Dec 29

ATT: Midwest Network Was Down, Were Fixing It

Posted in: Today's Chili

Folks picking up their brand-new iPhones from Wal-Marts in the Midwest were unpleasantly surprised yesterday by something no cell phone user wants to see – no signal. But at least AT&T users can be comforted by knowing that their phones aren’t broken. While the network isn’t back to 100%, AT&T tells us, they’re working on it. Here’s the official word from an AT&T spokesman:


“At about 9:30 a.m. CST on Sunday, Dec. 28, a power failure impacted an AT&T facility in Bloomfield, MI. This situation has resulted in intermittent disruption of mobile services for customers in some Midwest states. Backup power has been restored, and a substantial portion of the impacted equipment was back in service as of Sunday afternoon. Virtually all service traffic is running normally today. AT&T continues work to restore a small number of local cell sites in Michigan that were impacted by local weather and power outages. This work will continue until all local service is fully restored.”


Want up-to-the-minute updates? Try AT&T’s Twitter feed.

No Comments | Tags:
Dec 26

Its Official: Wal-Mart To Sell iPhones For $197, Not $99

Posted in: Today's Chili

Looking for the best price on a new iPhone? You might want to swing by your local Wal-Mart starting December 28th, when they’ll begin to offer Apple’s hot phone at $2 less than Apple’s own price: $197 for an 8GB model or $297 for a 16GB model.


Hopefully this will put to rest all of the “$99 iPhone” rumors, but it’s still a big deal from Apple’s perspective. For one thing, Apple doesn’t usually let retailers offer products at less than their own prices; Wal-Mart is probably kicking in the extra $2 on their own. Apple also tries to make sure their products are only sold by folks trained to sell Apple products, something Wal-Mart senior VP Gary Severson said the retail chain was glad to do. “Our electronics associates have been preparing for many weeks for the arrival of iPhone 3G,” he said in a press release.


Hopefully they still got some time off for the holidays!

No Comments | Tags: ,
Dec 24

HTC CEO Forecasts One Million G1 Sales for 2008

Posted in: Android, Google, HTC, Today's Chili

T-Mobile_G1_Colors.jpgHigh Tech Computer is projecting that sales of the Google Android-powered T-Mobile G1 smartphone will exceed one million units in 2008—maybe. At least that’s the word from HTC CEO Peter Chou, who just said as much in an interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News, according to DigiTimes.

The blogosphere has gone around on this topic before, though. Several credible reports back in October stated that the T-Mobile G1 already had 1.5 million pre-orders racked up. But the term “pre-orders” is vague and doesn’t necessarily apply to end-customer sales. Chou’s recent quote of one million confuses matters more, not less. (For comparison’s sake, the iPhone hit its sales goal of 10 million units before the end of ’08, and BlackBerry numbers tend to hover in a similar range.)

Either way, in two weeks, CES 2009 will likely bring some new Android device announcements, HTC-related or otherwise. It’s an open OS, and it seems to be off to a strong start.

No Comments | Tags: ,
Dec 24

Cell Phone Activations Hit 4 Billion Worldwide

Posted in: Today's Chili

BlackBerry_Bold_City.jpg3G Americas, the wireless industry trade association representing GSM devices, has announced that as of December 2008, four billion cell phones are currently in use, covering 60 percent of the world population.

The organization said in a statement that in some countries, millions of people are now experiencing connectivity to the world for the first time through wireless, “changing their economic, social and political fortunes forever.” Of the countries listed in the report, Latin America and the Caribbean region both posted 16 percent year-on-year growth; subscription numbers are expected to reach in excess of 440 million.

Looking forward, 3G Americas is pushing the adoption of next-generation LTE networks. “Third generation technologies continue to evolve and the GSM operator today has a clear path towards LTE,” said Chris Pearson, president of 3G Americas, in the statement. “In addition to the evolution to LTE by GSM operators, LTE is proving to be the technology choice for CDMA operators as well.”

In a separate study, Informa notes that 415 million cell phone subscribers use 3G networks, with 77 percent of them on HSDPA/UMTS and the remaining 95 million on CDMA EV-DO.

No Comments | Tags: ,