Following on the heels of Sprint and Verizon, AT&T is set to launch its own femtocell - 3G MicroCell – giving its customers (who pay for a 3G MicroCell plan) unlimited minutes while connected to any MicroCell at home, business, or otherwise. MicroCell is essentially a personal miniature cell tower that connects to AT&T’s network via your existing broadband connection in order to boost and expand weak network coverage. It has an advertised range of up to 5000 square feet, works with any AT&T 3G device, provides a secure connection, allows for seamless call hand-over (i.e. uninterrupted transition from MicroCell to AT&T cellular network), and can handle up to 4 simultaneous voice or data users at a given time. As usual, we don’t have any pricing or release information, yet. [via PhoneNews] → Read More
This Sunday, AT&T will launch a new video service that will allow select handsets carry 10 television channels for a fee of $15 a month. The service, called AT&T Mobile TV, is an attempt by the company to compete with Verizon Wireless’ V Cast Mobile TV. AT&T has a mobile video service, CV, which works on a different principle than AT&T Mobile TV. Mobile TV, which uses Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology, constantly streams shows so that they are more like regular broadcasts. The service will start in 58 markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. At the start of the launch, only two handsets will be Mobile TV capable. The LG Vu, which sells for $299.99, and the Samsung Access, which sells for $199.99, are the first units that can run the application. A two year contract with a $100 mail-in rebate will get you one of these phones. In the future, other phones will be able to carry the new service. AT&T Mobile TV will allow users to view CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, Nickelodeon, Sony Pictures and CNN Mobile Live. Verizon isn’t telling how many people subscribe to its V Cast Mobile TV service. AT&T priced its TV service the same as Verizon’s but some are skeptical about the practicality of such an application. The consuming public may not be willing to pay $15 a month to watch television on the small screen. → Read More
MobileCrunch reported yesterday that Verizon’s new unlimited calling plan could start a price war in the U.S. mobile market. Hours after the announcement by Verizon Wireless, both AT&T and T-Mobile returned fire with unlimited calling plans of their own. Consumers should be happy but stock holders of the telecommunications companies may become a little gun shy. Verizon’s $99.99 a month unlimited calling plan (which covers all of the United States not just selected areas) was only five hours old when AT&T announced its own unlimited plan. Three hours after AT&T’s announcement, T-Mobile joined the conflict, saying it would introduce a $99.99 plan today. Unlike the Verizon and AT&T plans, T-Mobile’s includes unlimited text and picture messaging, which costs $14.99 per month when added to other T-Mobile plans. “This is a highly competitive market and we’re committed to moving fast to meet customer needs,” said Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility. The number three provider in the United States, Sprint Nextel, currently has an unlimited calling plan of $119.99 a month, but it is limited to residents of Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Tampa and parts of Northern California and Western Nevada. Analysts expect Sprint to announce its own unlimited plan that covers the entire nation. It is speculated that Sprint’s flat-rate calling plan could undercut the competition by as much as 40%, a move that would intensify the mobile war. Recently, Sprint has seen a defection of customers that has hurt the bottom line. Selling unlimited plans for as little as $60 could bring new recruits back to Sprint. “Our bigger concern rests with Sprint’s plans and the potential for future additional competitive responses,” Robert W. Baird analyst Will Power wrote in a research note. Share prices for all the combatants have been on the decline since Verizon fired the first salvo in the mobile pricing war. If Sprint tries to undercut the competition with $80 or $60 plans, the competition will be forced to respond with either lower prices or more services with their pricing packages. This will cut into profits, at least for awhile. “Our bigger concern rests with Sprint’s plans and the potential for future additional competitive responses,” Robert W. Baird analyst Will Power wrote in a research note. → Read More
This spring Starbucks will brew up a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in more than 7,000 of its U.S. coffee shops this spring. The new service will be done in tandem with AT&T, which ends a six-year partnership Starbucks had with T-Mobile. Customers that use the Starbucks purchase card will get two hours of free wireless access per day. After that, access will cost $3.99 for a two hour block of time. Monthly memberships can be bought for $19.99 and includes access to any of AT&T’s 70,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. Users who already use AT&T as their Internet service provider will have unlimited access at Starbucks. Starbucks → Read More
AT&T announced today stronger-than-expected wireless growth in the fourth quarter. Investors were concerned that a slowdown in the U.S. economy would hurt the company’s subscriber growth. But AT&T added 2.7 net new wireless subscribers in the quarter. This is higher than the 1.92 million subscribers that some analysts had predicted. AT&T’s fourth-quarter profit was $3.1 billion, or 51 cents per share, as compared to last year’s fourth quarter that posted a $1.9 billion profit. “It was a solid quarter certainly,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King. “It’s certainly a positive and they reiterated guidance for 2008. … In this type of market, any reiteration of guidance has to be viewed positively.” “We had an excellent fourth quarter, which affirms our outlook for 2008,” Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement. → Read More
Music-based games are all the rage on the latest video game consoles, and now they’re about to invade the mobile gaming platform. AdME, a provider of music-driven entertainment products, announced the release of GuitarStar, a next-generation mobile game for the AT&T Wireless network. The game uses “beat-matching” technology that transforms a mobile handset into a virtual guitar, where users must synchronize visual movements with the beat of an underlying musical soundtrack. GuitarStar lets players live out their rock star dreams on the go. “Rather than taking their cues solely from what they see, mobile players can use the beat’s groove to guide their play the way console players do with Guitar Hero, or arcade players with Dance Dance Revolution,” explains Peter Eggleston, CEO of AdME. This is the first product from AdME’s mdME (music-driven Mobile Entertainment) product suite, a project that has been in development for the past two years. Additional titles are in the works, including DanceLord, which will allow players to control animatronic characters that can be choreographed using the cellular keyboard. DanceLord is expected to arrive in the next year. AdME → Read More
Starting today, AT&T customers will be able to purchase the Pantech C150 camera phone. For what it’s worth, the C150 was a recipient of “a 2006 iF design award for international excellence in brand design.” Apparently, this is quite an award as it’s been going on for over 50 years and entries come in from all over the world and number in the thousands. I guess that’s what I get for not keeping up on German design competitions. This candy bar style handset — whoa, I just noticed the photo on the phone’s screen as I was writing this, hah cha cha! — comes with Bluetooth, mobile e-mail via Yahoo!, AOL, and Windows Live Mail, MP3 ring tones, and a VGA camera that also shoots video. The phone is less than half an inch thick and costs a big fat donut with a two-year contract, $199 without. Pantech Launches Stylish Award-Winning Camera Phone Press Release via [Businesswire] → Read More
On July 20, 1969, the country paused to watch the first man walk on the moon. Just under 40 years later, and the space shuttle launch raises little more attention than a regularly scheduled flight on a commercial airline. Can mobile change all that? German mobile software company Dynetic plans to stream the next NASA launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, June 8, at 7:38 p.m. EDT. This marks the 21st U.S. mission to the International Space Station. Streaming will be available as part of the Space2Phone service. Subscribers pay $2.49 per month, and non-subscribers can watch the flight on a pay-per-view basis at http://wap.space2phone.com/. Subscribers and on-demand viewers with service plans and handsets compatible for streaming video can watch live, phones and services with limited ability to watch video can download clips minutes after the launch. Access is available both on-deck and off-deck with Altell, AT&T Wireless, CinBell, Cingular, Dobson, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, Nextel/Boost, and Verizon. Space2Phone → Read More
If you were to ask me what a 7-11 and a failed communication device have in common, I’d say the Ogo from back in the day. Though it never quite caught on here, the Ogo lives on in the palms of our brothers across the Atlantic. IXI Mobile has launched the Ogo 2.0, which is pretty much the old one with a better display and re-done interface. It also has stereo speakers for…some reason. I must admit though, the new design doesn’t look too shabby and has quite the European feel to it. Maybe the ostracized Ogo will live on happily ever after with those smelly Swiss. Ogo 2.0: Kinda Like Sidekick, But Only Europe Likes It [Gizmodo] → Read More
