At CES 2014 in Las Vegas, ASUS and AT&T made a joint declaration to bring ASUS’ PadFone smartphone/tablet hybrid into the country. This, however, won’t be any of the PadFone … Continue reading
AT&T will no longer offer per-minute billing plans to most of its new customers, reports the Wall Street Journal. Following the industry trend towards unlimited talk time and texts, the company will only offer one per-minute plan, a meager 450 minutes per month for about $40, plus extra for texts and data. It will focus […]
Verizon was the first US carrier to launch (and famously fumble) its LTE rollout back in 2010, but its long road to 4G nationwide coverage has finally come to a near close. As of today, the operator’s LTE footprint now blankets more than 298 million people in 500 markets across the US, with Parkersburg, West Virginia claiming that 500th market distinction. It’s a milestone Verizon managed to achieve in a little over two years’ time, as the company’s Chief Network Officer Nicola Palmer was quick to point out. The completion of this initial LTE rollout also brings Alaska into Verizon’s coverage map as early as next month — a territory that, before today, didn’t even have 3G — marking the carrier’s network as available in all 50 states.
With a full LTE expansion, however, comes network congestion problems, as subscribers in major cities like New York are already starting to experience. Palmer assured us that solutions are currently underway to shore up capacity in these LTE markets. Verizon’s AWS holdings, in particular, should serve to augment LTE reception in select areas starting in the second half of this year. The same goes for small cell site deployment, which Palmer stressed is an LTE-only initiative. News on the carrier’s plans for LTE-Advanced remain just as vague as ever, with Palmer positioning the standard as yet another tool to enhance current LTE capacity. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t commit to a timeframe for LTE-A nor address concerns about the potential for new pricing tiers when it does eventually launch. Still, Verizon subs will at least have VoLTE (voice over LTE) to look forward to next year — that is, when it eventually clears the company’s rigorous lab and field testing.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Verizon
Source: Verizon Wireless
2011 sure doesn’t feel like that long ago, but it’s evidently long enough for Verizon to realize that demand for innovation is booming in Silicon Valley. Not quite two years after the company cracked open the doors to its San Francisco-based Innovation Center, it’s already looking to expand. During a briefing today at its other Innovation Center — the one located just outside of Boston — we were told that plans are underway to expand the SF facility. Presently, the Waltham, Mass. center is the vaster of the two, and it’s Verizon’s goal to stretch the California edition to (roughly) match the original location.
We were also told that the company has looked at a variety of other cities where potential Innovation Centers could be planted, and while “three to four” undisclosed metropolises are in play, the company wants to nail the execution of its first two before hastily expanding into new locales. According to Praveen Atreya, director of Verizon’s Innovation Program, there’s just too much involved in the incubation and launch process to not devote the proper amount of manpower to it. In other words, there’s more to launching a product than just design and manufacturing; a lot of TLC goes on in order to make something have a successful shelf life.
Filed under: Cellphones, Networking, Mobile, Verizon
4G carrier EE has announced plans to double the speed of its UK LTE network, taking peak downloads to as much as 80Mbps+ in ten locations by summer 2013. The “turbocharged 4G” trial – which, if successful, will see the network boost rolled out to all across EE’s service – should see an average download rate per user of 20Mbps, the carrier says, and is part of a number of enhancements EE plans for its service in the near future.
The first ten cities to get the double-speed LTE are Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield. Trials in Cardiff have already been underway, with EE seeing higher than 80Mbps rates in its own testing; in a perfect, lab setting, the system could go as high as 130Mbps, though that would never be achieved in the wild.
To achieve all that, EE is doubling the 1800MHz spectrum its 4G service can use, up to 20Mhz. That means not only higher speeds but more capacity, something the carrier says will be vitally important as 4G adoption increases: its research suggests data traffic over the next three years will jump by up to 750-percent.
In response to the expected climb in demand, EE will also be trialling carrier aggregation before the end of the year, part of the LTE-Advanced feature set, which joins together spectrum in different bands for more performance. That will see the carrier make use of its newly-acquired spectrum holdings, bought in the recent UK 4G auction, in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz frequencies.
Meanwhile, there are also plans for voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) along with video and voice calls over 4G/LTE (VoLTE), though there’s no timeline for their launch. The speed improvements will come at no extra cost to subscribers, as EE prepares itself for rival UK networks launching their own 4G service, something expected to happen within a matter of months.
EE doubling UK 4G speed: 80Mbps peak in ten city summer trial is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
AT&T will enable HD Voice for the iPhone 5 later in 2013, slamming T-Mobile USA’s exclusive on the high-quality voice call system in the process, execs at the carrier have confirmed. News of the incipient tech turn-on came on Monday, with AT&T senior VP Kris Rinne revealing that the network sees HD Voice as “part of our voice over LTE strategy,” AllThingsD reports.
HD Voice, also known as wideband audio, involves squeezing more frequency data into each call, pushing the limits closer to what the human ear can actually hear. In a regular voice call, that might be as little as 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz (the human voice, meanwhile, can range from 80 Hz to 14 kHz); however, HD Voice extends that to somewhere in the region of 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz.
The end result is a more realistic, natural sounding voice call, though it takes its toll on bandwidth. AT&T’s plan is to use VoLTE to address that, taking advantage of the thick data pipe 4G allows to easily accommodate the better quality calls.
However, that means VoLTE has to be up and running before AT&T can think about switching HD Voice on, something the carrier has in mind for later in the year. It will also explore LTE Advanced, which can deliver more bandwidth, among other things, by aggregating channels.
News that AT&T is to hop on board the HD Voice train is likely to come as a disappointment to T-Mobile USA, which cited the technology as one of its differentiators after confirming it was finally going to offer the iPhone 5 from early April.
AT&T: Sorry T-Mo, we’ll offer iPhone 5 HD Voice this year too is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Samsung has begun pushing out Jelly Bean for the Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE, the 4G-enabled version of its stylus-toting tablet, complete with simultaneous voice and data support over LTE. The new update – which will initially be pushed out across three South Korean carriers – adds VoLTE support to the tablet, in addition to the niceties the newer version of Android delivers, and Samsung’s own tweaks such as Multi-Window.
Multi-Window, as we’ve already seen on the Galaxy Note II, splits the display into two panes, allowing two apps to be accessed simultaneously, and Samsung says it has been improved in this newest firmware version. It’s particularly useful on a larger tablet when used for researching, where one pane can show a browser or ebook textbook, and the other a digital notebook of some sort.
Samsung is hoping that users’ digital notebook of choice is its own preloaded S-Note app, and the new update brings with it enhanced S Pen functionality including the Easy Clip feature also debuted on the Note II. There’s also Air View, giving a preview of photo and video galleries, message content, calendar entries, and other data when the nib of the pen is hovered over them, and Quick Command which triggers new emails, searches, and other features with an upward swipe of the stylus.
As for simultaneous voice and data, that addresses one of the common complaints about LTE devices. VoLTE is an enhancement to traditional LTE, which would normally drop a data connection when a voice call was being made; that’s usually acceptable on a smartphone, but less so on a tablet where a hands-free kit is more likely to be used, and access to the internet more commonly required in-call. It does require carrier support, however.
Samsung hasn’t confirmed an exact roll-out schedule, and nor has it said when international Note 10.1 users might expect to see Jelly Bean as well.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE gets Jelly Bean plus VoLTE is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Whether or not there’s a 5-inch 4:3 aspect ratio spot in the world to fit LG’s Optimus Vu is still up for debate, but the company is pressing on and has now officially revealed specs for its follow up, the Optimus Vu II. Matching the specs leaked previously the CPU is a Qualcomm MSM8960 that’s a newer design than the previous one, but is still a dual-core chip clocked at 1.5GHz. The RAM has been doubled to 2GB, the battery is just a hair larger at 2,150mAh and it will come with Android 4.0 out of the box plus that integrated IR blaster and QRemote software to control your home theater. The VoLTE capability listed in the leak is here and accounted for, as well as a Rubberdium Pen 2.0 stylus with a thinner, more precise nub. One thing we hadn’t heard about is its optional “One Key” accessory, a waterproof fob intended for your key ring that can be pressed to make your phone beep loudly if you need to find it, and light up blue or red to alert you when there are messages or if it has finished charging. The Optimus Vu II is priced at 966,900 won ($864) in Korea, though we’ll have to wait for a US announcement to have any idea how much it will cost when it ships here.
Gallery: LG Optimus Vu II
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
LG Optimus Vu II specs officially unveiled: new CPU, IR, stylus and ‘One Key’ accessory originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
LG isn’t short of a few Voice over LTE handsets, but this neck-hugging Bluetooth handset promises to offer similarly crisp voice calls, if the feature’s available, without the need to fumble around in your pockets . The Tone + headset totes a pair of in-ear buds, is available in both white and black and will even vibrate in Battle Royale terror style when you receive a call. LG has built in a “professional grade audio codec”, the aptX, to improve audio performance alongside that VoLTE compatibility. The headphones can event pair to two devices (even two smartphones) and read out your received SMS messages. You can expect the micro-USB rechargeable Tone+ to last around 15 hours of talk-time, or 500 hours on standby. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but LG promise to launch the device in the US, Korea and China by the end of the month.
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Mobile
LG’s first VoLTE Bluetooth headset revealed: Tone + packs ‘high-quality’ audio codec originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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