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

 

Some AT&T pre-orders placed before 9am last Friday won’t ship until September 21st

By Sebastien Page on Sep 19, 2012

I just got a bit of infuriating news from AT&T about iPhone 5 pre-orders.

Like many people, I stayed up late last Thursday night in order to pre-order my iPhone 5. Because Apple’s website wasn’t loading for me, I decided to go to AT&T’s website instead to place my order. The order went through within seconds, and I received a confirmation email telling me my iPhone would be delivered on September 21st. Great, I thought at the time.

Fastforward to today and my order still show as “processing,” which of course freaks me out. In the meanwhile, my wife’s iPhone which I pre-ordered Friday morning around 10am shows as “shipped.” What the heck?

So I decided to give a call to AT&T to find out what the hell is going on with my order… Read More

 

How to “steal” an upgrade from someone else on your wireless plan

By Jeff Benjamin on Sep 18, 2012

Many of you have likely ran into this conundrum: Someone on your wireless plan is eligible for an upgrade, but couldn’t care less about upgrading their phone. With this in mind, you’d like to use their upgrade to upgrade your phone.

I actually encountered this issue myself, but I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed with it. If I upgraded my wife’s phone, but planned to take her upgrade to use for myself, how would I get a Nano SIM card containing my information, and not hers?

This wouldn’t be much of an issue if the iPhone 5 used the same Micro SIM as the iPhone 4S, otherwise, I’d just swap out my Micro SIM into the iPhone 5. But since the iPhone 5 uses a brand new SIM card, this obviously presents a problem.

How do you go about handling the issue? As it turns out, if you’re an AT&T customer, it’s probably a lot easier than you might have expected… Read More

 

Net neutrality complaint over AT&T FaceTime blocking looms

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 18, 2012

AT&T’s initial decision to charge for FaceTime video calls made over its cellular network and the subsequently tweaked rules mandating that FaceTime over cellular users sign up for AT&T’s Mobile Share plans both provoked a public outrage which almost snowballed into a PR catastrophe.

Deciding someone should take the nation’s biggest carrier to task for taking advantage of its unsuspecting customers, advocacy group Public Knowledge (PG) figured that AT&T’s policy violates net neutrality rules by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The group is mulling an investigation into AT&T’s practices as Public Knowledge, Free Press and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute all plan to file a complaint with the FCC for AT&T’s violation of network neutrality rules… Read More

 

Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5 in first 24 hours, ‘shattering’ iPhone 4S record

By Ed Sutherland on Sep 17, 2012

Another confirmation this morning just how fast the new iPhone 5 is selling: Apple says it sold 2 million of the new handsets in just the first 24 hours of availability with demand outstripping supply. Preorders for the slimmer, faster iPhone “have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S,” Apple’s marketing head Philip Schiller announced.

Indeed, demand is so off the scale that the Cupertino, Calif. company said the “majority of preorders” will be delivered to buyers on Sept. 21 with new purchases set for delivery in October. Earlier today, AT&T said it set a “sales record with iPhone 5 over the weekend, making it the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever offered“. Read More

 

AT&T confirms that the iPhone 5 is its fastest-selling iPhone

By Christian Zibreg on Sep 17, 2012

Apple is “completely blown away” by customer response to the iPhone and today its U.S. carrier partner AT&T has confirmed that the new device represents its fastest-selling iPhone as pre-orders have set a new sales record for the Dallas, Texas headquartered company.

Read More

 

Unlisted iPhone 5 specs hint at AT&T network overhaul

By Cody Lee on Sep 14, 2012

Earlier in the week we reported that, due to LTE fragmentation, Apple was forced to make three different versions of the iPhone 5. A CDMA handset, and two GSM models, one specifically for AT&T.

As it turns out, there’s something weird about the AT&T model. It’s been recently discovered, via leaked FCC documentation, that it supports LTE on two unlisted bands, cellular and PCS.. Read More

 

iPhone 5 to cost carriers $10B in subsidies

By Ed Sutherland on Sep 14, 2012

If there was a frenemy to carrier profits, it could be Apple’s iPhone. While iPhone users were rejoicing over the iPhone 5, U.S. wireless providers could pay $10 billion in subsidies to sell the new smartphone, according to one analyst. Indeed, AT&T and Verizon were downgraded just days after the new iPhone was announced.

The iPhone’s success is a double-edged sword for US carriers. Although a new Apple phone can draw new subscribers like a magnet, the Cupertino, Calif. company is aware of its power, costing carriers $425 per handset in subsidies. Couple that high cost with the early sale of the device and carrier margins for the last half of 2012 will be slimmer than the iPhone 5, writes Stifel Nicolaus analyst Christopher King. King told investors AT&T and Verizon could be over-valued and downgraded both companies to ‘hold.’ Read More

 

So I went ahead and purchased an off-contract iPhone 5

By Jeff Benjamin on Sep 14, 2012

As we told you earlier, AT&T wasn’t budging on their upgrades this time around. If you are in the middle of a current contract, AT&T wants to charge a $250 early upgrade fee, a $36 activation fee, and the price of the actual subsidized iPhone — in my case the $199 16GB version.

After doing the math, that totals over $500 for a new iPhone 5 with a two year contract, which is ridiculous. Why pay that much only to be locked into a contract for an additional two years? Instead, I decided to take this approach, and purchased an off contract iPhone 5… Read More

 

How to pre-order an off contract iPhone 5 from Verizon or AT&T

By Jeff Benjamin on Sep 14, 2012

For those wishing to avoid signing up for a lengthy two year contract, Verizon or AT&T’s website will let you easily order an off-contract iPhone 5 that you can configure with a month to month plan.

Signing up for a carrier’s month to month plan will provide you with an unsubsidized phone for $649, $749, and $849, for the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions of the iPhone 5 respectively. Here’s how to do it… Read More

 

iPhone 5 won’t support concurrent voice and data on Verizon or Sprint

By Cody Lee on Sep 13, 2012

Remember back when Verizon first launched the iPhone 4? AT&T, whose network was struggling at the time, launched a campaign highlighting the fact that AT&T users could talk and browse the web at the same time, and Verizon users couldn’t.

Over time, the problem faded into the background. And since Verizon’s LTE network — which is now in nearly 400 markets — supports simultaneous voice and data, we didn’t think it’d be a problem with the iPhone 5. But apparently, we were wrong… Read More

 
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