AT&T is selling smartphones at a record pace this holiday shopping season. According to CEO Ralph de la Vega, the carrier has already sold 6.4 million handsets in the first two months of the quarter. This would give AT&T its second best quarter of all time and would increase its yearly sales to a whopping…
AT&T offers personalized videos to help customers understand their wireless bills
AT&T is adopting a new strategy when it comes to customer billing. Rather than let customers figure out on their own the differences between voice charges, data charges and one-time charges, the carrier is sending out video bills that explain charges line-by-line. The video is personalized to each account and provides and audio and video…
Verizon CEO: tablet use on the rise, wireless prices not going down
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam talked to the Wall Street Journal about the company’s plans to install FiOS in regions battered by Hurricane Sandy. In this interview, McAdam also addressed Verizon Wireless and said the business was doing well in the current quarter. Sales were robust over the Thanksgiving holiday and a growing number of customers…
Nokia looks to break big into China with the Lumia 920T for China Mobile
Nokia is heading into China by partnering with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier, for its next Lumia handset. The Finnish handset maker unveiled the Lumia 920T, the first Windows Phone handset with TD-SCDMA to land in China. The 920T will feature Nokia’s ClearBlack display, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, a PureView camera, four color…
Nokia introduces the Lumia 620, a wallet-friendly Windows Phone 8 handset
Nokia added another model to its Lumia line of handsets today. The company’s latest addition, the Lumia 620, will run Windows Phone 8 and will fall squarely in the mid-range category of devices. The 620 includes a 3.8-inch TFT WVGA 800×480 ClearBlack display, a 1 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a VGA front-facing camera, 512MB…
Fox steals iPhone, answers call, sends text message
Here’s the story of an iPhone-stealing, gibberish-texting fox that you are not likely to forget. The tale starts in Norway when 16-year-old Lars Andreas Bjercke and his friends noticed a fox hanging around the outskirts of his yard. To get the animal to come closer, he installed an app that attracts foxes by simulating the sounds…
Appeals court denies Verizon Wireless’ challenge to FCC’s mandatory roaming rule
Verizon Wireless lost an appeal that sought to overturn the FCC’s 2011 roaming agreement rule. This FCC mandate requires mobile carriers to offer roaming agreements to its competitors at commercially reasonable rates. Verizon objected to this rule and unsuccessfully argued that the Federal Communications Commission did not have the authority to enforce this rule. The appeals court…
iPhone 5 ship times drop to 2-4 days
Apple is ramping up its inventory of the iPhone 5 and making it readily available for the holiday shopping season. As noticed by CNET, ship times for the iPhone 5 have dropped to 2-4 days, down from one week. At its peak, ship times for the handset ballooned to three to four weeks due to…
Government-backed China Development Bank loans ZTE $20 billion
ZTE confirmed in a press release that it has signed a financing agreement with China Development Bank. The deal will bring the company $20 billion over the next five years. The financing will be used for ZTE’s overseas projects and credit facilities for the company. China Development Bank is a policy bank of the People’s…
Nokia to sell and lease back its Espoo headquarters
Nokia has cut back its workforce, cut its spending and now the company is selling the building that houses its headquarters in Espoo, Finland. Nokia confirmed in a press release that it is selling the building for EUR 170 million to Finnish real estate investment company Exilion. Nokia expects to complete the sale of the…