AllThingsD » Verizon http://allthingsd.com Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:39:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://allthingsd.com/theme/images/logo-rss.jpg All Things Digital http://allthingsd.com/ 144 22 Verizon Wireless Bringing Back Double Data Promotion http://allthingsd.com/20120207/verizon-wireless-bringing-back-double-data-promotion/ http://allthingsd.com/20120207/verizon-wireless-bringing-back-double-data-promotion/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:18:48 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=172143 Verizon Wireless plans to bring back an offer it ran earlier this year that gives new customers double the amount of data for the same price.

The “double your data” promotion, which will resume on Friday, applies to those buying a 4G LTE phone only, so iPhone buyers are out of luck, as are those who purchased a phone during the month the deal wasn’t being offered (unless they are still in their 14-day return/exchange window).

A Verizon representative confirmed the plans for the promotion and said it would be for a limited time only, though the company didn’t say how long it will run.

Verizon’s move comes as AT&T is going in the opposite direction, changing its plans in ways that will ultimately lead to higher bills for many customers. The company is offering more data in its plans, but also hiking the prices.

With the double data offer, Verizon 4G LTE customers will get 4 gigabytes of data per month for $30, as opposed to the standard 2GB.

Meanwhile, Verizon is also planning a buy one, get one free offer for the Droid Razr and Razr Maxx.

No word yet on when either carrier will offer plans that allow those with multiple devices to share a pool of data among their phones, tablets and other devices. Both AT&T and Verizon have said they are working on such offers.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile said it will offer all its phones and certain of its tablets for free with a new contract in a one-day sale this Saturday.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/verizon-wireless-bringing-back-double-data-promotion/feed/ 0 Verizon Teams With Redbox for a Netflix-Style Video Service http://allthingsd.com/20120206/verizon-teams-with-redbox-for-a-netflix-style-video-service/ http://allthingsd.com/20120206/verizon-teams-with-redbox-for-a-netflix-style-video-service/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:22:01 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171694 Here’s the Netflix-style video service that Verizon wouldn’t talk about a couple months ago: A joint venture with Redbox that promises “instantly available online and mobile content with immediate access to physical media through rental kiosks.”

The two companies put out a press release without a whole lot of detail (below) but are holding a press conference shortly where we may be able to tease some more out of them. (Update: Well, that was a waste of 10 minutes. Verizon is also promising to make executives available for interviews this morning, but my expectations are now very, very, very low. Subterranean.)

Right now, all they’re really saying is that they’ll have video content, delivered over the Web and via mobile devices, and that consumers will be able to stream some of it and download some of it.

Roping Redbox into the JV — Verizon will own 65 percent of the company, and the movie rental service will have the remainder — makes sense, because it will give the unnamed service a digital-plus-physical option. Just like Netflix and Dish Network’s Blockbuster already have.

But while the big media companies are very happy to license some of their content to Verizon or any other player that wants to pay for digital rights, they are much less comfortable with Coinstar’s Redbox, and have tangled with that service in court.

Right now, for instance, Redbox has announced that it won’t work with Warner Bros.’ new 56-day “window” for new movies on DVD, and will buy discs from third-party sources instead of getting them directly from the studio. So it will be interesting to see how Warner Bros. and parent company Time Warner treat the new venture, and whether that dynamic plays out with other content guys.

VERIZON AND COINSTAR’S REDBOX FORM JOINT VENTURE TO CREATE NEW CONSUMER CHOICE FOR VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
Joint Venture Will Offer the Best of Both Worlds – Physical and Digital – to All Consumers Nationwide

NEW YORK – Verizon and Coinstar, Inc. today announced the formation of a joint venture that will create a new choice for quality- and value-conscious consumers seeking a simple and affordable way to access the video entertainment they crave. The venture’s services will offer all of the convenience, simplicity and value of Redbox® new release DVD and Blu-ray Disc® rentals combined with a new content-rich video on-demand streaming and download service from Verizon.

The joint venture plans to introduce the product portfolio in the second half of 2012. It will offer subscription services and more in an easy-to-use, flexible and affordable service that will allow all consumers across the U.S. to enjoy the new and popular entertainment they want, whenever they choose, using the media and devices they prefer. Additional brand and product information will be revealed in the coming months.

“When you consider the core elements the parties bring to this venture – our powerful brands; our national rental kiosk footprint; our anytime, anywhere network presence; and our mutual commitment to customer-focused innovation – it’s clear that Verizon and Redbox are a powerful entertainment team,” said Bob Mudge, president of Verizon consumer and mass business markets.

“Consumers rely on Redbox for the latest new release movies at a great value, and our joint venture with Verizon will enable us to bring them even more value by offering expanded content offerings and greater flexibility for how and when they enjoy entertainment,” said Paul Davis, chief executive officer of Coinstar, Inc. “This alliance is the result of a deliberate and strategic process to identify a partner who shares our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to consumers. We look forward to rolling out the shared benefits this venture will bring to consumers, retailers, and shareholders.”

This venture between Verizon and Redbox will create the kind of national multi-platform product that customers are demanding from video entertainment service providers. It will leverage Verizon’s industry-wide relationships with entertainment content providers, its advanced cloud computing technologies and state-of-the-art IP network infrastructure to distribute video on-demand content to its customers.

“The joint venture will combine the accessibility and value of Redbox with Verizon’s vision for a borderless lifestyle – where consumers easily accomplish what they want or need to do, on their terms, through the power of the network,” said Mudge. “Together, we are erasing old technology boundaries, freeing people to spontaneously enjoy the entertainment they want, whenever they choose, using the devices and media they prefer, at home or away.”

By offering instantly available online and mobile content with immediate access to physical media through rental kiosks, Verizon and Redbox will be uniquely positioned to deliver the best of both worlds – digital and physical – to consumers across the country.
The joint venture is a limited liability company with Verizon holding a 65 percent ownership share and Redbox holding a 35 percent ownership share at the outset.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120206/verizon-teams-with-redbox-for-a-netflix-style-video-service/feed/ 0 AllThingsD Covers the Tech of Super Bowl XLVI (And the Ads, the Game and Madonna) http://allthingsd.com/20120205/live-allthingsd-covers-the-tech-of-super-bowl-xlvi-and-the-game/ http://allthingsd.com/20120205/live-allthingsd-covers-the-tech-of-super-bowl-xlvi-and-the-game/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:12:28 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=171432 If you liked Footballmer, you are going to love AllThingsD’s coverage of the Super Bowl.

We’ll have a liveblog commenting on the game, the commercials, the apps and more, brought to you by tech-and-sports enthusiast Ina Fried, with possible contributions from other staffers, if they can be pried away from the game.

Our coverage will kick off just before the game does. In the meantime, check out our techie guide to the Super Bowl with info on apps, streaming and more.

2:17 pm: It’s still more than an hour to go until game time, but if you want to watch, NBC is streaming the pregame show. http://nflstream.nbcsports.com/

2:23 pm: Sharing a few of my friends’ comments re: The Super Bowl:

“The Super Bowl … keeping Roman numerals alive for 46 years.”

and

“so I heard there’s a Madonna concert on today, with some strange pre-show and post-show entertainment …”

Feel free to email me your observations on the game, the tech and more to ina@allthingsd.com, and I will add in some of them, as well.

2:32 pm: Here’s what NBC’s streaming of the pregame show looks like:

2:35 pm: The NBC app also allows, among other thing, reviewing the ads and switching of camera angles.

2:43 pm: Getting my gear all ready for the game, and to monitor the apps. So far, I have at the ready a MacBook Air for the blogging and, to see the coverage, a Verizon/Motorola Droid Razr Maxx with NFL Mobile. And an iPad. May dig out one or two more gadgets, as well.

2:46 pm: My colleagues at The Wall Street Journal note that there is a traffic jam with folks trying to get to the game — an air traffic jam. I hate when I can’t park my private jet:

3:07 pm: Another shot of my setup as we get ready for the big game.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the starting lineup. Some guy named Manning is starting for the Giants.

The Patriots have some guy named Brady.

3:11 pm: It’s time to meet the players for both teams. And/or heat up the five-layer dip.

3:12 pm: On the commercial front, meanwhile, it’s an ad for Hulu Plus. No Baldwins or aliens, though.

If you miss a commercial, by the way, NBC says you can rewatch it on their site.

Not sure if the same goes for key plays.

3:16 pm: “America the Beautiful,” with Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton. I missed who was singing on the TV. Luckily, NFL Mobile on Verizon Droid Razr Maxx is running about 10 seconds behind. Homegrown instant replays.

3:18 pm: Meanwhile, “American Idol” alum Kelly Clarkson is singing the National Anthem. So far I’d put “Idol” up by a touchdown over “The Voice.”

3:20 pm: Cut to commercial for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film “The Dictator,” followed by a Verizon Wireless add for the Droid Razr, which now comes in colors. AJ’s excited: “You know me, I love colors,” he said.

As for me, I’m more excited by the Maxx and its extra battery life. Should have charged it up ahead of time to see if it could make it through the whole game.

Twitter is doing an interesting special Super Bowl page, monitoring how both teams are doing, tweet-wise:

3:26 pm: Meanwhile, on the field, New England won the coin toss and deferred to get the ball in the second half.

3:29 pm: As a reminder to all those enjoying the free livestreaming of the game by NBC, be thankful they have the game rights and not ESPN.

ESPN boss John Skipper told me at our D: Dive Into Media conference that he totally would have charged fans if he had the game rights.

3:38 pm: Quick game update: Giants will have to punt. Patriots will get it back, but deep in their own zone.

3:39 pm: Nice spot for Audi, touting the vampire-crushing power of its headlights.

3:41 pm: Whoa, intentional grounding call. Since Brady was in the end zone, it’s a safety. For you techie, non-sports fans, that’s two points for the Giants, plus they get the ball.

3:45 pm: Twitter is taking note of the fact that hashtags are everywhere in the Super Bowl ads, so far. Hashtags are the new URLs, says Gartner’s Michael Gartenberg.

3:50 pm: It was a catch and a fumble, but more importantly, the Patriots had an extra player on the field, so it’s just a penalty.

3:52 pm: Touchdown Giants, meaning Team Mossberg is off to a rough start, now down 9-0. Sorry, Walt.

3:54 pm: Best Buy just showed their cellphone ad — featuring, among other tech folks, Philippe Kahn, talking about the first cellphone camera. Also featured: Ray Kurzweil, the creators of Shazam, Instagram, Words With Friends and more.

It’s a fun spot.

3:56 pm: Also fun: The spot with a Chevy truck surviving the 2012 Mayan-predicted apocalypse. A bunch of guys in their trucks reunite, along with the Twinkies, which also survived. Not so lucky: The guy driving a Ford.

4:02 pm: Oh boy. Go Daddy at it again.

4:06 pm: Patriots kick a field goal to make it 9-3.

Meanwhile, colleague Joe Brown has dug up some most excellent Super Bowl related tweets, I’ll sprinkle in here:

@TheTweetOfGod notes this will be the last Super Bowl before the Apocalypse; @AndyBorowitz notes that porn sites are seeing a drop in traffic; while @JimGaffigan aptly points out that “The Super Bowl is like the Super Bowl of Super Bowl references.”

Borowitz also hypothesizes that Madonna’s halftime show will provide “a sneak preview of Lady Gaga’s halftime show in 2032.”

See something you like, send it my way to ina@allthingsd.com.

4:15 pm: Nice Volkswagen commercial mixes cute dogs and “Star Wars” to capture two key demographics.

4:20 pm: Aiming for equal time after that Go Daddy ad, there’s one that consists of just David Beckham in his underwear for 30 seconds.

4:23 pm: Interesting playbook for the Patriots, so far. I think it is the BlackBerry PlayBook.

4:28 pm: There are all these apps for making a game out of watching the Super Bowl. Hopefully, there is one that makes the Patriots make a game out it.

4:30 pm: Giants have to punt again, but they pin the Patriots deep again. New England will have it on their own four-yard line.

4:32 pm: It’s retro time, with Lucasfilm touting the 3-D version of “Star Wars,” and NBC touting the 53-year-old version of Madonna.

4:37 pm: Breaking: Teleflora steals ad team from Go Daddy. Then a funny ad from Sketchers, with a dog in tennis shoes.

4:38 pm: Wow, that Cars.com ad was creepy. With a capital “C” and a capital “REEPY.”

4:41 pm: Another tech note: NBC’s livestreaming is being aided by Vertigo, whose CEO, Scott Stanfield, asks everyone to help make the game the biggest streaming event ever.

4:43 pm: Grandma in wheelchair steals back Doritos bag by slingshotting baby to get it. Now it’s Etrade baby and pal “speed dating” in a hospital nursery. Babies are taking over.

4:46 pm: As for that football game thing, it’s almost halftime, with the Patriots in striking distance at the three-yard line, with 18 seconds to go.

4:47 pm: And Mossberg scores. Well, technically speaking, it was one of the Patriots on the field. Anyhoo, touchdown Patriots.

4:51 pm: And it’s halftime.

Or “game time” for many of my friends, who don’t understand why they are playing football at a Madonna concert, anyway.

5:00 pm: Hulu Plus gets another plug. Touts the ability to watch shows on all kinds of devices. Now it’s an evil(er) plan to take over the world.

Meanwhile, Shazam gets a shout-out in a Bud Light ad.

5:01 pm: And now, the moment you have all been waiting for … 1982.

5:04 pm: On the plus side, the wardrobe is fully functional.

5:06 pm: Meanwhile, if you Shazam the halftime show, you get a free LMFAO remake of Madonna.

5:11 pm: Dude, Madonna just stole the football field. We’re going to want that thing back.

5:16 pm: Here’s the Shazam app in action during the halftime show:

5:17 pm: And here’s how Madonna wrapped up her act, as seen on the one screen I haven’t talked about. It’s called a TV — people used to watch stuff on them:

5:23 pm: And, with some final halftime ads from Betty White and Clint Eastwood, we’re back to football. Brady and the Patriots have it just past their own 20.

5:28 pm: Walt carries it in again, as the Mossbergs extend their lead to 17-9.

5:31 pm: Just checked. RIM hasn’t made any personnel moves during this game.

5:36 pm: Some more great tweets curated by our fabulous Joe Brown:

@michaelianblack: Joan Rivers did an amazing halftime show.

@PFTompkins: That oughtta do it. World peace should be here by the next GoDaddy commercial.

@TheTweetOfGod: Patriots 10. Giants 9. Madonna 53.

5:39 pm: Giants did a kick-y thing. Now 17-12 Patriots.

5:39 pm: Update: Fiat also knows how to use sex to sell.

5:42 pm: I want to grab a beer, but I am afraid I might miss a commercial. Or accidentally grab a Bud Light Platinum, whatever that is.

5:43 pm: Meanwhile, NBC is plugging an NBC Sports Talk app.

Madonna gets a shout-out from her peers:

5:52 pm: It’s easy to miss, in all the tweets and ads and Madonnas, but there is actually a pretty good football game going on.

5:56 pm: It’s almost the moment you have all been waiting for … Samsung’s Galaxy Note commercial. It’s kind of like a futchdown.

6:06 pm: Loving the “Ferris Bueller” revamp Honda CR-V commercial with Matthew Broderick. #bueller

First Madonna, now Ferris Bueller. Glad my generation now runs all the companies. Or at least their ad agencies.

6:13 pm: Bud Light gets some “awww” points with its last ad, promoting the beer-fetching rescue dog, “Weego.”

6:21 pm: Woo Hoo. Careerbuilder monkeys. I’ve missed those guys.

6:21 pm: Fourth quarter, 9:24 left to go. You can text your vote to for Super Bowl MVP. Personally, I’ll need another 9:24 to give you my answer.

6:25 pm: Futchdown! Goofy ad for Samsung’s Galaxy Note phablet now on.

Not a lot of stylus fans on Twitter, as Samsung ad is getting roundly panned, as is the product.

6:29 pm: Dow Jones colleague Ian Sherr reports his stream of the Super Bowl is decidedly subpar. “None of the TV ads, and it doesn’t even break at the same time as TV.”

Of course, only at the Super Bowl does one complain there are not enough ads in Internet streams.

“I’ve missed several plays, and they keep playing the same ads with Dwight from The Office and “Act of Valor” over and over again,” Sherr said in a Twitter post.

6:32 pm: Meanwhile, it’s a two-point game, with 3:46 to play.

Giants have the ball, down two on their own 12.

6:34 pm: Throw to the sideline at 50-yard line ruled a catch. Patriots challenge, but looks pretty good. First key use of instant replay this game.

Yep, ruling on field confirmed, and will cost the Patriots a time-out.

6:37 pm: As for that Samsung ad, it was a first-ever commercial for director Bobby Farrelly, who is known for “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb & Dumber” and “Kingpin.”

If you need to re-watch it, it’s here.

I recommend doing so now, as there is another Go Daddy.com ad playing.

6:44 pm: Giants score, but likely would have rather used a little more clock.

New England will still need a touchdown, and have less than a minute to get it.

It’s now 21-17, Giants.

Sorry, was watching the game. First down, but clock clicking. Just 17 seconds left, though.

6:51 pm: Just nine seconds left now, with Patriots near midfield.

6:52 pm: Okay. Five ticks left, so this is probably it for both the Patriots and this liveblog. Hope you were at least entertained!

Incomplete. Giants win, 21-17.

6:55 pm: Disneyland or Disney World? That’s the only question that remains.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120205/live-allthingsd-covers-the-tech-of-super-bowl-xlvi-and-the-game/feed/ 0 Here's the Worst Super Bowl Ad of 2012 http://allthingsd.com/20120204/heres-the-worst-super-bowl-ad-of-2012/ http://allthingsd.com/20120204/heres-the-worst-super-bowl-ad-of-2012/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:37:50 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171380 Maybe you’re a little bit interested in watching part of the Super Bowl on your Verizon phone. This should cure you of that: It’s the ad Verizon is using to push the service, which it’s selling for $3. I’m a Verizon subscriber, and the carrier just sent this directly to my iPhone, unprompted, via MMS.

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)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120204/heres-the-worst-super-bowl-ad-of-2012/feed/ 0 Are You Ready for Some Football? A Techie Guide to the Super Bowl. http://allthingsd.com/20120204/are-you-ready-for-some-football-a-techie-guide-to-the-big-game/ http://allthingsd.com/20120204/are-you-ready-for-some-football-a-techie-guide-to-the-big-game/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:24:33 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=171366 While many techies aren’t sports fans (and vice versa), lots of us are enthusiasts of both ones and zeros and X’s and O’s.

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120204/are-you-ready-for-some-football-a-techie-guide-to-the-big-game/feed/ 0 130,000 Time Warner Cable Subscribers Go Missing. To Find Them, You Might Ask Verizon and AT&T. http://allthingsd.com/20120126/130000-time-warner-cable-subscribers-go-missing-to-find-them-you-might-ask-verizon-and-att/ http://allthingsd.com/20120126/130000-time-warner-cable-subscribers-go-missing-to-find-them-you-might-ask-verizon-and-att/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:11:58 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=167939 It’s earnings season, which gives us yet another chance to revisit the cord-cutting is real/no it isn’t debate.

To recap: Lots of people you know, and lots of people who read sites like this one, think people are already ditching cable TV for some combination of iTunes/Netflix/Hulu and/or pirate sites, etc. But cable providers and cable networks say they don’t see any signs of it.

So onward to today’s numbers from Time Warner Cable, which show the second-biggest cable company in the U.S. losing 129,000 video subscribers — about 1 percent of the 11.9 million base.

If you’re in the “it is totally for real” camp, you can jump on this as proof of your thesis, and that’s what this Business Insider post* does, Grim Reaper art and all.

But in order to get really worked up about Time Warner’s losses, you’d have to ignore contrary data points from other video services that show a boost.

For instance, AT&T and Verizon each added about 200,000 subscribers to their pay-TV offerings in the last quarter. Presumably, many of those 400,000 subscribers were already paying for TV from another provider, so those losses have to show up somewhere.

Time Warner Cable notes that AT&T’s service is available in about 25 percent of Time Warner’s footprint, while Verizon, which it says was “aggressive” about marketing last quarter, is available in about 12 percent of Time Warner’s market.

In any case, until we get numbers from all of the pay TV providers, it’s hard to make any calls about cutting/adding in the last quarter. Comcast, the industry’s biggest provider, won’t report until February 15.

And once we do have all of this quarter’s data, we’re still just going to have this quarter’s data. As we’ve seen over the last year or so, sometimes pay TV user numbers go up, and sometimes they go down. We’ve yet to see a clear trend one way or another.

None of this will soothe some of you folks, who will tell me that you, or your friends, or someone you know has cut the cord and is loving life. That doesn’t mean that’s not the case — just that statistically, it has yet to register.

Earlier this month I tried to make an analogy between cord-cutters and vegans, but I’m not sure I hit the mark. So this time we’ll let Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt make a similar argument, in his own words, via Seeking Alpha:

I think there are — remember, the average TV in America is on for some very large number of hours a day, with 6, 7, 8 hours a day, whatever the latest number is. And this activity you’re talking about is kind of sporadic, watching no specific programs. So most people watch a lot of TV and they like these packages of linear networks. And the services we’re talking about are not, at this point, a substitute for that. Having said that, there are people who don’t watch TV very much and they’re quite satisfied with just being able to watch a few shows now and then. And we all know one of those people and I think that affects our perception of what’s really going on in terms of the mass market.

*Per my disclosure, I not only like the guys over at Business Insider, but I have a vested interest in their success.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120126/130000-time-warner-cable-subscribers-go-missing-to-find-them-you-might-ask-verizon-and-att/feed/ 0 Verizon Earnings in Line http://allthingsd.com/20120124/verizon-earnings-in-line/ http://allthingsd.com/20120124/verizon-earnings-in-line/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:50:52 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=166828 Verizon posted Q4 earnings of $0.52 a share on revenue of $28.4 billion, in line with Wall Street’s consensus. The company’s wireless unit added one million customers over the quarter, while its video FiOS offering added another 200,000.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120124/verizon-earnings-in-line/feed/ 0 AT&T Raising Monthly Data Plan Prices, but Throwing in More Data http://allthingsd.com/20120118/att-raising-monthly-data-plan-prices-but-throwing-in-more-data/ http://allthingsd.com/20120118/att-raising-monthly-data-plan-prices-but-throwing-in-more-data/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:03:00 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=164937 AT&T is changing its data rate plans for new smartphone and tablet customers on Sunday, upping the cost but adding more gigabytes for the price.

The carrier, which had charged $25 a month for 2GB of data, will now offer 3GB for $30 a month. Its entry-level data plan, which was $15 for 200 megabytes, will shift to $20 for 300MB, while its $45 high-end 4GB plan (which allows tethering to another device) will now be $50 for 5GB.

Existing customers will be able to keep their current data plan, even if they upgrade their phones, but can also opt to switch to one of the new plans.

AT&T says the change reflects the ever-increasing amounts of data that customers are consuming, noting that data usage is up 40 percent in the past year. The company expects data use to continue to rise as the carrier offers its new high-speed LTE network in more cities.

AT&T’s primary rival, Verizon, charges $30 for 2GB of data, though it has been running a “double your data” promotion offering 4G customers 4GB of data for that price.

Customers, meanwhile, are still trying to get a handle on just how much data they are using, now that most of the major carriers have moved away from fully unlimited plans.

Sprint still offers unlimited plans on phones, while Verizon and AT&T have tiered plans with overage charges and T-Mobile throttles the speed of users once they hit a certain level of paid data use.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120118/att-raising-monthly-data-plan-prices-but-throwing-in-more-data/feed/ 0 Verizon Wireless Expands Paperless Receipt Option to All Stores http://allthingsd.com/20120118/verizon-wireless-expands-paperless-receipt-option-to-all-stores/ http://allthingsd.com/20120118/verizon-wireless-expands-paperless-receipt-option-to-all-stores/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:35:24 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=164794 After testing paperless receipts as an option in 300 of its stores, Verizon Wireless said the email option is now available in all of its nearly 2,000 company-run retail outlets. The move is a growing trend among retailers, from Apple to Urban Outfitters.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120118/verizon-wireless-expands-paperless-receipt-option-to-all-stores/feed/ 0 China's ZTE Quietly Becoming a Force in Global, U.S. Smartphone Markets http://allthingsd.com/20120118/chinas-zte-quietly-becoming-a-force-in-global-u-s-smartphone-market/ http://allthingsd.com/20120118/chinas-zte-quietly-becoming-a-force-in-global-u-s-smartphone-market/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:00:25 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=164143

While most of the world’s largest cellphone makers are household names, there’s a pretty good chance that you have never heard of the company at No. 4 on the list.

In part, that’s because ZTE is best known for the phones it sells in China, its home market. In recent years, though, ZTE has begun to make inroads in the U.S. Its progress, however, has been largely invisible to consumers.

ZTE’s phones and hotspots tend to bear the brand of the carriers selling them, rather than its own, but the company said that, in time, it expects to see its name out there more.

“We understand the U.S. market is primarily a market driven by the carriers,” ZTE U.S. CEO Lixin Cheng said in an interview at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show. “Compared with some of our competitors, we are more willing to customize our product.”

In 2011, the company debuted a number of new products, including the Chorus phone for Cricket, and the Android-based Avail smartphone for AT&T.

So far this year, ZTE has introduced just one product — a hotspot for Verizon. In the coming months, though, ZTE plans a number of products for the U.S., including several for fast new LTE data networks.

“We will launch an LTE smartphone, tablet and mobile hotspot, and other data products in the United States,” Cheng said. “That’s our strategy this year.”

The company also plans to support both Android and Windows Phone smartphones, with plans on tap to launch a Microsoft-powered smartphone in the U.S. this year.

“We will make sure we have a wide competence in-house to support both operating systems,” said Cheng, who noted that Microsoft is a key partner for his company for its current “Mango” version of Windows Phone, as well as for its upcoming “Tango” low-end effort. ZTE is also interested in what Microsoft has in store with Windows 8.

ZTE began life in 1998 as an effort to bring telephony to more of rural China.

Cheng said the company sees a similar opportunity in the U.S., where smartphones are still either pricey or tied to expensive contracts.

As has been a challenge for fellow Chinese networking-device maker Huawei, some have raised questions over whether ZTE’s products — particularly networking gear — pose security risks.

Cheng rebuffs such concerns, noting that the company is publicly traded, with a largely independent board. And as for the security of its networks, Cheng notes that ZTE is already the key infrastructure provider behind Gogo’s inflight Wi-Fi.

“Our company’s values (are) very comparable with America’s values,” he said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120118/chinas-zte-quietly-becoming-a-force-in-global-u-s-smartphone-market/feed/ 0 Secondary iPhone Market a Boon for AT&T, Verizon -- and Apple, Too http://allthingsd.com/20120117/secondary-iphone-market-a-boon-for-att-verizon-and-apple-too/ http://allthingsd.com/20120117/secondary-iphone-market-a-boon-for-att-verizon-and-apple-too/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:55:09 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=164127 Where do old iPhones go to die?

Some are thrown away. Others are forgotten. Still others are passed on to children and become iPods. But many find a new life with a new owner. Turns out that the secondary market for the iPhone is nearly as robust as the primary market. And it’s growing steadily larger and more important for Apple’s carrier partners, and for Apple itself.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) recently surveyed the secondary iPhone market in the U.S. and found it to be thriving. Since the Oct. 14, 2011, debut of the iPhone 4S, 53 percent of new iPhone buyers have introduced their old phone into the secondary market. Of those, 49 percent were iPhones, 21 percent were BlackBerrys and 15 percent were Android devices.

Why does the secondary market skew so heavily toward the iPhone?

“We think the secondary market for the iPhone is more established, since iPhone has the longest track record for a single device/platform, and for many it is the aspirational entry-point smartphone,” CIRP co-founder Mike Levin told AllThingsD. “IPhones also had the advantage of having a useful second life as iPod touch substitutes, which made their used value a little clearer from the start. As a GSM phone, AT&T iPhones also could be [unlocked] for use on other GSM networks, so there was an early secondary market for iPhones on other carriers — though this was, of course, limited to more savvy and aggressive technology consumers.”

Now here’s where things get interesting: Among consumers who gave their old iPhone to someone else, 87 percent expected the recipient to activate it on a wireless carrier. Extrapolating from that, CIRP estimates that 11 percent of iPhone activations since the launch of the iPhone 4S, on Oct. 14, 2011, have been used iPhones.

That’s a significant number for a few reasons: It explains the discrepancy we sometimes see between carrier activation numbers and iPhone sales. And it allows CIRP to put a value on secondary market iPhone activations — activations for which AT&T and Verizon, the two carriers with the most legacy iPhones on their networks — aren’t subsidizing hardware.

The research firm believes that, for every used iPhone that carriers activate, they save around $400. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, CIRP figures that secondary-market activations saved AT&T and Verizon between $400 million and $800 million in subsidy costs.

So a thriving secondary market for iPhones, or any smartphone for that matter, is good news for the carriers.

But what about Apple? Every iPhone purchased on the secondary market is one that’s not bought at full retail price from Apple or one of its partners. There’s got to be some harm there, even if it’s only minor.

“We think the secondary market is both detrimental and beneficial to Apple,” said Levin. “It hurts Apple because it creates competition for new iPhones, which we see in the relatively modest sales of reduced-price iPhone 4 and free iPhone 3G units. But it also benefits the company because used iPhone customers aspire to own the newest and best iPhone, so they are likely future new phone customers. In fact, they are likely new entrants to the Apple ecosystem, who otherwise would not have found a way in.”

And every new entrant to the Apple ecosystem is another potential customer for the company’s iTunes Store. That, too, is good news for Apple, and for app developers and content creators.

“Secondary-market iPhone owners are new content and app consumers,” said Levin. “We don’t know if these customers have the same budget for content compared to new iPhone customers, but reactivated iPhones will more likely consume content and download apps than forgotten old phones left in drawers.”

In other words, the secondary iPhone market is doing far more good than bad for the broader ecosystem.

“It makes me think of an analogy from the used-car market: It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad, either,” said Levin. “In the early days, used cars cannibalized new-car sales, but now they create brand loyalty in customers that can’t afford new cars, and they create a new revenue stream in repairs and accessories for the original manufacturer.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120117/secondary-iphone-market-a-boon-for-att-verizon-and-apple-too/feed/ 0 Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify -- In the U.S. http://allthingsd.com/20120112/why-rhapsody-is-probably-bigger-than-spotify-in-the-u-s/ http://allthingsd.com/20120112/why-rhapsody-is-probably-bigger-than-spotify-in-the-u-s/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:00:24 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=163067 Jon Irwin is not pals with Sean Parker. He doesn’t hold splashy press conferences. He hasn’t been on the cover of Forbes.

But for now, at least, he can claim a bragging right that Spotify’s Daniel Ek doesn’t have: The CEO of Rhapsody has more paying subscribers than any other digital music service in the U.S.

Probably, that is. We can get into the numbers in a minute. But at the very least, Irwin argues, his company ought to get a bit of the attention that Spotify does.

They’re both doing the same thing, after all — trying to get consumers to pony up $10 a month for an ad-free service that lets you listen to any music you want, on your iPhone or (just about) any other device.

The big difference between the two is that while Rhapsody offers users a free trial period to sample the service, Ek’s company will let you listen to music for free forever.

That offer comes with advertising, and some restrictions — you can only do it for a certain number of hours per month, and you can’t take it with you. But that free offer, in conjunction with a big push from Facebook, is the real reason that so many people have heard about Spotify recently. Free, legal music is a pretty compelling offer.

Why hasn’t Rhapsody gone that route? Irwin has a long answer for that, but the short one is that he doesn’t think Spotify’s freemium model can convert enough subscribers to cover the costs of the music it gives away. The Spotify camp argues otherwise, but we’re not going to get an authoritative answer for some time.

In the meantime, Irwin can take can comfort in the fact that he has more Americans paying for his service than Ek does.

He thinks. Irwin says he passed the one-million mark at the end of last year. And while Spotify hasn’t broken out its U.S. subscriber total, we can guess that it has less than that. At the end of November, it said that it had 2.5 million paying subscribers worldwide. That’s 900,000 more than the 1.6 million it said it had in June, and that growth hasn’t all come in the U.S., because Facebook has been promoting the service everywhere.

Now, back to the future. Spotify is likely to keep growing for a while, thanks to that Facebook firehose, as well as international expansion — my bet is that Ek opens shop in Germany fairly soon.

But Irwin thinks that both companies are going to end up needing help from partners with much bigger reach — cable guys like Comcast, or wireless giants like Verizon — if they’re going to get real scale.

He explains in this interview we conducted yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show:


[ See post to watch video ]

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120112/why-rhapsody-is-probably-bigger-than-spotify-in-the-u-s/feed/ 0 Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber http://allthingsd.com/20120111/verizon-wireless-we-want-to-connect-five-devices-for-every-subscriber/ http://allthingsd.com/20120111/verizon-wireless-we-want-to-connect-five-devices-for-every-subscriber/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:02:50 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=162924 Verizon Wireless isn’t content just having the most wireless subscribers in the U.S. It wants those same subscribers to have multiple different devices on its network.

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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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120111/verizon-wireless-we-want-to-connect-five-devices-for-every-subscriber/feed/ 0 Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has "Awareness Problem" http://allthingsd.com/20120110/exclusive-new-boss-acknowledges-windows-phone-still-has-awareness-problem/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/exclusive-new-boss-acknowledges-windows-phone-still-has-awareness-problem/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:50:21 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=162389

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks Windows Phone with Ryan Seacrest at CES

New Windows Phone boss Terry Myerson was looking at the phone section of Amazon late last year and noticed that three of the best-reviewed phones were running his operating system. But the three best sellers were Android models.

Myerson took a screenshot of the pages and included them in a memo to the entire Windows Phone team.

“We have an awareness problem,” Myerson told AllThingsD in his first extended interview since he replaced Andy Lees as overall head of the Windows Phone business in December.

CEO Steve Ballmer has praised the work the Windows Phone team has done, but also noted that sales haven’t been what he would have hoped.

“People just don’t know about Windows Phone and if it could be for them and if they should consider it,” Myerson said. “When people try it, they generally love it.”

Myerson didn’t offer a ton of details on how Microsoft will go about getting people more familiar with Windows Phone, but said that is his first objective.

“We know we need to do something new and different,” Myerson said.

Microsoft has also had a challenge getting much love from either Sprint or Verizon. Redmond was late with support for their CDMA networks and both have offered only the barest of Windows Phone lineups.

“We’re working on a relationship with both of them,” Myerson said. Asked whether the ill-fated Kin project might have soured Verizon on Microsoft, he said simply that the company needed a partnership with Verizon in which both parties see benefit. “It’s important in the U.S. that we do that.”

The big news for Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show, of course, was the announcement by Nokia that it is readying the Lumia 900, an LTE-based Windows Phone, exclusively for AT&T. However, Nokia and AT&T declined to comment on when the phone would arrive beyond saying it would be “in the coming months.”

T-Mobile is also starting this week to sell the Lumia 710, the entry-level model in Nokia’s lineup.

Microsoft is also working on the next major release of Windows Phone, though Myerson wouldn’t offer any details. Word on what’s in that release might not even come at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, suggesting that last fall’s Mango release (or a minor update to it) will be at the core of Windows Phones for a while.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/exclusive-new-boss-acknowledges-windows-phone-still-has-awareness-problem/feed/ 0 A Year After iPad Launch, News Corp.'s Daily Comes to (Some) Google Tablets http://allthingsd.com/20120110/a-year-after-ipad-launch-news-corp-s-daily-comes-to-some-google-tablets/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/a-year-after-ipad-launch-news-corp-s-daily-comes-to-some-google-tablets/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:01:25 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=162269 A year after it launched on Apple’s iPad (and much later than AllThingsD had reported), News Corp.’s Daily tablet newspaper has made it to Google’s Android. It will come preloaded on some tablet models marketed via Verizon Wireless, starting with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 this month. Verizon was a launch sponsor for the Daily a year ago; News Corp. also owns this Web site.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/a-year-after-ipad-launch-news-corp-s-daily-comes-to-some-google-tablets/feed/ 0 Myspace -- Yes, Myspace -- Says It's Going to Sell You Web TV http://allthingsd.com/20120109/myspace-yes-myspace-say-its-going-to-sell-you-web-tv/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/myspace-yes-myspace-say-its-going-to-sell-you-web-tv/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:45:28 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=161980 Lots of folks are waiting for Google, or Apple, or Verizon or someone to offer a Web video subscription service that would rival cable TV.

None of those guys have announced their plans for that, yet. But Myspace has: It says it will offer an “over the top” service in the first half of this year.

Wait. Myspace?

Right, Myspace: The once-hot, then very un-hot social network that News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) sold for a bag of chips last year. Its new owners, Specific Media, have made general murmurs about reviving the site, but other than rounding up an endorsement from Justin Timberlake, they haven’t spelled out what they’re doing.

So here’s the idea: Offer a full suite of TV programming — the same stuff you’re paying for via cable or satellite, and sell that bundled up with all sorts of cool interactive goodies. Pricing? TBD.

So that’s a plan, at least. No idea if it’s going to be a reality. Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook says he’s talking to TV programmers about the deals he’ll need to launch the service, but doesn’t have them yet and won’t go into details. And bear in mind that the Consumer Electronics Show, where Specific/Myspace is making the announcement, is ground zero for vaporware announcements.

If nothing else, though, Specific’s announcement points out how plausible the idea of a Web-based pay TV service now seems to lots of sober people. Many cable programmers are just fine with the idea, as long as: 1) the new services pay full freight, and 2) the new services don’t want to break up their bundles. That is, if you want Viacom’s Comedy Channel, you’re also going to have to get VH1. Etc.

But if you’re ok with that, and if you your money is good, the programmers are happy to take it. In their mind, this is like the ’80s and ’90s, when the satellite guys bought their way into pay TV, or more recently when AT&T and Verizon did: More outlets for them equals more money.

Here’s Specific’s press release, which is quite confusing, because it plays up music and a connection with Panasonic and “social TV” — which is usually a fancy way of saying you watch TV just like you always do, but Tweet about it. And someone will pay us for it, maybe.

But I spoke with Vanderhook earlier, and he insists that the real thrust here is a full package of TV programming, delivered over the Web, to any device with a broadband connection.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But it’s sure fun to speculate about in the meantime.

MYSPACE AND PANASONIC PARTNER TO UNVEIL NEW SOCIAL TV SERVICE

Delivers social experience through over-the-top platform across 2012 Panasonic VIERA Connect-enabled HDTVs

CES 2012 – LAS VEGAS (January 9, 2012) Myspace (www.myspace.com), a leading social entertainment destination that lets artists and fans share and discover content, today announced the launch of Myspace TV, a new service that makes the television experience social. Available on the next generation of Panasonic VIERA Connect™-enabled HDTVs, Myspace TV puts viewers in control by allowing them to discover, share and comment on the programs they’re viewing.

Initial channels on Myspace TV will be music-focused, leveraging Myspace’s unparalleled music rights and leading library of 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs. Myspace TV will expand beyond music, however, to encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels, with a growing lineup of today’s most popular broadcast and on-demand content. Audiences will not only be able to view their favorite television programs, but Myspace TV will also allow them to chat about what they’re viewing while they’re viewing it and invite friends to watch with them virtually. The platform fully integrates social and television in new ways that add a dimension to content discovery and evolve the traditional television experience. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones, providing instant sync capabilities for a seamless experience.

“Myspace was the first successful social network because it allowed individuals to share their interests, listen to music, express their creativity and connect around the things they love,” said Myspace CEO Tim Vanderhook. “Historically, TV has been a shared experience, as people gathered together to watch their favorite programs. Our belief was that we could enhance the TV experience by increasing viewers’ ability to connect to both content and each other. By partnering with Panasonic, we’re bringing together the content that people love and a social experience in one service: Myspace TV.”
Myspace co-owner Justin Timberlake added, “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience. Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe? As the plot of your favorite drama unfolds, the joke of your favorite SNL character plays, or even the last second shot of your favorite team swishes the net, we’re giving you the opportunity to connect your friends to your moments as they’re actually occurring. This is the evolution of one of our greatest inventions, the television. And, we no longer have to crowd around the same one to experience it together.”

Myspace TV intends to return the diminishing social element of television by connecting viewers around content, simplifying discovery by creating fan communities empowered to comment, rate, chat and invite friends to view programming together in real-time.

Launching in the first half of 2012, Myspace TV’s over-the-top television service will be offered across the Panasonic VIERA Connect platform. VIERA Connect is Panasonic’s connected TV platform, which offers access to Internet-based video-on-demand content and applications, ranging from news and fitness, to social networking and online gaming. VIERA Connect requires no external box or PC1 and is accessed via a single button on the television remote control.

“Year after year, Panasonic’s VIERA Connect Smart VIERA TV platform has continued to expand rapidly but with a singular focus to deliver to our consumers an extremely robust and interactive connected TV experience that can be customized and enjoyed on their large-screen HDTVs,” said Joseph Taylor, Chairman & CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America. “We are proud to partner with the new Myspace on the debut of Myspace TV on our VIERA Connect Smart TV platform. By partnering with a brand like Myspace on the VIERA Connect Smart TV platform, we’re taking connected TV to a whole new level of engaging, interactive experiences for consumers.”

Myspace is currently inviting a select audience to participate in the beta launch of its TV service through a fully integrated experience on laptop devices. To be considered for invitation, entertainment fans can submit their information at http://www.myspace.com/tv.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/myspace-yes-myspace-say-its-going-to-sell-you-web-tv/feed/ 0 AT&T's De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works http://allthingsd.com/20120109/atts-de-la-vega-shared-data-plans-still-in-the-works/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/atts-de-la-vega-shared-data-plans-still-in-the-works/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:27:48 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=161796 AT&T still hopes soon to be able to allow customers to share a pool of megabytes or gigabytes across multiple devices. However, getting all the details ironed out is taking longer than the carrier would have hoped.

“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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/atts-de-la-vega-shared-data-plans-still-in-the-works/feed/ 0 LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum http://allthingsd.com/20120109/lg-pushes-4g-smartphone-through-verizon-the-lg-spectrum/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/lg-pushes-4g-smartphone-through-verizon-the-lg-spectrum/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:15:53 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=161628 In the smartphone market, LG Electronics has done well at the low end with the Optimus phone, which is popular with prepaid carriers. But the company has been largely absent in the high-end phone market.

Today, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, LG showed off its new Spectrum, a 4G LTE smartphone with a 4.5 inch HD IPS display, through a partnership with Verizon. The phone runs Android’s Gingerbread operating system and is upgradable to Android Ice Cream Sandwich. It has rear- and front-facing cameras, and captures 8 megapixel images and 1080 HD video. The phone will be available on Jan. 19 in Verizon stores and will cost $199.99 with a two-year contract.

Through a partnership with ESPN, the Spectrum will stream exclusive mobile video content from ESPN in HD.

LG also teased its upcoming dual-solution VMware smartphone and said it would have more details at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. But what we know about the phone is that it will run two Android operating systems on a single device — one for work and one geared toward personal use. LG cited the growing trend of consumers using personal phones for work as evidence of a need for this sort of thing.

We also got a glimpse of the 55-inch OLED TV from LG — another one of the worst-kept secrets in Vegas — and learned a little bit more about the company’s 3-D TV efforts. More to come shortly.

Ina Fried contributed to this article.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/lg-pushes-4g-smartphone-through-verizon-the-lg-spectrum/feed/ 0 AT&T's Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia http://allthingsd.com/20120109/att-uses-vegas-stage-to-tout-lte-plans-nokia-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20120109/att-uses-vegas-stage-to-tout-lte-plans-nokia-phone/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:30:22 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=161483 As it has in years past, AT&T is using the Consumer Electronics Show to make its pitch to developers and unveil its plans for the year ahead.

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.

MORE CES NEWS:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120109/att-uses-vegas-stage-to-tout-lte-plans-nokia-phone/feed/ 0 Dish Gets Ready to Serve Up Broadband and a Giant DVR http://allthingsd.com/20120108/dish-gets-ready-to-serve-up-broadband-and-a-giant-dvr/ http://allthingsd.com/20120108/dish-gets-ready-to-serve-up-broadband-and-a-giant-dvr/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:11:36 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=161290 Dish Networks is a satellite TV company with some 14 million customers. But CEO Joesph Clayton has much bigger plans for the company.

We saw the first signs of that last year, when Clayton bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy, then used the video company to create a kind of Netflix challenger. Tomorrow we should see the next steps, when the company rolls out a big announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Here’s a good bet on what that will be: A new broadband Internet service, along with a super-sized DVR.

Trade pub Multichannel News has the details, gleaned from a report that went up briefly on Dealerscope, then went away, presumably because it violated a pre-briefing embargo. (Thanks to Jason Hirschhorn’s very useful Media Redfined feed for flagging.)

Since we never agreed to the embargo, happy to summarize here (not surprisingly, Dish declined to comment):

  • The Internet service will be marketed to 8 million customers, most of whom can’t get fiber or cable broadband.
  • The giant DVR will be called “The Hopper” and is designed to save and transmit shows in different parts of your house, and presumably outside of it, via Slingbox. You can see a teaser page for that one here, or look at the screenshot at the bottom of this post.
  • There’s a cool feature that looks like it will automatically record the primetime lineups for the four broadcast networks (News Corp.’s Fox, Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and CBS).

All of which sounds interesting, and useful for existing Dish customers. But it doesn’t sound like Dish is ready to try a true “over the top” Web-based pay TV service that would rival traditional cable.

A lot of people think someone, or many people — could be Dish, could be Apple, could be Verizon, etc., etc., etc — is trying to line up one of those. But figuring out how to do that involves lots of deals with TV studios and programmers, and I don’t get the sense that anyone has those pacts yet. If Dish does, and announces it tomorrow, then it will truly be a press conference worth tuning into. If not, no worries — I’ll be watching anyway and will report back.

MORE CES NEWS:

[Shutterstock/Marko Cerovac]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120108/dish-gets-ready-to-serve-up-broadband-and-a-giant-dvr/feed/ 0 Exclusive: Former Skype Exec Christopher Dean Joins Urban Airship to Oversee the Revenue Side http://allthingsd.com/20120106/exclusive-former-skype-exec-christopher-dean-joins-urban-airship-to-oversee-the-revenue-side/ http://allthingsd.com/20120106/exclusive-former-skype-exec-christopher-dean-joins-urban-airship-to-oversee-the-revenue-side/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:00:27 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=160750 Several months after being disconnected from Skype, Christopher Dean has found a new gig as chief revenue officer at mobile-notification service provider Urban Airship.

Dean, who was a victim of a Tony Bates housecleaning last summer, says several months on the beach eased the sting of his ouster. After considering CEO positions at some early-stage companies, and looking around in the mobile, social and messaging areas, Dean said he decided that the role at Urban Airship — which specializes in managing push notifications for mobile services — fits well with his background in messaging and communications.

Urban Airship is coming off a $15 million funding round that included investments from Salesforce.com, Intel and Verizon. Urban Airship also recently scooped up Jay Adelson’s SimpleGeo.

“They have a massive opportunity to drive messaging in the mobile world generally, and specifically around push,” Dean said in an interview on Thursday.

Moreover, Dean said he is excited about his new role, which includes responsibility for sales, in addition to his usual arena of business development.

As for Skype, he says he wishes the service well and hopes it will stay true to its cross-platform roots, even as it lands in the hands of Microsoft.

At $8.5 billion, Dean says Microsoft “paid a full price,” but that Redmond can still have gotten a good deal if it is able to integrate the service into its various properties, ranging from Windows Phone and Windows Live to Lync and even Xbox.

“I’ve always said I think the acquisition is a very strong and good one for Microsoft,” Dean said. “I can absolutely see why they did that.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120106/exclusive-former-skype-exec-christopher-dean-joins-urban-airship-to-oversee-the-revenue-side/feed/ 0 AT&T Lights Up LTE in 11 More Cities, Including L.A., N.Y. and San Francisco http://allthingsd.com/20120105/att-lights-up-lte-in-11-more-cities-including-l-a-n-y-and-san-francisco/ http://allthingsd.com/20120105/att-lights-up-lte-in-11-more-cities-including-l-a-n-y-and-san-francisco/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:19:35 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=160507 AT&T took a big step toward expanding its high-speed LTE network, announcing on Thursday that it has added 11 more areas, including Los Angeles, the New York Metro Area and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120105/att-lights-up-lte-in-11-more-cities-including-l-a-n-y-and-san-francisco/feed/ 0 30 Million iPhones Sold in Apple's First Quarter? Try 35 Million. http://allthingsd.com/20120105/30-million-iphones-sold-in-apples-first-quarter-try-35-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20120105/30-million-iphones-sold-in-apples-first-quarter-try-35-million/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:45:13 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=160491 Expect some big numbers from Apple when it next reports earnings, on Tuesday, Jan. 24. And some especially large iPhone numbers.

On Wednesday, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon Wireless sold 4.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter — more than double the number it sold in the third quarter. And today, analysts are taking that to mean Apple probably sold quite a few more iPhones than they were expecting it to.

Back in December, for example, BTIG’s Walter Piecyk (registration required for link) predicted Apple would sell 30 million iPhones in the December quarter. Now he figures it will sell a record 35 million, thanks to the particularly strong demand in the U.S., showcased by the Verizon number Shammo disclosed yesterday. His rationale: If Verizon’s iPhone sales are that high, then so are AT&T’s and Sprint’s, as well.

“Yesterday, Verizon disclosed it had sold 4.2 million iPhones which is above our estimate of 3.75 million and in early December AT&T referenced strong iPhone sales at the UBS conference which we now estimate translates to sales of 7.0 million iPhones, which was above our estimate of 5.25 million,” Piecyk explains. “We are also raising our estimate for Sprint to over 2.0 million from our prior estimate of 1.75 million. This adds up to more than 13 million iPhones sold in the United States in calendar Q4 2011, up from our August estimate of 10 million.”

That’s a big number, one that means the U.S. will represent almost 40 percent of iPhone sales in the quarter, a big spike over the quarter prior, when the U.S. represented about 26 percent of iPhone sales.

And if it’s in the right ballpark, Piecyk says it means Apple could be on track to sell 125 million iPhones in calendar 2012 — 17 percent more than his earlier prediction of 107 million.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120105/30-million-iphones-sold-in-apples-first-quarter-try-35-million/feed/ 0 Where Did Nine Million Cable Subscribers Go? http://allthingsd.com/20120105/where-did-nine-million-cable-subscribers-go/ http://allthingsd.com/20120105/where-did-nine-million-cable-subscribers-go/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:24:01 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=159882 New year, new chance to talk about cord-cutting/shaving/avoiding. Which is either a big deal that’s going to get bigger, or basically imaginary, depending on who you like to listen to.

If you’re in the big-deal camp, then you’ll like a new survey from Deloitte, which finds that a staggering one in five U.S. residents say they have either cut the cord or are thinking about doing it. The breakdown: Nine percent of survey respondents say they’ve recently cut the cord and are getting their shows from Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, etc. And another 11 percent say they might do it. (Click image to enlarge.)

To repeat: The Deloitte survey is asking people about cutting pay TV — Comcast, Verizon, Dish, etc. Not cutting back on certain channels like HBO (that would be cord-shaving) or simply never signing up in the first place (that would be the “cord-nevers” we’ve started to hear about).

How can that possibly square with the pay-TV industry’s reported results, which show that overall subscription levels remained basically flat last year? Even if you allow for a significant margin of error, things don’t add up: If the pay-TV business had lost a single percentage point of its customers in the last year, it would be a huge deal.

But Deloitte is reporting that approximately nine million people say they’ve recently stopped paying for TV. That’s the entire population of New York, plus another million or so, vanished. Can’t be.

I’ve asked Deloitte if they’ve got any insight on the gap, but haven’t heard back. But my hunch is that — for now, at least — cord-cutters are like vegans: They’re real, and they’re out there. They’re particularly notable in certain places like New York, the Bay Area and college towns. And they over-index at certain Web gathering places, like this one. But McDonald’s sales are still chugging along.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120105/where-did-nine-million-cable-subscribers-go/feed/ 0 Verizon Kills Planned $2 Convenience Charge Following Uproar http://allthingsd.com/20111230/verizon-kills-planned-2-convenience-charge-following-uproar/ http://allthingsd.com/20111230/verizon-kills-planned-2-convenience-charge-following-uproar/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:46:51 +0000 Lauren Goode and Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=158559 After enduring 24 hours of criticism and threats of an inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission, Verizon Wireless said on Friday that it would drop plans to charge some customers $2 a month for paying their bills online or by phone.

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111230/verizon-kills-planned-2-convenience-charge-following-uproar/feed/ 0