Carriers

Months after Verizon first hinted at a move toward tiered pricing, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that it'll introduce the new plans in four to six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes in the wake of its burgeoning LTE implementation, though we don't yet know if this will affect the current 3G CDMA network. Seidenberg was careful to note that the company is not just copying AT&T, which also moved to tiered data pricing earlier this year.

Interestingly, Verizon also indicated that the move to 4G would hopefully move suppliers like Apple to … Read more

Sprint customers in San Francisco who have a 4G-enabled device woke up to a pleasant surprise today as the carrier began a few public tests of its WiMAX-based 4G network there. So those who have the HTC Evo 4G, the Samsung Epic 4G, or the Sprint Overdrive might finally see the 4G bars light up in certain parts of the city.

We did detect some 4G activity here in our CNET office on Second St., though we found that speeds varied. Running the Speedtest.net app, we found that indoor speeds often averaged around 500kbps downstream and 1.2Mbps upstream. … Read more

A few days after Clearwire and, by extension Sprint, announced a big expansion of their WiMax 4G network, representatives from AT&T and Verizon Wireless made their own 4G promises at separate conferences. Though both carriers have chosen the competing LTE standard for 4G, Verizon is in the lead.

At the Bank of America Merrill and Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference today in Newport Beach, Calif., AT&T Operations CEO John Stankey said the carrier will launch commercial LTE service by the middle of the next year. Stankey didn't specify initial cities, but he said AT&… Read more

As it enters the final stages of its 4G expansion in New York City, Clearwire finally acknowledged today that its 4G WiMax service is already intermittently available in the Big Apple.

In a carefully worded statement, the company said it has started "operational readiness activities" not only in New York, but also Los Angeles and San Francisco. During the final construction phase, and as some New Yorkers have discovered, 4G service will be available in select areas.

Clearwire did not announce specific dates for when the cities would be fully covered, though it repeated its earlier promise that … Read more

Verizon announced on Thursday new prepaid data plans for smartphones and feature phones. The 3G Prepaid data package offers $30-a-month unlimited plans for smartphone users, and $10 a month for 25MB of data for feature phone users--you'll have to pay 20 cents per megabyte of overage if you go over that limit.

As for which phones qualify for the new prepaid plans, they include all of Verizon's Android smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, and the recent crop of BlackBerrys. Eligible feature phones include the LG enV Touch, the LG enV 3, the LG Chocolate Touch, … Read more

T-Mobile's announced Tuesday that it is expanding its HSPA+ network to nine new cities including Boston; Erie, Pa.; Fresno, Calif.; Palm Springs, Calif.; San Diego; Miami; Richmond, Va.; Spokane, Wash.; and Topeka, Kan.

Once the cities are switched on, the carrier's enhanced data network will cover 55 major markets and 100 million people. T-Mobile also promises that further network expansion will add an additional 100 million people by the end of the year.

Though T-Mobile's HSPA+ network offers 4G-like speeds of up to 21Mbps--actual speeds are more in the 10Mbps range--HSPA+ is an upgraded 3G technology. In … Read more

Sprint is quickly taking reins of the prepaid market with the growing expansion of its Common Cents service to another 500 Wal-Mart Stores in Chicago, New Orleans, Cincinatti, Washington, D.C., and more. Common Cents was launched back in May and offers a cheap pay-as-you-go service promising 7 cents per minute or 7 cents per text. You pay via $20 refill cards that are good for 30 days, or $30 cards that are good for 60 days. As a promotion, Common Cents will also offer an additional 200 bonus minutes for domestic use when the phone is filled for the … Read more

Welcome to the 411, my column answering all your questions about cell phones and cell phone accessories. I receive plenty of questions about these subjects via e-mail, so I figured many of you might have similar queries, too. At times, I might solicit answers from readers if I'm stumped. Send your questions and comments to me at nicole.lee@cnet.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, let me know in the e-mail.

Question: I have a question about your 411 article on Android syncing. I have two Gmail accounts, do you know if that is handled well by … Read more

Al Moschner probably wouldn't blame you if you've never heard of Cricket Wireless. But if he has his way, you'll know about his company soon enough.

As the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the nation's seventh-largest wireless carrier, Moschner directs marketing and branding efforts for Cricket's products and services. A subsidiary of Leap Wireless International founded in 1999, Cricket serves 5.3 million prepaid customers in select communities in 25 states, or about a third of the country. Though that focus has served Cricket well over the past year--total revenues for parent company Leap Wireless increased 10.2 percent from the second quarter of 2009 to the same period this year--the carrier isn't standing still. Even as it stays true to its prepaid roots, it is embarking on plans to attract new customers, expand into smartphone content services, and develop the network necessary to become a national carrier.

Last Tuesday, just before Cricket released its first smartphone, the Sanyo Zio, Moschner dropped by CNET's San Francisco offices to talk about how his company and the wireless industry is changing. We covered a range of topics, including the growth in prepaid, an impending music service, cheaper data plans, and, of course, a CDMA iPhone.

Q: You operate your own network, yet you also act as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) for Sprint. Why be an MVNO, too? Why not just funnel people onto your own network? A: It's about national reach. An important part of our strategy is to become national. We're not going to stop building out our own infrastructure, but given that real growth in the industry is with prepaid users, we need to be a national carrier today. And more importantly, if you believe that a significant shift of sales is moving to a national carrier footprint, the only way for us to be relevant is to be national.

Q: What's driving the growth in prepaid? Is it just the economy? A: The economy is a very significant piece of it. It's forcing people to question if they can afford a $100-per-month wireless bill. The second is that folks are looking for value. We provide value in our space. We can offer voice and data much cheaper than other carriers. The third point is that consumers are no longer viewing prepaid as something that only someone else buys. There used to be that overhang in [prepaid] for good reason. If you go look at what prepaid was 15 years ago, it was more expensive than postpaid, it offered crummy devices, and it was difficult to get. Now, all of that has changed and prepaid has gone mainstream. We're offering just about everything that the major carriers offer, but at prices that are very compelling.

… Read more