Hasta La Gadget!

Sprint  just turned on WiMAX service in a number of cities last week, and now the carrier is throwing in a little extra motivation for prospective customers: a price cut.

FierceWireless reports that Sprint has quietly lowered the monthly cost of its 4G CDMA/mobile WiMAX service $10 to $69.99 per month. Plus, Sprint is now promising a month of free service as a sign-up bonus.

The carrier is also selling its 3G/4G USB Modem U300 (pictured) for free with a two-year service contract and after rebate, compared to its initial cost of $149 back in December, the report said.

The white space odyssey continues, with manufacturers of all backgrounds and sizes salivating so heavily over the bountiful frequencies opened up by the DTV transition that they’re willing to fight the NAB in a corporate cage match of epic proportions. Microsoft, part of the White Spaces Coalition and a company that’s not always had success at this whole frequency-sharing thing, isn’t giving up yet, presenting a paper this week at ACM SIGCOMM 2009 describing yet more new approaches and algorithms that would allow white space communication that functions like traditional WiFi devices — but with ranges measured in miles instead of feet. Dubbed WhiteFi, the tech would include algorithms to enable both access points and clients to zero in on the same locally disused frequencies without stepping on the toes of other broadcasters. It certainly sounds like a consumer-friendly implementation, and something we’d very much like to deploy at the 442 acre Engadget compound in northwestern Montana (it’s three counties away from the nearest hotspot), but we’re not entirely convinced this latest approach will find any more success at appeasing/defeating the NAB than any of the prior attempts. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via dailywireless.org]

Filed under: Wireless

Microsoft still hot for white space, describes WhiteFi wireless tech originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Color us surprised. After hearing endless complaints about AT&T, especially in discussions of the iPhone, we had a hunch that the big A must be the most hated telecom company in the United States. A survey suggests otherwise.

Global marketing firm J.D. Power on Thursday released results of its wireless customer care survey, which graded telecom companies based on responses from 12,000 customers who contacted their carrier’s customer care department within the past year. Sprint received the lowest grade, scoring 704 out of 1,000 customer satisfaction points. AT&T scored slightly higher, with 730 points. Meanwhile, Verizon, Alltel and T-Mobile tied for first with 747 points.

The study rated customer satisfaction on how well wireless carriers could service their customers by phone, visits to a retail wireless store and on the web. (No, the firm did not poll AT&T customers about Apple’s ban of Google Voice apps for the iPhone.) That’s a small slice of what we consider to be “satisfaction” with a carrier, but too often we hear about AT&T iPhone customers complaining about spotty 3G network performance, dropped calls, poor quality, and the list goes on. (Here at Wired.com we’ve conducted two telecom studies of our own, and the numbers did not look pretty for AT&T.) We expected a lot of peeved AT&T customers to contact customer care to complain, only to be disappointed because most of these problems are network-related and thus not immediately resolvable.

Though the results are a little bland with three carriers tying for first, we find interesting the rather significant point difference between Sprint and the rest of the carriers, even AT&T. We just don’t often hear anyone talk about Sprint. Sprint customers out there: Is your experience really that bad?

See Also:

• Wired.com’s iPhone 3G Survey Reveals Network Weaknesses
• Verizon Leads, AT&T Runs Last in Wired.com’s 3G Speed Test …
• What’s Wrong With the 3G in iPhone 3G?
• IPhone Users Report Network Outages; Second 3G Lawsuit Emerges …
• Suit Alleges AT&T, Apple ‘Oversold’ iPhone, Strained 3G Network …
• How AT&T Stumbled Through the iPhone 3GS Launch

Chart: J.D. Power

What’s that old saying? “Where Clearwire goes, Sprint is sure to follow (and resell)?” Something like that. Anyway, we’d gotten confirmation of Clearwire’s next planned expansion last week, and Sprint just followed up with word that it’ll also offer service in most of those same cities. As you’d expect, Sprint’s list is just as Texas-heavy as Clearwire’s — San Antonio and Midland-Odessa, get ready to party — but there’s a couple cities on there that were just rumored or we hadn’t heard about, like Raleigh, N.C. and Maui. As for New York, Boston, D.C., Houston, and San Francisco, well, Sprint says WiMAX is coming in 2010, but won’t commit to a date — so we guess we’ll see all of you down in Lubbock this winter. Full list after the break.

[Via PhoneScoop]

Continue reading Sprint officially announces 17 more WiMAX markets, mostly in Texas

Filed under: Wireless

Sprint officially announces 17 more WiMAX markets, mostly in Texas originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just over a year after Turtle Beach gave whining teenyboppers a decent Xbox 360 headset to annoy mature gamers with, the outfit is hitting back with the third-generation. We should caution you that these are far from a major upgrade, but those just now looking to take the plunge into cord-free bragging should find plenty to appreciate. The Ear Force X41 cans claim to handle Dolby 7.1 channel surround sound, but given that there are precisely two ear cups here, we’re somewhat (read: tremendously) skeptical of said claims. At any rate, the RF-based headphones now sport a dedicated Digital Signal Processor along with a feature that will likely entice young brats and frighten those with actual jobs: Chat Boost. As you can imagine, this enables users to automatically jack the volume of the Xbox Live chat as the game gets louder, which — in our experience — is probably not a good thing. Those with the patience of Job can buy in anyway for a nickle under $200.

[Via TG Daily]

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio

Turtle Beach keeps tweens boasting with Ear Force X41 Xbox 360 headset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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