For the quarter ending March 31, T-Mobile reported a 7 percent dip in revenue from a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings, excluding interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $1.2 billion was also down 7.5 percent from a year earlier, though that figure was up from the fourth quarter.

However, T-Mobile has been pretty darn busy since the quarter ended — adding the iPhone, doing away with phone subsidies and closing its deal to acquire MetroPCS. The company is also spending billions to build an LTE network as it tries to catch up to its larger rivals.

T-Mobile had announced some quarterly metrics back in April, when it noted that it added 579,000 subscribers in the three-month period, with contract subscriber losses for the quarter narrowing to 199,000.

“Our first quarter operating metrics and financial results are showing positive impact from the changes we began making in the fourth quarter,” CEO John Legere said in a statement, adding that the company added T-Mobile branded customers for the first time since early 2009. “Things only get more exciting from here, having brought T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS together to create the wireless industry’s value leader and premier challenger.”

“Don’t be confused,” Legere told AllThingsD. “We’re not running two companies. We are clearly going to be one integrated company that uses two brands to go to market.”

As for the iPhone coming to MetroPCS, Legere said it’s a possibility, but not a foregone conclusion.

“The answer to that is not ‘No,’” Legere said, but added, “It’s not imminent; I think that’s safe to say.”

There are two big factors. One is how T-Mobile decides it wants to position the two brands and manage its marketing.

“It’s also something that involves Apple,” Legere said, but added that “we’ve started those dialogues with our partners.”

Beyond the iPhone, though, T-Mobile plans to move quickly to introduce new devices as early as next month that bear the MetroPCS brand but run on T-Mobile’s network.

Even as it maintains the MetroPCS brand, T-Mobile wants to transition customers quickly to T-Mobile’s network. That’s critical to minimizing the time spent operating incompatible networks and to allowing T-Mobile more efficient use of its spectrum.

“This is about customer migration, not network integration,” Legere said, reiterating a point CTO Neville Ray made in an interview shortly after the deal was announced last October.

Offering MetroPCS handsets on the T-Mobile network also allows that brand to move into new cities. Legere said the company is working through a double-digit list of cities and plans to aggressively target new markets this year, though he didn’t say whether the first new cities would come in the second or third quarter.

“We’re deciding those cities this week,” Legere said. “We’re going to move fast and big.”

Meanwhile, Legere also said that T-Mobile is making good progress on its “uncarrier” approach that began last month, noting that both its prepaid and postpaid businesses are ahead of expectations, though he didn’t give specifics. He also said the company’s iPhone sales have exceeded expectations, though again he declined to give hard numbers.

Legere did say the company is on track for its goal of shifting from losing postpaid customers to gaining customers at some point this year and being positive for the full 2014.

That’s the good news in a report from RootMetrics, which measures real-world cellphone performance nationwide.

Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile all reduced their call failure rates from the first half of the year to the second, according to RootMetrics. Verizon’s rate increased fractionally, but was still an industry-best 0.7 percent for the second half of the year.

“In 2012, we found strong call performances from all carriers: the gap between each carrier’s average rate of call failures (dropped and blocked calls) was relatively minor,” RootMetrics said in its report.

Data speeds, meanwhile, are also showing across-the-board improvement as the major carriers spend billions to expand LTE service nationwide. Verizon was the first, and has the largest LTE network, but all its rivals are working hard to catch up.

A separate report from RootMetrics released earlier this year showed AT&T with the fastest LTE network and Verizon with the broadest LTE coverage.

That compares to an operating loss of $255 million in the year-ago quarter on a roughly similar revenue base. The company reported a net loss of $643 million, or 21 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $863 million, or 29 cents per share in the first quarter of 2012.

The No. 3 U.S. carrier said that 86 percent of Sprint-branded phone sales were smartphones, and said it tallied more than five million smartphone sales, including 1.5 million iPhones during the quarter.

“This is a transformative year for Sprint, and we’ve gotten off to a good start,” Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in a statement.

Sprint, which announced its plans to sell a majority stake to SoftBank, has said it will evaluate the recent offer from Dish, while SoftBank says it still hopes to complete the Sprint deal by July.

Update: In a conference call with investors, Hesse noted that the pending and potential deals make this an exciting time, but added, “We haven’t taken our eye off of operations.”

The company remains on track to shut down its Nextel network by June 30, with plans to start deploying LTE service on that 800MHz spectrum by the fourth quarter.

Hesse said that the company remains on track to close its pending SoftBank and Clearwire deals by July, but added that the company won’t be discussing those efforts on the call.

The company said that its total customer base grew to 34 million in the three-month period, an increase of 579,000. It still lost nearly 200,000 contract customers, though that’s narrower than the 515,000 postpaid defections it saw in the prior quarter.

The rate of churn among its contract base narrowed to 1.9 percent, the best such figure in four years, T-Mobile said.

“These results display positive momentum and the first positive branded growth in four years,” CEO John Legere said in a statement. “We have made material progress in stabilizing our branded business in Q1, which provides a solid foundation to build on with the new Un-carrier customer offers we launched last week across America.”

Last week, the company outlined a new strategy that focuses on ending phone subsidies, limiting contracts and plugging two key holes in its portfolio — the lack of LTE and the iPhone. The company is also in the process of trying to acquire MetroPCS, a deal that has recently run into opposition from shareholders and advisory firms.

The technology, known as HD Voice, requires support from both the network and the devices on each end of the call.

Speaking on Monday, AT&T senior VP Kris Rinne said that the carrier will roll out its own support for the technology later this year, as it begins to route voice calling over its LTE network.

“HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy,” Rinne said, speaking at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit in Sausalito, Calif. T-Mobile launched HD Voice nationwide in January for a handful of devices and Sprint has also talked about its plans for HD Voice.

Voice quality, of course, has been a sore spot for AT&T in recent years, though Rinne insists that past issues with dropped calls and other issues are largely over.

“I think we’ve taken that off the table in terms of a competitive challenge,” Rinne said.

Rinne, who oversees network technologies for the carrier, said that the carrier will also begin work on so-called “advanced LTE,” which does things to reduce interference and bond together traffic from various frequencies.

AT&T is also looking to embrace over-the-top service, such as messaging services from Facebook, Rinne said. She noted all of the network programming hooks that AT&T has made available to even those creating services that rival its own.

So, will that leave AT&T as just a dumb pipe?

There’s a good business in being a pipe, Rinne said. “I leave the dumb part off.”

(Correction: An earlier version of this post mischaracterized T-Mobile’s launch of HD Voice. They launched the service in January and last week announced that its iPhone 5 would also support HD Voice.)

The company reserved its most pointed attacks for AT&T, which not too long ago it had hoped to merge with.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere said that the so-called “subsidized” phones from rivals actually add up to hundreds more in costs over a typical two-year contract.

“This is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Legere said.

AT&T, meanwhile, shrugged off the attacks.

“Whatever,” an AT&T representative told AllThingsD. (AT&T did attack T-Mobile in a recent series of ads.)

Sprint, for its part, said it offers a range of contract and no-contract options through its Sprint-branded service as well as prepaid brands Boost and Virgin Mobile.

“Sprint gives its customers the best of both worlds with Truly Unlimited 4G LTE data on smartphones and the best value for customers with a savings of $110 over T-Mobile when comparing the total cost of ownership over two years for the 16 GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S III,” Sprint said. “In addition, true no-term contract options are available with Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile and Sprint As You Go.”

Verizon touted both its plans and the breadth of its LTE network, which is available in areas covering 273 million people.

“Verizon Wireless customers have for years enjoyed the ability to purchase a phone at full retail price on month to month contract,” it said in a statement. “Phones on our website are offered at full retail price as well as the discounted price to give customers a choice in how they purchase their mobile devices.”

The revamped No. 4 carrier is still the underdog, of course, but now the company has some of the pieces it has long been missing. T-Mobile has been readying an LTE network, making plans to stop subsidizing new phones, and has struck a deal to start selling the iPhone.

The one piece of the puzzle that remains unresolved is the company’s pending merger with MetroPCS. That deal has won regulatory approval but is still subject to an April vote of MetroPCS shareholders.

T-Mobile is set to announce details of its efforts at an event due to take place later on Tuesday.

AllThingsD will have live coverage when the event kicks off around 8:30 am PT.

Earlier:

8:02 am: It’s apparently quite cold, and reporters haven’t been let in to the T-Mobile event in New York. (We’re covering via the Webcast, which, Internet feed permitting, seems like the right call.)

Associated Press reporter Peter Svensson notes that it isn’t so much cold in New York as it is “unwarm.” (T-Mobile likes to bill itself as the “uncarrier.”)

8:08 am: The event hasn’t started, but some new ads are showing up on places like CNET. They show T-Mobile with a new slogan of “un-leash” and promote the hashtag #simplechoice.

Here’s a look at one:

8:11 am: T-Mobile has also posted a PDF of a press release on its website announcing its first LTE-compatible hotspot.

8:15 am: T-Mobile is also tweeting away, with its latest post proclaiming, “Today we will break away from the absurd norms of the wireless industry. Big announcements coming in 10min.”

Today we will break away from the absurd norms of the wireless industry. Big announcements coming in 10min @tmobile #SimpleChoice

– T-Mobile USA (@TMobile) March 26, 2013

8:24 am: T-Mobile is going big on the theme that folks are being trapped in the current business model.

Welcome to the T-Mobile press conference. Event motif: post-apocalyptic. twitter.com/rossrubin/stat…

– Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) March 26, 2013

Apparently the scene inside the press conference is very eerie. That contrasts with the hold music on the Webcast, which is pretty standard-fare Muzak.

More scenes from inside, courtesy of Twitter:

T-Mobile has a giant contract effigy at its press conference. No torches were provided. twitter.com/rossrubin/stat…

– Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) March 26, 2013

8:31 am: Okay, things are kicking off with a video of Jason Jones exposing the “seedy industry” of wireless.

Jones, for those who aren’t familiar, is of “The Daily Show” fame.

8:35 am: T-Mobile’s event is just getting started, but a press release that just hit our inbox confirms the big news.

The iPhone 5 will be available soon, along with other LTE-capable devices including the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note II, BlackBerry Z10 and the Sonic 2.0 hotspot we mentioned before.

The carrier is launching its LTE network in seven areas including Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose and Washington, D.C.

There’s also the new rate plans, as well as a Western-themed “un-leash” ad campaign that will kick off tomorrow.

8:40 am: T-Mobile is going off on the traditional way of doing business, lashing out at the contract approach to cellphones.

Meanwhile, back onstage, T-Mobile is going off about the downsides of the cellphone business.

“That phone that seems so beautiful when you walk into the store … How long before it seems like a dinosaur?” T-Mobile is saying onstage.

And the carriers, they love you — once every 23 months.

8:43 am: Next target: Overages.

The pink-T-shirt-clad speaker, by the way, is CEO John Legere, who just gave out his email address (john.legere@t-mobile.com).

“The industry is broken,” Legere said.

8:45 am: T-Mobile says it takes issue with the characterization that it is moving away from unsubsidized phones.

“This is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Legere said. Do you have any idea how much you are paying?

“You pay a lot for these gadgets,” Legere said, noting that customers would be lucky if all they paid was full price.

8:48 am: Now he’s talking about what T-Mobile brings to the table, starting with its LTE network.

Legere highlights the fact that where T-Mobile doesn’t have LTE, customers will still get a very fast HSPA+ network.

The company has temporarily also turned on LTE service in New York, so those at the press conference can try it out. New York will probably be on by early summer, Legere said, noting that he is not good at keeping secrets.

On the rate plans, T-Mobile has Simple Choice, which are its value plans. Customers choose the amount of high-speed data they want, along with the number of lines they want.

“That’s it,” Legere said. “Even I can remember this.”

8:52 am: Next. Contracts.

“How do you think we feel about contracts?” Legere said.

Legere calls it smartphone hell. “If you come to T-Mobile, you have signed your last contract. They are gone. No more.

“I didn’t say we are going completely into the prepaid business,” he notes. “We are just no-contract.”

T-Mobile will charge the same for prepaid and postpaid customers.

8:54 am: And he just said “shit” again. And “crap.” This guy is fun.

“If we suck this month, drop us,” he said. “But if we’re good, stay with us.”

Legere notes, “I hope I am not coming across as angry here.”

8:55 am: iPhone time.

You can get it for $99 upfront. No contract. In the stores April 12.

“It was such a huge void” in our device portfolio, Legere said. The full cost of the iPhone is $99 down and $20 a month for 24 months.

That’s still $1,000 less over two years than AT&T.

“So, who’s subsidizing what?”

The T-Mobile iPhone 5 will work in all of T-Mobile’s band of spectrum in both LTE and HSPA+.

T-Mobile’s iPhone 5 will also support HD Voice (a technology that offers better sound quality). To work, it requires both ends be on the same network (at least for now), and for both sides of the call to have an HD Voice-compatible device.

9:00 am: T-Mobile will have the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, but those devices will only work in the 1900MHz band of spectrum — T-Mobile has been working to make its network compatible with that frequency.

9:02 am: “We’re canceling our membership in the carrier club,” Legere said. (Don’t worry CTIA, I don’t think they literally are.)

“This is just the start.”

9:03 am: Now coming onstage is T-Mobile marketing chief Mike Sievert (a former Microsoft and AT&T wireless executive).

Sievert is talking about the importance of operating on the same spectrum as AT&T, allowing its customers to easily move over (and paving the way for those older iPhones to work with T-Mobile).

9:08 am: Sievert is showing all the different options with other carriers, holding up different AT&T brochures.

“This is what we’ve been inspired by,” Sievert said, saying people feel not only confused but misled by wireless carriers.

9:10 am: Additional lines, even for an iPhone, cost $10, including 500 megabytes of high-speed data. (It’s $20 more than that for unlimited data.)

9:15 am: The Galaxy S4 will come around May 1, Sievert said.

“It’s time to disrupt the status quo in this industry,” Sievert said.

9:20 am: They are on to Q&A.

Meanwhile, here are more details on the iPhone lineup that T-Mobile just announced.

9:24 am: Asked about mobile hotspot capability, tethering is included with the plans (except the unlimited one, where you get a finite amount of hotspot data).

T-Mobile notes that it presently has more bandwidth than it knows what to do with, and that its unlimited plans are really unlimited. Current Galaxy S3 customers on unlimited plans, Legere said, are using an average of three gigabytes of data.

And usage is growing. “What’s three gigs now is going to be five, is going to be 10,” Legere said.

9:30 am: The Q&A session is mostly lots of nerdy questions on using phones as hotspots, and the limits of unlimited data.

Legere promises that the unlimited plan really is unlimited, though the company does have a fair-use policy, in case someone really is abusing the network.

9:36 am: Legere points out in the audience Braxton Carter, MetroPCS CFO and the CFO-designate of the combined company when the T-Mobile-MetroPCS deal is approved.

It will be approved, despite several greedy hedge funds, Legere said.

LTE will be even better once T-Mobile is able to migrate MetroPCS customers onto T-Mobile’s network and then repurpose its spectrum.

9:38 am: And that’s it, folks. Those at the event are getting to try out various devices on T-Mobile’s LTE network.

Parent company Deutsche Telekom said in December that T-Mobile USA would start selling Apple products this year, but didn’t go into any details.

CNET reported on Monday that iPhone details will be part of T-Mobile’s big event on Tuesday.

We’re hearing T-Mobile is expected to soon have a full lineup of iPhone devices, though no announcement of a T-Mobile equipped iPad is expected on Tuesday. Even the iPhones may not be immediately available.

An Apple representative declined to comment; a T-Mobile representative said the company does not comment on “rumors or speculation.”

Scoring Apple products may seem like table stakes these days, but it is a big deal for T-Mobile, which hopes to better compete with its larger rivals thanks to an improved network, lower monthly rates and a better lineup of devices.

For the last few years, T-Mobile has had several strikes against it when competing against other major U.S. carriers.

First, the company is smaller than Sprint, Verizon and AT&T. Second, each of those rivals have now launched a high-speed LTE network.

And, then of course, there was the iPhone.

T-Mobile watched as first Verizon and then Sprint got the device while it remained on the sidelines. Without the high-demand iPhone and an LTE network, T-Mobile has been bleeding contract customers for the past several years.

But the carrier has been working hard to plug those holes. It is expected to announce an agressive LTE schedule on Tuesday. At the same time, T-Mobile has also been working to make its network more iPhone-friendly by making it compatible with the same section of 3G spectrum used by AT&T.

Found via TmoNews, the new plans don’t require an annual contract, and include unlimited voice and text plus 500 MB of high-speed data with mobile hotspot service.

That starts at $50 per month, with each 2 GB of further data costing an additional $10 per month.

T-Mobile has offered contract and no-contract options (it calls them “Classic” and “Value” plans) in the past, but these are a bit more aggressive, particularly in their inclusion of tethered mobile hotspot data.

They’re part of the No. 4 U.S. carrier’s broader shift away from the traditional model of subsidizing handsets. Devices will be priced separately from service plans.

T-Mobile is also working to finalize its merger with MetroPCS, with a shareholder vote slated for April, and is expected to get its first Apple devices this year.

In a regulatory filing with the commission, Sprint confirmed the meeting as well as details of its pitch for approval of the deal.

SoftBank has proposed acquiring a controlling interest in Sprint as well as enabling Sprint to acquire the rest of Clearwire — a move supported by Clearwire’s board but opposed by some Clearwire shareholders.

Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch also attended the March 14 meeting with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and other members of the commission.

The company is willing to pump more than $20 billion into Sprint, with more than $12 billion going to shareholders and $8 billion funneled into improving Sprint’s network.

During the meeting, Son explained what he had done in creating one of Japan’s largest wireless providers after entering as an upstart in 2006 by purchasing Vodafone’s Japanese wireless interests.

“Through innovative products, pricing, and marketing, SoftBank is now poised to become the second largest wireless provider in Japan,” Sprint said in the filing. “Mr. Son explained that through SoftBank’s investment in Sprint, he hopes to bring a similar competitive spark to the U.S. wireless marketplace.”

The No. 4 U.S. carrier is in the midst of readying an LTE network for commercial launch. It says its network is ready to go in Las Vegas and Kansas City, though it has yet to make it available to customers.

Meanwhile, the company has also said it plans to shift away from subsidizing phones for contract customers in favor of its “value plans.”

It is also expected to get its first Apple devices this year, but it seems somewhat unlikely that would come at this event. T-Mobile is also working to finalize its merger with MetroPCS. Regulators have approved the deal, with a shareholder vote slated for April.

A T-Mobile representative declined to comment ahead of the event.

T-Mobile has been working to craft itself as something of an “un-carrier” ready to challenge traditional cellphone operator practices. The company also cut an unspecified number of jobs earlier this month ahead of the MetroPCS deal closure.

In its decision (PDF), the FCC stated that the merger would serve the public interest and would not result in “competitive or other public interest harms.”

“With today’s approval, America’s mobile market continues to strengthen, moving toward robust competition and revitalized competitors,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a separate statement. “Today’s action will benefit millions of American consumers and help the U.S maintain the global leadership in mobile it has regained in recent years.”

Among the benefits outlined by the FCC were the facilitation of LTE deployment, development of a more robust national network and expansion of MetroPCS service into new markets.

The Department of Justice also gave the merger the green light earlier this month. The deal now hinges on approval from MetroPCS shareholders, which may prove to be the biggest hurdle yet. Two of the carrier’s shareholders, P. Schoenfeld Asset Management and Paulson & Co., plan to vote against the merger.

Today, MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist sent a letter to stockholders urging them to approve the deal in the vote, scheduled for April 12.

T-Mobile first announced its plan to acquire MetroPCS in early October. Under the terms of the deal, MetroPCS shareholders will get $1.5 billion in cash and a 26 percent stake in the combined company.

Verizon’s budding LTE network was the speed king, easily outpacing Sprint’s WiMax-based 4G service. At that point, LTE was still just a “coming soon” slide on AT&T’s 4G PowerPoint, and barely a glimmer in T-Mobile’s eye.

Fast-forward to 2013, and things have changed considerably. Verizon still has the broadest network, but AT&T is rapidly expanding its footprint nationwide.

And a new report from RootMetrics says AT&T’s LTE is also faster, both in upload and download speeds.

Sprint has made the switch to LTE. And while it is less widely available and slower than the competition, the network is faster than Sprint had said it would be.

Finally, there’s T-Mobile USA, which is also in the early stages of its LTE rollout. While it is last to the game, it has the fastest non-LTE network, meaning that it will have a powerful combination when it finally does get its LTE service up and running.

The full report makes for interesting reading, with RootMetrics having studied the major carriers’ performance in 77 U.S. markets.

When it comes to pure presence, Verizon was clearly king, with LTE in all 77 markets, compared to 47 for AT&T, five for Sprint, and T-Mobile not yet on the radar. However, both AT&T and Sprint have agressive road maps and are adding markets on what seems like a daily basis.

AT&T says it is now in 26 more of the RootMetrics markets, leaving just four of those markets yet to be covered. Overall, it says it is now in 153 U.S. markets, covering 170 million people.

On the speed front, AT&T had the fastest LTE speed and the second-fastest non-LTE speed (behind only T-Mobile). Verizon was the runner-up on LTE, with Sprint significantly slower. However, when LTE isn’t available, Verizon had the slowest speed of the four.

This wasn’t spurred by frustration or accident-prone-ness. I’ve been testing the new Kyocera Torque from Sprint, a rugged, waterproof phone that’s meant to be banged around. Kyocera and Sprint have aimed this squarely at thrill-seekers, heavy lifters, those in the military and anyone else who’s prone to dropping phones.

The Torque, which is only available through Sprint in the U.S., costs $150 but comes with a $50 mail-in rebate. Sprint’s unlimited data plans — which are required with the Torque — range from $80 to $110 per month.

It’s certainly not the first, or the only, phone out there that can take a few hits. Motorola makes the water-resistant, dust-proof Defy XT, available for $50 through a two-year contract with U.S. Cellular. Casio makes a smartphone that, like its G-Shock watches, is water-resistant and can handle drops of up to 10 feet. And Sprint sells the rugged Sonim XP Strike for $100 after a $50 rebate.

But the Torque is the first LTE-capable rugged phone from Sprint. And it has a new-old feature that could potentially help you save your minutes: Direct Connect, the new version of Sprint Nextel’s old push-to-talk option for Nextel customers. So, in addition to throwing this smartphone around all week, at times I used it as a walkie-talkie.

Truthfully, I would rarely (if ever) use the walkie-talkie feature if I bought this phone. It’s really meant for people in noisy work environments — construction workers and truck drivers, for example. I can’t imagine the squawks of push-to-talk going over well in quieter places.

And this phone, with its thick casing, is far from elegant. Lastly, its five-megapixel camera was surprisingly sub par.

But to its credit, the Kyocera Torque withstood a lot of the torment I put it through. It serves its purpose as a rugged smartphone for users less concerned with style and more interested in durability.

The Torque, which weighs a pretty hefty 5.9 ounces, is made of a combination of shock-resistant plastic and rubber, with a thick casing that’s screwed onto the smartphone. (The iPhone 5, for comparison’s sake, weighs 3.9 ounces.)

In a dark bar, this might pass as a plain black Android smartphone. Get closer, though, and you’ll see the stippled, textured back of the phone, the teeth of the speakers, visible screws throughout the casing, and yellow highlights on the push-to-talk button, all of which give it more of a tough-guy appearance.

It combines a capacitive touchscreen with a series of physical buttons, including volume buttons on the side, the push-to-talk button and home and back buttons on the bottom front of the phone. It comes with four gigabytes of storage, which can be expanded with a microSD card.

Android fans who want the latest and greatest operating system might be disappointed that the Torque runs Android 4.0 and not the newest Jelly Bean operating system, although Kyocera says that an upgrade should be available in the coming months.

The four-inch LCD display on the phone is okay, but nothing to write home about. It is made of scratch-resistant glass, though, and its greatest attribute is probably its impact resistance.

Now for the fun stuff: The durability tests. I dropped the phone on the pavement multiple times while running in Central Park. The phone survived, and even had a little bounce to it when it hit the ground — not that cringe-inducing, glass-smacking sound you get with fancier smartphones.

I also tossed it down a flight of subway steps, ignoring looks from people who likely thought I was having a really, really bad day. When I picked it up, it was pretty much unscathed. I did have to wedge the back plate of the phone on again, but it still worked. Kyocera says the phone can be dropped up to 26 times from four feet and survive.

This phone can also be submerged in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes. I didn’t have a meter-deep tub available, but I did drop it in my go-to pasta pot and let it sit at the bottom for 30 minutes. I pulled it out, wiped the screen, and it was good to go.

I took a shower with it. Yes, I took my smartphone into the shower, reaching a new level of smartphone attachment. It was fine. But I couldn’t use the capacitive touchscreen while the phone was wet. I had to wipe it down first.

Kyocera boasts 18.9 hours of talk time with the Torque, and for those who really do spend most of their time talking and not browsing, that’s a good thing. The first day I used the Torque, I purposely didn’t run any apps, instead making a handful of phone calls throughout the day.

Call quality was good. The phone’s speaker is actually built into the glass display and offers direct-to-ear vibrations for improved sound, although at times, the audio was so loud it was harsh on my ears.

When I went to bed that night, the phone’s battery had drained by just around 15 percent.

The next day, I fired up some apps, including Gmail, Twitter, Google Maps, Instagram and RunKeeper. That night, the phone died.

Still, this is pretty excellent battery life compared to some other smartphones that require a recharge during the day under that kind of app load.

The biggest downsides of this phone were speed and the camera. The phone runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor — a chip that has been around since 2010 and tends to show up in a lot of budget phones.

Although it is LTE capable — with Sprint now offering LTE in 67 markets around the U.S. — I pulled down 3G speeds in midtown Manhattan, with an average download speed of 1.93 megabits per second and an average upload speed of .88 Mbps. In some previous LTE smartphone tests I’ve done, I got an average download speed of 5.6 Mbps and 1.2 Mbps on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, and 9.6 and 2.4 Mbps on Verizon’s LTE network.

And the Torque’s five-megapixel, rear-facing camera was disappointing. It was slow to fire up. I took more than a dozen photos in various settings — natural light, indoor light and darker scenes with and without flash — and all of the photos came out a little grainy. There’s also a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera on the phone.

The Kyocera Torque is tough enough to withstand some pretty brutal treatment, and will suit consumers who care more about durability and less about the fastest processor, the newest operating system and the best smartphone camera.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130311/kyocera-torque-not-exactly-elegant-but-can-handle-all-your-drops-and-dunks/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20130308/after-flotv-debacle-qualcomm-finding-new-use-for-broadcast-know-how/ http://allthingsd.com/20130308/after-flotv-debacle-qualcomm-finding-new-use-for-broadcast-know-how/#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:32:14 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=301770 When Qualcomm sold its FloTV spectrum to AT&T last year, many assumed that was the end of the chipmaker’s broadcast ambitions.

The spectrum sale, for nearly $2 billion, appeared to mark the conclusion of an expensive, painful chapter for the company, in which it tried and failed to build a significant business around delivering mobile television to consumers.

And, while it is happy to be out of that business, Qualcomm thinks it may have a use for some of that broadcast knowledge.

It is now working with a bunch of other wireless heavyweights on a means for cellular networks to automatically broadcast content that is being used by a large number of customers.

The idea has natural appeal. For example, one can assume that when the Super Bowl is on, say, that multiple customers in a single cell tower are going to want to watch it. And if even five customers there are tuning in, it is more efficient to broadcast a high-quality signal than it is to send even a separate low-bandwidth video stream to each device.

“All you notice as a user is the quality goes up,” said Neville Meijers, who once served as a general manager in the Flo business and now is VP of business development for Qualcomm Labs. Meijers said the company has been working to adapt the broadcast technology since it made the decision to shut down the FloTV service.

Broadcast could also be used to deliver software updates, or even to deliver premium content overnight that a consumer could choose to view, or not, the next day.

Of course, the challenge is to create a system that can automatically detect when multiple users want the same content, and automatically and gracefully shift into a broadcast mode. Qualcomm executives, though, say they have demonstrated early progress, and are confident that the technology will find widespread use.

For now, Qualcomm is building support for LTE Broadcast, as the technology is known, into its Snapdragon processors. It is also creating the necessary middleware software to allow the broadcasts to be managed.

At January’s CES, Qualcomm demonstrated the technology along with Verizon and Ericsson.

In Barcelona last month, Qualcomm did another demonstration, and announced plans to work with Samsung and Korea Telecom on the technology.

The technology should get early public tests next year, as Verizon and Telstra have also said they plan to do trials; Korea Telecom has announced plans to use it commercially, though they didn’t give a time frame.

So, why will LTE Broadcast succeed where Flo flopped?

“I think the networks need it more now,” Qualcomm Executive VP Peggy Johnson said on Friday at a breakfast meeting with reporters.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130308/after-flotv-debacle-qualcomm-finding-new-use-for-broadcast-know-how/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130306/t-mobile-shouts-back-at-att-while-its-network-team-quietly-builds-away/ http://allthingsd.com/20130306/t-mobile-shouts-back-at-att-while-its-network-team-quietly-builds-away/#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:17:05 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=300987 It wasn’t that long ago that T-Mobile USA and AT&T were extolling each other’s virtues as they prepared to become a single wireless company.

Ah, how times have changed.

Now the two companies are spending big bucks to take potshots at one another. AT&T placed newspaper ads last week insisting that its smaller rival drops more calls. On Wednesday, T-Mobile fired back with ads of its own, suggesting that AT&T is staying up nights worrying about its little company.

“We love a good scrap, especially when the winner is the consumer,” said Mike Sievert, T-Mobile’s chief marketing officer (and, once upon a time, an AT&T wireless executive himself).

But while Sievert and T-Mobile’s marketing team prep ads, T-Mobile is also working on a new network that it hopes will make it a more serious longer-term competitor.

After trailing all its major rivals in building an LTE network, T-Mobile is preparing a rapid nationwide deployment this year, expecting to cover more than a third of the U.S. population by mid-year and reach 200 million people by the end of the year.

And, at long last, T-Mobile has said it will begin selling Apple products, filling the biggest hole in its product lineup.

“We’re feeling really confident,” T-Mobile engineering VP Mark McDiarmid said in an interview this week.

T-Mobile plans to offer the 4G LTE network alongside its existing HSPA+ network, which it has also dubbed 4G. But after years of touting how HSPA+ can be nearly as fast in some real-world scenarios, the company is now proudly showing test numbers that show just how much faster LTE will be, especially when uploading data.

McDiarmid has plenty of work to do, though. For now, T-Mobile has yet to turn on its LTE network for customers anywhere, though it has things ready to go in Las Vegas and Kansas City as soon as the company is ready to sell devices and make an announcement.

The company also has other technical battles on the horizon, including merging its operations with MetroPCS, once that deal is completed later this year. The move will give the new T-Mobile the spectrum it needs, along with greater scale, but will also be a fair bit of work, given that MetroPCS and T-Mobile are based on different network technologies.

In the meantime, McDiarmid said, he is happy just to see the company’s name staying in print — even if it is in ads from its rival.

“I was kind of excited to see our name printed so boldly,” he said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130306/t-mobile-shouts-back-at-att-while-its-network-team-quietly-builds-away/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130225/boost-virgin-mobile-roll-out-no-contract-lte-phone-offerings/ http://allthingsd.com/20130225/boost-virgin-mobile-roll-out-no-contract-lte-phone-offerings/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:30:43 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=297975 Virgin Mobile today said that it would sell the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE smartphone with the company’s BeyondTalk unlimited data plans, marking the first LTE phone the wireless brand is offering without a contract. The smartphone is available for $300 with plans that start at $35 a month. Boost Mobile, another Sprint-owned brand, is now offering the HTC One SV phone for $300, along with Boost’s $55 Android Unlimited monthly plan. The smartphone will run on Sprint’s 3G and 4G networks (where available).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130225/boost-virgin-mobile-roll-out-no-contract-lte-phone-offerings/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130224/gm-says-atts-4g-lte-will-replace-verizon-service-at-heart-of-onstar/ http://allthingsd.com/20130224/gm-says-atts-4g-lte-will-replace-verizon-service-at-heart-of-onstar/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:23:53 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=297840 GM announced on Monday that it will start embedding AT&T’s 4G LTE service in its OnStar service, starting with cars produced next year.

The move, which begins with model year 2015 cars sold next year, will allow the carmaker to power a wider range of services from entertainment to safety and diagnostics than possible using the older generation of wireless it has been using.

“We envision, basically, with that big of a pipe, the car becomes a smartphone on wheels,” AT&T emerging devices head Glenn Lurie said in an interview.

It’s a multiyear deal, covering the bulk of cars sold in the U.S. and Canada, but neither company will say how long the deal will run, or what specific services will be offered and how much they will cost. In an interview, Lurie said there will be a range of services, including some that will be offered by GM and some that will be directly billed by AT&T.

Having a fast connection will allow for in-car Wi-Fi and rear-seat entertainment, as well as a new level of diagnostics never before possible, Lurie said. The car maker will also put out various programming hooks to allow software makers to create their own automobile-specific apps, Lurie said.

“We’re going to deliver a set of tools in the car that no one has ever seen before,” Lurie said.

He said he foresees a time when people will be able to add their car to a shared data plan, much as they do a phone or tablet today.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130224/gm-says-atts-4g-lte-will-replace-verizon-service-at-heart-of-onstar/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130221/via-licensing-adds-two-more-to-lte-patent-pool-but-big-names-still-missing/ http://allthingsd.com/20130221/via-licensing-adds-two-more-to-lte-patent-pool-but-big-names-still-missing/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:00:18 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=296658 Patent firm Via Licensing is announcing Thursday that two more companies — China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom — have agreed to contribute their LTE intellectual property to a patent-licensing pool.

The company’s strategy is to gather enough intellectual property around LTE in one pool that device makers can go to to license technology for their products.

However, many big names — and important LTE patent holders — still aren’t on the list. Some key holders, folks such as Ericsson and Qualcomm, are unlikely to join, since licensing is an integral part of their business.

But Via hopes to get enough of the rest of the big patent holders to make its pool attractive to device makers.

Via won’t say if any companies have actually yet licensed the patents.

Although China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom aren’t seen as among the top holders of LTE-related patents, Via hopes they could inspire others to sign up.

Via Licensing CEO Roger Ross said that he is hopeful that companies such as Huawei, LG or Apple might decide to join the patent-licensing pool.

“I don’t want to be overly optimistic,” he said, but added, “I think we are going to get some of those very large patent holders.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130221/via-licensing-adds-two-more-to-lte-patent-pool-but-big-names-still-missing/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130220/fact-checking-the-spectrum-food-fight/ http://allthingsd.com/20130220/fact-checking-the-spectrum-food-fight/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:28:14 +0000 Mark Cooper http://allthingsd.com/?p=296701 The FCC has undertaken an important quest to use an incentive auction to repurpose broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband. Some in Washington oppose designating any of the recovered spectrum for unlicensed technologies. They see this process merely as a way to raise money for the U.S. Treasury, rather than focusing on the much larger and more important impact it would have on the national economy — and they believe that designating any of the recovered spectrum for unlicensed technologies, which was explicitly authorized by Congress, would reduce the auction revenue that would flow to the US Treasury. Others support an unlicensed designation and believe that a large unlicensed band will lead to “free” Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, both sides of this battle are wrong.

Those who want to auction every last hertz of spectrum overlook two basic economic facts about unlicensed spectrum:

First, if spectrum is as valuable as mobile carriers claim it is, reducing the amount of spectrum available for auction by dedicating some of it for unlicensed use should drive up the price of the remaining auctioned spectrum. So designating some unlicensed spectrum will not reduce proceeds delivered to the Treasury. Given the inelastic demand for spectrum, the price increase for the spectrum that is auctioned will result in no loss of revenue. Some of the spectrum that is likely to be useful if set aside for unlicensed use is not likely to fetch much of a price at auction (e.g. the “duplex gap”) because it is not suitable for high power 4G (LTE) wireless networks.

Second, unlicensed spectrum is the most valuable part of the wireless broadband product space by a wide margin. It supports half the traffic delivered to consumer smartphones and tablets and is the final link to the consumer for one quarter of all traffic flow delivered to users with fixed, wireline broadband. The massive amount of economic activity in the unlicensed space generates huge economic value, which in turn maximizes large tax revenues for the federal government.

Those who think that more unlicensed spectrum will lead to “free” Wi-Fi also overlook basic economic realities. Even though unlicensed spectrum is very good for consumers and the economy, it is important to recognize that not paying money at auction to gain access to unlicensed spectrum does not mean that it is free to put it to use. Quite the opposite is true. There are real costs involved in moving the exaflood of bits to and from an unlicensed hotspot. There are real costs in building and acquiring the equipment that will receive the data transmissions and to manage an unlicensed wireless network. If you talk about service for hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and billions globally, one thing is certain — if the cost of building and operating an unlicensed network are not recovered from consumers, the network will not be built or operated.

A substantive debate on spectrum policy is a good thing. The clash of ideas will produce better decisions at the FCC. But let’s all take a deep breath and get our facts straight. A hundred years ago, public policy to allocate spectrum concluded that interference could only be controlled by giving a small number of broadcasters exclusive licenses to operate in specific frequencies. Twenty years ago, the FCC decided to try a radical new approach by allowing anyone to transmit signals into spectrum that had been considered garbage, as long as they adhered to simple technical rules. We now recognize that this radical decision led to modern-day Wi-Fi. The remarkable success of Wi-Fi demonstrates that hotspot operators and consumers will willingly pay hundreds of billions of dollars to build and use the Wi-Fi infrastructure even without the ability to exclude others granted by a license — and they are likely to do the same for the FCC’s more recent innovations related to unlicensed use between TV channels, and new unlicensed designations in the 600 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 5 GHz bands in the future.

Could new, unlicensed designations lead to new competition for cellular wireless broadband service? Maybe, but the important point is that it will be an important input to the wireless broadband space, particularly the Internet of Things that connects hundreds of billions of objects.

There are two extremely important lessons to learned from the remarkable success of unlicensed spectrum.

• Policy should expand possibilities, not foreclose them.
• Having dramatically different business models occupy a single product space spurs and maximizes innovation and efficiency.

It would be a huge mistake to try to pick winners and losers by favoring cellular licensed service to the exclusion of unlicensed spectrum.

Mark Cooper is the Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America and a fellow at the Donald McGannon Center for Communications Research at Fordham University.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130220/fact-checking-the-spectrum-food-fight/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20130219/as-expected-htc-unveils-its-new-flagship-phone-the-htc-one/ http://allthingsd.com/20130219/as-expected-htc-unveils-its-new-flagship-phone-the-htc-one/#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:36:07 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=296109 And you thought all the smartphone fun was going to happen at Mobile World Congress.

Today, at a event in New York City (with a concurrent event in London), Taiwanese handset maker HTC unveiled its new flagship phone, the HTC One.

As rumored, the aluminum-backed, Android-based phone is running on a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor. It has a 4.7-inch 1080 display coated with Gorilla Glass, and front-facing speakers that play Beats Audio. It comes with an NFC chip, although currently there are no pre-installed apps that are utilizing the technology.

The phone was also displaying a new version of the user interface known as HTC Sense. It includes something called “Blink Feed,” which transforms the home screen into a constant feed of social updates, emails and news, as well as ESPN content through a partnership with ESPN.

And much emphasis was placed on the phone’s “UltraPixel” camera — which, the company said, means the megapixels are bigger. As HTC pointed out, the megapixel count on a camera doesn’t matter; it’s the size of the pixels.

In addition to “ghost” HDR and burst-shot modes, the HTC One is meant to capture better pictures in low light, and comes with a built-in video-editing solution, dubbed “Zoe.”

The LTE-enabled HTC One will begin shipping in late March; price has not yet been announced. The company has named AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile as its U.S. carrier partners.

The phone comes in silver or black, with 32 gigabytes or 64GB of storage.

HTC president Jason Mackenzie says HTC saw a “massive opportunity” to bring excitement back to smartphones and bring HTC’s offerings to another level. “This is not just another set of incremental improvements,” he said.

As my AllThingsD colleague Ina Fried wrote this morning, the launch of the One comes at a particularly tough time for the company, which found fast success on the back of Android, but just as quickly lost ground to other rivals in the high-end smartphone market, particularly Samsung.

According to Gartner Research, HTC’s share of the global smartphone market slipped to 4.7 percent last year from 9.1 percent in 2011 — even falling below flailing RIM (now, BlackBerry), which had 5 percent of handset market share last year. Samsung, meanwhile, soared from 18.7 percent of the market to 30.3 percent during the same time frame, topping both Apple and Nokia.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130219/as-expected-htc-unveils-its-new-flagship-phone-the-htc-one/feed/ 11 http://allthingsd.com/20130219/nvidia-readies-its-first-chip-with-lte-built-in/ http://allthingsd.com/20130219/nvidia-readies-its-first-chip-with-lte-built-in/#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:00:13 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=296065 Qualcomm has a little more competition in the market for chips that can power the latest smartphones.

Nvidia is announcing on Tuesday the Tegra 4i, its first chip to integrate a modem that can support LTE network capabilities. The chip is now sampling, with a few phones using the chip expected in the fourth quarter, and more in the first quarter of 2014.

The chip packs a quad-core processor based on ARM’s Cortex A9 design, along with a fifth core for low-power operation and as a graphics processor engine with 60 cores and the LTE modem.

Nvidia plans to show a reference-design phone, code-named Phoenix, at the Mobile World Congess event that runs next week in Barcelona.

Broadcom announced its LTE plans last week, with a high-end chip expected to ship next year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130219/nvidia-readies-its-first-chip-with-lte-built-in/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130212/broadcom-readying-its-first-lte-chip-which-it-claims-will-be-smaller-than-rivals/ http://allthingsd.com/20130212/broadcom-readying-its-first-lte-chip-which-it-claims-will-be-smaller-than-rivals/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:00:03 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=293663

After being stuck in 3G land for a while now, Broadcom said it is getting closer to having a modem chip that supports faster LTE networks.

The chip, which it is sampling now and is set for volume production next year, is said to be a third smaller than many rival chips, while supporting all the key standards and technologies. Among its features is support for voice calls over LTE, as well as a feature to bond together different frequencies that a carrier has into one faster pipeline onto the Internet.

“We think it is going to be a winner,” Broadcom CEO Scott McGregor said in an interview.

Thus far, Qualcomm has dominated the LTE market with its chips, though other chipmakers are starting to enter the market.

“Other people have announced some chips that maybe nibble away at the low end of the market,” McGregor said.

By contrast, Broadcom’s goal is to have a product that can go in the highest-end products.

“The real goal here is to create a product that really is a world chip for the flagship smartphones and tablets,” he said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130212/broadcom-readying-its-first-lte-chip-which-it-claims-will-be-smaller-than-rivals/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130207/freedompop-raises-a-few-more-millions-to-further-disrupt-mobile-broadband/ http://allthingsd.com/20130207/freedompop-raises-a-few-more-millions-to-further-disrupt-mobile-broadband/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:00:30 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=292387 FreedomPop, the Niklas Zennstrom-backed mobile broadband company, is adding another $4.3 million to its coffers.

The funding will come from its existing investors, but at a higher valuation than its Series A round, CEO Stephen Stokols said in an interview. Since last year, FreedomPop has been selling various add-on sleeves, hotspots and data cards that customers can use to access free and low-cost mobile data plans.

More cash will help the company continue to come up with new plans and social features for its service. Already, the company plans to boost the amount of free data each customer gets for referring a friend to the service, and to add the ability for friends with more data on their plan to share with those running low.

“It takes family plans to a new level,” Stokols said.

In its initial products, FreedomPop has been using Clearwire’s WiMax network; later this year, the company will look to offer devices on Sprint’s LTE network, once it covers more places.

The company has run into challenges with one of its devices — the add-on sleeve that adds WiMax capabilities to an iPhone 4. That device is still awaiting FCC approval, months after it was originally scheduled to ship.

Stokols said that FreedomPop hopes to be able to ship the device in a few weeks’ time, but said the company is offering refunds to those who ordered the $99 device. FreedomPop hopes to also soon start shipping a home broadband product, announced in December, that offers low-cost Internet using a fixed WiMax modem.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130207/freedompop-raises-a-few-more-millions-to-further-disrupt-mobile-broadband/feed/ 0