Apple catching up to iPhone 5 demand at US Apple Stores

By Ed Sutherland on Nov 9, 2012

After Foxconn admitted to falling behind iPhone 5 orders, it seems that supply of Apple’s popular handset is finally catching up with demand. That’s the word from one veteran Apple watcher who told investors Friday that inventory of the smartphone at Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores are at their highest level yet. For the first time, availability of iPhone 5 models for AT&T, Verizon and Sprint customers topped 20 percent.

The iPhone 5 version for Sprint remains the most available, with 84 percent of  Apple Stores reporting inventory for that model. The AT&T version followed with 54 percent and Verizon with 24 percent, according to a Wall Street survey conducted by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster… Read More

 

Verizon to complete LTE network by mid-2013

By Cody Lee on Nov 8, 2012

With more and more devices coming to market supporting 4G LTE (long term evolution) networks, people are paying more attention to carriers’ LTE coverage. And here in the States, no body comes close to Verizon.

With more than a year head start over the other providers, Verizon is the leader in LTE coverage by a mile. It currently has the 4G tech in more than 400 markets, and it sounds like it’ll be everywhere by next summer… Read More

 

AT&T offering $100 off iPads and other tablets with contract

By Cody Lee on Nov 8, 2012

Hot on the heels of its FaceTime over cellular press release, AT&T has made another interesting announcement. The carrier will soon be offering a nice little subsidy on many of its tablets.

Starting Friday, November 9th, AT&T will knock $100 off the price of its iPads and other slates for folks willing to sign a two-year data plan agreement. Keep reading for more details… Read More

 

AT&T announces new FaceTime over Cellular policy

By Cody Lee on Nov 8, 2012

AT&T has announced today that it is reversing its decision to limit iOS 6′s FaceTime over Cellular ability to customers on its new shared data plans. The carrier says that subscribers with LTE devices will now be able to use the feature regardless of what data plan they’re on, as long as it’s not unlimited… Read More

 

AT&T announces $14 billion LTE network expansion

By Christian Zibreg on Nov 7, 2012

AT&T, the nation’s #1 carrier, today announced ambitious plans meant to improve its network infrastructure and broaden 4G LTE coverage. The company pledged to spend as much as $14 billion on network upgrades over the next three years and said it will roll out 4G LTE to cover 250 million by the end of 2013, adding an additional 50 million for a total of 300 million people by the end of 2014.

Additionally, AT&T confirmed plans to expand U-verse to an additional 8.5 million customers by the end of 2015. The investment plan even has a cool sounding code-name: Project Velocity IP (VIP)… Read More

 

AT&T launches Locker app with 5GB of free cloud storage

By Christian Zibreg on Nov 1, 2012

Carrier AT&T today launched an interesting cloud-storage app for iOS and Android devices, similar to the likes of SugarSync, Dropbox and Google Drive. It’s called Locker and you can use it to safely store, sync and share your photos, videos and documents to the AT&T cloud, the promo page says. The program can also automatically back up every photo or video, if that’s how you roll. AT&T Locker comes with 5GB of free storage, with upgrades to 30GB for $3.99 per month or 100GB for $9.99 per month… Read More

 

AT&T and T-Mobile sharing networks in Sandy-affected areas

By Cody Lee on Oct 31, 2012

This is pretty cool: AT&T and T-Mobile have both announced that they will be temporarily combining their coverage in areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy on Monday night.

The deal will allow subscribers from the two carriers to roam on either network without incurring penalties, or affecting their rate plans, and it should greatly improve their service… Read More

 

AT&T activates 4.7M iPhones in Q3, 77 percent of total smartphone sales

By Christian Zibreg on Oct 24, 2012

Carrier AT&T, which had a multi-year exclusivity on iPhone sales in the United States, this morning posted its third-quarter earnings, reporting it activated 4.7 million iPhones, representing more than three out of four smartphones activated on its network during the quarter. The number represents approximately a 178 percent increase over the year-ago quarter, when it activated 2.7 million iPhones.

The company in total activated 6.1 million smartphones in the third quarter. Of the 4.7 million AT&T iPhones, 18 percent went to new customers as the carrier, like everybody else, was struggling to meet pent-up demand from the existing subscribers amid the widely reported iPhone 5 supply constraints, which AT&T said affected its postpaid performance as well… Read More

 

Apple sued over software lock on AT&T iPhones

By Cody Lee on Oct 22, 2012

Apple has become the target of a new lawsuit this weekend. iPhone owners Zach Ward and Thomas Buchar filed a putative class action lawsuit against the company on Friday over the handset’s software lock.

The two plaintiffs are claiming that Apple violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act by not obtaining customers’ permission to have their iPhones locked to AT&T’s network… Read More

 

AT&T voices concern over Sprint’s Clearwire deal

By Cody Lee on Oct 18, 2012

About this time last year, AT&T’s plans to buyout T-Mobile were crumbling. Thanks to strong opposition from its competitors — namely Sprint, and the US government, the carrier was forced to withdraw its merger application from the FCC.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that AT&T is being vocal about the recently announced Softbank-Sprint-Clearwire deal. The carrier says it’s worrisome that a foreign carrier will have control over such a large chunk of US airwaves… Read More

 

Verizon activates 3.1M iPhones in Q3, nearly 1 out of 5 was iPhone 5

By Ed Sutherland on Oct 18, 2012

Verizon reported today it activated 3.1 million iPhones during the three-month period ending September 30. About 650,000 were iPhone 5 units that had been purchased in just one week, the largest US carrier reported. The iPhone represented 46 percent of smartphones Verizon sold during the period. Overall, smartphones now account for 53 percent of the handsets Verizon sells.

The 650,000 iPhone 5 sales figure is impressive, given Apple’s latest handset was released in late September, permitting only one week of sales during the third quarter. The Cupertino, California-based Apple confirmed it sold 5 million of the new handsets during its opening weekend last month… Read More

 

FCC gives AT&T the go-ahead to use its WCS spectrum

By Cody Lee on Oct 17, 2012

Reports are coming in this afternoon that the Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T’s plan to use its dormant WCS spectrum to expand its LTE network. The carrier acquired the spectrum years ago, but has been unable to use it due to concerns that it would knock out the popular Sirius satellite radio service… Read More

 

Study: Americans pay too much for their LTE plans

By Ed Sutherland on Oct 15, 2012

American smartphone owners are taking a bath on LTE and 3G pricing compared to European mobile consumers, a new study indicates. Verizon Wireless subscribers pay $7.50 per gigabyte on that carrier’s LTE network versus an average of $2.50 in Europe, for example. Even more shocking: Sweden’s LTE users pay as low as 63 cents.

According to the London-based GSM Association, despite the U.S. being the largest LTE market in the world, Americans pay much more for the superfast wireless technology than anyone else. The reason boils down to fewer choices… Read More

 

The iPhone 5 64GB ships to AT&T in 24 hours

By Sebastien Page on Oct 15, 2012

I just got back from a trip to my AT&T Store where I went to exchange my black iPhone 5 for the white version. I’ve actually tried to exchange my black iPhone 5 since I received it. For the last 3 weeks, I went pretty much every single day to my AT&T Store asking if they had received any iPhone 5. For the last 3 weeks, I was told the same answer: “no, sorry, we haven’t received anything”.

Today, one smart AT&T employee finally realized I had been coming every day for three weeks and told me that I didn’t have to physically come and check, as I could simply order an iPhone from the store. You’d think they would have offered this solution before, but that’s another problem that we won’t even bother addressing here.

I was then directed to an AT&T employee who processed my order/return. Without much hope, I figured the AT&T employee  probably didn’t know anything about time frames and delivery estimates, but to my surprise, he said that because I am ordering a 64GB iPhone 5, it will ship within 24 hours.

Wait, what? 24 hours, as in one day? How is this possible when Apple’s own website tells me that any iPhone 5 model ships in 3-4 weeks? Read More

 

AT&T reportedly cutting return and cancelation period to 14 days

By Cody Lee on Oct 6, 2012

Just a heads up for folks looking to make an AT&T-flavored purchase in the coming weeks. The word on the street is that the carrier is about to cut its 30-day return policy in half.

A new report is out today claiming that AT&T has sent out a memo to its employees reminding them that the return period for products and services drops down to 14 days tomorrow… Read More

 

T-Mobile and MetroPCS to grab Sprint’s prepaid market share

By Ed Sutherland on Oct 3, 2012

Sprint executives must be consuming antacids by the barrel about now. Not only is the carrier a mere footnote when U.S. wireless providers are mentioned, but today’s agreement between T-Mobile and MetroPCS could put on life-support Sprint Nextel’s only real market: inexpensive prepaid cell service.

Until today, when the two carriers announced they’d merge, T-Mobile was known as the carrier without an iPhone and was left at the altar after a marriage to AT&T was derailed by federal regulatory concerns. As for Metro-PCS, it was a regional carrier barely on anyone’s radar. Now, however, the combined companies (if the merger is approved) will boast 43 million subscribers, closing in on Sprint’s 56 million… Read More

 

Most iPhones not sold by Apple Stores

By Ed Sutherland on Oct 3, 2012

When it comes to sales of Apple products, the much-publicized Apple Stores are like a cruise ship captain: lots of glitz and glamour, but having little connection to the mostly-hidden work which keeps the boat steaming along. That’s the view of new research finding Apple’s retail partners sold more iPhones than Apple’s physical stores… Read More

 

The iPhone 5 WiFi bug reportedly carrier-agnostic, double-check your cellular data usage

By Christian Zibreg on Oct 1, 2012

We thought a bug with carrier settings that led to some iPhone 5 owners reporting burning through excessive cell data on Verizon was fixed when Apple pushed a carrier settings update and Verizon promised not to slap the iPhone 5 owners for unwarranted cellular data usage. According to the latest by big media, the problem could be worse than originally thought.

As an added “bonus”, it doesn’t appear to be contained to Verizon customers only as apparently customers of AT&T, Sprint and other carriers are experiencing the same cellular data overages stemming from this bug. It would seem that something about the iPhone 5 or perhaps iOS 6 is causing the same cellular data drain even when the device is connected to WiFi… Read More

 

The Verizon iPhone 5 is GSM unlocked, tested with AT&T

By Jeff Benjamin on Sep 21, 2012

I can confirm that the Verizon iPhone 5 is indeed GSM unlocked. Even though I bought an iPhone 5 from Verizon under contract, I was able to cut down my AT&T Micro SIM, and use it in my Verizon iPhone 5 to pick up an AT&T signal. By doing so, I was able to hop onto AT&T’s HPSA+ network, or “4G” as they so ridiculously name it.

AT&T’s so-called 4G speeds are nothing like true LTE speeds, but they are a bit better than typical 3G speeds. But the big news here isn’t about speed. The big news here is that we have confirmed that you can use a Verizon iPhone 5 on AT&T or T-Mobile, freely, even if you’re a brand new customer under contract. Read More

 

Ahead of iPhone 5 launch, AT&T rolls out LTE to Seattle, Pittsburgh and more

By Cody Lee on Sep 19, 2012

Folks that pre-ordered, or plan to get, an iPhone 5 on AT&T’s network will be happy to hear that the carrier has been beefing up its LTE footprint over the past few days.

Apple’s latest handset is the first from the company that supports the next-generation wireless technology, and now AT&T customers can enjoy it in more places… Read More

 
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