing, I realized that we have a two-tiered level of competition when it comes to mobile plans (three if we count prepaid), and that voice has been utterly commoditized, which means data plans are going to stay pricey. Read more »
Google’s Nexus One phone is a heap of fun to play with, but so far in the U.S. the only 3G network you can access it on is that of T-Mobile. There are two issues at play: the network and the radios. Read more »
Forget the phone. The big news out of Google today wasn’t the Nexus One, but the web store that the company created as a way to get a certain class of Android devices it calls superphones into consumers’ hands and gain some control over the OS. Read more »
T-Mobile may have been late to the nationwide wireless broadband game, but it didn’t forget the story about the tortoise and the hare. In fact, it rewrote the story — it started as a slow turtle, but right now, it’s the fastest 3G rabbit we have. […] Read more »
T-Mobile USA has seen its growth stall and its ARPU slide in recent months as cut-rate discount service providers poach budget-conscious customers, and as AT&T and Verizon Wireless target high-end users. So the nation’s fourth-largest carrier is taking aim at both segments at we enter the […] Read more »
If you’ve ever been curious about what would happen when a cloud service fails, then you don’t have to wonder any longer. Earlier today, customers of T-Mobile and Sidekick data services provider Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, lost access to all their data. Some believe that […] Read more »
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appreciates the wireless industry and plans to help it get access to more spectrum, to make the process of siting mobile towers faster and to roll out faster middle-mile connections in rural and urban areas, all in an effort to improve the […] Read more »
[qi:gigaom_icon_google-android] Samsung Behold II, the first an Android phone sold by the South Korean handset giant, is coming to the U.S. via T-Mobile USA, the two companies announced today. The new device will carry Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface and will work with T-Mobile’s high-speed 3G network. […] Read more »
What happens when you promise end-users a persistent connection to data, applications and services regardless of the device they’re using? Mobile cloud computing aims to deliver just such a promise. Mobile access to popular web-based services such as Facebook and Gmail, combined with next-generation smartphones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices, is driving broad adoption of mobile data. However, the center of economic gravity is shifting. Historically, access to the mobile network was the service. But as users have expanded the uses for those bits, what the user does in a given session becomes fundamental to how much the service provider can charge the user or a third party (e.g. an advertiser). Thus, it’s likely that the mobile, IT and MCC sectors will continue their current marriage of convenience to attack a rare convergence of both short-term and longer term opportunity. However, in the process of adapting to an Internet that’s becoming more global, mobile and web-based by the day, the mobile and IT industries will be forced into new ways of doing business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s been quiet on the Android front this week, as the industry took a much-needed rest following the frenzy surrounding the unveiling of the Motorola Cliq phone earlier this month. The biggest news this week was a leak of some internal T-Mobile promotional materials that pegged […] Read more »
Verizon Added 300,000 New New FiOS TV Subs in Q2; telco now has 2.5 million subscribers to its TV service. (GigaOM) No wonder the company’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, said at an investor conference yesterday that “Video is going to be the core product in the fixed-line […] Read more »
More than any other U.S. carrier, T-Mobile has led the charge when it comes to bringing Android-based phones to market — the company launched the G1, the myTouch, and now the Cliq. According to T-Mobile Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Cole Brodman, who spoke to Om […] Read more »
[qi:gigaom_icon_mobile] Social networks and mobile phones are a match made in heaven. Om has written previously about how mobile carriers are reaping financial benefits from the growing usage of social networks on cell phones — more people are signing up for data plans to use apps […] Read more »
Our friend Chetan Sharma, who is a member of the GigaOM Pro Analyst Network, has put together a report on the state of the wireless industry for the second quarter of 2009. Here are some of the highlights that show that the demand for wireless data […] Read more »
