Hasta La Gadget!

Two weeks into the campaign, David Pogue has an update about Take Back the Beep. So far we’d say the winner by far is Sprint, who lets you remove the pre-voicemail instructions with a relatively small amount of hassle (we’re upgrading to green because Pogue has taken the carrier off his hit list). The other carriers have yet to get on board, however. T-Mobile says that “these comments are being taken into consideration in our planning,” but hasn’t promised any specific action — sort of promising, but hardly a win. Meanwhile, Verizon was quoted by ABC News as saying that you could already turn off the message, but apparently what the rep meant to say is that if you don’t like the message you can turn off voicemail altogether. Great. So far no hints of real action have come from big red, but the company is responding to complaints with a canned, “The voice mail instructions are there to assist the many callers who may be unfamiliar with the correct prompts.” so at least we know they’re getting the emails. AT&T is perhaps the most promising of the remaining carriers, saying that while Visual Voicemail (which doesn’t suffer in this way) is the true hotness, and it hopes to get that to other devices soon, “In the meantime, we are actively exploring how to shorten the voicemail message on our other handsets.” That sounds promising. In the mean time, we literally have no idea why these carriers haven’t gotten together over coffee and at least figured out a unified button for skipping over the messages. It’s true madness.

Filed under: Cellphones

Take Back the Beep: AT&T promises to make some changes, T-Mobile and Verizon slow on the uptake originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint is readying 17 additional cities for its fledgling 4G WiMAX service. The new additions for the rest of 2009 include Boise, Bellingham, Charlotte, Greensboro, Maui, Raleigh, Salem, and eight smaller cities in Texas.

The new markets will join the initial batch of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, and Seattle. All of the above mirror what Clearwire had already announced last week for its identical CLEAR WiMAX offering.

Sprint reaffirmed plans to launch service in Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. sometime in 2010.

It’s a far cry from the $1.2 billion number that was bandied about at one point, but it looks like Sprint could still be taking a fairly sizable hit over those pesky early termination fees, at least if a proposed class action settlement plays out as it seems likely too. As Sprint itself announced today, the company’s reached a $14 million settlement in the case, which will be placed in a common fund to be distributed accordingly to all the parties involved, which is where you come in (assuming you’re a current of former Sprint, Nextel, or Sprint Nextel customer, that is). The short of it is that you can either sign on to the class action suit or opt out of it by hitting up the site linked below, and then you’ll have to wait for the final approval hearing now scheduled for October 21st, which should actually settle the settlement once and for all. Details on the exact payout amounts to customers are buried in the documents on the settlement website, but it looks like the majority of customers will be receiving between $25 and $90 depending on their contract, plus some free bonus minutes.

Read – Sprint ETF Settlement website
Read – Sprint statement

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones

Sprint details proposed $14 million ETF class action settlement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen more than enough evidence surface to convince us that HTC Touch Pro2 is making its way over to Sprint at some point, and now this morning comes two interesting piece of information each pegging a release date for early September. Only problem is, the pair can’t seem to agree on exactly what that day will be. Phone Arena’s gotten its hands on an alleged leaked document hailing straight from the Now Network that claims Thursday, September 3rd is the lucky day, while on the flip side, Engadget reader Louis wrote in to let us know of an apparent reply he got from Sprint customer service that told him it’d be up for sale on Tuesday, September 8th. That last one’s pretty peculiar, given the carrier’s yet to even confirm the device’s existence, but that hasn’t necessarily stopped blabbing reps before. With both of these days now less than a month away, chances are we won’t be waiting too much longer to know for sure.

[Via pocketnow; thanks, anthony]


Read – Customer service letter
Read – Leaked document

Filed under: Cellphones

Sprint and HTC Touch Pro2 tie the knot in early September? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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