cell phone industry

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T-Mobile to Buy Majority of US Cellular
T-Mobile Makes a Big Purchase
May 28, 2024 8:27 AM CDT

T-Mobile Makes a Big Purchase

Company to gain 4M customers in $4.4B US Cellular deal

(Newser) - T-Mobile is buying US Cellular's wireless operations and certain spectrum assets in a deal valued at $4.4 billion that further consolidates the industry. T-Mobile would get more than 4 million new customers and control of US Cellular's wireless operations and about 30% of spectrum assets across several...

50 Years Ago Today, the First Cellphone Call Was Made

Motorola engineer Martin Cooper remembers it well, but his rival doesn't

(Newser) - It was 50 years ago today that Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made history with the first handheld cellphone call in public. Cooper, standing on a Manhattan street, made the call to one of his main rivals, Joel Engel at AT&T research arm Bell Labs, CNN reports. "I'm...

Conflicting Claims Muddy the Race to 5G

South Korea, AT&T, and Verizon Say They're First

(Newser) - Determining a winner in the 5G race just gets murkier. On Wednesday, South Korean officials said they had topped the US and China, achieving the first commercial launch of a fifth-generation telecoms network after connecting to a 5G phone. AT&T and Verizon didn't take that well, Reuters reports....

Sprint, T-Mobile Are Never, Ever, Ever Merging Again

Wireless carriers end talks after years of dancing around a merger

(Newser) - Sprint and T-Mobile called off a merger, reports the AP , saying Saturday that they couldn't come to an agreement that would benefit customers and shareholders after years of dancing around a merger. "The prospect of combining with Sprint has been compelling for a variety of reasons, including the...

Unlocking Your Cell Phone Will Soon Be Legal

...but the rules are still murky

(Newser) - The rules on unlocking your phone —allowing you to use it with any carrier—are hard to keep up with. Just two years after the US Copyright Office ruled that unlocking was illegal without permission from your carrier, Congress has turned things around again. Lawmakers have passed a bipartisan...

T-Mobile: Join and We'll Pay Your Termination Fees

New users can get up to $650 in credit

(Newser) - Wireless carriers know it can be a pricey headache to switch from one provider to another—and T-Mobile is hoping to get a leg up on its competitors by covering those costs, the New York Times reports. Engadget explains the process, for which customers of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint...

Microsoft Buys Nokia's Phone Side for $7.2B

And it may have nabbed a new CEO in the process

(Newser) - Two firms largely left in the dust by the smartphone era are set to become one with Microsoft's $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's cell phone business. "It's a bold step into the future," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who plans to step down within...

40 Years Ago Today: World's 1st Cell Phone Call

NYC call was made on a 'brick'

(Newser) - Give someone a call on your smartphone today, and you'll be celebrating history: It's been 40 years since the first mobile phone call was made, the Guardian reports. That first call was placed by Motorola worker Martin Cooper in New York City on April 3, 1973, using a...

Petition Gets Obama to Back Unlocking Cell Phones

FCC backs legal unlocking, too

(Newser) - It now takes 100,000 signatures to get an official White House response to a We the People petition—and angry cell phone users got more than 114,000 after it became illegal to unlock your cell phone on Jan. 26. That's the day the Librarian of Congress ruled...

Smartphone Thefts Soaring
 Smartphone Thefts Soaring 
Oct 22, 2012 2:08 AM CDT

Smartphone Thefts Soaring

Carriers moving to make stolen phones worthless

(Newser) - Police departments, lawmakers, and wireless companies are scrambling to tackle a crime wave veteran cops call "the new purse-snatching," the AP reports. Cell phone thefts, especially of the priciest smartphones, are soaring nationwide and now make up close to half of all robberies in cities including New York...

T-Mobile, MetroPCS Agree to Merge

The move leaves Sprint in a tough spot

(Newser) - Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, has agreed to a merger with the smaller MetroPCS Communications, a move that inches the two struggling competitors closer to industry leaders Verizon and AT&T, reports Reuters . The company will retain the name T-Mobile, and Deutsche will hold 74% of the...

Cell Coverage Brings Deadly Risk for Tower Climbers
 Cell Coverage 
 Brings Deadly Risk 
 for Tower Climbers 
pro publica investigation
May 22, 2012 6:17 PM CDT

Cell Coverage Brings Deadly Risk for Tower Climbers

50 workers died between 2003 and 2011

(Newser) - Next time someone is carping about spotty cell coverage, keep in mind this investigation by ProPublica and PBS' Frontline: Fifty tower climbers died in accidents between 2003 and 2011 as the industry raced to get everyone connected. A slew of factors contributes, from inadequate training, to shoddy equipment, to a...

Have an AT&T Unlimited Plan? Not Anymore

Grandfathered in, you say? Well you're now capped at 3GB

(Newser) - Amid growing controversy over data "throttling" —in which smartphone users on so-called unlimited data plans risked seeing their speeds slowed dramatically—AT&T is taking a simple step: It's effectively ending unlimited data. The company is setting a cap of three gigabytes' usage, beyond which "unlimited"...

AT&T Customers Stunned by 'Unlimited Data' Limit

Top data users find smartphones 'throttled'

(Newser) - AT&T stopped offering unlimited data plans in 2010, but some of the customers who already had the plans are finding "unlimited" doesn't necessarily mean what they thought it meant. AT&T has started "throttling" the top 5% of data users, cutting their download speeds by up...

How Siri Could Hurt Everyone's Cell Service
 How Siri Could 
 Hurt Everyone's 
 Cell Service 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 29, 2012 8:00 AM CST

How Siri Could Hurt Everyone's Cell Service

She's a giant 'bandwidth guzzler': Paul Farhi

(Newser) - Siri is knowledgeable, convenient, even funny—but she has a dark side. "Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1," writes Paul Farhi in the Washington Post . Indeed, the iPhone 4S, which brought us Siri,...

Nokia Posts $1.4B Loss in 4th Quarter

But sales of Windows smartphones are meeting expectations

(Newser) - Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. today posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $1.4 billion as sales slumped 21% even as the company's first Windows smartphones hit markets in Europe and Asia. The loss compares with a profit of $981 million in the same period a year earlier. Nokia...

Verizon Wireless Scraps $2 'Convenience' Fee
 Verizon Scraps $2 Fee 
Dec 30, 2011 2:38 PM CST

Verizon Scraps $2 Fee

'Convenience' charge dies a quick death amid outcry

(Newser) - About that new $2 "convenience fee" for Verizon Wireless customers: Never mind. The company backtracked quickly today and scrapped its plan to charge customers who make one-time payments online or by phone, reports the Wall Street Journal . Online petitions in protest sprang up immediately , and federal regulators said they...

Customers Not Happy About Verizon's New $2 Fee

Complaints flood Twitter

(Newser) - Will outraged consumers convince Verizon to backtrack on its newest fee , just as they did with Bank of America ? Perhaps: The New York Times notes that yesterday's announcement of the $2 fee, which will be levied against customers who make one-time bill payments using a credit or debit...

More People Want Androids Than iPhones
More People Want Androids Than iPhones
survey says
Apr 27, 2011 9:00 AM CDT

More People Want Androids Than iPhones

Google's operating system barely edges out Apple's

(Newser) - Is Apple losing its grip on smartphone buyers? Google's Android is already the most widely-used operating system , and a new survey shows it may also be the most wanted. In a poll of US cell phone consumers this year, Nielsen found that 31% planned to buy a new smartphone...

Beware: Your Cell Phone Is Watching You

Wireless firms track users' every move

(Newser) - Your cell phone knows when you're sleeping, when you're awake, and whether you prefer air or land travel. German politician Malte Spitz recently took Deutsche Telekom to court to determine exactly how much it knows about his whereabouts, the New York Times reports. Data in hand, he saw that Deutsche...

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