Tag Archives | T-Mobile

Verizon’s Getting Ready for the iPhone, Just in Case

Posted by Ed Oswald on December 18, 2009 at 10:19 am

If the iPhone is really no longer an AT&T exclusive in the new year as many analysts are now suggesting and/or predicting, at least one carrier doesn’t want to get caught with its pants down. Verizon Wireless says it has made the changes it would need to make to its network in order to handle what would obviously be a new surge in data traffic.

Better to be safe than sorry, I guess?

Quite a surprising statement considering the company is spending quite a bit of money putting down Apple in its “Droid Does” ads that we’ve all been getting peppered with for the past two months plus. But in a way it’s not because Verizon has watched as AT&T’s network problems have become a serious liability to the company, “Operation Chokehold” notwithstanding.

“Absolutely, I think we could handle it,” Verizon Wireless CTO Anthony Melone told BusinessWeek in an interview. Now, lets not get the story twisted here: Melone is not saying there is any deal yet, but its pretty much common knowledge that the two sides have at least discussed possible partnerships in the past.

Verizon has gone the opposite way of AT&T over the past several years in investing in network infrastructure, spending about $19 billion on the network itself over the past three years. As Gizmodo points out, AT&T’s spending since the iPhone launch on the network itself has actually decreased.

With Verizon readily talking about it’s iPhone readiness, I wonder if T-Mobile USA will start making overtures as well. The carrier has been mentioned much more often recently as a logical next carrier for the device, as it would take minimal changes (adding TMUS’ 1700MHz band to the 3G chip of the iPhone) for it to work.

Going to Verizon — and CDMA — requires a much more involved rework of the device. Going to be an interesting 2010 in iPhoneland, that’s for sure.

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Googlephone. Plus a Contract. No Big Whoop?

Posted by Harry McCracken on December 14, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Latest Googlephone rumor: Reuters is now reporting that Google’s Nexus One will be sold at a subsidized price on T-Mobile, possibly starting as soon as January 5th. Even if it’s also available unlocked and without a discount, a Googlephone that’s sold primarily through a carrier using the current contract-price business model sounds like it’s a lot less likely to be a game-changer. It might not amount to that much more than an HTC phone sold through T-Mobile, with a heavier quotient of Google in its its DNA (is that a mixed metaphor?) than usual…

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Department of Misleading Headlines

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 30, 2009 at 2:25 pm

Scott Moritz, at TheStreet.com:

Um, read the story, and you’ll find it presents no evidence that Apple is contemplating a T-Mobile deal. All you get is an analyst speculating that Verizon isn’t going to get the iPhone soon, and speculating that if Apple wants to end AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity it might logically cut a deal with T-Mobile. But it’s all guesswork.

The analyst says that he expects that a Verizon iPhone will appear only in 2011, and that it’ll use a 4G LTE data connection rather than Verizon’s current EVDO network. Sounds logical enough. If you assume that Verizon’s current spree of iPhone bashing means it’s not going to announce an Apple deal immediately, it feels more and more likely that Apple and Verizon will skip the dead-end technology an EVDO iPhone would bring and jump directly to an LTE model. And it’s going to be 2011 before an LTE iPhone makes sense.

Or so I think. I cheerfully concede that I could be wrong. Which is why this post isn’t titled “No Verizon iPhone Until 2011…”

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Sidekick Sales Resuming

Posted by Ed Oswald on November 17, 2009 at 10:46 am

If you’re brave enough to want a Sidekick from T-Mobile after last month’s data loss fiasco, wait no longer. The carrier has resumed sales of the device, even throwing a price cut in for good measure. The older Sidekick 2008 is $49.99, and the fancier Sidekick LX will retail for $149.99, both with a two-year contract commitment. The meager price drops (about $25) may not be enough for many to take a chance on the company, however.

At least two states, California and Washington, are in the process of suing the company over the data loss. T-Mobile itself has done a little damage control by giving $100 credits to unhappy customers. All in all, October was a month the carrier would like to forget. Let’s just hope this time they have a backup…

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Microsoft: “Steady Progress” on Sidekick Data Restore

Posted by Ed Oswald on October 19, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Good news for those of us out there affected by the Sidekick data mess: Microsoft on Monday said that it was continuing to work “around the clock” on the problem, and was making “steady progress” in attempting to restore data. The first of the user content to be restored would be user contacts (probably the most important for most of us), with photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores to follow later.

No exact time frame has been given for the full restore. However, for those who have been affected by the issue (I actually met somebody over the weekend that lost nothing, so it’s not everybody), this is now two weeks after the initial data loss. You have to figure that many have recovered most of their data through other means, so a restore is becoming less and less useful.

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“Always On,” Eh?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 12, 2009 at 3:35 pm

T-Mobile may have halted sales of Sidekicks, but its marketing materials for the phone are still up and available. And they seem to be mocking T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger. I wonder if references to “always on” apps henceforth will have to be asterisked with a disclaimer: “Unless we suffer a lengthy outage and turn out to have lost most of our customers’ data…”

Sidekick

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Sidekick Disaster: How to Make Amends?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 12, 2009 at 11:31 am

Danger Sidekick A little more news on the Sidekick data disaster: CNET’s Ina Fried is reporting that T-Mobile has halted sales of the device. And John Herrman of Gizmodo has a post about offers apparently being made by T-Mobile reps to affected customers, none of which sound like appropriate responses to the enormity of what’s apparently happened: a month of free service, a small discount on another phone, and the ability to get out of a contract without paying a penalty.

Presumably, what Sidekick users really want is to keep on using their Sidekicks with the data they thought was safe and sound. But if their stuff really is gone, what would be an adequate action on the part of T-Mobile and/or Microsoft? Free service for a year? Two years? Three? A cash payment of $250? $500? $1000? Immediate upgrade to any device sold by the carrier at no cost?

I’m dying to know what you think–especially if you’re a Sidekick owner…

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Sidekick Disaster: A Sign of Things to Come?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 12, 2009 at 9:19 am

Danger Sidekick There’s no new news this Monday morning on Microsoft’s apparent loss of vast quantities of data belonging to users of T-Mobile Sidekick phones–T-Mobile’s most recent missive to customers is still the apologetic forum message telling them not to power down their Sidekicks if they can possibly avoid it. You gotta think there’s more pain to come–for Sidekick owners who have lost photos, address books, and other data, and for T-Mobile and Sidekick, who may end up with permanently tarnished reputations.

I’m still scratching my head and trying to think of any remotely comparable examples of large companies simply losing huge amounts of essential customer information, and I’m coming up short. (The closest parallel–instances of companies leaving customers in the lurch by intentionally shutting down services-isn’t really comparable.)

This incident may be unique, at least for the moment. But do you think it’s an early warning sign of danger to come as we all live more and more of our lives on the Web?

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Microsoft to Sidekick Users: We Seem to Have Lost Your Data

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 11, 2009 at 12:52 am

Danger Sidekick I’ve always admired the Sidekick smartphone–the first one was the first really good pocketable Web device–but found the name of the company behind it, Danger, kinda discordant. Now it appears to be prophetic: As Engadget is reporting, this week’s service disruption appears to be the least of Sidekick users’ worries. The T-Mobile forums have a message from T-Mobile and Danger (which is now part of Microsoft) saying that any data not currently on user’s devices has most likely been lost:

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information.

Breathtaking. Extended Internet-related service outages are commonplace, but major examples of data loss involving large companies aren’t so common. (This brings to mind Ma.gnolia’s meltdown in January, but that service was run by one guy–not by the largest software company in the world.) It’s going to be fascinating to hear Microsoft’s explanation of what happened, and why it apparently has no usable backup of its customers’ data. And to see just what long-term effect this has on the Danger platform, which is supposedly the basis for Microsoft’s allegedly troubled “Pink” phone project.

My assumption is usually that big Internet-savvy companies are going to do a better job of religiously backing up data than I am, but this is a wake-up call: None of us really have a clue how safe our data is when it’s stored in the cloud. Not to mention a massive embarrassment for Microsoft