All Articles Tagged AT&T

AT&T is doing the right thing (never mind that this most was likely something that they were forced into). Namely, they’re going to pro-rate the cancellation fee that you have to pay if you leave your 1 or 2 year plan early:

Starting on May 25, AT&T’s new and renewing wireless customers who enter into one- or two-year service agreements will no longer be required to pay a single, flat early termination fee. Instead, that fee, which is $175, will be progressively lowered by $5 during each month, every month, for the term of the contract – [Mobiledia]

Good news, although it doesn’t apply to those of us who are already on a contract with them — just new contracts. They had announced this back in October, but now we know when it will actually start. Good on you, AT&T.

This here be a Wait-a-Thon post, comment for a chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card! Speaking of Wait-a-Thon, we missed a couple of weeks there because yours-truly was discombobulated by covering the CTIA conference for our sister site, WMExperts. Let me therefore congratulate two winners: nickbw and DaffyHercules!

So we have AT&T promising to be more “open,” we have the iPhone changing how they handle activation and rate plans generally, and now we have them offering a more reasonable cancellation fee if you need to get out. What else would you like to see AT&T change?

Information Week has posted an article discussing how the spectrum action is going. You remember, the wireless 700MHz spectrum action that is freed up from analog TV? Anyway, Verizon has won the largest segment of the bandwidth spending $9.6 billion to do so. Guess who’s number 2? You guessed it kids, AT&T. AT&T spent $6.6 billion for their share. What does this mean? Well for starters the FCC says that the bandwidth being auctioned off must be kept open and usable on any network; no more of this lock-down on a carrier mumbo-jumbo. Then there is Google coming with Android later this year…

So what impact does this have on the iPhone? Will Apple sell an iPhone on a segment of the open bandwidth? Could the 3G iPhone run only on AT&T’s 3G network and the EDGE iPhones run on the “open” spectrum?

Unlimited calling plans seem to be all the rage these days, with every carrier provision subscribers with “all you can speak” plans. Now even iPhone users will soon be able to gab all they want, and not pay dearly for it in the next billing cycle. According to Engadget, AT&T will be soon offer a special iPhone bundled unlimited calling plan for the low price of just $119.99 a month. Not a bad deal I suppose, if you spend ever waking hour of your day with a cell phone symbiotically attached to your face.

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Yes, it seems The Boy Genius Report jumped the shark by misinterpreting some cryptically worded internal memo from AT&T as proof positive the company would soon be rolling out a tethering feature (and plan) for iPhone. Sadly, or not, it is not to be. Nope turns out that memo described nothing more the process of tethering iPhone to iTunes. Ironically that document was intended to clear up customer confusion and had precisely opposite effect. AT&T – Raising the bar.

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Ouch! According to this thread on the Apple forums (via TUAW), AT&T users from Chicago to Milwaukee to St. Louis to Kansas City aren’t able to get online via EDGE. That’s a major black-eye for AT&T — and of course it doesn’t just affect iPhone users. Things are supposed to get running again by the end of the day …unless it take until February 5th. I’m based down in Florida so everything’s in the clear.

You down?

Update: Gizmodo tells us what’s going on:

However, an insider who works on networks dropped me a line as to why AT&T’s 3G network is having these sporadic issues today: apparentely, six GGSNs “rolled over”. (GGSNs are gateways between wireless and regular networks.)

Mark Sullivan of PC World compiled a list of five technology groups that frequently conspired to be anti-consumer. That, or they were really just a bunch of jerks. Well, AT&T makes the list twice, showing up in the list for various groups they belong to at #3 and #4. Well, they kind of show up in #5 too — #5 is a critique of most wireless carrier parties involved in the 700 MHz auction that Google’s part of. What kept AT&T from being at #1 and #2? Big pharma and the recording industry. Not too shabby!

For the past few days, I’ve been working with the AT&T Tilt, a Windows Mobile smartphone. I’ve used Windows Mobile before, so this isn’t quite the new experience that the BlackBerry Curve was, but I haven’t used the latest version of Windows Mobile (version 6) either. I used WM5 with a Treo 750 for a while, but I ended up dealing with a bad bug that prevented calls from ringing. That was pretty much a killer for the device, and I stopped using it.

And that would be the end of the story, but for the Smartphone Round Robin. And here we are again.

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Highlights from a report from a report by Strategy Analytics:

• iPhone tops AT&T sales chart at 13% of AT&T’s device sales
• 4th best-selling phone in U.S., selling 1.1 million units. Total # of iPhones sold: maybe 1.325 million
• based on current trajectory, iPhone will be #1 best-selling phone in the next quarter or two
• current #1 is still the RAZR V3
• two age segments standing out that are purchasing iPhone in droves: 20-30 and 50-60.

Having owned a RAZR and been frustrated with the poor software shipped on it, I will do a little dance when it’s no longer #1.

One of my readers sent me the following story. You be the judge as to the true guilty party.

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figure 1: AT&T has made some changes to benefit customers out of enlightened self-interest.

In news that should please anyone on AT&T, and if you have an iPhone, odds are good that this is you, AT&T is making consumer-friendly changes to how they do things. First, AT&T announced that they will begin pro-rating termination fees. The longer you stay on in your contract, the less of a fee you’ll have to pay. They also announced that they will not require a new contract for a simple change of service. Both are welcome changes.

Odds are good that this change of heart is due to the Senate commerce committee holding those hearings, and T-Mobile’s lawsuit problems — AT&T probably doesn’t want to get into the same legal hot water that T-Mobile is currently in.