Looks like some of the Skype crew might’ve had a sleepless night to please owners of the Nexus S 4G. If you’ll recall, June 30th saw a major update to its Android app enabling video chat on four devices; although the Nexus S was part of the club, its door was locked for Sprint’s 4G variant. That’s quickly changed, however, as the team’s set loose a hotfix to grant it access — this despite initially stating we’d have to wait for a “future release.” You can grab the app from the Android Market if you haven’t yet, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments. Oh, and for those anxious Thunderbolt owners? We’d recommend not holding your breath until after the 4th of July holiday.
If you were to prepare a list of most under-served smartphone form factors, portrait QWERTY ranks high on the list; few manufacturers have dared to dabble in it so far, despite the fact that there would seem to be a treasure trove of potential users in the BlackBerry realm who live and die by the Bold / Curve layout. Motorola has given it the most high-publicity shot so far with entries like the Droid Pro, Charm, and Flipout, and it looks like Samsung might be prepping a head-on Droid Pro competitor for Sprint thanks to some shots that have emerged on PocketNow today. We have precisely zero details on the hardware specs, the possible launch time frame, or really anything else at this point, but we’ll keep an eye out.
For those currently enjoying Sprint’s 4G network on the go, you may be elated to know that you can now take your 4G connection even while traveling abroad. We mentioned back in December of last year that Sprint was inking deals with partnering carriers in Jamaica and Taiwan to provide international 4G roaming. Well, Sprint has just officially announced itself as the first national wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer international 4G roaming and included specific pricing information.
Digicel will be providing the first and only 4G network in Jamaica, while Global Mobile, based in Taiwan, will be the first 4G roaming partner in Asia.
Only select Sprint 4G devices that operate with the Sprint SmartView Connection Manager will automatically detect the Digicel and Global Mobile networks. This feature will allow customers to connect and roam with an unlimited 24-hour daypass for $14.99 excluding surcharges and taxes.
Press Release:
Sprint Becomes First National Wireless Carrier in U.S. to Offer International 4G Roaming
4G Customers Traveling Abroad to Select Areas in Jamaica and Taiwan Can Now Roam on 4G Networks Offered by Digicel and Global Mobile
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), January 31, 2011 – Sprint (NYSE:S) today announced that customers traveling abroad now have roaming access to 4G networks offered by Digicel in Jamaica and Global Mobile in Taiwan. Select Sprint 4G devices that operate with the Sprint SmartViewSM Connection Manager will automatically detect the Digicel and Global Mobile networks, giving customers the option to connect and roam with an unlimited, 24-hour daypass for $14.99 excluding surcharges and taxes.
“Sprint has partnered with Digicel and Global Mobile to further enhance the global 4G ecosystem with services that empower travelers on the go,” said Todd Rowley, vice president-Sprint 4G. “Over the years, we’ve built a robust ecosystem of partners that dwarves any other 4G ecosystem available today and as the first U.S. wireless carrier to launch international 4G roaming we’ve clearly demonstrated our leadership.”
The Sprint SmartView Connection Manager allows users to create a high-speed Internet connection for their computer anywhere on the Sprint 3G or 4G networks and now on compatible international 4G networks with a 4G-enabled Mobile Broadband Device, such as the Sprint 3G/4G U600 USB Modem. Sprint customers traveling to Jamaica and Taiwan will be able to access the Digicel and Global Mobile 4G networks for mobile downloads, video-chat capabilities and turbo-charged Web browsing at 4G speeds.
“Digicel is proud to have the first and only 4G network in Jamaica,” said Mark Linehan, CEO, Digicel Jamaica. “We look forward to welcoming Sprint customers and are positive that they will delight in roaming with Jamaica’s fastest wireless broadband.”
“We are excited to be Sprint’s first 4G roaming partner in Asia and looking forward to extending this alliance to our partners around the world,” said Rosemary W. Ho, CEO of Global Mobile. “As the leading 4G broadband operator in Taiwan, Global Mobile is committed to bring the most innovative service such as carrier-grade VOIP and mobile TV to our customers. I want to welcome our international roaming customers to experience the same innovative quadruple play service offering enjoyed by our customers.”
Sprint 4G can be found in 71 markets1 across the United States, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Sprint is delivering the power of 4G as the majority shareholder of Clearwire, the independent company that is building the WiMAX network. For more information, visit www.sprint.com/4G.
About Digicel
After more than nine years of operation, Digicel Group Limited has more than 11 million customers across its 32 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. The company is renowned for delivering best value, best service and best network.
Digicel is the lead sponsor of Caribbean, Central American and Pacific sports teams, including the Special Olympics teams throughout these regions. Digicel sponsors the West Indies cricket team and is also the title sponsor of the Digicel Caribbean Championships. In the Pacific, Digicel is the proud sponsor of several national rugby teams and also sponsors the Vanuatu cricket team.
Digicel also runs a host of community-based initiatives across its markets and has set up Digicel Foundations in Jamaica, Haiti and Papua New Guinea that focus on educational, cultural and social development programs.
In 2004, Digicel developed Digicel Rising Stars – an annual talent show to support aspiring young music artists in the Caribbean. The show has spanned the Eastern Caribbean, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, ranking as one of the top-rated shows.
Digicel is incorporated in Bermuda and its markets comprise Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, El Salvador, Fiji, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Nauru, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos and Vanuatu. Digicel also has coverage in St. Martin and St. Barts in the Caribbean. Visit www.digicelpacific.com or www.digicelgroup.com for more information.
About Global Mobile Corporation
Global Mobile is a 4G pioneer in the digital industry value chain, integrating various triple play contents, with all types of communication at home, and totally new fourth-generation wireless communications, all in one click. Global Mobile is a strong group consisting of industry experts with extensive knowledge and experience. They understand consumer needs and have designed a CPE system that is as easy to use as a personal computer.
Taiwan currently lacks a content platform that bridges the commercial and public sectors. Also lacking are an impetus for creativity, a standardized distribution and broadcasting format, and a unified payment method. It is our company’s goal to provide such a standardized platform to allow our customers to use WiMAX wireless broadband – anytime, anywhere – on any device.
For more information, please visit the Global Mobile website at http://www.G1.com.tw.
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 48.8 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2010 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, Common Cents Mobile and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Newsweek ranked Sprint No. 6 in its 2010 Green Rankings, listing it as one of the nation’s greenest companies, the highest of any telecommunications company. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.
Okay, armchair sleuths, this one’s for you — we’ve got two very legit-looking logos here, but not a lot of proof. Our tipster tells us that both of these high-quality vector graphics are the names of upcoming devices for Sprint, with the HTC Arrive (née Ruby) allegedly an upcoming Windows Phone 7 device, while Kyocera Echo is apparently the retail name for the phone internally known as the Sanyo Orange. It just so happens that the trademark for “HTC Arrive” was registered the very same day we received this logo, so we think we’re onto something here, but the truth of the matter is that all of these codenames are falling on virgin ears.
As AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity reluctantly teeters on the brink of oblivion, it seems a good time to take one last look at the smartphone playground, the way it is before V-Day. The New York Times has handily done that job for us with the above chart, which simultaneously gives us a sense of scale when comparing US carriers and lays out the concentration of Android devices across those networks. It also shows a big fat bump of iOS on AT&T, making it the biggest carrier in terms of combined iPhone and Android users — nothing shocking there, but the real fun will be in taking a look at this same data a few months from now. Will the iPhone fragment itself all over the four major networks? Will AT&T’s Android stable ever be respectable? Tune in to your next installment of “fun, but mostly irrelevant statistics” to find out.
If you’re in the magnificent boondocks of North America and you’re on Sprint, you’re going to have to start to be a little more careful with your voice and data usage — in fact, if you live in parts of North Dakota, Wyoming, or Montana, you might be forced to consider a carrier change on news that some swaths of on-network footprint are changing to roaming coverage on March 1st. The move is said to be a result of Verizon’s divestiture of certain ex-Alltel markets to AT&T, and it means that if you’re on Sprint and you use more than 800 voice minutes (or half your plan) in the new roaming areas in a month, the carrier’s liable to suspend you; similarly, you won’t be able to exceed 300MB of data. Certain device and plan features don’t work in roaming areas, either — Sprint details them on its FAQ page about the change — so if you live in those parts, you might need to look at moving to greener pastures.
Launched in early 2009, Sprint’s Premier loyalty program has been one of the more generous (and easy to understand) perks programs in the American wireless industry: just keep a certain minimum spend per month or stick around for ten years, and boom, you’re eligible. Most importantly, Premier customers are currently able to get new contract pricing after just a single year into their existing contracts, which makes gadget freaks on the network far, far less likely to go bankrupt. Well, mirroring some of the other early upgrade changes we’re seeing in the business lately, it looks like these guys are planning on dialing things back come April 1st (and no, the irony is not lost). Though some Premier customers will still get upgrades after a year, that privilege will be dialed back to members of the new Gold tier which will require ten years of service with Sprint. Yes, that’s right: you’ll have needed to have a line on these guys since before the Matrix Phone came out to get the biggest benefit of the program. If you don’t qualify, you still could get in on the Silver tier, which gives you miscellaneous perks like accessory discounts… but not the full upgrade discount after a year. Instead, you’ll need to wait 22 months, which — at the current rate — is about 47 major versions of Android.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: As before, you’ll be able to skirt the 10-year requirement with a minimum spend and at least six months of service; that minimum will be $89.99 a month for individual lines at $169.99 a month for family plans. Whew!
Changes are afoot for the major wireless carries in the United States. AT&T is changing their text messaging plans, Verizon is (finally) getting the iPhone, and Sprint has already made waves by adding a $10 premium cost to data fees, which is set to go into action on January 30th. But, it looks like Sprint is still changing things around, and now they’re making some more waves with their Premier Program. Unfortunately, it’s not looking good.
Right now, if you’ve been a valued Sprint customer, and you’ve got a single line that’s $69.99 per month or more, then you’re considered part of the Premiere Program. If you’re on a family line, then you’re monthly bill has to be $99.99 per month or more to fall into the category. But, it looks like Sprint is changing that, starting on April 1st. The wireless carrier will be separating the Premier Program into Gold and Silver levels. To be part of the Gold level, you’ll need to have been a Sprint customer for 10 years or longer, and have an individual line that has a monthly bill of $89.99 or more. For families, you’ll need a monthly bill of $139.99 or higher to qualify.
All other customers will be dropped into the Silver program.
As for those who remain in the Gold level, you’ll still get the same treatment as you’re receiving now: newsletters, 20 percent discounts on two or more accessories purchased at one time, and offers to buy new devices before anyone else. You’ll also be able to continue to upgrade your device after only 12 months. As for the Silver members? They get all of the random benefits, like the newsletters and special offers, but they miss out on the early upgrade time. They’ll have to wait the full 22 months to get a new device.
This isn’t confirmed yet, but BGR has it on good word that this will be happening, come April Fool’s Day. A coincidence that it happens to fall on that particular day? Perhaps. But, with the changes that Sprint has already made, it looks like the wireless carrier isn’t worried about rustling the feathers of its customers.
Apple has announced that it has no remaining carrier-exclusive deals for the iPhone, with COO Tim Cook confirming during the company’s financial results call that it has signed a new multi-year, non-exclusive agreement with AT&T. According to Cook, the previous US contract with AT&T was the last remaining contractual exclusivity in the world; Apple is now free to make multi-carrier deals in all countries.
The news means that, finally, T-Mobile USA could get a look in for an iPhone of its own, though it would obviously need to be one that catered to the carrier’s UMTS frequencies. T-Mobile has recently taken pot-shots at AT&T and Verizon over the iPhone 4′s 3G, suggesting that the absence of 4G support – such as HSPA+ as the carrier itself offers – undermines the device.
Apple’s deal with Verizon for the CDMA iPhone 4 was described from the outset as a non-exclusive arrangement, potentially opening the door to a Sprint iPhone 4 at some point in the future. The company already sells the smartphone on multiple carriers in other countries, where despite strong competition and broad availability, demand has nonetheless remained high.
That’s right, the Novatel Wireless 4G MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot has won not only a Best in Show Award from Notebooks.com in the notebook accessories category, it’s also been recently awarded both the World Communication and Mobile Star awards. These additional awards are the 2010 World Communication Award (WCA) for Best Mobile Device Strategy and the Mobile Village Mobile Star Award for Best Laptop or Tablet Accessory. It’s hard to believe that such an integral piece of technology was created such a short period ago – well done, chaps!
The MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is of course that little device that lets you simply press a button and be inside a personal cloud of high-speed internet for your notebook or other compatible mobile devices. Rob Hadley, CMO, Novatel Wireless notes “Notebooks.com, the WCA and Mobile Village are widely recognized as some of the most trusted awards programs in the industry and
it is an honor to be named a winner.” Take a peek at the full press release below:
Novatel Wireless 4G MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspots Honored with CES 2011
Best in Show Award from Notebooks.com
Recent Industry Accolades Also Include World Communication and Mobile Star Awards
SAN DIEGO – Jan. 18, 2011 – Novatel Wireless (NASDAQ: NVTL), a leading provider of wireless broadband solutions, today announced that its new 4G MiFi? Intelligent Mobile Hotspots were chosen as the Best Notebook Accessory at CES 2011 by Notebooks.com. This award adds to the growing list of industry accolades for the MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot platform, which recently also garnered the 2010 World Communication Award (WCA) for Best Mobile Device Strategy and the Mobile Village Mobile Star Award for Best Laptop or Tablet Accessory.
The MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is the industry leading dedicated mobile data device. The user-experience is a key element in the MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot’s worldwide success. With the touch of a button, the MiFi creates a personal cloud of high-speed Internet connectivity that can be easily shared between multiple users and up to five Wi-Fi devices such as laptops, tablets, gaming devices and multimedia players. Unlike any other device, the MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is optimized for mobile data and ease-of-use, with dedicated and uninterrupted data sessions, optimized power management for data users, and advanced integrated antenna technology for maximum performance.
The MiFi platform, now with 4G mobile broadband speeds, serves as an intelligent, open platform built on the MiFi OS with a browser based web user interface, capable of hosting advanced software applications and flexible enough to address the continued evolution of mobile broadband.
“This industry recognition highlights the unrivaled functionality, flexibility and great user experience associated with the MiFi brand, as well as Novatel Wireless’ ongoing commitment to delivering the most innovative mobile broadband solutions to our customers,” said Rob Hadley, CMO, Novatel Wireless. “Notebooks.com, the WCA and Mobile Village are widely recognized as some of the most trusted awards programs in the industry and it is an honor to be named a winner.”
ABOUT NOVATEL WIRELESS
Novatel Wireless, Inc. is a leader in the design and development of intelligent wireless solutions based on 2G, 3G and 4G technologies providing wireless connectivity. The Company delivers specialized wireless solutions to carriers, distributors, retailers, OEMs and vertical markets worldwide. Novatel Wireless’ Intelligent Mobile Hotspot products, software, USB modems, embedded modules and smart M2M modules provide innovative anywhere, anytime communications solutions for consumers and enterprises. Headquartered in San
Diego, California, Novatel Wireless is listed on NASDAQ: NVTL. For more
information please visit www.novatelwireless.com. (NVTLG)
This release may contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant
to the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended to date. These forward-looking
statements involve risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained herein. These factors include risks relating to technological changes, new product introductions, continued acceptance of Novatel Wireless’ products and dependence on intellectual property rights. These factors, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, are discussed in more detail in Novatel Wireless’ filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov) and other regulatory agencies.
(C) 2010 Novatel Wireless, Inc. All rights reserved. The Novatel Wireless name and logo, Ovation™, Mobilink™ and MiFi® are trademarks of Novatel Wireless, Inc. Other Company, product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Looks like some of the Skype crew might’ve had a sleepless night to please owners of the Nexus S 4G. If you’ll recall, June 30th saw a major update to its Android app enabling video chat on four devices; although the Nexus S was part of the club, its door was locked for Sprint’s 4G variant. That’s quickly changed, however, as the team’s set loose a hotfix to grant it access — this despite initially stating we’d have to wait for a “future release.” You can grab the app from the Android Market if you haven’t yet, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments. Oh, and for those anxious Thunderbolt owners? We’d recommend not holding your breath until after the 4th of July holiday.
