data plan

AT&T’s “Next” Plan Offers A New Smartphone Every 12 Months, With Some Strings

Lauren Goode in Product News on July 15 at 9:01 pm PT

AT&T is following in T-Mobile’s footsteps and letting consumers upgrade their phones once a year instead of once every two years. Its new plan calls for user’s to turn in their old device if they trade up early.

Meet Zact, a Shareable Cellphone Service That Changes on the Fly

Ina Fried in Mobile on May 13 at 5:00 am PT

The new cellphone service runs on Sprint’s network using technology from ItsOn to allow far greater customization.

Voices

The Catch in Kindle’s Data Plan

Anton Troianovski and Greg Bensinger, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in Voices on September 8, 2012 at 2:00 pm PT

What can you really do with 250 megabytes of data a month?

Voices

AT&T Unveils Shared Wireless-Data Plans

Thomas Gryta, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in Voices on July 18, 2012 at 6:09 am PT

AT&T Inc. unveiled the details of its long-awaited new wireless-data plan structure, which allows customers to share data among multiple users and devices, but users won’t be required to adopt the new options.

Republic Wireless Decides to Put the Unlimited Back in Unlimited

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 27, 2011 at 7:00 am PT

The carrier still wants its users to rely on Wi-Fi, but says it won’t cut off those who use cellular networks too much.

Voices

Cellphone Users to Get Billing Alerts Under New Voluntary Standards

Amy Schatz, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in Mobile on October 17, 2011 at 5:30 am PT

Wireless-phone customers will begin receiving real-time alerts next year if they are about to go over their monthly voice, data or text-message limits under new voluntary industry standards set to be announced on Monday.

Verizon’s ThunderBolt Moves Like Lightning

Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on March 23, 2011 at 6:19 pm PT

Verizon’s ThunderBolt 4G cellphone is a speed demon, zipping past rival 4G phones’ cellular-data speeds and even past many home land-line Internet connections.

So How Much Is My Monthly Data Plan With the iPad 2?

Ina Fried in Mobile on March 4, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

The price of the iPad isn’t changing with Apple’s new tablet, but people are getting some additional options when it comes to wireless data plans. With the original, there were just a couple of options from AT&T, while the new version comes in both Verizon and AT&T models and there are a few additional options from AT&T that weren’t there the first time around. For those who are confused, fret not. Mobilized has the skinny–and a handy chart breaking things down.

The Streak 7: Bargain Tablet From Dell Is No Real Deal

Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on February 9, 2011 at 6:01 pm PT

Dell’s Streak 7 is the least expensive tablet from a major manufacturer and claims to be the first capable of 4G cellular speeds, but the compromises made to get the price down make it impossible to recommend.

News Byte

Mobile Data Forecast: Unrelenting Downpour

John Paczkowski in News on February 1, 2011 at 1:55 pm PT

No surprises here: Worldwide mobile data traffic is exploding. But the degree to which it’s exploding is pretty remarkable. Between 2009 and 2010, mobile data traffic nearly tripled. And according to Cisco’s annual Global Mobile Traffic Forecast, it will see a 26-fold increase by 2015. Staggering, though perhaps to be expected given the proliferation of data-intensive mobile devices. Cisco predicts that by 2015, there will be 7.1 billion of them slurping up 75 exabytes of data (an exabyte is 1 billion gigabytes). No wonder the unlimited data plan is being phased out.