wireless

Verizon lines up global 4G LTE roaming partners for 2014

BARCELONA, Spain--Verizon Wireless plans to have several international 4G LTE roaming partners lined up by 2014, CNET has learned.

Executives from the wireless carrier, which boasts the world's largest LTE network, are in town to discuss potential roaming agreements, according to a company representative.

The first roaming partnerships will be announced in 2014. At least one Canadian company will be in the first wave of carriers, the representative said.

The move will allow Verizon customers to go overseas and still get a consistent high-speed wireless connection. The company has roaming deals for voice and some data services in 220 … Read more

Japan's NTT Docomo plans to offer 112.5Mbps LTE speeds

BARCELONA, Spain--Think Verizon Wireless or AT&T's 4G LTE network is fast? Check out Japan.

NTT Docomo's CEO, Kaoru Kato, said he plans to offer download speeds of 112.5Mbps to his company's customers. The higher speeds should come shortly, he said. NTT Docomo is Japan's largest wireless carrier by customer base.

By comparison, Verizon and AT&T boasts speeds of 20Mbps on a good day and an uncluttered network. In practice, the speeds are more in the high single or low double digits.

LTE, Kato said during a keynote address at Mobile World … Read more

Vodafone chief unsure about changing Verizon ownership -- report

Vodafone, the European wireless carrier that owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, isn't sure if its stake will change in a year's time.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in an interview published today, Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said "I don't know" if it's possible for Vodafone's stake to be changed a year from now, but he's willing to keep an open mind "on everything."

Vodafone and Verizon Wireless combined forces in 2000. Since then, Verizon has watched its star soar and its need for help from Vodafone wane. Verizon … Read more

Is Republic's $19 cell phone service too good to be true?

Owning a smartphone usually means being stuck in an expensive two-year contract, but Republic Wireless is offering an unlimited everything service that will cost you as little as $19 a month.

Most smartphone services start at about $70 a month on one of the major carrier networks. Prepaid providers, like MetroPCS, offer similar unlimited everything deals for $50 a month. Now Republic Wireless is offering an unlimited data, voice and text messaging service for smartphones that is only $19 a month.

Wi-Fi calling

Dear Maggie, I'm a college student, and my parents are dropping me from their cell phone … Read more

T-Mobile launches GoSmart budget wireless service

Wireless carrier T-Mobile expanded its prepaid offerings today with the nationwide launch of GoSmart Mobile, a budget wireless service targeting consumers interested in low-cost unlimited plans.

The service, which has been in beta mode in nine markets since December, is geared toward consumers more interested in voice and text services than high-speed Internet access. As such, GoSmart's target audience includes younger people, college students on a budget, and those with incomes between $30,000 and $40,000 a year, GoSmart Marketing Director Shailendra Gujarati told the Seattle Times.

"We are looking at customers whose predominant needs when it … Read more

ZTE Engage: Don't put a ring on it

With a name that evokes images of Jean-Luc Picard aboard the USS Enterprise, the ZTE Engage is actually just an Earthling-created, contract-free phone from Cricket Wireless.

But even if I could get engaged (ha, multiple definitions!) to this handset, I wouldn't want to. Yes, it sports higher specs than what you would usually see from a midlevel ZTE handset, but its poor call and camera performance would tempt any user, not just me, to break things off.

Design With its all-black design and flatly rectangular construction, the ZTE Engage doesn't break any design boundaries. At 5.4 ounces, … Read more

I'm Dong Ngo, and these are my personal Wi-Fi routers

Being the person in charge of the Networking category, I've received many e-mails asking what my current personal router is, and how often I change it.

Even though I've worked with many routers -- in fact, I have reviewed most of the existing Wi-Fi routers on the U.S. market -- I don't change my home router very often. This is mostly because programing a router can be a tedious task, and I use a lot of different applications and services with many clients, all of which require different settings in the router's firmware.

That said, since the Wireless-N (802.11n) standard was introduced in 2007, I've used just about five Wi-Fi routers. Most of them them have served me very well over the years and I still have them all, except for one that was broken during a move.

The following is the list of those routers and how they've worked out for me.… Read more

Google sells Nexus 4 wireless charger for $60

Months after Google began selling the LG-made Nexus 4 Android 4.2 smartphone, it (finally) has a wireless charger to offer as well.

The charging accessory, available in the Google Play store, resembles a sheared-off Nexus Q and costs $59.99.

Google's wireless charger, like most, relies on the Qi protocol of inductive charging. The upshot is that the charger will be able to power other smartphones using the same standard.

I personally think this is a hefty sticker price for an add-on that's long been underscored as part of the Nexus 4's key selling points. Even … Read more

AktiMate Micro speakers, better than Bluetooth

To be honest, I've never heard a Bluetooth speaker I liked, because better sound was available from wired speakers, like the AktiMate Micro model. They're sold in pairs for $499, so you get true stereo sound, a rarity even with higher-end Bluetooth and most other wireless alternatives like the $600 Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air, $600 Bose SoundDock 10, or $399 Sonos Play:5. Those three are perfectly fine for what they are, but wired stereo speakers from Audioengine, Emotiva, and AktiMate sound better, much closer to what I hear from traditional hi-fi speakers. True, they're not … Read more