Hasta La Gadget!

Since the world’s engineers haven’t yet come up with a way to read minds over the internet (or at all, last we checked), we’re not sure what you think about the proposed marriage of T-Mobile to AT&T. We’re pretty sure you do have an opinion of some sort, though, and if you want it to be heard, now’s the opportunity to let the Federal Communications Commission read your thoughtful, reasoned take on how a GSM monopoly in the United States might or might not work. (Speak now or forever hold your peace, in other words.) To comment, simply visit the source links below, where the FCC has some handy forms — one for short comments, one for long comments (where you have to attach a PDF document) and one with the magic number of the related proceeding, which is 11-65. Let ’em know just how you’ll be impacted if the deal goes through, for better or for worse.

[Thanks, Jeff]

FCC opens floor for public comment on AT&T / T-Mobile deal originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already got some hands-on time with HP’s sleek webOS keyboard, and now it’s the FCC’s turn. The skinny peripheral — that’s Bluetooth Keyboard KT-1087 to you — popped up on the Federal Communications Commission’s site, stripped naked for the government filing enthusiasts of the world to collectively ogle. That hopefully means the rest of us will see the wireless add-on for sale in the near future, AA batteries not included — it would sure go nicely with that HP TouchPad you’ve been eyeing. Those who get a perverse thrill watching unreleased products sprawled out, alien autopsy-style are encouraged to check out the gallery below.

HP webOS keyboard passes FCC smell test, won’t zap you to death with radiation originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That, dear readers, is where you’ll be able to find the FCC label on your brand new HTC Flyer — well, assuming you decide to get in on the company’s 7-inch dose of Android, and also assuming that HTC ever decides to actually release the thing in the US. We assume it does, as the machine has just been given the blessing of the FCC. This looks to be a WiFi-only model, also tested for BlueTooth compliance, but lacking 3G. So, if you got your pre-order in last week know that there’s at least nothing federal standing between you and your $499 aluminum slice of Gingerbread, which we’re still hoping will ship before the spring is through.

WiFi HTC Flyer visits the FCC, leaves behind a line-drawn calling card originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T has many strategies for trying to convince the US government to let it buy T-Mobile, but the one it emphasized was this — it would attempt to make remaining carriers Verizon, Sprint and even a handful of rural entities look like “intense competition.” Well, it seems that tack hasn’t quite had the impact that the board of directors was hoping for, because it just delivered a gigantic new document to the FCC, which portrays itself as the victim of its own success. AT&T says it had to deliver 8,000 times percent more mobile data in 2010 than it did three years prior — over 10 petabytes per month these days — and foresees that it will deliver that same amount of data “in just the first five to seven weeks of 2015.”

Meanwhile, T-Mobile is the knight in shining magenta armor to save AT&T from those “severe capacity constraints,” but since AT&T can’t let regulators think that T-Mobile’s departure from the arena will result in less competition, Ma Bell simultaneously bashes its prospective conquest for having a “diminished market role” in the telecom industry and “no clear path to deploy LTE” — even as it says that acquiring T-Mobile would result in the means to spread speedy Long Term Evolution across 97.3 percent of the general population. In case you’re keeping track, that’s up from the 95 percent the company last prognosticated. The seeming contradictions here are certainly amusing, but we have to admit the promised giant LTE network tempts us quite a bit. But is it worth building a GSM monopoly to do it? Envision the repercussions for yourself — both good and ill — by studying the following links.

Update: Fixed a few math errors — AT&T processed over 10 petabytes per month (not year) in 2010, and that was 8,000 percent (not times) the amount of mobile data it carried in 2007. For comparison’s sake, the entirety of YouTube was said to have streamed 31 petabytes per month in 2008, and Hulu did 17 petabytes per month over the same time period, according to a Cisco study.

Continue reading AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document

AT&T tells FCC just how important T-Mobile is, in 381-page redacted document originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It appears Motorola is taking a page from the Samsung playbook and making the Xoom carrier-agnostic. Verizon and Sprint are already marching along and, according Wireless Goodness, an AT&T version is about to join the parade. The FCC approved a “hand held device” from Motorola that packs an HSDPA-capable radio on the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands, which just so happen to be the very same frequencies used by AT&T. A screen shot snapped by Wireless Goodness refers to the product as a “wireless tablet with embedded WLAN,” though that description is conspicuously absent from the documents now. The filing also makes mention of MOTOTalk, two-way radio functionality, a feature missing from other Xoom versions that seems like a perfect fit for the rumored rugged tablet the company is working on. Looks like that little bundle of “4G” tablet joy teased during CES is finally on its way.

GSM-flavored Xoom passes FCC muster, bound for AT&T? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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