But a month later, both PayPal and its parent company eBay say they have the depth of leadership necessary to execute its plan to enter the world of in-store payments.

In an interview, David Marcus, PayPal’s VP of mobile, made the case for why its mobile payments strategy will prevail in a market surrounded by incumbents like Visa, MasterCard and American Express, as well as new entrants like Google.

On the matter of Thompson’s departure, he downplayed the role of one executive.

“The strategy wasn’t one man’s thing,” he argued. “It was a shock for 24 to 48 hours, but we control our destiny, and it’s about execution now. So far, so good.”

In addition to speaking to Marcus and several other executives, AllThingsD got an exclusive look at the company’s newly constructed “Shopping Showcase,” which will be used to demonstrate to potential partners how it envisions next-generation payments will occur at the register.

From the ground floor of the company’s San Jose headquarters, it has built several realistic-looking facades, including a hardware store, a grocery store, a clothing store and cafe; users can walk from one experience to the next. I also tried out the experience of making a real purchase at Home Depot, where it is currently being piloted at many San Jose-area stores. (See the slideshow here.)

To be sure, Thompson’s departure was abrupt. He gave PayPal only 15 hours’ notice before the planned announcement that January morning by Yahoo.

But the company now maintains that its strategy for the next two years had long since been cemented, making it much easier to absorb the blow.

Over the next few years, PayPal will be trying to take its online relationship with 106 million consumers worldwide into the physical payments world, by extending its digital wallet services to cash registers at grocery stores, hardware stores and other retail locations.

It plans to do this through a series of different technologies, including PIN codes, credit cards and other services.

Meanwhile, other providers are trying to attack the market using near field communication, where users will tap their mobile phone at the register in order to pay.

Google, Visa, MasterCard and a consortium of wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, are all working on similar solutions, which will require retailers and consumers to upgrade their point-of-sale technology and mobile phones, respectively.

“Yes, NFC will be useful, and we’ll be there, but today we are trying to do more than replace swiping with tapping,” Marcus said.

He envisions shopping becoming a more fluid experience. Today, you pick out the items you want, place them in your shopping cart and then stand in line at the checkout.

But in the future, he asks, why couldn’t that change? What if you paid for items in the store’s aisles, or purchased them online before picking them up in the store?

NFC can be restrictive, because you have to be at a physical location in order to tap a terminal and pay.

The scenarios are possible, given how fast things are already changing.

Last year, PayPal exceeded its own expectations, reaching $4 billion in mobile payment volume. This year, it expects to increase that to $7 billion. One of those purchases last year was a $40,000 backhoe, which someone bought using PayPal on their phone.

“By the time NFC catches up, we will be in a world that will move away from the point-of-sales terminal,” he predicts.

As with PayPal’s traditional business, it expects to make money on fees, also called the interchange rate, which the retailer is responsible for paying. Its goal is not to provide a cheaper solution than the incumbents. Rather, it wants to provide other perks that will help retailers and provide incentive for the retailers to want to work with PayPal.

Such perks could include platforms that will allow the retailers to offer loyalty programs, shopping lists, credit options or coupons.

“If you add a payment method that adds 30 to 40 percent more volume [in business to the retailer], then the interchange doesn’t matter,” Marcus said.

Completed two weeks ago, the showcase is designed to woo major retailers and other potential partners that may be considering adopting PayPal’s mobile payments services.

The room includes several realistic-looking facades, including a hardware store, a cafe, a grocery store and a clothing retailer.

In each scenario, it demonstrates how it uses a mix of new technologies, offers and loyalty programs to make it faster and easier to and pay and stay engaged with the retailer.

What you won’t see is demonstrations of near field communications, which is a technology being used by many of its competitors. (To learn why it is not using NFC, read an interview with PayPal’s VP of Mobile David Marcus, coming later today.)

I also visited Home Depot in San Jose to buy something using my PayPal account. The service is now live at many of the Bay Area hardware stores.

Today, PayPal is one of the leading online payments companies, with 106 million users worldwide; but this year, the eBay-owned company is attempting to move offline, by partnering with retailers like Home Depot and other major chains to be announced later this year.

Here are the photos from the Shopping Shopping Showcase and Home Depot shopping visits:

View the slideshow

You’ll have to take my word for this, but this is exactly what it looks and sounds like on my phone — there’s no drop in quality in this YouTube upload.

What’s truly bizarre is that the live NFL streaming that Verizon does provide is actually pretty good. Or at least it was, when they were offering it for free at the beginning of the season. I don’t know why they’d want to promote it with something that looked like it was made on a Commodore 64.

Also odd: Verizon has made competent, attractive ads for its NFL offering in the past. Here’s one from 2011:

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Neil Webster)

And for those who are into both football and geekery, tomorrow is kind of like the Super Bowl. Well, technically speaking, I guess tomorrow is like the Super Bowl for everyone.

Anyhoo. For everyone looking for some tech to go with their gridiron, there are lots of options.

First of all, NBC is streaming the Super Bowl live over the Internet, for those who can’t make it to a television or want a second screen to enjoy even more of the action.

ESPN president John Skipper said at D: Dive Into Media that he thinks giving away the game for free is a bad idea, but NBC paid for the rights, so they get to do what ever they want.

Verizon is also broadcasting the game live to the smallest of screens via its NFL Mobile service. (However, Peter Kafka notes their marketing of said service could use some work.)

Second, there are a ton of Super Bowl apps, including the official ones for both iPhone and Android, as well as a game program. Peanuts are still not downloadable, but content-tagging app Shazam is offering a variety of commercial tie-ins. Check here for even more game-day apps.

And of course, the big game will be the talk of Twitter, to be sure.

Lastly, as a special treat, AllThingsD will be offering live coverage of the game, the commercials and the social-media hoopla. We had so much fun in January with Footballmer, our liveblog mash-up of Steve Ballmer’s final CES keynote and the BCS championship, that we decided to do it again.

This time, though, I’ll actually get to watch the game, rather than having Ballmer duty. I’ll be commenting on the game, the commercials, the tech and the Twitter commentary. Check back tomorrow before kickoff for that.

Gupta joined the company 18 months ago after Google acquired Jambool, a virtual goods payment platform where he was a founder and CEO. More recently, he’d been one of the leaders on the payments team, overseeing Google Wallet and reporting to Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of Payments.

“I can confirm that Vikas has left Google and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” a spokesman said.

Jambool’s product, Social Gold, was rolled into Google’s payment products and is being used for in-app purchases on both Android Market and Google+ Games.

According to Gupta’s LinkedIn page, he joined Google in August 2010 and held the title of head of consumer payments. Jambool reportedly was purchased for $55 million before any additional earn-outs. Prior to founding Jambool, Gupta worked at Amazon.

Gupta’s departure is the second management move made in the Google Wallet ranks over the past week.

A spokesperson declined to say if the division was undergoing a wider restructuring, but last week, I reported that Google’s VP of Commerce Stephanie Tilenius was moving into a more global position. And, as part of that, Bedier will be taking on a larger role within Google Wallet, though his title will not be changing.

The Wallet is Google’s mobile payments strategy that allows users to tap their phone at the register to pay using near field communication technology. The company has already successfully formed alliances with both banks and retailers, and is leveraging its vast install base of Android users.

Today, it is live with some merchants, although it does face some challenges.

Currently, it only works on one phone from Sprint, and both consumers and merchants will most likely have to upgrade their hardware for it to work. Additionally, some carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, have decided to disable Google Wallet on phones they are shipping. Other carriers, which are part of a mobile wallet joint venture called ISIS, are expected to follow suit, effectively limiting access for many U.S. consumers.

More than six months after hosting a flashy launch event, the business may be getting a lot harder than it originally looked.

Over the long-term, the company is aiming for an average of five devices per subscriber.

“We think customers are going to have five devices,” said Colson Hillier, Verizon’s executive director of data applications.

Today, customers often have multiple connected devices, including laptops, televisions and tablets. Even when they are connected, most of those devices are linked to the Internet via Wi-Fi. Over time, though, Hillier said that Verizon sees an opportunity to add 4G.

One of the obvious impediments is today that would require either the use of a hotspot or signing up for multiple rate plans. Verizon, like other U.S. carriers, is looking at offering data plans that allow customers to share a pool of gigabytes among a number of different devices.

“You don’t get there with five plans,” he said.

Verizon’s chief executive said last month that some sort of shared data plan should arrive some time in 2012.

AT&T has also said it wants to offer such plans, but mobility chief Ralph de la Vega said in an interview this week that ironing out the details is taking longer than he had hoped.

Hillier also said that Verizon plans to offer home broadband service using its 4G LTE network in the first half of this year.

“We think it fits very well (for) rural markets and customers that are under-serviced,” Hillier said.

(Image credit: iStockphoto | thesuperph)

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• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
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• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
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• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
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“We’re still working on that,” AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said in an interview on Monday, just after wrapping up his keynote speech at AT&T’s developer conference in Las Vegas. “It just takes a little more time than we all would want it to take. But sometimes it’s better to make sure you take your time and get it right.”

Verizon has said it expects to see such plans arrive this year and de la Vega himself said at last year’s D9 conference that AT&T was also looking to let customers pool their data into a single plan.

“We’re working on one,” he said at the time. “It will be soon. I can’t comment on a quarter (when it will launch) but it will be soon.”

France Telecom already offers such plans in some of its European markets.

The need for such plans was further highlighted on Monday by one of AT&T’s announcements. The company plans to sell a bundle with Pantech’s LTE phone and tablet for just $249. It is a good deal, of course, but the annoying catch is that it requires signing up for two separate data plans.

De la Vega talked about a number of other topics during our chat, including why he thinks Samsung’s 5-inch Galaxy Note phone/tablet hybrid stands a chance and why Motorola and Research In Motion were entirely absent from Monday’s talk.

I’ll have more from our interview in a bit.

This year, much of the focus is going to be on the company’s just-launched LTE network and all of the devices that the company plans to have running on it soon.

On Thursday, AT&T announced that it has added service in several more cities, including three of the biggest markets: Los Angeles, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. In all, the carrier is now in 26 spots, though its network remains far smaller than the LTE footprint of Verizon Wireless.

The company has announced several LTE devices, but a bunch more are expected to be shown later on Monday. The most closely watched of these will be a new Nokia device running Microsoft’s Windows Phone, though we’re also expecting to hear from AT&T about other gadgets, including Samsung’s 5-inch Galaxy Note and Sony’s PlayStation Vita.

AT&T’s act runs from 9 am to 11 am PT. We’ll spare you a full recitation of the script and instead just offer the Playbill summary, along with insight on the performance and maybe a little inside info about the cast.

Earlier:
8:48 am: The good news: AT&T is passing out 5-Hour Energy bottles, more than enough for its keynote. The bad news: No power outlets. Many in the press row are fretting their laptops won’t have enough juice to make it through.

8:50 am: To keep everyone entertained, AT&T has been posting a set of “Would you rather” questions. My favorite one so far was, “Would you rather telecommute using a 14.4Kbps modem or commute two hours each way carpooling with the Kardashians?”

Modem all the way, personally.

Other questions include, “Would you rather use a cellphone from the 1980s or a pager from the 1990s?” and, “Would you rather only be able to text during the day and make calls at night or only be able to make calls during the day and text at night?”

It’s entertaining, but I’m not sure making people choose between two painful options is the branding message you need, AT&T.

8:55 am: OK, we should be getting started in a few minutes. Going to save laptop juice.

By the way, sponsors of AT&T’s developer summit include the expected array of partners — Samsung, HTC, Microsoft — as well as Nokia.

Somehow they managed to get RIM to pay twice, as both QNX and BlackBerry are sponsors.

9:03 am: We must be getting close. AT&T just put a slide on the big screen with its SEC-appeasing “safe harbor” warning. Basically, if things change, you can’t say they didn’t warn you.

9:08 am: AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega takes the stage. Overview so far, no news yet.

Expect the new devices toward the end.

9:12 am: Handoff to head marketing guy David Christopher, who is taking a stroll down memory lane, going back 16 years to when the company launched its developer program. I’ll let you know when we get back to the present.

9:13 am: AT&T is announcing a few new programs for developers, including some new programming interfaces to tie into its network.

Lots of carriers are doing this and there are benefits to developers that want to do the extra work. The downside is that developers already have to support multiple operating systems and HTML5. For many, writing to each carrier’s developer tools is too much extra work.

Among the new APIs, though, is carrier billing for payment — that appeals because it helps developers actually get paid.

9:20 am: AT&T is bringing an interesting developer out — Viva Vision chief and former NFL player Joe Tafoya.

Tafoya is showing an app his firm built for Dallas Mavericks player Jason “Jet” Terry. Incidentally, Terry went to high school with our own Tricia Duryee, who is helping out with this live blog, via Webcast.

9:25 am: Some stats on AT&T’s TV product, U-Verse. It’s up to 3.6 million customers, as of last year’s third quarter.

9:31 am: Lots of talk about partners and stuff. Apparently developers have to pay a $99 registration fee and can get unlimited access to the programming interfaces this year.

I’m ready for that energy drink.

Anyway, now up is Chief Technology Officer John Donovan.

He’s talking about the company’s 4G strategy, which includes both its HSPA+ network as well as the LTE network it is just building out now.

“AT&T delivers the best possible blended speed,” Donovan said, noting this is paying off for iPhone 4S users, since that phone supports HSPA+ but not any other 4G network.

He’s talking about the company’s network investments including 80,000 new antennas and 150,000 network improvements.

He’s suggesting the network is going to become like oxygen. Personally, I’m happy that I am able to get oxygen on my own, without having to pay AT&T or rely on them (or anyone else) to deliver it. But that could be just me.

And, as Tricia points out, wireless connectivity is inherently more limited than oxygen molecules, which are abundant, even if increasingly in the shape of carbon dioxide.

9:39 am: AT&T also has a cloud strategy, with droplets and other features that I am a little cloudy on. Got distracted by the clouds on the PowerPoint slide, which look like fluffy little pillows to me.

Donovan promises the ability to pay hourly or monthly for its cloud services and pledges more news on this front this year.

Now he’s talking more about programming interfaces. Developers do care about this stuff, but pretty sure they are all here or watching the Webcast. So I will spare you most of the details.

Donovan said the company expects to see 10 billion calls to its interfaces this year, more than double what it saw in 2011.

9:47 am: Pretty sure we will get some new devices at some point.

But sadly that point is not now.

9:52 am: Promising sign — now up is Senior VP Jeff Bradley who heads AT&T’s device business.

First up, though, are the winners of a developer conference …

Still a bit away from the device news. AT&T is talking about a technology for developers designed to allow their apps to be more power and bandwidth efficient.

10:08 am: Zynga and Pandora talking about how that tech helps their apps be smarter about when and how to connect to the network.

The tool also works across other devices and networks, Zynga noted.

And, Bradley said, it will be made available as open source code later this year.

10:11 am: And, just ahead of the device news, AT&T is talking about AppCenter — its new tool for app discovery. It’s more of a magazine pointing to existing app stores and mobile Web sites than yet another marketplace.

10:12 am: Back on stage are David Christopher and John Donovan. They are talking about three apps created in last night’s hackathon.

It’s similar to what AT&T does at its foundries, but this time live. The winner gets backstage passes to AT&T’s concert with Nickelback as well as the opportunity to be featured in an AT&T ad.

First up is Action X-Ray, which lets you share your extreme sports injuries with friends. It’s really good for targeted ads. Say, if you have a head injury, you get an ad for a helmet.

Next is HopiChest, a health-tracking app for kids to enter stats about their exercise and health habits and tweet it to their friends.

Finally is Sleepbot, which is a mobile and web app designed to help users get a better night’s sleep and compare one’s sleep with others who are tracking their Zzzzzs.

Now the audience is being asked to vote by text message for a winner.

10:19 am: AT&T isn’t the only carrier making news at CES today, by the way. Verizon has just announced the Verizon Jetpack, a new hotspot from ZTE and a new phone from LG.

10:22 am: AT&T is ready to start with its device news as well, with emerging devices head Glenn Lurie on stage. First up is gaming and Sony’s PlayStation Vita.

AT&T has already said it will have the wirelessly connected game console (an announcement made almost a year ago). It will debut next month.

Now it is sharing the fine print.

Sony’s SVP Kuni Suzuki is out, but decides to talk first about Sony’s Tablet P, a dual-screen clamshell device that folds out into a tablet-size screen. Sony announced the device last year and said it would come to AT&T, but again, we’ve been waiting on final details like price and availability.

10:30 am: Now he’s showing off the PS Vita, which is already on sale in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He’s showing pictures of the long lines that accompanied the launch. However, after a strong initial burst, sales trailed off.

The Vita is coming to the U.S. on Feb. 22, by the way.

Data plans for the Vita will be similar to the iPad, AT&T announced. For $15 a month, gamers will get 250 MB of data and for $25 a month, they will get 2GB.

However, since the Vita is a designated gaming device, it will be interesting to see if consumers will be willing to pay just as much for wireless connectivity.

The device itself will cost $299.

10:34 am: OK, back to de la Vega for more devices. But first, the results of that developer live pitch. And the winner is…

Action X-Ray, the one that lets you share your injuries with friends.

10:40 am: Device time, starting with six new Android devices, all with LTE.

Sony Xperia Ion, an exclusive to AT&T, will pack a 12 megapixel camera and a 4.6-inch screen. Planned for second quarter (with Sony branding now that it has bought out Ericsson).

Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD adds a bigger 4.6-inch Super AMOLED screen to the current Skyrocket model as well as a removable battery. Also, as widely leaked, AT&T is getting the Galaxy Note, a 5-inch cross between phone and tablet.

W.P. Hong, Samsung’s head of global product strategy, comes out to explain why we actually need such a thing.

It’s coming to the U.S. exclusively with AT&T and comes in blue and white. U.S. head Kevin Packingham is brought out to add to the Galaxy Note pitch.

He touts the pressure-sensitive pen capability, 5.3-inch screen and other features.

“And yes, it does make phone calls,” Packingham said.

De la Vega says AT&T also wants to bring LTE to the masses and is doing so with a lower-end LTE phone and tablet from Pantech as well as entry-level phone from Samsung.

10:50 am: De la Vega said the Pantech phone will be available for under $50, with a bundle coming that offers the tablet and phone for $249 (as long as you sign up for contracts for both, of course.)

The tablet, the Element, is also waterproof, notes Pantech marketing chief S. Jay Yim, who is now on stage.

Yim ends his talk by dipping the tablet in water, with de la Vega handing him a towel to dry off himself — and the tablet.

The Samsung Exhilarate, an eco-friendly budget LTE phone, will also be priced at less than $50, AT&T said.

10:57 am: OK, Windows Phone time, with de la Vega saying it sees a lot of promise in the platform. AT&T has been the biggest backer of the technology.

AT&T will be first with LTE Windows Phones. And, out comes CEO Steve Ballmer.

“The devices are blindingly fast,” Ballmer said, promising more details will come throughout the day. (Think Nokia event at 3 pm.)

Ballmer draws a contrast between Windows Phone and its app-centric rivals and says that others’ approach puts distance between a user and what they want to do.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t love apps,” Ballmer insists. Microsoft’s approach lets apps work together more easily, he said.

Ballmer notes that the company now has 50,000 apps in its marketplace, with 300 more coming each day.

As for Windows and Windows Phone getting more similar, Ballmer said, “We’ll continue to move in the direction of sharing more technology.”

Ballmer’s also sneaking in a quick pitch for Windows 8.

There have been 3 million downloads of the developer preview version of Windows 8, released at the Build conference last fall, Ballmer said.

Beta coming in February, Ballmer reminds developers.

And, he wraps up with his now-familiar chant of “developers, developers, developers.”

11:08 am: On to Windows Phone devices. Nokia is coming, but first up is HTC.

HTC CEO Peter Chou comes on stage to show that company’s first LTE-capable Windows Phone.

He shows off HTC Titan II, with its whopping 16 megapixel camera.

“I’ve tested it,” Chou said. “It’s blazing fast on the AT&T network.”

The press conference is running over and it’s fingernail biting time in the press row as our laptop batteries all dip into the red.

11:15 am: Chou is cracking up Ballmer and de la Vega. Maybe if he keeps it up there won’t be any time for Nokia.

11:16 am: Nope, here’s Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

De la Vega said AT&T is betting on Nokia and on Elop. “We have bet on this person because I think he is the right person for this job.”

Elop starts out with his now-familiar line about the battle of devices turning into a war of ecosystems.

He also repeats his assertion that Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 were “the first real Windows Phones,” a phrase that is now doubt giving Chou fits backstage.

Elop promises first 4G LTE phone will be with AT&T.

But he also says that Nokia will share “more details” later this afternoon at its press conference.

And with that, the presentation is over.

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• Complete coverage
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• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
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• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
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• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
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• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
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• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
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• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
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• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
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Also getting the service are Austin; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Orlando; Phoenix; Raleigh, N.C.; and San Diego, Calif.

That’s in addition to the 15 other markets in which AT&T launched LTE last year. Of course, AT&T still trails Verizon, which has coverage in 190 markets, with service available to more than 200 million people.

Sprint, meanwhile, has much of the country covered with an alternate 4G technology, WiMax. However, Sprint has announced plans to launch an LTE network of its own later this year.

Constrained by spectrum, T-Mobile USA has focused on rolling out ever-faster variants of its 3G network. The company had hoped a merger with AT&T would solve its problems, but is now scrambling for other options since that deal collapsed.

Update, 1 p.m.: In a Twitter posting, Sprint noted on Wednesday that it plans to launch its LTE service in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio by mid-year.

Daily deal industry tracking firm Yipit reports that the daily deal industry in North America experienced marginal growth in November, as the major sites were adversely affected by the Thanksgiving holiday.

The number of deals offered increased only 1 percent while total industry gross billings grew by 2 percent during the month.

The largest provider, Groupon, saw the biggest decline.

Groupon grew 6 percent in November, but experienced a double-digit decline during the Thanksgiving holiday week.

Yipit bases its estimates on the sales of vouchers, which it tracks closely. Although Groupon no longer reveals exact sales data on its site, Yipit maintains that it is still able to make fair predictions based on historical data and industry insights.

The daily-deal declines were in stark contrast to the Black Friday experience of online retailers, which saw sales increase to $816 million on the day after Thanksgiving. ComScore said it was the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011, representing a 26 percent increase over the same day in 2010.

The holiday declines occurred despite ambitious programs by both Groupon and LivingSocial, which tried to take advantage of the heavy retail season.

Groupon stepped up its marketing efforts through “Grouponicus,” a holiday shop selling local gifts, deals and travel getaways.

LivingSocial’s Black Friday efforts included offering deals for 20 national brands, including gift cards from Electronic Arts, OfficeMax, Verizon Wireless, Skype and BlueNile.com. LivingSocial even launched a national TV campaign and radio spots to promote the deals.

But Yipit says those efforts didn’t pay off.

For the seven-day period ended Nov. 28, LivingSocial’s gross billings were down 30 percent and 19 percent compared to the two previous periods. And, because of the lower-priced national deals, the average size of its deal price fell to $28 in November from $32 a month earlier.

Yipit did not try to explain why the drops occurred around the holidays, except that they are similar to other periods, such as the Fourth of July.

But the patterns could be compared to social gaming space, which saw its usage sink during the holidays because people were not at work.

A secondary factor may be that more traditional retailers are known for Black Friday offers for others, while daily deals have historically been looked at as items you buy for yourself, and are not necessarily thought of as gifts.

Finally, Yipit said following Groupon and LivingSocial, Travelzoo, AmazonLocal and Google Offers ranked as the third, fourth and fifth largest national providers in November.

No word yet on how daily deals performed in the lead-up to Christmas in December.

The company said the move was made in response to the uproar.

“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers,” CEO Dan Mead said in a statement. “Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time.”

The announcement comes one day after Verizon said it would be adding the fee for customers who make a single bill payment by telephone, and for some who pay online via the Verizon Web site.

Earlier today, the Federal Communications Commission had said it was concerned about the carrier’s planned fee.

“On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter,” an FCC representative told AllThingsD.

Users in Alabama, California and Indiana, among other places, are taking to the company’s support Web site to document their connection woes.

The company had an outage last week and another earlier this month.

With the past outages, Verizon has confirmed the issues but declined to discuss the specific causes. A Verizon representative was not immediately available for comment on the latest outage.

Update: Verizon has provided the following comment:

We are investigating reports of some customers experiencing trouble accessing the 4GLTE network. The network itself continues to operate and all customers continue to be able to make calls, send text messages and utilize data services. 3G devices are operating normally.

In reports on Twitter and the carrier’s support forums, users note getting either no data service or service only on Verizon’s slowest data network.

Two weeks ago, Verizon had a significant outage on its fastest network. That network also went down for a spell back in April.

A Verizon representative was not immediately available for comment. The Verge said that a representative they talked to confirmed the outage, but declined to offer details or provide a time frame when service might be restored.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse

Shares of Sprint are rallying by about 6 percent in after-hours trading, on word that AT&T has abandoned its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile.

That’s really only a jump of 13 cents per share — a figure that says a lot about the pickle in which Sprint remains, despite the fact that its arguments against the AT&T-T-Mobile combination have prevailed.

Sprint no longer has to deal with the threat of a merged AT&T-T-Mobile. But it still has to cope with the fact that it is a distant No. 3 to AT&T and Verizon Wireless. And, after betting on a different 4G technology, the company also has to bring up an entirely new network, all while trying to turn off its older Nextel network.

Still, there is some cause for celebration, an opportunity that Sprint did not let go to waste.

“From the beginning, Sprint has stood with consumers who spoke loudly and clearly that AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile would create an undeniable duopoly that would have resulted in higher prices, less innovation and fewer choices for the American consumer,” Sprint said today in a statement, in which it also praised federal regulators for their opposition to the deal.

Sprint and its CEO, Dan Hesse, had opposed the deal mightily before government regulators and Congress, and in the court of public opinion, investing a lot of political capital in the process.

That said, the deal’s failure doesn’t exactly help Sprint out of the messy spot it’s in.

For one thing, Sprint is still losing money. In its most recent quarter, it booked a $301 million loss on revenue of $8.3 billion, which was an improvement over the prior year’s period. On the bright side, it added 1.3 million customers — and that was before it had Apple’s iPhone in its stores to help entice new customers.

But while having the iPhone is nice, it’s not helping the bottom line. As The Wall Street Journal reported in October, Sprint has committed to buy more than 30 million iPhones, which will cost it as much as $20 billion over time, and on which it expects to lose money through at least 2014.

And that’s not even the half of it. Sprint also plans to spend big to build a new LTE network in 2012, and currently relies on WiMax as its 4G technology. With $5 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet as of the end of December, Hesse said, the company will have to go to the credit markets and borrow to get the build-out done.

Meanwhile, its relationship with the wireless broadband concern Clearwire isn’t exactly helping. Clearwire is the provider of Sprint’s 4G technology, and relies heavily on Sprint for its funding. By using Clearwire’s WiMax technology, Sprint was first to the market with 4G, something that gave it an early advantage over its rivals. But that the move also left Sprint alone as both AT&T and T-Mobile Verizon joined numerous carriers in Europe in moving to a rival 4G technology, known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE.

Had Sprint not started the move to LTE, it likely would have faced an increasingly tough time getting device makers to bring out their latest and greatest devices for a WiMax standard that few other carriers were adopting.

So for Sprint, while one important battle is won, the war to turn the company around — and it will be a tough one — is far from over, and far from victory.

Update: Initially I identified T-Mobile as going launching an LTE network, which it’s not. I meant to say Verizon. Sorry about that.

AllThingsD’s Ina Fried contributed to this report.

The deal allows Cox and Verizon Wireless to sell each others’ services in their stores and other sales channels. The joint marketing arrangement is similar to the one agreed to in the groundbreaking deal disclosed earlier this month between Verizon and Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks, in which Verizon said it would pay the cable consortium $3.6 billion for wireless spectrum licenses covering 259 million people in the U.S.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Customers took to both Twitter and the Verizon Wireless support forums to kvetch about their lack of high-speed data service.

Posters from locations ranging from Houston to Boston and Iowa to New Hampshire reported problems accessing the company’s data networks.

Verizon told AllThingsD that the problems are limited to its fastest 4G LTE network.

“Verizon Wireless engineers have been working to resolve an issue with 4G LTE service that is affecting some customers’ 4G devices,” a company spokesman said in a statement. “3G data and voice devices are unaffected. All customers’ voice calls and text messages continue to go through.”

Verizon said that the issues began over the past 24 hours, with some users having no issues and other having intermittent or no 4G data access.

“We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” Verizon said.

The company was hit with a significant nationwide outage back in April.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said on Wednesday that he expects his wireless unit to be offering some form of shared data plans by sometime next year. Such plans would allow multiple devices to share a single pool of megabytes or gigabytes.

“I think in 2012 we’ll see it,” McAdam said. “We’ve been working on this for a couple of years, frankly.”

McAdam noted that the company expects some customers to be viewing content on four or even five devices.

“Customers don’t want — and neither do we, by the way — want an individual account for each one of those devices,” McAdam said. “It drives them crazy and it would raise our costs a lot. Getting to one bill and having account-level pricing is the right way to go.”

AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega said at our D9 conference in June that his company is also working on such a plan and expects it to be available before too long.

“We’re working on one,” he said at the time. “It will be soon. I can’t comment on a quarter (when it will launch) but it will be soon.”

Such plans have been widely anticipated and have popped up in a few places already. France Telecom, for example, is offering a couple of different plans in certain European markets.

McAdam sees a continued shift away from feature phones and into smartphones.

“I don’t see any reason why 70 percent (penetration) isn’t in our future,” McAdam said.

McAdam also defended the company’s practice of introducing high-end phones at prices higher than the $199 entry-level iPhone 4S price.

“They are selling very well,” he said of those $299 Android phones. “To me, the issue is ‘are we going to have the applications that justify it?’ And if we do, then I think we will be fine.”

One thing that is going to decline, McAdam acknowledged, is the revenue the company gets from things like text messaging, amid the rise of third-party voice- and data-messaging applications.

“I do expect SMS to be under attack,” McAdam said, noting that has already started to happen in some European countries.

“We haven’t seen as much of it on our side, frankly, but I think it is going to come,” McAdam said. “It’s kind of like long distance and the other stuff you saw fade away.”

The key, he said, is always having the next great thing, whether that is video or adding wireless to new kinds of devices.

On the mobile payments front, McAdam said things are reaching the prototyping stage with the Isis consortium that Verizon is a part of, with trials slated for next year.

“That should be significant deployment by the end of next year,” he said. “I think it becomes a real revenue stream for us in 2013.”

Once again, the magazine has found that, when it comes to the national wireless carriers, consumers are most satisfied with Verizon and least so with AT&T.

Potentially more interesting was that the annual survey found that three smaller carriers — U.S. Cellular, Credo and Consumer Cellular — all scored higher than any of the Big 4 wireless providers. Several prepaid brands, including TracFone and Straight Talk, also scored higher than the big brands.

“Our survey indicates that subscribers to prepaid and smaller standard-service providers are happiest overall with their cell-phone service,” Consumer Reports electronics editor Paul Reynolds said in a blog posting. “However, these carriers aren’t for everyone. Some are only regional, and prepaid carriers tend to offer few or no smart phones.The major carriers are still leading options for many consumers, and we found they ranged widely in how well they satisfied their customers.”

Also notable was the fact that the national carriers achieved higher scores for their prepaid service than they did among their traditional contract-based customers.

The magazine also called out new “value” pricing plans from T-Mobile which allow even contract customers to get their phones unsubsidized in exchange for a lower fee. Though the plans are a bit hard to wrap one’s head around, they can be money savers over time.

Update: AT&T said it will use the survey as a learning opportunity, but stressed the investments the company has been making.

“While we’ll of course evaluate and learn from the Consumer Reports survey, we made significant progress in our network in 2011 including a 25 percent improvement 3G dropped call performance, 48,000 network improvements (more capacity, new cell sites, faster data speeds, and better connections), and many billions of dollars in capital investment to continue to improve our network,” the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. AT&T also contends that its service would benefit further if it were allowed to buy T-Mobile, a deal that has been opposed by U.S. regulators.

But here’s the upshot: The cable guys, who had been noodling with the idea of getting into the wireless business, are going to let Verizon handle it instead. And Verizon, which has already committed a ton of money to get into the cable TV and broadband business, won’t spend any more.

Call it a virtual merger, or detente, or whatever you like — it’s both sides agreeing to work together by staying out of each other’s way. [UPDATE: Comcast doesn't love with my characterization of the deal. See below]

None of the players involved wants to come out and say that, perhaps with antitrust regulators in mind. And the agreements won’t explicitly prevent any of the companies from competing with each other.

Verizon’s FiOS, for instance, is already available to about 15 percent of Comcast’s TV/broadband subscribers, and Verizon won’t stop selling it there. But Verizon stopped expanding its FiOS footprint last year, after spending $23 billion. And while Verizon hasn’t said it won’t start up again, this tie-up makes it very unlikely.

Comcast, meanwhile, is sort of in the wireless business now. But only a handful of its subscribers — perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 — use its Xfinity Internet2go service. So it’s easy to stop marketing that immediately, and transition that group to Verizon’s services in the near-term.

Meanwhile the companies all agree to co-market each other’s services. And the cable guys have essentially given themselves an option to get back into the wireless business four years from now, where they could rent out Verizon’s spectrum and become “mobile virtual network operators.” But that seems more like an escape hatch/leverage, not a road map.

The deal seems like it has obvious upsides for both companies, but we’re very likely to hear consumer watchdogs tell us that the tie-up stifles competition for crucial communication services. Which is why Comcast is making sure to argue that the deal will “provide more choice, great new innovative products, and better experiences to consumers and small and medium-sized businesses.” It will be interesting to see what Washington thinks of this, especially in light of its AT&T/T-Mobile stance.

UPDATE: Comcast wants to get some of its points across. Fair enough. The following comes from PR rep Jen Khoury:

·SpectrumCo is selling, and Verizon Wireless is buying, 122 spectrum licenses. This helps Verizon Wireless by putting them ahead of the curve on meeting their future spectrum needs as they roll out 4G LTE

·The sales agreements are customary in the wireless industry – similar to DirecTV and AT&T’s agreement to market and sell each other’s services, and they don’t require regulatory approval.

·We’ll be like each other’s Best Buy – each selling the other’s products and services, essentially for a commission.

·Neither Comcast nor Verizon Wireless is acquiring an ownership interest in the other company, and the operations of the two companies will remain independent, and no customers are being transferred.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Viroel Sima)

On AT&T’s network, for example, the iPhone can talk and surf at the same time — a feature not supported on Verizon and Sprint’s CDMA networks. Other factors, like call quality and service levels, also differ by network.

As for which is best at what, a new study from Metrico Wireless confirms conventional wisdom.

On the data side, the iPhone 4S is fastest on AT&T, in part because Apple supports AT&T’s HSPA+ network, but does not include support for either Verizon’s 4G LTE network or Sprint’s WiMax-based 4G network.

When it comes to making (and then not dropping) calls, Metrico said that Verizon performed best, edging out Sprint and AT&T. Then again, Sprint is the only one still offering unlimited data. So it really comes down to what attributes one is looking for in their iPhone.

As for whether black iPhones are better than white ones, that will have to wait for another day.