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Sprint joins Verizon atop customer satisfaction survey
Sprint is on a bit of a roll recently. Sure, there were some problems with its Google Voice integration and the company is still losing money, but it's adding subscribers at an impressive rate and now it's tied Verizon for the number one spot in a recent customer satisfaction survey. The American Customer Satisfaction Index showed Sprint had made significant gains in the last three years, rising from dead last amongst the big four with a score of 56 in 2008 to match Big Red's field-leading 72. At the same time, both T-Mobile and AT&T saw small drops in their satisfaction scores, with AT&T hitting 66 points -- its lowest rating since the launch of the iPhone. Of course, with T-Mo hemorrhaging customers and the reanimated husk of Ma Bell claiming the ignominious title of most dropped calls, we can't say we're particularly shocked.
T-Mobile confirms gratis WiFi calling for the magenta-clad masses
Last week, the online grapevine foretold that T-Mobile users would have complimentary calling over WiFi. Now, the pink provider's powers that be have made good on the gossip and officially made free WiFi calling official. The service is available to those with Android handsets with the carrier's Smart Wi-Fi app preinstalled and are on T-Mo's Even More or Even More Plus plans. All others wanting a dose of free will have to pony up for a new plan -- you didn't think it was actually free, did you?
T-Mobile leak divulges return of unlimited WiFi calls, may add Name ID and Voicemail-to-Text
What's shaping up to be an epic week in tech news may be about to become even more exciting for T-Mobile fans. Internal employee docs are giving out some serious vibes that the company is ready to push out three important features to many of its phones as early as tomorrow. The first one to put a smile on your face is unlimited WiFi calling, which should be available as a free add-on to the Even More, Even More Plus, and 4G Do More plans. We're glad to see the service come back as a freebie, much better than the $9.99 per month asking price when it was hotspot@home. As if that isn't good enough by itself, the other services getting prepped for tomorrow's lineup include Name ID -- a caller ID service that shows the name, number, city, and state of anyone not listed in your contacts -- and Voicemail-to-Text, a new enhancement to the existing Visual Voicemail service that transcribes the full message into text form on select devices. Keep in mind that while these docs certainly do look official, it's all mere speculation until we hear actual word from T-Mobile about these new programs. With that said, we've got screenshots above and below, so feel free to glean as many details as possible from them.
Carriers crack down on Android tethering apps, rain on our mobile hotspot parade
Well everybody, it looks like the free ride is over: carriers in the US have started to seriously crack down on Android tethering apps. Head on over to the Android Market site and try to install an app that turns your smartphone into a WiFi hotspot -- there's a pretty good chance you'll be told, "this item is not available on your carrier." We checked out a number of different tethering options and they were all blocked by T-Mobile and AT&T, which isn't entirely new. Verizon has also joined the party and, while it missed at least one that we spotted, we're sure they'll all be gone in short order. Only Sprint has decided against banning such apps... for now. It looks like you might have to finally cough up for that tethering plan you've been desperately trying to avoid.
T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm issues non-denying non-confirmation of Sprint buyout discussions
Did last week's rumors of a T-Mobile merger with Sprint leave you wondering what color you'd get if you mixed magenta with yellow? T-Mo CEO Philipp Humm has stopped short of digging out his mixing tool to show you, but neither is he denying that such a mix-up could happen. His memo, sent to company employees and summarily leaked to the world, says that parent company Deutsche Telekom "will always explore options for maximizing the value of its portfolio and profits." However, he doesn't indicate exactly which avenues DT is exploring to find those profits.
T-Mobile getting ready to roll out new webConnect broadband plans, offer 20 percent discount
Already a T-Mobile subscriber? Been thinking about adding a mobile broadband plan to go along with it? Hold on to that credit card for a little longer, as we're hearing that the company is about to roll out new webConnect plans that will, at least in some cases, include a 20 percent discount for those who already have voice plans. The date March 13th is mentioned as something of a line in the sand between the current and new offerings, but really that's about all we know at this point. Well, about these plans, anyway. We know lots of things about other stuff.
T-Mobile director scares the FCC with a chilling tale: 'The IM App that Killed Our Network'
It's almost Halloween, kiddies. Do you have your spooky stories ready for telling around the campfire? If you need a little help, take inspiration from this doozy told by Grant Castle, a Director at T-Mobile USA. It was submitted to the FCC way back in January and as a sort of written protest against "risky and unnecessary" net neutrality rules. He tells the tale of an undisclosed IM app that caused the network of an undisclosed city to go offline due to its too-frequent polling to check for updates. T-Mo engineers had to reach out to that app's developer and get him to change its code, saving the company's towers from the program's thousands of users. There's no telling which of the company's many outages were caused by the app that wouldn't die (shriek), but we'd sure hate to think that any members of the FCC are losing sleep over this saga of corporate woe.
T-Mobile exec downplays need for LTE, calls WiMAX 'niche'
LTE? WiMAX? T-Mobile USA's Neville Ray isn't as interested in these technologies as the competition. In an interview with BusinessWeek, the Chief Network Officer said, "we'll look towards LTE at the right point in time for us... that ecosystem is going to be much richer than the competing one from [WiMAX], which is really a niche play." A niche play, you say? Network burn! What isn't clear from the BW piece -- and it's something we're painfully curious about -- is if Ray himself used the term 4G as interchangeably as the article implies. After all, the company line is that it's already got a 4G technology in (the theoretically slower) HSPA+, as it's claimed as recently as the G2 announcement. We're guessing not, but all the same, we wouldn't hold our breath for any radical new cell towers in T-Mo's immediate future -- and we'd expect nothing less from AT&T than to continue to sneer at its use of the 4G term in its press materials.
Motorola Charm spotted in T-Mobile ad, free on contract for back-to-schoolers?
Advertising a product before it's even official, what could be more patriotic? TmoNews has a convincing (but still unconfirmed) picture of a T-Mobile "Back to School" poster featuring Samsung :), Gravity T, Gravity 3, and... Motorola Charm? Looks like our chubby, Motoblur-equipped candybar has been given an air of legitimacy, even more than the previous leak. What's also interesting is the price -- as part of the promotion, Charm is apparently free on contract (seems to be T-Mo's special of choice, these days). Can't say with any certainty what that means for the cost of the phone after this season's school craze dies down -- the Gravity 3, for example, is usually $80 with a two-year agreement -- but it can't be much longer now before we get the skinny on this square. Hit up the source for full picture.
Motorola Charm coming to T-Mobile with 'enhanced' Android 2.1 Motoblur? Update promised for CLIQ and CLIQ XT?
Usual rules apply -- we can't independently confirm this at the moment -- but a tipster has sent us what appears to be T-Mobile training materials for an upcoming Motoblur-infused candybar smartphone, the Motorola Charm. Only this Motoblur is allegedly powered by Android 2.1 and boasts the same scalable widgets as we saw on Droid X, in addition to improved Facebook / Twitter integration (hello, Like and Retweet) and the usual Eclair refinements.As far as the hardware is concerned, there isn't much to glean from it at this point, aside from a textured QWERTY keyboard reminiscent of the CLIQ and a "camera" button denoting some form of memory-capturing capabilities. Speaking of which, the materials mention that the enhanced Motoblur is heading to CLIQ and CLIQ XT. Let us bookend this entire post with another reminder that none of this is confirmed, but we do know more than a few T-Mobile users who would love to get their mitts on a candybar Android. %Gallery-96395% [Thanks, Anonymous]
T-Mobile USA to get Nokia N95?
We're not too sure what to make of this, but the industry journal Mobile/Cellular Technology slips a couple interesting details in its profile page for T-Mobile USA: one, that it'll be picking up the Nokia N90 (a little old, no?), and more interestingly, that it'll also rock the N95. To be fair, they manage to accidentally swap the N90's and N95's pictures in their sidebar, so they may have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, but for a country (and a carrier) starved for S60 devices, this is a rumor we'd very much like to cling to. As always, we'll remain cautiously optimistic until we're given sufficient reason to the contrary.[Thanks, Ray D.]
T-Mobile falls in line, finally raises SMS rates
We've been waiting for T-Mobile USA to follow suit and raise standard text messaging rates from 10 cents to 15 cents each, and that wait is now over. Effective June 1, 2007, the fourth-largest mobile carrier in the U.S. will make that rate change for its wireless subscribers who want to use the "casual" text message (pay-per-use) instead of subscribing to a text messaging plan. With competitors AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel having already made the rate increase, at least the last carrier has now fallen in line. The good news: like with the other carriers' changes, you might just be able to dump T-Mobile come June with no contract breach early-term fees since this is a material change to the contract of probably every current T-Mobile USA subscriber. But hey, the carrier's at least dropping that MMS rate from 25 cents to 15 cents on a pay-per-use basis. Joy.[Via Wirelessinfo.com]
