Hasta La Gadget!

Ahead of next week’s GTA Online launch, developer Rockstar Games took to its blog to outline what to expect come October 1st. The post goes to great lengths to establish that the entire experience is free — unless you want to buy in-game currency with real money — and incredibly you-centric. Feedback you provide by emailing or posting on the official forums will help shape the game. Where you spend your time and what you end up doing (Sports! Heists! Chaos!) in San Andreas will affect the direction the developers take with future content and how they tune the overall experience. However, while the entry answers a few questions it also creates some new ones. Specifically, we’re curious about the company’s use of “roll out” to describe GTA:O‘s release. An incremental approach is probably best considering the game’s current server strains, but we’re sure that’s not what its some 16.5 million players will want to hear.

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Source: Rockstar Newswire

AT&T has announced that it’ll fire up LTE coverage in 16 77 new cities this this summer and that it has expanded or turned on the signal in four 12 other centers. Residents of Kalamazoo, MI and Wilson, NC and four others will now see the much sought-after 4G symbol, while previously neglected Bay Area centers like San Rafael and Brentwood, along with parts of Greensboro, NC will also get coverage, among others. Meanwhile, the famously-named centers mentioned earlier will get 4G later this summer, along with other notables like Rio Grande Valley, TX, Columbus, IN and yes, Athens TX. It makes us wonder if Ma Bell’s getting a little playful with its rollout decisions — check the PR after the break for more info.

Update: AT&T contacted us to say that they’ve now launched LTE in six new markets, expanded in another six regions and pre-announced 77 areas that’ll receive 4G by the end of this summer. The PR has been updated with a comprehensive list.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, AT&T

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T-Mobile’s LTE rollout has been a long time coming, but as of today that network is finally live. At an event in New York City, the carrier made its initial batch of LTE cities official — seven markets in total. Now, subscribers in Baltimore, MD; Kansas City, KS; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; San Jose, CA and Washington D.C. will be among the first to take advantage of the UnCarrier’s fully-fledged 4G network and its newly revised unlimited talk, text and data plans. As for New York City, a market many assumed would make this first LTE round, CEO John Legere says that’s coming soon, mostly likely by early summer. Speeds on this new network, as we saw demoed just a little over a week ago, should range between 10 to 20Mbps down and 8 to 12 Mbps up — at least, during this intro phase — with a fallback onto HSPA+ when LTE isn’t present. When T-Mobile gets around to repurposing that MetroPCS spectrum it’s so close to acquiring, expect to see even more robust LTE speeds and wider coverage across its footprint.

To kick off adoption of this nascent network, T-Mobile’s offering up a pretty attractive portfolio of handsets and high-end ones, at that. So Magenta subs or prospective carrier-switchers looking to sign up for T-Mobile’s LTE can choose from the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S 4, iPhone 5, Galaxy Note II and BlackBerry Z10 — that latter two of which are currently available. And now that the UnCarrier’s removed the contract chains we’ve all come to know and loathe, subscribers can opt to snag one of these handsets outright with an accompanying Simple Choice plan. If you’re excited by all of this change or just want to see it laid out in the company’s official terms, head past the break for official PR.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

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With the formal creation of Orange and T-Mobile’s LTE network lovechild, Everything Everywhere, the UK finally joined the horserace for 4G. Now, it looks like rival domestic operators could get a chance to play catch-up sooner than expected, according to a report from The Telegraph. It appears the mobile companies, having recently put to rest concerns over any potential “first mover advantage” that would see each party entering into litigation, have been freed up to bid in a spectrum auction set to take place in early January. And further speeding this next-gen rollout along, is Ofcom’s admission that those precious frequencies could be ready for use as soon as this coming May, allowing carriers to prep service for public consumption by mid-summer 2013 at the latest. All told, it’s good news for denizens of the British isles hankering for blazing wireless speeds and the LTE devices that love them. But as with all things commercial, we’d caution you to expect some regulatory bumps in the road to this rollout.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

UK carrier cooperation could see 4G LTE rollout ramp up by summer 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Clearwire doesn’t have much time left before its promised LTE rollout goes live in early 2013, so it’s with some relief that we know the deployment is getting underway. CFO Hope Cochran told those at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia Conference this week that construction of the first cell sites starts this month, with efforts truly swinging into full gear during the fall. The executive also reminded us of a very pragmatic reason why many of the 5,000 LTE sites due by June 30th will target high-traffic areas — as Clearwire is only selling the faster data access to other providers, it should pocket more money in any regions where Sprint needs all the help it can get. Call it a virtuous cycle. Cochran certainly does: while Clearwire is free to make deals with others, Cochran says her company weighs any alliances against what it still considers a very special pact with Sprint. No doubt the 4G pioneer is hoping that it’s making the right choices, as other carriers aren’t waiting around.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Clearwire starts building LTE network this month, wants to salve (and profit from) Sprint growing pains originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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