Is it more important that your carrier have impeccible cellular service, or that they have the smartphone you want? In T-Mobile’s case, they don’t have great service or great phones, so they’re kinda screwed until they get the iPhone and expand their 4G network.
T-Mobile is the only major carrier left in the U.S. that doesn’t sell the iPhone, and they’re probably not going to be able to sell it anytime soon because the iPhone’s expensive and according to their COO, they can’t afford it.
T-Mobile is now the only major carrier in the United States that doesn’t offer the iPhone, because Apple’s device isn’t compatible with its 3G network. However, that could be about to change. One analyst believes that T-Mobile will finally get its chance to offer the iPhone 5 from early 2013.
Japan’s third-largest carrier is reportedly in talks to buy control of Sprint, according to two people familiar with the matter. SoftBank wants to snap up two-thirds of the company with a stake worth “more than” 1.5 trillion yen ($19 billion), and it’s also eyeing Sprint’s partner, Clearwire, too.
The rumors of a T-Mobile/Metro PCS merger have been burning hot over the past 24 hours and it appears for good reason. The merger is real and was announced by T-Mobile a short while ago. T-Mobile USA will be merging with Metro PCS in a $1.5 billion deal. Not only will MetroPCS Shareholders receive $1.5 Billion in cash, but they will also have a 26% ownership in the combined company. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
Looks like T-Mobile’s serious about getting you to come to their network with your unlocked iPhone 5, even if they still don’t have a deal in place to sell them directly. What you see here is that T-Mobile is already ordering nano-SIMs, and you’ll be able to slap them into an unlocked iPhone 5 starting in mid-October. You won’t get LTE, of course, but if that doesn’t matter to you, you might save a few bucks.
Source: TMO-News
Buying an unlocked iPhone and using a prepaid plan can save you a lot of money over two years. Over $1000 in savings actually. T-Mobile is the only major U.S. carrier that hasn’t landed a deal for the iPhone yet, but they’re not letting that stop them from getting new iPhone customers.
This week T-Mobile is pushing their new Unlimited & Unlocked campaign to get future iPhone 5 owners to buy an unlocked iPhone and bring it over to their network where they can save $1200 over two years versus AT&T.
At this point, we know that, yet again, T-Mobile hasn’t managed to work itself out a deal when it comes to the iPhone 5 when it launches later this month. That means yet again, T-Mobile will be the odd carrier out: the only one of the major four without an iPhone.
T-Mobile’s at a competitive disadvantage, and they are doing everything they can to address that They’ve started telling their sales staff to start selling against the iPhone. And now they’re going to start marketing to individuals with unlocked iPhones jumping carriers, even going so far as to set up “bring your own iPhone” demonstration stations in store.
There’s no mention of the next iPhone in the note, but German carrier T-Mobile has been sending out these tiny nanoSIMs for “the latest generation of smartphones” launching shortly. And since the next iPhone, which many believe will launch on September 21st, is widely thought to be the first smartphone to boast the new nanoSIM standard, it’s pretty obvious T-Mobile’s trying to put this SIM in place for the iPhone 5.
Bet we’ll start seeing these same SIM cards popping up at AT&T soon enough.
After months of delays, Isis has announced the debut of its mobile payment system. A joint venture by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, Isis made news earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress in March, but has been pretty quiet since then. During that quiet period a number of other players in the mobile payment market have stolen the spotlight and announced major deals.
Apple is expected to eventually unveil its own mobile payment system, one that will most likely be based around the iTunes Store payment system, but hasn’t made announcements beyond iOS 6’s Passbook feature. Apple has also kept quiet about whether it will include NFC chips used in some mobile payment systems in the upcoming iPhone 5, which some analysts and pundits consider a barrier to entry into the mobile payment market.
For a company that’s wanting to “sell against the iPhone,” T-Mobile still wants whatever business it can get from unlocked iPhone owners. Earlier today we told you about T-Mobile’s new microSIM kits that will easily unlock an iPhone 4/4S to run on its GSM network.
It appears that T-Mobile is also readying flyers that say “Bring Your iPhone to T-Mobile for BIG SAVINGS!” But can T-Mobile’s network really support iPhone users on 3G and eventually 4G speeds?
If you’re a T-Mobile customer who was hoping that the iPhone 5 would be the first iPhone to gain official support for your carrier, then look away now. A leaked T-Mobile memo reveals the company is instructing its staff to sell “against the iPhone” from September 21, and it looks like they’ll be trained to help customers choose alternative smartphones instead.
T-Mobile isn’t exactly the carrier of choice these days. After their failed merger with AT&T, they seem to be lost in carrier limbo. Verizon and AT&T have the largest 4G LTE coverage, Sprint has the only true unlimited data plans, and all three of them offer the iPhone. So where does that leave T-Mobile? T-Mobile knows it has to do something, and it appears that something, is unlimited data for $20 a month.
Earlier today, U.K. communications regulator Ofcom gave Everything Everywhere — the parent company of Orange and T-Mobile — approval to rollout out the country’s first 4G network from September 11. Within hours of that announcement comes a new report that claims Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 will be one of the first smartphones to take advantage of it, possibly handing Everything Everything an “exclusive” as the U.K.’s only 4G carrier compatible with the iPhone.
In a move that makes the Square/Starbucks partnership announced last week look like small potatoes, a group of national and international retailers announced plans to develop their own mobile payment network complete with mobile apps and digital wallet functionality. The move seems almost certain to shake up the nascent mobile payments market where a wide range of companies and organizations have been trying to figure out the secret sauce that will turn mobile payments into a mainstream retail system for the past couple of years.
The Merchant Customer Exchange or MCX, as the new company is known, plans to deliver a solution that offers convenience in both making purchases and in receiving customizable offers from retailers. Development of a mobile app and payment network are underway, but MCX has yet to announce any details about either the app or its network.
Believe it or not, there are over one million iPhone users in the United States who cannot access 3G networks because their carrier of choice is T-Mobile. Apple’s smartphone isn’t officially available on T-Mobile right now — because the operator’s unique 3G network isn’t supported by the handset’s wireless chip — but people choose to use its 2G network instead.
That situation will change for the new iPhone, however, because T-Mobile has announced it will launch a new LTE network next year.
Sprint took a gamble on the iPhone last fall. In exchange for getting the iPhone 4 and 4S on its network, the company agreed to pay $15 billion in subsidies over the next four years. The company acknowledged that it pays 40% more to subsidize the iPhone than it does for Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone handsets. To get shareholders on board, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse actually gave up $3.25 million in compensation.
It looks like Sprint’s investment may be paying off in unexpected. A new study by the Yankee Group revealed this week that the iPhone has a halo effect for carriers as well as it does for other Apple products – an effect that dramatically changed public perception of Sprint once it began carried the iPhone.
Mobile marketing and advertising firm Velti recently released its April Data report, which includes several interesting and surprising details including AT&T’s lead as U.S. iPhone provider. The most surprising piece of information in the report, however, is that adoption rates for the new iPad appear to have peaked and slowed.
As it has said many times before, T-Mobile is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the iPhone on its network. The carrier has been largely unable to attract unlocked iPhone owners due to the fact that frequency incompatibilities make it impossible to use 3G data speeds on T-Mobile’s 1700 MHz AWS band. T-Mobile started transitioning part of its spectrum over to the iPhone-friendly 1900 MHz band last year, and scattered reports have said that a small number of iPhone users can now use 3G speeds in certain areas of the United States.
Not only is T-Mobile saying that its 3G network will be ready for the iPhone by Q4 of this year, but it also plans to offer HSPA+ 4G speeds on an iPhone-friendly frequency.
Remember back in the day when Apple and Google were all chummy? Back when the original iPhone was released in 2007, and Google wasn’t in the smartphone business? That all changed once Google betrayed Apple’s trust and launched the Android operating system, and ever since then Google has held the stance that they never copied the iPhone. It’s hard to prove that a company wasn’t thinking about something, but newly released designs of Google’s original concept phone from 2006 show that Google wasn’t even considering the creation of a touchscreen smartphone back when the iPhone was unveiled, so they stole Apple’s designs instead once they saw them.
AT&T is finally unlocking iPhones at the end of a completed contract, but if you bought the new iPhone 4S you’re going to be waiting another 18 months or so until your phone is eligible for an official carrier unlock. What if you want to use your iPhone on T-Mobile, or maybe go overseas and use a local carrier rather than pay for some crazy out of coverage fees? Fortunately, hacker Loktar_Sun has discovered an incredibly easy way to unlock your iPhone 4S or any other iPhone. The process is super easy – all you need is a jailbroken iPhone, and these 13 easy-to-follow steps.
Earlier this month, five regional U.S. carriers announced that they would begin carrying the iPhone 4 and 4S. All were offering the devices at $50 less than the standard list prices of the larger national carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint). All five carriers are in more rural areas of the country that aren’t well served by the national carriers. Two are in Alaska, for example.
Just about every major carrier seems to boast the “fastest network speeds,” while bombarding us with acronyms like LTE and buzzwords such as “lightning fast.” When it’s all said and done, we’re left confused and none the closer to the truth of which network actually has the fastest speeds. So how do we find out the truth? Well, it’s not as simple as we’d like it to be and there are near infinite variables to the equation, but one way to get a general idea of how fast a network’s speeds will be in a real-world environment is to test them out.
Stolen phones could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a collaboration between the U.S government and the four biggest mobile carriers. The new scheme will use a central database of stolen handsets, and the carriers will use this to block their reactivation.
The idea is that it will reduce cellphone theft by making stolen phones virtually useless.
Those of you who have purchased your iPhone off-contract, aka for the full price, will be happy to hear that AT&T will begin unlocking iPhones at customers’ request this Sunday. Carrier unlocking will allow customers “in good standing” to switch out the AT&T SIM for a SIM on another network, as long as the bands are supported. This is great for customers who want to travel with their AT&T iPhone internationally.
Most news about the iPhone in the U.S. is centered around the major national carriers including those that offer the iPhone (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint) and T-Mobile, which doesn’t.
Today, however, that news focuses on Virginia-based carrier nTelos, which will become the second smaller carrier in the U.S. to offer the iPhone. Seeking to differentiate its iPhone options from the larger carriers, nTelos is also offering some sweet deals on the purchase of an iPhone 4/4S as well as a bargain price for unlimited data.
