Items tagged with Mobile Internet
During the terrible wildfires that ravaged some California counties, firefighters working to save lives and property had a problem with the cellular data service they were receiving on the Verizon network. The problem was that Verizon throttled their plan making the internet access the teams needed slower than it should have been. Verizon's response on the issue of slow internet speeds for the county was that it needed to upgrade to a better plan; which is ultimately what happened, so the firefighters had the tools they needed to get their life-saving work done. Legislators in Texas want to be sure this never happens in their state, and a bill has been introduced in the Texas House of Representatives...
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Oh, no. There are great trends, and then there are awful trends. And this one looks like it may be falling into that second category. AT&T shook the mobile broadband universe when they decided to do away with their "unlimited" (which was really a 5GB limit) data plan on all smartphones in order to present customers with two initially cheaper options. But these cheaper options include far less data, and unless you are grandfathered into the old plan, you can no longer purchase an AT&T phone with one of those old "unlimited" plans. But you're aware of all that. The issue is that Verizon Wireless, America's largest mobile operator, may be following suit. VZW is home to the DROID, DROID Eris,...
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T-Mobile USA deserves more respect than they get. They're the smallest U.S. carrier out of the "Big 4" (Sprint, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and AT&T), and they definitely have the smallest amount of native 3G coverage areas. But they were the first to launch an Android phone (the G1), and they're still the only place in the U.S. where you can buy an HTC HD2 on contract. They're also well known for low prices and great service, but lacking in the 3G department has probably helped to keep their subscriber count down. But that's changing. The operator has today announced the expansion of their HSPA+ network, promising "4G speeds" to over 25 major metropolitan areas across the U.S. The company...
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Enjoying that old school MEdia Net data plan on your feature phone or smartphone? Get ready to kiss it goodbye should you ever choose to upgrade to a new phone. Proving once again that all good things must eventually end, AT&T has today made clear that any phone that it deems a "smartphone" will be subject to the same $30/month data plan that iPhone and BlackBerry users currently endure.In other words, any Palm, Windows Mobile or Symbian S60-based phone that is purchased from AT&T will have to be paired with a $30/month data plan. And yes, that includes the incredible small Nokia Surge, which is absolutely no a smartphone by anyone's definition other than AT&T's. Of course, if you...
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LTE, or Long Term Evolution, isn't looking to be very "long term." The next generation mobile broadband protocol, or 4G, isn't even being deployed commercially yet, and already the European Commission is looking to spend some big bucks in order to research the next-next big things.Starting on New Year's Day 2010, the EU will release right around $25 million in order to research "ultra high-speed" mobile internet, which it hopes will act as the underpinning on the next generation of mobile services. Details are pretty vague about what it hopes to accomplish by doing this, but given the size of the investment, we suspect it's not just doing this on a whim. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding...
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My, how the tables have turned. The bickering from mobile carriers over the inclusion of Wi-Fi on higher-end devices is still fresh in our minds, as just a few years back many companies viewed it as a rival to 3G, and thus, a rival to mobile data revenues. Today, however, things have shifted dramatically. It's not really the data network that's profitable any more, but the applications and such downloaded for one's phone. Of course, it matters not what kind of data network is used when an app is purchased, it only matters that the app is purchased and some of that revenue goes the carrier. In the case of Apple's App Store, none of the revenue from application sales goes to AT&T, which gives...
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With the iPhone, HTC G1, and Palm Pre garnering all the mobile phone headlines lately, sometimes it's easy to forget that these aren't the only smartphones in existence (actually, the Palm Pre isn't even available yet). The number-crunchers over at AdMob have just reminded us of this fact with the release of its latest AdMob Metrics Report, which gives an overview of which are currently the most-used phones for getting Internet access. They also report on where geographically mobile users are using Wi-Fi to get online. Before we delve into the numbers, it is important to note that the data here is represented by metrics pulled from ads served by AdMob to more than 6,000 global sites belonging...
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