AT&T is scrapping its plans to offer in-flight 4G LTE connectivity services to airlines and passengers in business and general aviation. The company originally planned to build an air-to-ground network across the US to take advantage of spectrum that it already owned.
Following the introduction of Voice-over-LTE technology with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which increases call quality by routing calls through an LTE network opposed to last generation 3G networks, US carriers have experienced a big increase in VoLTE calls. That’s according to a new report from Newfield Wireless that highlights a decrease for calls over 3G by about one-fifth compared to previous generation iPhones and other LTE-capable devices:
The majority of voice calls made on other 4G-enabled devices are currently routed through legacy 2G and 3G networks, due to the fact that not all networks and devices are optimised to deliver next-generation voice services. iPhone 6 devices are VoLTE-compatible and as a result, U.S. networks have experienced a surge in VoLTE calls since the September launch.
The report also shared some other data points from its research noting a few stats for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus uptake compared to previous generations:
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Sprint announced today that it will begin selling cellular versions of Apple’s new iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3 this week following pre-orders of the device kicking off through Apple, AT&T on Friday. Sprint also noted that the iPad Air 2, which includes support for 20 LTE bands and speeds up to 150Mbps over LTE, will be the first iPad that supports its high-speed Spark LTE network.
Sprint Spark delivers average wireless speeds of 6-15Mbps and peak wireless speeds of 50-60Mbps today on capable devices, with increasing speed potential over time. Sprint is on track to reach 100 million Americans by year-end with Sprint Spark.
The iPad mini 3, however, doesn’t support the Sprint Spark network and will instead be limited to Sprint’s normal 4G LTE network.
Sprint will have the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 later this week online and in-stores. Sprint customers can add the new tablets to a Family Share plan for $10/month per tablet, but the carrier is waiving the fee through December 2015 for customers with a 20GB Family Share plan or higher. It also has a limited time 100MB of data for $10 in addition to its normal tablet plans.
Apple is already taking orders for the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 that ship with its new universal SIM with support for AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile out of the box. Apple is expected to start shipping the new tablets this week.
After watching its competitors loosen up their data rates, Verizon has decided to get in on the action. Starting tomorrow the carrier will begin offering increased data allowances to customers committed to its More Everything service plans at no additional cost. Subscribers signed up for Big Red’s $110 12GB data plan will be bumped up to 15GB, while the carrier’s $130 16GB monthly setup will jump to 30GB.
During its Uncarrier 7.0 event this afternoon, T-Mobile revealed a handful of new announcements as part of its ongoing quest to lead the mobile industry. Firstly, CEO John Legere announced that every phone it sells from here on out will be capable of WiFi calling and texting. The company says that anyone who does not currently have a phone capable of WiFi calling can upgrade to a supported phone with the carrier’s Jump program. As the name implies, WiFi calling and texting allows you to make calls and send texts over your WiFi network, as opposed to over the cellular connection.
If there’s one thing as certain as the hype when Apple launches a new iPhone, it’s the “Apple is doomed” messages when the new model(s) fail to meet every single analyst prediction, no matter how crazy. Apple could add a matter transporter function to the iPhone 6 and some analyst would be complaining that it only operates on WiFi when they were expecting it to use LTE.
Business Insider pointed to a set of CNN charts which show that, typically, the AAPL stock price is down a month after a new iPhone launch. But any similar dip we might see after the launch of the iPhone 6 is no cause for concern: with the exception of 2013, Apple stock has been climbing since the first iPhone was launched in 2007.
As ever, make your own investment decisions with the aid of professional advice, but there certainly doesn’t appear to be any reason to be spooked if the launch of the new iPhone leads to some investors selling their shares. “Buy on the rumor, sell on the news” is a very common approach.
T-Mobile announced today that it’s adding a new data option to its Simple Starter plans that will let users quadruple their data for much less than the competition.
Currently the company’s Simple Starter plans start at $40 for unlimited talk, text, and 500MB of LTE data. Starting early next month, the carrier will let customers on the plan bump up to a total of 2GB of data for just an extra $5 per month. T-Mobile is promoting the option as a better alternative to overage fees charged by other carriers.
CEO John Legere compared the option to his competitors noting that if you “get Verizon’s $50 plan and use just one gig more data, and the price jumps to $65. It’s crazy.”
“People who use loads of data use T-Mobile,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “And it’s no wonder. The old guard telecoms punish people for using more data on their networks with crazy overage charges and fees. Get Verizon’s $50 plan and use just one gig more data, and the price jumps to $65. It’s crazy. At T-Mobile, we designed our network data-strong so our customers could use the hell out of it. And that’s just what they’re doing.”
T-Mobile notes that the deal is a limited time offer and subject to change, so you’ll want to add the data to your plan before the promotion ends to take advantage. The promo officially kicks in on September 3.
If you thought things were messy with U.S. networks, Verizon and Sprint using CMDA and AT&T and T-Mobile using GSM, things are even worse in China – with WCDMA, CDMA2000, CDMA1X, GSM, TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE all in use by different carriers in different combinations.
The iPhone 6 may be about to make life a whole lot easier, though, with Sina (via ZDNet) reporting that the model sold by China Telecom at least will support all of the wireless networks in use in the country, based on a Weibo post by the carrier. Admittedly the image used in the Weibo above looks a little different than the general consensus we’ve seen before – they were created by Tomas Moyano and Nicolàs Aichino, and China Telecom likely downloaded them from Bēhance.
That aside, the message they are sending might be more interesting…
Carriers have started rolling out faster LTE-Advanced networks, also known as LTE-A and LTE+. If today’s rumor is correct, the iPhone 6 will be able to take advantage of these faster networks, but will top out at 150Mbps rather than the maximum 300Mbps supported by LTE-A.
GforGames is citing a Geekbar post, suggests that the LTE modem in the iPhone 6 will be the Qualcomm MDM9625, which supports LTE-A but only up to 150Mbps.
To put the speeds into perspective, the LTE modem used in the iPhone 5s and 5c tops out at 100Mbps, so we’d see a 50 percent increase in speed rather than a 200 percent one.
It should be noted that the source of the rumor is the same one which yesterday got its NAND and its DRAM confused, and has a record of mixed reliability. However, it wouldn’t be a surprising decision by Apple. LTE-A is at a very early stage, with limited network roll-out and only a few handsets supporting it. Apple generally prefers to wait for a technology to mature before adopting it.
We shouldn’t have long to wait to find out, with Apple expected to officially launch the iPhone 6 at a media event on 9th September.
Recent claimed leaked parts appear to show tapered edges on the display panel and the power button moved from the top to the side of the phone; a raised camera cutout; a single, circular True Tone flash; and the logic board assembly – with far fewer leaks for the 5.5-inch model, perhaps lending weight to rumors that it will go on sale later than the 4.7-inch one.
Verizon Wireless has announced its plans to launch support for Voice over LTE service (or VoLTE) on its cellular network later this year, according to FierceWireless. However, the company says it has moved back its plan to release a VoLTE-only phone until 2016, and will continue releasing CDMA-capable phones until that time. Such a device was originally anticipated for the end of 2014.
The carrier originally announced earlier this year that it would support the new voice service, which provides higher-quality phone calls by utilizing high-speed data connections, but declined at the time to say exactly when it would happen. Other U.S. carriers, including T-Mobile and AT&T, have already started rolling the technology out in select markets.
While we can’t say for sure that rumors of a MacBook-style glowing logo in the iPhone 6 are false, the evidence for this idea is rather … ah … thin.
We first saw photos of what appears to be an ultra-thin rear casing more than a month ago, with some sites then claiming this would facilitate a light-up logo. A new claimed leaked photo is doing the rounds today apparently showing a cut-out logo aperture with a plastic backing thin enough to allow light to shine though.
Those images fuelled speculation that the logo would light up when new mails, SMS messages or updates arrived, allowing owners to put their handset on its front and still be made aware of people contacting them. Today our snaps, which we worked with leaks-world lynchpin Sonny Dickson to source, could offer conclusive proof that this is indeed the case.
Possible? Sure. Conclusive proof? Um, no. Exhibit A, the logo cutout on the iPad:
The reason the logo is cut out in this way is that while people love metal casings, radio signals don’t. Apple positions the wifi antennas behind the plastic logo to allow the radio signals to pass easily through.
On the iPhone 5s, Apple allows GSM, LTE, Bluetooth and wifi signals to pass through the casing by topping-and-tailing the metal rear casing with glass sections:
With the iPhone 6 visuals we’ve seen, there are breaks in the metal casing which are likely to be for radio signals, but they are much thinner than the end-caps on the 5s.
Positioning some of the antennas behind a plastic logo would be one way to make that work.
We’re not saying a glowing logo on the iPhone 6 is impossible, just that we certainly haven’t seen anything close to proof.
Verizon today announced that it is finally adding 4G LTE support to its ALLSET prepaid plans starting on July 17th. This announcement comes just a few weeks after the addition was originally rumored. Starting on July 17th, customers can bring their own devices to ALLSET and use them with LTE data, in addition to using the devices officially offered through ALLSET by Verizon.
Apple confirmed today that it has released an unlocked variant of its cellular iPad in Japan allowing users to buy the device and use it with their carrier of choice.
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T-Mobile held its un-carrier 5.0 (and 6.0) event a couple of weeks ago, and the company’s press release to go along with the event had T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray promising that the company would have an “LTE footprint north of 230 million pops by the end of [the] month.”
It appears that, just in time, the company has hit this goal. And in sarcastic and hilarious fashion, John Legere has taken to Twitter to confirm:
Neville confirmed we hit 230M POPs of LTE! Met our goal but still going! Where you at @Sprint? I hear you’re running behind. #sprintlikehell
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) June 28, 2014
Along with its growing LTE network, the un-carrier 5.0 event brought a slew of other announcements including an iPhone 5s test drive program, free streaming for iTunes Radio and other music services, and the company’s own music streaming service dubbed “unRadio.”
Apple is gearing up to launch two larger iPhone sizes this fall: a 4.7-inch version and a 5.5-inch model. While the 4.7-inch version has been leaked extensively with a thinner body design, the 5.5-inch model only saw its first significant leak in the form of a dummy model last week. Today, Sonny Dickson has exclusively shared with us a pair of photos claimed to be showing the LCD display component for that larger iPhone with 5.5-inch screen. The photos show the display attached to a ruler that indicates a screen with a diagonal measurement of approximately 14cm:
That 14cm converts to the 5.5-inches heavily rumored for the next-generation Apple smartphone. While these photos do not provide us with any breakthrough information about the new iPhone, the photos, at best, do show that Apple is already producing components for the larger sized phone and this means that production is likely nearing. Several reports have indicated that the 5.5-inch model will be in short supply upon launch and that the phone may even be released multiple weeks following the 4.7-inch version…
Following announcements earlier this month from both AT&T and Verizon, T-Mobile announced today it’s introducing Voice over LTE support starting with the Seattle market:
So I’m thrilled to congratulate my team on the launch of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in the Seattle area for our existing LG G Flex and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Light customers. Our friends at MetroPCS were the first to launch VoLTE in the U.S. back in 2012, and we’ve been working hard on a LTE Advanced version of VoLTE, which we plan to roll out to more T-Mobile customers throughout the coming year.
T-Mobile’s CTO Neville Ray noted that the new technology, which brings voice calls onto the same LTE radio layer previously reserved for data, will allow “faster call setup times (almost twice as fast as a non-VoLTE call setup) and the ability to enjoy lightening fast LTE data speeds while on a call.” It will also support the HD Voice or wide-band audio feature that Apple already supports. Ray explained how the technology works:
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<a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/05/14/detailed-iphone-6-mockup-compared-to-ipad-air-ipad-mini-iphone-5c-iphone-5s-iphone-4s-and-ipod-touch-video/#more-323188">iPhone 6 physical mockups on the right</a>
United States-based carrier AT&T today officially announced its rollout of voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) calls. The VoLTE rollout comes in tandem with AT&T HD Voice launch, which provides better sounding phone calls. Starting on May 23rd, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be the initially supported markets for these features, but AT&T says to expect a more complete rollout as time goes on:
Update: March 18: Launched.
Indications from several sources (including our own) indicate that the iPhone 5c is set to see an expansion tomorrow with a less-expensive, lower-capacity 8GB model. But that might not be the only Apple iOS device announcement for tomorrow. According to a source, shipments of Apple’s fourth-generation iPad with Retina display have been arriving at Apple Stores with notices to not open until tomorrow (images below)…
<em>Please, please, don’t laugh at my blazing fast network speed</em>
This is a welcome feature update for iPad users: Ookla’s popular Speedtest.net app for iOS received an update today bringing native iPad support to the app for the first time.
Speedtest.net is a popular site for checking your network speed whether you want to show off your better-than-mine download speed or see how far from advertised your speed rates really are, but iOS doesn’t support the site, and iPad users have had to made due with the stretched out iPhone app for a long while.
The update also includes enhancements to the speedometer for high speed connections and a number of bug fixes. Speedtest for iOS is a free app and update with an optional 99¢ in-app purchase to remove the banner ad.
From tomorrow, AT&T will cut the price of its 2GB data plan tier ‘Mobile Share Value’ from $55 to $40. In total, this plan will cost you $65 per month in data charges for one device, comprised of the reduced $40 data plan and a $25 device charge. As usual, there is a $25 charge for each device that shares the data allowance. For one device, this represents an overall reduction of approximately 20% of AT&T’s current offerings. Otherwise, the plans remain the same with unlimited talk and text service, unlimited international messaging in addition to the shared data.
Image via iFixit
Two new reports out today are offering a bit of early insight into what to expect from Apple’s next A-series SoC, or system on a chip, that powers its iPhone and iPad devices.
The first tidbit from Fudzilla says Apple will once again rely on Qualcomm for LTE chips in the next round of iOS devices rather than an A8 chip with LTE integrated. So what does this mean? It’s probably safe to assume Apple will save a SoC which includes the LTE modem in a future iteration.
Generally, the fewer chips required in a mobile device, the better optimized for battery life the device is. Apple, of course, must strive to engineer battery life parity, if not improvements, as our devices get more powerful each generation.
Following a back and forth between T-Mobile and AT&T on promotions geared toward customers wanting to jump the carrier ship, AT&T announced today a short term promotion that actually rewards existing customers in addition to new users.
AT&T is shelling out $100 (in the form of a credit) for new lines including smartphones and tablets.
New and existing customers are eligible when you activate a qualifying wireless line
Add a new line for any smartphone, feature phone, tablet, wireless home phone, MiFi puck, or other connected device
You must remain active and in good standing for 45 days; your credit will be applied within 3 bill cycles
The promo runs through the end of March, so it’s not permanent, but it’s certainly a hefty incentive and hopefully of sign of what carrier competition can bring.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Virgin Mobile is knocking another 20% off their marked down iPhones yielding the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on the unsubsidized phones (that’s another 10% less than this weekend’s mention).
Note Apple charges $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and $550 for an iPhone 5c so savings is around $200/iPhone. While the iPhones are unsubsidized, Virgin does offer extremely competitive plans on the Sprint 4G LTE network starting at $30/month for unlimited text/data.
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From 9to5Toys.com:
Virgin Mobile is knocking another 10% off their marked down iPhones yielding the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on the unsubsidized phones.
Note Apple charges $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and $550 for an iPhone 5c so savings is around $150/iPhone. While the iPhones are unsubsidized, Virgin does offer extremely competitive plans on the Sprint 4G LTE network starting at $30/month for unlimited text/data.
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