AT& T, Verizon Loosen Cell Contracts
228606
The nation's two largest wireless carriers amended their policies on cellphone contracts before a hearing held yesterday by lawmakers interested in legislating consumer-friendly practices.
127060
AT&T wants to trim the deal's scope, The Wall Street Journal reports.
87820
Major mobile voice and data carriers in the United States have pledged to open their networks to outside handsets and applications, but regulators and customers need to be vigilant to make sure those promises are fulfilled, one member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said.Carriers including AT&amp;T and Verizon Wireless have promised to open up their networks, but the FCC will need to watch the prices that carriers charge customers who bring their own devices to the networks, said the FCC&#39;s Michael Copps, speaking Tuesday at a New America Foundation forum. The FCC will also need to monitor the complexity of certification for new devices and applications, he said.Mobile carriers still dictate what features can be used on most phones, with Wi-Fi features unavailable on most U.S. mobile phones because of carrier opposition, Copps said. The FCC needs &quot;trust but verify&quot; the open network promises from the carriers, Copps said.&quot;I hope it is as good as it sounds,&quot; he added. The FCC should step in if the carriers don&#39;t live up to their promises, Copps added.Carriers have in recent months taken steps to block text messages and some types of applications, Copps added. They need to pledge to &quot;no blocking, no locking, and no discriminatory degradation of service,&quot; he said.Copps, a Democrat, seemed to disagree with the FCC&#39;s Republican chairman Kevin Martin, who was quoted in The New York Times as saying the issue of open networks has &quot;melted away&quot; as AT&amp;T, Verizon Wireless, and other carriers have moved to open their networks.Advocates have been pushing for customers to be able to take their mobile devices from carrier to carrier for about a year. Weeks after&#160;Google announced its Open Handset Alliance&#160;in November,&#160;Verizon Wireless announced it would open its network&#160;to outside devices and applications by the end of this year.About a week after the Verizon announcement, AT&amp;T announced that it&#39;s long been its policy to allow outside devices and applications onto its mobile network.But Copps and critics of the carriers said Tuesday it&#39;s too early to tell if the carriers are serious about open networks. For example, mobile carriers could discourage customers from bringing their own devices by charging higher prices, Copps said.Carriers have often argued that they need to sign up customers using lengthy contracts because they&#39;re subsidizing the cost of a mobile phone. But if customers bring their own phones, there&#39;s no carrier subsidy, so&#160;the plan should cost less, said Robert Frieden, a professor of telecommunications and law at Penn State University.Right now, &quot;you don&#39;t get a discount for bringing your own phone,&quot; said Frieden, author of a New America Foundation paper calling on the FCC to regulate open network access.Some of the same companies pledged to offer stand-alone DSL service more than three years ago, and in many cases, customers have to fight through layers of customer service to get DSL without accompanying wireline phone service, added Christopher Libertelli, senior director for regulatory and government affairs at Skype.A Skype handset that allows calls to be made over Wi-Fi or a mobile network is available in parts of Europe and in Hong Kong but not the United States because carriers have opposed it, he said.&quot;Sitting here, we can&#39;t predict how these press release will turn into real consumer rights,&quot; Libertelli said.But representatives of Verizon Wireless, AT&amp;T, and T-Mobile said they were serious about offering customers choices of devices and applications.Verizon Wireless wants to encourage new types of devices and work with developers and handset makers to create innovation, said Anthony Lewis, vice president of the company&#39;s Open Development Initiative. &quot;This will not work if I dictate to my customers,&quot; he said.AT&amp;T will monitor devices for bandwidth hogging and security, but otherwise, the company is open to outside devices, said Robert Quinn Jr., AT&amp;T&#39;s senior vice president for federal regulatory affairs. AT&amp;T customers want to be able to use more devices on the network, he said.Asked, however, if AT&amp;T would unlock Apple&#39;s iPhone to use on other networks, Quinn said the company couldn&#39;t do that.
221839
Government regulators approved rules yesterday that would phase out discounts the four major regional telephone companies offer rivals for access to their networks, a move likely to lead to higher phone bills for some 18 million residential phone customers served by AT&amp;T Corp., MCI Inc., and other carriers.
40592
The new measures are due to AT&T's retreat from selling services to consumers, the company said today.
387985
The largest U.S. mobile service  provider AT&T Inc  and smaller rival T-Mobile USA revealed  new handsets on Monday to attract a growing number of consumers  who like to send e-mails or text messages.
602877
The biggest U.S. mobile operators, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless, will close down their analog networks on Monday.
220491
(InfoWorld) - BroadcomÂ and Verizon Wireless have reached a deal that will allow Verizon to continue importing and selling phones that are the subject of continuing litigation between Broadcom and Qualcomm. On June 7, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)Â banned the importation of new models of phones and PDAs that hit the market after that day and include certain Qualcomm chips. Broadcom had sued the rival mobile chip vendor over alleged patent infringement. Under a licensing agreement, Verizon will pay Broadcom $6 for every handset, PDA, or data card that uses EvDO (Evolution-Data Optimized) mobile broadband technology. The carrier will make the payments up to a ceiling of $40 million per calendar quarter and a lifetime maximum of $200 million. As part of the deal, Verizon also will drop an effort to overturn the ruling. Other terms are confidential, according to a statement released by the two companies. The move is a blow to Qualcomm, which pioneered the CDMAÂ technology on which EvDO is based. Verizon is the largest carrier in the U.S. using EvDO. It will pay Broadcom to license technology that Qualcomm has argued does not belong to Broadcom in the first place. Qualcomm was not immediately available for comment. In addition to the licensing deal, Broadcom has entered a strategic alliance with Verizon Communications, the parent company of Verizon Wireless. That deal covers new mobile device chipsets as well as Bluetooth, wireless LAN, optical network, GPS, DSL, fiber, set-top box, and home network equipment components. Broadcom, in Irvine, California, makes chips for a wide range of wired and wireless network products. Qualcomm, in nearby San Diego, is focused on wireless technology. Qualcomm said last month it would try to convince President George Bush to overturn the June 7 ruling, which was effective immediately. Bush has 60 days to decide whether to take action. If he doesn't, Qualcomm could appeal the ruling in federal court. The June 7 ruling came after the ITC ruled last year that Qualcomm had infringed on a Broadcom patent for power management technology. Broadcom had said the system is used in essentially all EvDO and Wideband CDMA phones.
102679
Two months ago, Fred Poteet walked into a Sprint store to resolve some technical problems with his cell phone service. When he walked out, he had a new wireless contract &#151; with Cox Communications Inc., his cable TV operator.
384838
Hackers have broken the chains that bind iPhone users to AT&amp;T. Will lawyers be the next ones on the line?
21492
AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, look out! European companies with unfamiliar names to many Americans, now offer much cheaper and more convenient GSM cellular services to US residents traveling abroad.
37953
AT&T launches a service giving parents wide-ranging control on most all its 63.7 million subscriber lines. Parents can limit when a wireless phone can make and receive calls and to whom, restrict text messages and talk time, and set allowances for ring tones and other downloads.
704889
Cingular, soon to be the United States&#39; largest cellular network, will drop the AT&amp;T brand six months after it completes its merger with AT&amp;T Wireless.
286079
Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S.  mobile service, said on Wednesday it will let customers use  their cell phones to send each other money using a service from  privately held Obopay Inc.
56938
Lack of bidders forces largest US local telephone companies to terminate efforts in small markets. NEW YORK  - Verizon Communications Inc.
390749
On the surface, the frenzy of telecommunications mergers in the past few weeks raises relatively clear-cut questions for lawmakers and regulators who will be weighing the deals: Will consumers and businesses be harmed if long-distance choices disappear when AT&T and MCI are swallowed by telephone giants SBC and Verizon?
630797
Verizon Wireless and Sprint (NYSE: FON) are giving their customers a break, cutting their fees for number portability, which the carriers have charged all customers to meet the costs of enabling wireless users to keep their phone numbers when they switch service providers.