If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, alongside smartphone leaks, admissions of data throttling and a power play at the NFC Forum, we’re introducing a new, hand-picked selection of must-read mobile stories for the week. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that’s happening in the mobile world for this week of March 4th, 2013.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
The BlackBerry Z10 is finally ready to ship out to customers in the US, as T-Mobile has officially announced that it is selling Canada’s pride and joy starting Monday for $250, but only to business customers initially. Deliveries of the device will arrive on doorsteps (or in office mailrooms, perhaps) by the end of the week. As for the rest of the T-Mobile customers anxious to get their hands on the first BB10 handset, we still haven’t received any word. News of the launch date was reported by Reuters, and we reached out to T-Mobile to confirm pricing and availability and received the following statement (update: T-Mo sent an updated statement confirming a pre-order date):
The BlackBerry Z10 will be available for pre-order for business customers starting on March 11 for $249.99 on a two-year Classic plan. Please note that pricing can be impacted by volume discounts and other factors, making the device even more cost effective. The consumer retail availability date and pricing will be shared at a later date.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Blackberry, T-Mobile
Source: Reuters
Earlier this morning, the US Department of Justice gave the T-Mobile / MetroPCS merger its official green light in the form of a 30-day waiting period, which expires is there are no objections made within those 30 days. But it looks as though T-Mobile is a little too eager to get the merger ball rolling as it seems the company may already be performing a significant round of layoffs within its Bellevue headquarters.
The reports are coming from people inside of the company and may affect over 100 people within T-Mobile’s marketing division as well as other groups within the company. These layoffs are expected to happen sometime today as conference rooms have been designated for “integration” meetings.
As of now, no official word has come from T-Mobile in regards to these reports, but considering T-Mobile has been steadily losing customers, which the claim its recent drop in customers is due to the iPhone 5, we wouldn’t doubt something big is about to go down at T-Mobile if its merger with MetroPCS happens.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung To Introduce Low-End Galaxy Pocket Neo Smartphone, iPhone 5S Production Rumored To Be Ramping Up At Foxconn,
Early last year there were talks that T-Mobile and MetroPCS could be merged together. This was confirmed by T-Mobile’s CEO who revealed that they expected the deal to be complete by June 2013 and it looks like that will indeed be the case. The merger between T-Mobile and MetroPCS has been given the green light by the US Department of Justice in the form of the 30-day waiting period expiring without any objections being made. Of course there are other regulatory bodies that will need to give the go ahead because if you recall, the FBI wanted to take a closer look at the merger as well, and there still needs to be the approval of the FCC and the Committee of Foreign Investment. However assuming that these bodies give the merger the thumbs up, we don’t see why the T-Mobile and MetroPCS deal won’t be able to meet its June 2013 date.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Artefact Conjures Pilates Shirt, Japanese Researchers Come Up With New Way To Protect Your Password From Prying Eyes,
We’re sure that MetroPCS and T-Mobile USA executives were on pins and needles wondering whether or not their proposed merger would clear all the regulatory hurdles. While they’re not officially free and clear, the Department of Justice has given a strong hint that the carrier union will go through. The government branch just let the mandatory waiting period expire without raising any objections; if it had thought there were serious antitrust issues, it would have piped up by now. Before anyone pops the champagne corks, though, there’s still a number of formalities — the Committee on Foreign Investment, the FCC and the companies’ shareholders still need to sign off on the deal, which could take weeks or longer. Considering the troubles T-Mobile had the last time it tried a merger, though, waiting will seem like a walk in the park.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile
Source: CNET
If you weren’t around Friday afternoon, you may have missed a recently published newspaper advertisement where AT&T bashes T-Mobile. The ad says, “The truth about T-Mobile’s network compared to AT&T. 2x more dropped calls, 2x more failed calls, 50% slower download speeds.”
It’s only been five days since that ad was published across a number of big-name newspapers and T-Mobile has just launched its own newspaper ad campaign where they fling the dirt right back at AT&T.
Three ads show a crumpled up piece of AT&T’s previous “truth about T-Mobile” ad in a corner, with T-Mobile’s messages displayed in the middle of the ad. Each ad takes some nice jabs at AT&T like their “What keeps AT&T up at night? Apparently Us,” and “Can you see the beads of sweat in this ad?” But our absolute favorite has to be their “If AT&T thought our network wasn’t great, why did they try to buy it?”
If these ads turn out to be the work of T-Mobile, then they may be one of the best responses to attack ads we’ve ever seen to date.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Concept Unicorn Windows Phone Concept By Alcatel Looks Interesting, American Variant Samsung Galaxy S4 Screenshots Surface, Points At New UI,
Those who want to use an unlocked iPhone 5 in the US beyond AT&T have had relatively few places to go for an exodus, T-Mobile and Straight Talk usually being the two carriers on the short list. It’s time to add a third: Solavei is now carrying nano-SIMs for its T-Mobile-based virtual network. There’s not much mystery to what’s involved after that, since you’re still getting the singular, all-unlimited $49 plan and no guarantee of 3G when even T-Mobile’s own spectrum refarming is still young. If you can live with those potential caveats for the sake of network and contract independence, Solavei is waiting.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, T-Mobile
Source: Solavei
T-Mobile will be launching the Blackberry Z10 for business users come 11th of March, and regular customers should be able to get their hands on it on the 27th. While the full touchscreen design of the Z10 is certainly a refreshing touch, we’re sure that there are some Blackberry users who would prefer the comfort and familiarity of a physical QWERTY keyboard, which for Blackberry 10 devices would mean the Q10. Now the good news is that according to the folks at N4BB, they confirmed with a T-Mobile rep that they will be launching the Q10 sometime in May. No specific dates were mentioned, so we will keep an eye out for that.
This comes after a certain report by Cannacord analyst Mike Walkley who claimed that T-Mobile will only launch the Z10, just like Sprint, who will only launch the Q10. Naturally we were just as surprised to hear this, but we guess Walkley either spoke in error or got his facts wrong, so hopefully this will help clear up the misunderstanding.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Has 5.9-Inch Phablet In The Pipeline, Nokia Celebrates 2 Million Lumias Sold In China,
I know that most of the world is looking forward to the Samsung Galaxy S4 in the upcoming Samsung Unpacked event that is happening in New York City later this coming March 14th, but spare a thought for its soon-to-be outdated predecessor, the Galaxy S3. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has proven to be phenomenally successful across many markets, and it arrives in the form of several variants, including an LTE-capable model which will eventually arrive on T-Mobile, especially after we have seen the T-Mobile Galaxy S3 with LTE support hitting the FCC.
Sporting the model number T999 originally (makes it sound a whole lot cooler as though it represented one of those killer Terminator robots, no?), a new T999L model number has been caught in the wild for some time now, with the “L” suffix seemingly pointing towards LTE connectivity. It does seem as though the LTE-capable version of the Galaxy S3 will be arriving on T-Mobile very, very soon – less than a month, actually. Will you pick this up, or would you rather make the straight jump to the Galaxy S4?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: AT&T BlackBerry Z10 To Arrive First Among The Carriers?, Apple iBookstore Launched In Japan,
T-Mobile subscribers we’re sure that there are many of you guys eagerly anticipating the Blackberry Z10. Unfortunately for you regular consumers, the latest Blackberry 10 smartphone will only go up for sale come 27th of March, but it seems that as far as business consumers are concerned, the Z10 will launch for them on the 11th of March. Business consumers who place their orders on the 11th of March will be able to receive their handset on the 13th of March, giving them a good two weeks to enjoy the phone before the rest of T-Mobile’s customer base. So, any of our readers out there T-Mobile business customers and who plan on picking up the Blackberry Z10 for themselves? Let us know in the comments below!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Green Throttle Launches Console-less Android Gaming Platform, Japanese Phone Strap 2 Cellphone Is World’s ‘Smallest And Lightest Phone’,
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