Tag Archives | AT&T

How Much are iPhone 3GS Owners Going to Pay For the Next iPhone?

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 11, 2010 at 1:46 pm

(Update: AT&T wrote to tell me that the eligibility date shifts MobileCrunch wrote about are nothing unusual.)

When the iPhone 3GS went on sale last June, AT&T told folks who’d bought subsidized iPhone 3Gs a year previously that they didn’t qualify to buy a 3GS at the full subsidy. Seemed reasonable enough to me. But after lots of vocal complaints from iPhone 3G owners who wanted to be iPhone 3GS early adopters, the company decided to let some of them buy the 3GS model on contract at the same price as new customers and those who had fulfilled earlier contracts.

When the next iPhone comes around–I don’t know anyone who’s predicting a release date later than this July–AT&T presumably wants to avoid the confusion, bad publicity, and need for backpedaling that accompanied the 3G release. And Greg Kumparak of MobileCrunch has an interesting post noting that some AT&T customers are seeing their upgrade eligibility dates moved to June 21st, as if AT&T is prepping to let them buy new iPhones at full discount from day one.

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AT&T-iPhone: Five Year Exclusive Confirmed

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 10, 2010 at 3:28 pm

Sitting around waiting for a Verizon iPhone and checking the Web every five minutes to see if it’s here yet? You might want to chill. Engadget’s Nilay Patel is reporting about a 2008 legal document that confirms that Apple’s original 2007 agreement with AT&T involved five years of iPhone exclusivity. Contracts, of course, are fungible things. So it’s not inconceivable that we’ll see a Verizon iPhone of some sort before 2012.  But if it takes another couple of years–or more–before the iPhone lands on Verizon, now we know why…

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Helpful Infographic: Android Pricing vs. iPhone Pricing

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 10, 2010 at 2:29 pm

Here’s a further thought on the fact that Android phones are selling well in part because they’re often way cheaper than iPhones. When iPhone purveyor AT&T finally hopped on the Android bandwagon, its first handset was Motorola’s Backflip:

As of this moment, AT&T wants $99.99 for a Backflip on contract–which is ninety-nine cents more than the cost of a plain-jane iPhone 3G. But if the Backflip appeals to you, here’s a slightly better deal: Amazon has it for a penny. That’s 1/9900th the cost of the iPhone 3G. (Amazon, in case you didn’t know, doesn’t have penny iPhones–and neither does anyone else.)

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AT&T Announces MicroCell Rollout Plans

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 24, 2010 at 1:52 pm

I’m blessed with good AT&T coverage at my home. But if the situation was sketchier, I’d be interested in the company’s 3G MicroCell femotocell, which uses your broadband connection at home to enable five-bar quality voice and 3G data on AT&T handsets. The device has been in limited testing for awhile, but AT&T has announced here at CTIA that it’ll begin nationwide rollout in April. It’ll cot $150 (before a $50 rebate) and there will an unlimited calling option for $20 a month (which should help if your cell phone is your only phone and you’re not on an unlimited plan).

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Palm and Dell Phones on AT&T

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 22, 2010 at 10:39 am

I’ve landed in Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless, the U.S.’s biggest phone confab. The show floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, but news is already breaking. AT&T, for instance, has announced that it’s adding Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to its lineup, as well as Dell’s Android-based Aero–the first Dell phone to ship in the U.S.

At the moment, it’s fashionable to declare Palm to be dead. It’s true that things look bleak at the moment, but pundits have been writing premature obituaries for the company for years, so I’d take the current round of knowing analysis with a grain of salt. With the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus’s arrival on AT&T, there are Palm handsets on ever major U.S. carrier except T-Mobile. That can’t hurt, and might help.

(I’m sorry that the AT&T Pre Plus lacks the nifty Mobile HotSpot feature that’s available on the Verizon version. But I’m not surprised: If AT&T had enabled MHS on the Pre while continuing to deny iPhone users the tethering it said was “coming soon” back in 2008, iPhone users would have headed towards AT&T headquarters with pitchforks.)

Dell, meanwhile, is a company that hasn’t had much luck with handheld gizmos in the past (remember the DJ?). The Aero runs Dell’s own Android interface and is based on the Mini 3, which has only been available in China and Brazil until now.  I’ll try to track one down before I head home from the show.

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The Nexus One Gets AT&T Friendly

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 16, 2010 at 12:18 pm

When Google released its Nexus One “superphone” back in January, it was available in both a subsidized version locked to T-Mobile and a $520 unlocked one. But even the unlocked one wouldn’t work on AT&T’s frequencies at 3G speed. Which left it as a sort of pseudolocked phone: Almost nobody would choose to buy it and use it on AT&T rather than T-Mobile.

Now Google has a new version of the Nexus One that’s compatible with AT&T 3G.  It’s not an “AT&T Nexus One,” exactly: It’s only available as a $529 unlocked phone, and Google appears to have no marketing relationship with AT&T. But given how crippled AT&T’s own first Android handset is, the AT&T-friendly Nexus One is currently the coolest Android phone that’ll run on that carrier. By far. And it’s also the first new AT&T-ready handset to remotely rival the iPhone for general sex appeal.

Of course, at $529, it’s a phone with an even more limited market than the apparently slow-selling existing Nexus One. But I’m especially curious about one thing:  Will the people who spring for it find it to work any better on AT&T’s network than the iPhone 3GS does?

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AT&T Aces 3G Tests. Most of Them, Anyhow

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm

My pal Mark Sullivan of PC World has written a spectacularly ambitious story summarizing cross-country tests of the major wireless carriers’ 3G service. It’s a follow-up to an earlier piece, and the big news this time around is that AT&T did extremely well. It had the highest average download and upload speeds in tests conducted by Norarum, Inc. for PCW, and was tied for highest reliability. Most of the individual numbers associated with AT&T’s 3G performance via laptop and iPhone in thirteen cities range from good to excellent.

Except for one number. In the tests, AT&T’s reliability via iPhone in San Francisco was a dismal 55 percent, by far the worst performance turned in by any carrier on either laptop or smartphone in any city. Nearly half the time, the damn phone just didn’t work.

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AT&T Talks LTE

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 10, 2010 at 12:04 pm

Anxious to see AT&T improve its wireless network? The long-term solution won’t involve beefing up the company’s current 3G network–it’ll be nailing LTE, the even-higher-speed 4G wireless technology that’ll eventually replace the current network. AT&T announced today that it’s working with equipment manufacturers Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson to begin tests of LTE later this year, with a full rollout in 2011.

LTE isn’t a magic bullet, but it’s promising and I look forward to its arrival. Even though absolutely none of the phones and wireless adapters we own now will be compatible with it…

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“Apple seen extending exclusive iPhone deal with AT&T”

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 9, 2010 at 6:07 pm

Can’t we all just admit that we have no idea when or if U.S. carriers other than AT&T will get the iPhone? AT&T may not know. Heck, Steve Jobs may not know.

(Okay, trying to suss this out is irresistible: Seems to me that the window for a Verizon iPhone 3GS has essentially closed, and that the one for a CDMA iPhone on Verizon at all is quickly narrowing, too. With every day that passes with no news, the chances are higher that AT&T will preserve its exclusivity into 2011.)

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