AT&T just gained 5 million new customers. No, it wasn’t the company’s offer to provide credit to switching customers. This influx comes after the Federal Communications Commission approved the Death Star’s acquisition of Leap Wireless. [More]
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T-Mobile To Finally Transition Entire 2G Edge Network To LTE; Issues Cease-And-Desist To Verizon
By 3.13.14
T-Mobile may offer competitive pricing and be an important disruptive factor in a wireless market otherwise dominated by two much larger players, but the company’s network doesn’t yet provide the level of LTE coverage offered by AT&T and Verizon. But T-Mobile is now promising to rid itself of its sludge-like 2G Edge network in favor of LTE by mid-2015. [More]
Verizon CFO: Getting Rid Of Phone Subsidies Is A Mistake
By 3.10.14
While T-Mobile and AT&T have, to different degrees, begun to acknowledge that a growing number of consumers want pricing transparency and affordable ways to buy phones that could be taken from one carrier’s network to another, Verizon remains set in its old-school ways. [More]
AT&T Tries To Fight Off T-Mobile/Sprint Encroachment With $65 Data Plans For Individual Users
By 3.10.14
After years of wasting time getting caught up in a staring contest with Verizon Wireless, AT&T is finally paying attention to the lower-priced competition that has been nipping at its heels. Over the weekend, the company took direct aim at T-Mobile and Sprint when it announced price drops in plans for accounts with only one or two devices. [More]
Thought Of Comcast Merger Scares AT&T Into Expanding Gigabit Fiber Service
By 3.7.14
Dallas is AT&T’s home turf. It’s cable market is also dominated by Time Warner Cable. But the thought of that cable/Internet business being swallowed up by Comcast if its merger with TWC goes through was apparently enough to get AT&T to decide to roll out gigabit fiber service to the Texas town. [More]
AT&T Announces First Two Locations For Tests Of Internet-Based Landlines
By 2.28.14
In January, the FCC gave landline telecom providers the go-ahead to begin tests of Internet-based phone service intended to replace existing copper-line phone networks. Today, AT&T finally revealed the two locations in which it would like to kick off its testing. [More]
Netflix Also Talking Deals With AT&T, Verizon
By 2.25.14
Following Sunday’s announcement that Netflix had agreed to start paying Comcast for a better, more direct connection to the cable company’s broadband network, both AT&T and Verizon said they are working on a similar deal with the streaming video service. [More]
Real Competition From Google Or Window-Dressing For FCC? Time Warner Cable Improves Speeds In Austin
By 2.20.14
Here are two facts: Google Fiber is coming to Austin, and Time Warner Cable is being bought by Comcast. The question is: Which one of these two facts is the cause for TWC’s significantly ramped-up service in the Texas capital? [More]
AT&T Received Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Orders For 35,000 Accounts In 6 Months
By 2.18.14
Weeks after the U.S. Attorney General issued guidance allowing tech and telecom companies to provide slightly more information about federal law enforcement requests, AT&T has issued its first accounting of these queries. And according to the data, the Death Star received national security letters dealing with up to 5,000 accounts in all of 2013, while court orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the first half of 2013 were tied to more than 35,000 accounts. [More]
Verizon Raises Some Data Caps, Finally Gives $10/Month Discount For Early Upgrade Program
By 2.13.14
T-Mobile gave up on phone subsidies altogether last spring, and in December AT&T finally dipped its toe into those waters by offering discounts to people who own their phones or are part of its AT&T Next early upgrade program. Verizon, the wireless industry’s most expensive carrier, had refused to budge, but today showed the first signs that it might be open to change. [More]
T-Mobile Wins Legal Battle Against AT&T Subsidiary Over The Color Magenta
By 2.10.14
Last summer, T-Mobile sued Aio Wireless, a prepaid service subsidiary of AT&T for trademark infringement for daring to use a color that is somewhat similar to T-Mobile’s well-known pink logos. An actual judge who gets paid to rule on such things has decided that Aio would have to stop using the similar color. [More]
AT&T No Longer Paying For T-Mobile Customers To Switch Providers
By 2.5.14
Remember way back in January, when AT&T announced it would pay T-Mobile customers up to $450 to switch wireless carriers? Well, we hope those people who were interested in making that change weren’t taking too long to mull it over, as AT&T quietly pulled the plug on the promotion after only a few weeks. [More]
AT&T Patents System That Could Charge File-Sharers Extra For Data
By 1.31.14
While the Six Strikes alert system, in which Internet service providers send a series of notices to suspected illegal file-sharers before finally penalizing their accounts, is primarily a way for ISPs to placate Hollywood studios and the recording industry, it doesn’t do much to aid the ISPs in their ongoing war against consumers who use huge amounts of data, and doesn’t deal with wireless file-sharing. That must be why AT&T has filed a patent application for a system that would prevent what it deems “bandwidth abuse” by charging supposed data hogs more money. [More]
DOJ’s Antitrust Chief: Decision To Block AT&T/T-Mobile Deal Has Helped Consumers
By 1.31.14
Not so many years ago, the folks at AT&T were so confident they could acquire the little pink wireless company called T-Mobile that they bet billions of dollars in cash and spectrum that the deal would go through. Then both the FCC and the Justice Dept. said they would fight the merger and AT&T ultimately left T-Mobile stranded at the altar. The head of the DOJ’s Antitrust division says that what has happened since that failed marriage is evidence that regulators did the right thing. [More]
FCC OKs Tests That Would Replace Copper Landlines
By 1.30.14
We told you earlier today that the FCC was scheduled to vote on whether or not to allow landline telephone service providers to initiate regional tests that would replace existing landline networks with Internet-based VoIP phone service. The Commission has met and agreed that it will permit regional tests to move forward. [More]
FCC To Consider Move Toward Ditching Existing Landline Networks
By 1.30.14
UPDATE: The FCC has met and voted unanimously to approve the tests. Telecoms now have until Feb. 20 to submit proposals and a final decision will be made in May. [More]
AT&T Unveils Yet Another Deal To Show It Loves Offering Credit To Customers
By 1.29.14
AT&T made another move in the ongoing chess game to determine which wireless provider can create the best, most enticing discounts and special offers. To continue what seems like an obvious battle between AT&T and T-Mobile, the larger provider has yet another deal for consumers – a $100 credit for adding new lines. [More]
T-Mobile Claims “AT&T Dismantles Death Star” In Mocking Press Release
By 1.29.14
Weeks after crashing AT&T’s big Las Vegas party at CES, T-Mobile CEO John Legere continues to poke the lion with a stick. This time, T-Mobile has issued a press release — complete with fake quotes from an actual AT&T exec — applauding the telecom giant for its decision to “leave the dark side, step into the light.” [More]
