Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon Wireless is facing criticism and possibly even a lawsuit for selling customers’ phone activity to marketers. Such activity consists of geographical location, browsing habits, and app usage. The company began offering this information to marketers just recently, and it shows what Verizon subscribers are doing on their phones, including both iOS and Android devices.

Bill Diggins, US chief for the Verizon Wireless marketing initiative, said that the company is “able to view just everything that [users] do.” He also mentioned that this apparently shouldn’t be a big deal by saying, “And that’s really where data is going today. Data is the new oil.” Except oil usually doesn’t contain personal information.

Verizon says what they’re doing is completely legal, since the information is aggregated and doesn’t reveal the identities of its customers. The company also says that its customers can opt out at any time. However, staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury, who works with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, thinks otherwise.

“I don’t see any substantive difference between collecting content from one person and turning it over to someone, and collecting it from multiple people, aggregating that information and then turning the aggregated data over to someone else…In the end, there is still a capturing of content from the user at some point — and that’s what the potential (Wiretap Act) problem is.”

Verizon declined to answer any questions, but it did offer a statement on the matter. The company says their program “complies with the law and protects the privacy” of its customers. Since the data is aggregated, Verizon says the reports do not “disclose the content of specific customer communications.”

[via CNET]

Verizon faces criticism for monitoring activity and browser habits is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just in case you thought Nokia’s Lumia 822 for Verizon was an illusion, the FCC has given us good (if not quite smoking gun) evidence that it’s tangible. A filing at the agency shows a device that’s only listed as the RM-845 on the surface, but has Verizon’s CDMA and LTE bands, measurements very close to those of the GSM-based Lumia 820 and a microSD slot that you wouldn’t find in a Lumia 920 variant — short of a surprise new model, there’s little beyond the 822 that would currently fit the bill. Those disappointed that it’s not a higher-end Lumia might take some consolation in seeing both the expected NFC as well as quad-band HSPA 3G for world roaming. Between the FCC and earlier photos, fans are really just left waiting for Verizon to make this new piece of its Windows Phone revival official, whether it’s on October 29th or some other date.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

Nokia Lumia 822 for Verizon possibly caught stopping by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Oct 2012 19:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon is moving insanely quickly with the growth of their 4G LTE network, so it may make you wonder when the carrier will flip the switch to shut down its 3G network and have its users rely solely on its 4G LTE. It’s going to happen at some point, obviously, but Verizon says that it’s going to shut down its 2G and 3G networks by 2021.

If you’re still relying on the carrier’s 3G network, you have approximately nine years to make the switch to 4G. which shouldn’t be too much a problem for most users. If you have an iPhone, then you’re still using 3G unless you recently upgraded to the iPhone 5. But if you’re on Android and you’ve upgraded phones within the past year or so, chances are you’re already good to go.

Vice president of global strategy for M2M at Verizon, Aparna Khurjekar, said that the carrier is “giving a decade worth of pre-warning” before it starts to shut down its 2G and 3G networks. This is certainly more than ample time, and we’d be surprised if most users weren’t using 4G LTE by then.

Verizon plans to cover its entire 3G network in the US with 4G LTE coverage by the end of next year, so the new data technology will easily become mainstream well before the planned 2021 shutdown of 3G. I’ll still be relying on 3G, though, well after the end of next year, since my iPhone 4S contract doesn’t end for another year-and-a-half.

UPDATE: Verizon has gotten a hold of us regarding some “inaccuracies” on the 2G/3G shutdown. The proposed 2021 date is merely just a “guideline” to give enterprise customers time to plan a transition over to the carrier’s 4G network. They said they plan to keep their 2G/3G networks up and running in order to support customers who have “mission critical projects.” Read the full statement below.

“The Verizon Wireless 2G and 3G networks will be available into the foreseeable future. Recently published dates are guidelines that we are giving customers who have to plan, fund, and transition large enterprise projects to the faster speed networks. The Verizon Wireless 2G and 3G networks will be available as long as necessary to support customers who may have mission critical projects on those networks.”

[via FierceWireless]

Verizon to shut down 2G and 3G networks by 2021 [UPDATE] is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s been less than two years since Verizon first lit up its 4G LTE network, and there’s little question that it’s been growing at a quick clip. To wit, Verizon Wireless CTO Nicola Palmer at MobileCON in San Diego announced the carrier will light up its 400th LTE market (Marquette, Michigan) on October 18, well ahead of the “end of the year” timeframe the carrier previously forecasted.

To put that in perspective, it took Verizon Wireless about eight years to fully flesh out its 3G footprint. Now that Verizon has a stronger grasp on how the process works, the carrier aims to blanket the entirety of its 3G footprint in LTE by the end of 2013.

Of course, the network’s speedy growth wasn’t without its share of hiccups — VZW customers may recall that a string of nationwide LTE outages toward the end of last year made holiday gadget buying and network usage problematic. Still, those periods of network spottiness didn’t seem to affect LTE device adoption too severely, seeing as how roughly 11 million of Verizon’s 89 million wireless subscribers have access to the high-speed data network.

Palmer also said that a full 35 percent of the carrier’s wireless data traffic was sent over its 4G LTE network, but that should change sooner rather than later. She also mentioned that “it wouldn’t be long” before a majority of that data would be transmitted over LTE. To that end, Palmer also pointed to a handful of new LTE markets that will be brought online in the coming weeks, pushing the total count to 417 live LTE areas. Here’s the full list in case you’re still crossing your fingers for some high-speed data:

Gadsden, Ala.; Chico/Oroville, Calif.; Owensboro, Ky.; Waterville/Augusta, Maine; Brainerd and Fergus Falls/Alexandria, Minn.; Hattiesburg and Laurel, Miss.; Columbia, Mo.; Norfolk and North Platte, Neb.; Clovis, N.M.; Jamestown, N.Y.; Bend and Medford/Grants Pass, Ore.; Amarillo and Victoria, Texas; Aberdeen and Walla Walla, Wash.; and Morgantown, W. Va.

AT&T might have nabbed Verizon’s color for the Galaxy S III, but that doesn’t mean Big Red subscribers will be left out. The CDMA carrier has just posted a rotating teaser on its home page promising the low-key black and brown versions of Samsung’s flagship sometime “soon,” with availability sign-ups on hand for the impatient. That’s all we know for now, although history suggests there won’t be a premium over the $200 contract price of the existing blue and white models. We’re hoping the new shades of Galaxy come soon — Verizon’s offering will be the first chance most Americans have to get the Android phone in muted colors and relive the glory days of brown electronics.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

Verizon teases black and brown Galaxy S III models for the subtle crowd originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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