Verizon

Verizon to complete LTE network by mid-2013

With more and more devices coming to market supporting 4G LTE (long term evolution) networks, people are paying more attention to carriers' LTE coverage. And here in the States, no body comes close to Verizon.

With more than a year head start over the other providers, Verizon is the leader in LTE coverage by a mile. It currently has the 4G tech in more than 400 markets, and it sounds like it'll be everywhere by next summer...

Verizon and HTC announce November 13 media event

Apple continues to struggle to keep up with iPhone 5 demand, and Samsung just announced that it's sold more than 30 million units of its flagship handset, the Galaxy S III. Is there room for another big player?

HTC is hoping so, as the Taiwanese company has just sent out press invitations for a jointed Verizon media event to take place on November 13th. And word has it that it's going to unveil a new 5-inch superphone...

Does your iPhone 5 have the time-shifting bug?

In what appears to be a repeat of the DST software bug - and we've been here plenty of times before - some owners of Apple's new iPhone 5 report that their handset is showing incorrect time and/or day. Several people on Apple's discussion forum decribe their device as displaying times and dates that are days, even weeks, ahead or behind actual ones. The issue appears to manifest itself on devices that have automatic date and time setting feature enabled. Specifically, owners of a Verizon iPhone 5 appear to be affected the most...

Verizon activates 3.1M iPhones in Q3, nearly 1 out of 5 was iPhone 5

Verizon reported today it activated 3.1 million iPhones during the three-month period ending September 30. About 650,000 were iPhone 5 units that had been purchased in just one week, the largest US carrier reported. The iPhone represented 46 percent of smartphones Verizon sold during the period. Overall, smartphones now account for 53 percent of the handsets Verizon sells.

The 650,000 iPhone 5 sales figure is impressive, given Apple's latest handset was released in late September, permitting only one week of sales during the third quarter. The Cupertino, California-based Apple confirmed it sold 5 million of the new handsets during its opening weekend last month...

Study: Americans pay too much for their LTE plans

American smartphone owners are taking a bath on LTE and 3G pricing compared to European mobile consumers, a new study indicates. Verizon Wireless subscribers pay $7.50 per gigabyte on that carrier's LTE network versus an average of $2.50 in Europe, for example. Even more shocking: Sweden's LTE users pay as low as 63 cents.

According to the London-based GSM Association, despite the U.S. being the largest LTE market in the world, Americans pay much more for the superfast wireless technology than anyone else. The reason boils down to fewer choices...

How to stop Verizon and AT&T from sharing your user data with advertisers

New iPhone owners on the nation's largest LTE network might be interested to know that the carrier gives its customers 30 days to opt-out of participating in a user data sharing program with advertisers.

The program tracks smartphone users, recording things like location data (though it's anonymized), age, dining habits and other demographics, and shares them with advertisers for targeted marketing...

T-Mobile and MetroPCS to grab Sprint’s prepaid market share

Sprint executives must be consuming antacids by the barrel about now. Not only is the carrier a mere footnote when U.S. wireless providers are mentioned, but today's agreement between T-Mobile and MetroPCS could put on life-support Sprint Nextel's only real market: inexpensive prepaid cell service.

Until today, when the two carriers announced they'd merge, T-Mobile was known as the carrier without an iPhone and was left at the altar after a marriage to AT&T was derailed by federal regulatory concerns. As for Metro-PCS, it was a regional carrier barely on anyone's radar. Now, however, the combined companies (if the merger is approved) will boast 43 million subscribers, closing in on Sprint's 56 million...

Most iPhones not sold by Apple Stores

When it comes to sales of Apple products, the much-publicized Apple Stores are like a cruise ship captain: lots of glitz and glamour, but having little connection to the mostly-hidden work which keeps the boat steaming along. That's the view of new research finding Apple's retail partners sold more iPhones than Apple's physical stores...

The iPhone 5 WiFi bug reportedly carrier-agnostic, double-check your cellular data usage

We thought a bug with carrier settings that led to some iPhone 5 owners reporting burning through excessive cell data on Verizon was fixed when Apple pushed a carrier settings update and Verizon promised not to slap the iPhone 5 owners for unwarranted cellular data usage. According to the latest by big media, the problem could be worse than originally thought.

As an added "bonus", it doesn't appear to be contained to Verizon customers only as apparently customers of AT&T, Sprint and other carriers are experiencing the same cellular data overages stemming from this bug. It would seem that something about the iPhone 5 or perhaps iOS 6 is causing the same cellular data drain even when the device is connected to WiFi...

Verizon won’t charge iPhone 5 owners for unwarranted cellular data usage

The nation's #1 carrier Verizon Wireless today officially confirmed it won't charge iPhone 5 customers for any unwarranted cellular data usage stemming from flawed carrier settings on the device. In case you didn't know, Apple has quickly identified the issue and delivered a patch to iPhone 5 customers on the Verizon network.

The affected customers feared Verizon would charge data traffic incurred as a result of the bug on their monthly statement. This is certainly good news, especially coming from a carrier who overcharged the government for voice and data communication services and earned its notoriety for incurring mystery fees on people without data plans who visited web pages that were supposed to be free...

Carrier update for iPhone 5 pushed to Verizon subscribers

Have you noticed Verizon cellular data usage increments on your iPhone 5 while connected to Wi-Fi? If so, then you definitely want to apply a recently released carrier settings update, which was issued to Verizon subscribers to fix the issue.

The update will change the Verizon carrier settings from 13.0 to 13.1. Although, under most circumstances, cellular data should not be used while connected to a Wi-Fi network, that appears to be exactly what has been happening for some customers.

China approves WCDMA and CDMA iPhone 5

The iPhone 5 has overcome its last significant regulatory hurdle for approval in China. Two models of the new iPhone received approval from the China Compulsory Certificate (or 3C), allowing China Unicom and China Telecom to sell the Apple smartphone by the end of 2012, CNET reports...