U.S. carrier AT&T is going to increase activation fee for both contract subscribers and new Next customers, Droid-Life reported Wednesday. Upgrade fee will rise to $45 for those signing up for a one or two-year contract versus the previous $40 activation fee, the publication has learned from sources. As if that weren't enough, the carrier will impose an all-new $15 activation fee on Next and Bring-Your-Own-Phone customers beginning August 1.
The US Federal Communications Commission announced plans on Wednesday to fine AT&T $100 million for unsuitable throttling practices. The Commission issued a press release on its website this morning proclaiming the decision, charging the carrier with violating the '2010 Open Internet Transparency Rule.'
The move comes as the result of an in-depth investigation, where the FCC found that AT&T—the second largest wireless provider in the US—had not adequately informed its customers with unlimited data plans that it would be dramatically slowing down their Internet access once they crossed a particular threshold.
As reported earlier this week, Apple has stopped selling new iPhones to customers on a two-year contract with AT&T as of today.
As first noted by MacRumors, subsidized $199/$299 prices for new iPhones on a two-year AT&T contract have been removed overnight and replaced with the carrier's financing program called AT&T Next.
Both online and brick-and-mortar Apple Stores around the country are about to drop subsidies for iPhone models sold through carrier AT&T. Moreover, Apple is said to increase trade-in price value of older iPhone models just a little bit, according to a pair of reports Monday (here and here) by 9to5Mac.
Beginning this month, trade-in values for iPhone 4s, iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s models will increase by $15, or $25 in the case of used iPhone 5s devices.
AT&T is pulling back on its throttling efforts against unlimited LTE customers, reports ArsTechnica. The site noticed that the carrier recently changed its policy to say that it will only throttle users with unlimited LTE data plans who have both exceeded 5GB in a billing cycle and are in an area experiencing network congestion.
Previously, AT&T's policy said that unlimited LTE users could experience slower data speeds after reaching 5GB, with no mention of location. The change comes after customers complained the carrier's throttling—some reported speeds as slow as 0.5Mbps—was part of its strategy to sway them away from their unlimited plans.
T-Mobile is trying to once again shake things up in the mobile industry with the announcement of a new, real-time coverage map for prospective customers.
Boasting itself as "the industry's first and only crowdsourced, customer-verified network coverage map", T-Mobile is aiming to show new data bi-monthly to help you decide if it's worth making the switch.
Sprint really wants your business. Not only will it cut your bill in half, but now the nation's fourth-largest carrier will pay the early termination fee and any remaining payments at its competitors for you to come over to its network.
The early termination fee is why many customers don't make the switch from one carrier to another. In many cases, the fee is required to be paid to end the two-year contract carriers like to lock you into.
The process of unlocking your iPhone became a little bit easier today in the United States. Today marks the deadline for wireless carriers to adopt the unlocking standards of the late-2013 agreement set forth by the CTIA.
The agreement is industry-wide, and mandates that carriers adhere to 6 rules including clearly posting their unlocking policies online, and offering to unlock postpaid handsets once the customer's contract has expired.
AT&T is getting another Nextel brand under its name.
AT&T announced on Monday it's acquiring Nextel Mexico for $1.88 billion, marking the second carrier in the region it's purchased this month.
AT&T is acquiring Nextel Mexico's spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and approximately 3 million subscribers. The network covers 76 million people, giving AT&T lots of room to grow in Mexico.
AT&T announced on Tuesday that it is now making a new calling package available, allowing its customers to get unlimited calling to Mexico. Available for a monthly price of $5 per line, the AT&T World Connect Value calling plan offers free unlimited calls to Mexico, as well as discounted calls to 225 countries.
AT&T announced on Thursday that it will begin, as planned, shutting down Cricket's CDMA network in March, taking many Cricket plans and phones with it.
The shutdown comes after AT&T purchased Cricket in March 2014. AT&T is shutting down the CDMA network to roll customers over to its GSM network. Furthermore, AT&T has slowly been farming Cricket’s unused spectrum for use with its own GSM network. AT&T will use Cricket's spectrum, after a spruce up for its standards, to offer better coverage to customers.
Wednesday, AT&T promised to give folks on its shared plans rollover data. Beginning January 25, the more than 50 million of its Mobile Share Value customers will be able to carry over any unused cellular data allotment to the next month.
Any unused, shareable plan data in a given month gets rolled over to the next, as long as family members are on the same Mobile Share Value plan.
T-Mobile back in December launched a similar data rollover feature called Data Stash.