Google Debuts New Fi Wireless Service

Photo Credit: Kachwanya

Google finally announced their wireless phone service called Fi. The service will cost $20 per month for unlimited talk and texting plus $10 per gigabyte of data used. It's a little bit cheaper than your standard phone service plan.

The downside is that if you use 7GB or more regularly, then a normal phone plan with T-Mobile or Sprint would be cheaper than Fi. The upside is that Google will only charge you for the data you use each month, no matter which plan you end up going with. For example, if you were to pay $30 for 3GB and only use 1.4 GB, then at the end of the month you'd receive a refund for $16. No U.S. carriers offer these rebates, the closest you can get is going with rollover minutes with your standard phone carriers. Google is just trying to have a service that makes it easier on us to surf the web at a cheap price. Fi also works over Wi-Fi networks if there's no cellular coverage available.

Something I don't like about Fi is that you can't use your normal smartphones, like Apple or Samsung. These phones won't be compatible with Fi at first. The only phone you can get is a Google Nexus 6 phone that starts at about $649 or $27 a month for 24 months. Motorola did come out with a Nexus 6, with a 6-inch screen, which is bigger than your typical smartphone, but not as good of a phone as an iPhone or Galaxy S6. Still, Google's plans are cheaper than your standard services provided by AT&T and Verizon, two of the largest, broader network coverage carriers in the country.

The Fi service is also providing inexpensive international features, like unlimited international texting. Just like the U.S., data will cost $10 per GB in 120 major countries like Japan, Germany, and India. Also a plus side if you or anyone you know either travels a lot or is in the marines and also across seas.

Google is buying their wireless service from T-Mobile and Sprint, which isn't appealing to me at all. In my opinion, Sprint and T-Mobile are two of the worst phone carriers available. But I can see why they are doing it this way. It saves Google from having to buy an airwave license and start a national network from nothing. And for T-Mobile or Sprint, it gives them more traffic on their networks without having to worrying about any risks. T-Mobile shares were up 2.1% and Sprint 1.7% with Google shares up 1.3% after they announced the new Fi service.

The prices may not be as low as anticipated, but it still is a good plan to consider. Especially if you already have services with T-Mobile or Sprint and are willing to buy from the limited phones you have to choose from. For now, I'm going to stick with my AT&T service and basic smartphone. I'm sure this isn't the last we will hear of this. Next time around, they'll have more options, phones, and services to pick from.

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AT&T Gets Fired Up About the Report Released by the FCC

On Thursday, December 1 AT&T spoke out about the recent staff report that was released by the Federal Communications Commission about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger. AT&T definitely did not hold back about its feelings that the report was hypocritical and one-sided.

"The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece and not a considered analysis," wrote Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, in a blog post.

The report was released by the FCC on Tuesday, November 29. That was the same day that the FCC announced that AT&T had withdrawn its merger application. AT&T said that it withdrew the application because the FCC had said that the merger was not in the interest of the public and needed to be looked at by an administrative law judge.

The FCC claims that it released all of the data that it had collected concerning the merger for the public’s sake; however, AT&T believes that the release of the information was unfair.

On Thursday AT&T thoroughly articulated its displeasure with the way that things have been handled concerning this whole situation.

"In our view the report raises questions as to whether its authors were predisposed. The report cherry-picks facts to support its views and ignores facts that don't," Cicconi wrote. "Where facts were lacking, the report speculates, with no basis, and then treats its own speculations as if they were fact. This is clearly not the fair and objective analysis to which any party is entitled, and which we have every right to expect."

There were several issues that were brought up in the FCC report that Cicconi went on to address.

AT&T made the claim that if the company were to acquire T-Mobile it would help improve its 4G LTE network; however, in the report that was released, the FCC said that AT&T will “build out” its 4G whether it acquires T-Mobile or not.

Cicconi countered this writing, “The report apparently assumes a high enough level of competition exists in rural areas to compel billions of dollars in investment. Yet the report elsewhere argues that the level of wireless competition in more populated areas of America is so fragile that the merger must be disallowed. At the very least, these conclusions show a logical inconsistency. T-Mobile has no clear path to LTE," he said.

There has also been a huge debate about whether or not the merger would create or kill jobs. The FCC claims that there will be a large amount of layoffs if the merger were to occur, but Cicconi disagrees.

"This notion—that government spending on broadband deployment creates jobs and economic growth but private investment does not—makes no sense," Cicconi wrote. "Conversely, if the FCC had applied to its own broadband fund the same analysis it used for our merger-related investments, the result would be similar—zero new broadband, zero jobs, zero growth."

Cicconi was also frustrated with the fact that the report from the FCC “barely” made mention of spectrum. "Surely, it is neither fair nor logical for the FCC to trumpet a national spectrum crisis for much of the past year and then draft a report claiming that two major wireless companies face no such constraints despite sworn declarations demonstrating the opposite."

It is clear that AT&T is thoroughly frustrated with the FCC. "We believe that the utter absence of balance is clear and demonstrates that the document lacks all credibility," Cicconi wrote. However, despite these bumps in the road, it seems as though AT&T still wishes to take whatever steps are necessary to move forward with the merger. "We understood the issues such a combination might raise, and we made clear, publicly and privately, our readiness to address those concerns. We are still ready to do so," he said.

As expected, AT&T’s rival, Sprint, seemed to agree with the report from the FCC. The company called the report “a careful, substantive analysis."

"Rather than accept the expert agency's Analysis and Findings, AT&T has chosen to make baseless claims about the FCC's process," said Vonya McCann, Sprint's senior vice president for governmental affairs, in a statement. "Let's not forget that it was AT&T who tried to game the process by requesting to withdraw its merger application in the pre-dawn hours of Thanksgiving. AT&T can't have it both ways: either it wanted to have an application that would be judged on the merits or it didn't. We agree with AT&T on one point however: the public should read the Analysis and Findings on AT&T's proposed takeover."

Sources: The Washington Post - AT&T slams FCC report on T-Mobile merger, sees bias and cherry-picking and PCMag - AT&T Slams FCC Merger Report as One-Sided

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AT&T Withdraws Merger Application

On Thursday, November 24 AT&T announced that it withdrew the application that it submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in order to acquire T-Mobile. With this withdrawal there will be more than $4 billion in “break-up” fees.

AT&T made sure to clarify that although it did withdraw the application which was submitted to the FCC, the deal is not dead. The company claims that instead it will focus on the antitrust lawsuit that the Department of Justice brought forward. The lawsuit is seeking to block the merger, due to the concern about competition issues.

"AT&T Inc. and [T-Mobile parent company] Deutsche Telekom AG are continuing to pursue the sale of Deutsche Telekom's U.S. wireless assets to AT&T and are taking this step to facilitate the consideration of all options at the FCC and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice either through the litigation pending before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ... or alternate means," AT&T said in a statement. "As soon as practical, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG intend to seek the necessary FCC approval."

The decision to withdraw the merger application came just two days after Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the FCC, suggested that the merger was not in the interest of the public and advised the other commissioners to send the merger application for review to an administrative judge.

"The record clearly shows that—in no uncertain terms—this merger would result in a massive loss of U.S. jobs and investment," said a senior FCC official.

The chairman basically recommended that the deal be rejected; however, it is important to note that the FCC cannot technically block a deal. The FCC only has the ability to approve, approve with conditions or refer to an administrative law judge. When the FCC was reviewing the deal, they said that if AT&T and T-Mobile were to merge, the result would be massive layoffs. The case will go to trial in February.

There are several different consumer groups that feel that the withdraw of the merger application is meant as a last effort to save the merger.

"After today's actions, the chances that AT&T will take over T-Mobile are almost gone," President and Co-founder of Public Knowledge Gigi B. Sohn said in a statement. "While you can never count out AT&T entirely, the fact that they pulled their FCC application speaks volumes about the company's lack of confidence that it could prove in a legal setting at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the claims it spent millions of dollars to make about job creation and rural deployment of broadband, among other issues."

Sohn said that she believes that AT&T is attempting to "prevent the FCC from making public its many, well-documented findings that the deal is not in the public interest."

The Senior Vice President and Policy Director of Media Access Project Andrew Jay Schwartzman said that this decision from AT&T is an "act of desperation." "It is time for vainglorious managers at AT&T to accept that there is no way that this deal can obtain approval of the FCC and the courts," he said.

Source: PCMag - AT&T Pulls T-Mobile Merger Application From FCC, Will Take $4B Charge

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T-Mobile Reports An Increase in U.S. Customers

It was announced on Thursday, November 10 that T-Mobile has been able to increase its number of U.S. customers during the last quarter. This is the first time that the company has been able to do so in over a year.

"A decline of 186,000 contract customers in the third quarter was offset by an increase in prepay customers of 312,000," Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company, stated during an earnings report.

Deutsche Telekom seemed to be very surprised by the progress that T-Mobile had made. They said that T-Mobile had "reported somewhat more positive development than in past quarters."

Deutsche Telekom went on to say that, on average, T-Mobile brings in about $14 per customer in revenue. This is a 13 percent jump from this time last year. Although T-Mobile is the only carrier out of the four major U.S. carriers to not offer the iPhone, it reported that the number of its customers with smartphones has increased by 40 percent, reaching 10.1 million customers.

"The improvement in earnings was largely attributable to successful savings initiatives and new rate plans without subsidized handsets," Deutsche Telekom said.
So, the big question is whether or not these improvements will affect AT&T’s efforts to purchase T-Mobile. One of AT&T’s main points during a recent Department of Justice lawsuit was that T-Mobile is going downhill and can only be saved if a company like AT&T saves it.

In September, in response to the DOJ, AT&T said that different rivals like Sprint are unable to "explain how T-Mobile, the only major carrier to have actually lost subscribers in a robustly growing market, provides a unique competitive constraint on AT&T."

"For the past two years, T-Mobile has been losing customers despite growing demand, and, without the spectrum to deploy a 4G LTE network such as that deployed by the other carriers, there is no reason to expect a change in its undifferentiated competitive significance," AT&T continued.

There is also a major debate about if the AT&T and T-Mobile merger were to occur whether or not it would create or kill jobs. The Communication Workers of America put out a report on Tuesday that said that the merger would create thousands of job, and the Economic Policy Institute said that a merger between the two mobile carriers could create somewhere between 55,000 and 96,000 jobs over the next seven years. They did, however, mention that this would only occur if AT&T followed through on its promise to invest $8 billion into its infrastructure over the seven year period.

However, the director of the Center for Economics and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine, David Neumark, said in a report released in August that "AT&T has actually told investors and the federal government that the merger would lead to reduced capital expenditures on net. If you take EPI's own logic and apply that net reduction in capital expenditures to the data, you predict fewer jobs, not more jobs."

Who knows what will happen? AT&T is clearly the stronger company, but it is also apparent that T-Mobile is taking steps towards being a much more successful mobile carrier. Who knows if T-Mobile has enough time to save themselves though? One successful quarter does not mean that they are necessarily heading in the right direction overall. We’ll just all have to wait and see how it goes.

Source: PCMag - T-Mobile Adds Customers as Battle Over AT&T Merger Continues

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T-Mobile's New Dual-Screen Smartphone

On Monday, October 17 T-Mobile unveiled the “ultimate multi-tasking handset,” the dual-screen LG DoublePlay.

The DoublePlay smartphone has some amazing features. It offers a 3.5-inch touchscreen at the top of the phone as well as a 2-inch bottom touchscreen when you slide out the keyboard, which is a QWERTY keyboard that is split on both sides of the bottom display. The smartphone also comes standard with Swype, which allows for easy texting. T-Mobile said that it "allows users to perform multiple tasks at once such as updating their Facebook pages while simultaneously surfing the Web, texting or checking email." The DoublePlay runs a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor as well as Android 2.3. It also features a fantastic 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and 1080 HD video recording.

"Whether sending texts or emails, checking in on social media sites, or browsing the Web, consumers are looking for fun and easy ways to stay connected to the people and things that matter most to them," said Kim Swanson, director of product management at T-Mobile USA. "With the introduction of the LG DoublePlay and its unique dual-screen design, we are bringing the ultimate multitasking tool to our customers."

Unfortunately, T-Mobile has not yet announced when they will be releasing the DoublePlay and how much it will cost customers. However, there have been recent reports that the device will launch on November 2 and will cost users $149.99.

Just as a side note, the DoublePlay will be the device that is used for the 2011 U.S. National Texting Championship. The competition seeks to find the fastest texter in the United States and rewards whoever can text the fastest with a grand prize of $50,000. Obviously, if the DoublePlay is being chosen for a national texting competition, it has to be a great media phone. If you’re a constant texter, this could be the phone for you!

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BlackBerry Curve 9360 Available at T-Mobile September 28

T-Mobile announced on Wednesday the upcoming availability of the BlackBerry Curve 9360. The Curve 9360 is said to combine powerful new BlackBerry features with an attractive price point according to the company.

This new device will be available in two different color variants, black and merlot. In addition to that, it will also be running the latest BlackBerry 7 operating system and utilize the powerful BlackBerry 7 Webkit-browser. This is good for those tech junkies out there that absolutely cannot live without their CrackBerry...I mean BlackBerry.

The new Curve is also designed to address a large, important segment of the global mobile phone market with consumers looking to upgrade their existing phone or current BlackBerry Curve by getting a more affordable, easy-to-use, full-featured and socially-connected phone.

The new BlackBerry Curve comes with an all new sleek design, including a 2.4" screen, full QWERTY keyboard and navigation trackpad, making it perfect for mobile communication via call, text or email. In addition to that, it is also equipped with essential smartphone features like a 5-megapixel camera with flash, video recorder and WiFi connectivity.

The new Curve also comes with the latest edition of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) pre-loaded and extends the real-time BBM experience to a host of other applications like Foursquare, allowing you to easily stay connected with all of your friends via your social networking sites.

The BlackBerry Curve 9360 is available in an exclusive pre-sale for T-Mobile business customers right now and will be available in the black color finish at T-Mobile retail stores and select dealers beginning on September 28 for $79.99 on a new two-year agreement and after a $50 mail-in rebate. The merlot finish is expected to hit stores on October 12.

Source: Engadget - T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 9360 available for $79 on September 28th, swanks it up with a merlot variant

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Does 4G Really Mean Much of Anything Anymore?

4G is something that we hear wireless carriers talking about all the time these days. Everyone seems to be fighting to provide the best 4G coverage, and while they try to convince the public that their particular company is the best, they don’t seem to mind taking a few jabs at their competition.

The problem is that 4G honestly seems to have turned into a meaningless term. All four of the major U.S. wireless carriers claim that their faster wireless networks are “4G” networks, but really none of the networks actually meet the International Telecommunication Union’s standards for 4G.

Speed is the most important requirement for a network to be labeled as 4G. The ITU says that 4G is technology that downloads at a speed of 100Mbps on mobile devices or 1Gbps on fixed wireless connections. The technology that all four of the U.S. carriers utilizes just isn’t that fast.

Back when the industry moved from 2G to 3G there weren’t any issues. The criteria was clearly defined, so there was no mislabeling going on, and wireless service providers and device makers followed the criteria when labeling their devices.

When 4G started to come about, the ITU defined new requirements. The problem was that wireless operators have decided to ignore the specifications set down by the ITU and have attempted to push their own definition of 4G.

The fact that carriers are doing this and the ITU really hasn’t done anything to clear up the matter is really getting to some people. It’s honestly making everything very confusing for customers.

Dan Warren, the senior director of technology for the GSM Association, an industry group that represents the interests of mobile operators in more than 200 different countries, said, “The term 4G is basically meaningless. It's not a term that anyone could use with a straight face to refer to anything technical. It's a marketing term that means different things to different people."

Some people are arguing that a label is merely a label and nothing else, but Warren says that the standards that are set by the ITU are important for setting customers’ expectations.

"The people who suffer from this are the consumers, who are confused," he said. "The operators use this term interchangeably to refer to different technologies that are incompatible. Customers are confused because they think they can compare the networks like for like. But they can't."

So how close is the “4G” service that U.S. carriers are providing to the real 4G service that is defined by the ITU? Well, keep in mind that the ITU says that the download requirement for 4G is 100Mbps. Verizon claims that its LTE service offers an average download speed somewhere between 6Mbsp and 12Mbsp, and Sprint says that its network download speed comes in somewhere between 3Mbsp and 6Mbsp.

T-Mobile didn’t want to be left out of the 4G game. They were a little a late with their 3G coverage compared to their competitors, but they almost immediately began updating with advanced 3G technology called HSPA+. The upgrades made their service almost as fast as LTE and WiMax in terms of speed. Therefore, last summer T-Mobile began marketing their service as having “4G-like speeds.” By the fall the company dropped the “like” aspect and began referring to their network as a 4G network.

Now instead of stepping in and clarifying, the ITU sent out a press release in early December that simply said that it was okay for the U.S. carriers to call their networks 4G.

"It is recognized that [4G], while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third-generation systems now deployed," the ITU said in the statement.

This just made everything even more confusing and complicated.

T-Mobile’s CTO Neville Ray justifies calling the company’s HSPA+ network “4G” because he says that it performs just as well or better than the networks that T-Mobile’s competitors are calling 4G.

"Sprint chose to call WiMax 4G first," he said. "And then they chose to charge their customers $10 more for the service, even if some customers aren't in an area where they can get WiMax coverage. So who is misleading customers?"

"Our service performs better than what they are offering," he went on to say. "And HSPA+ and the path this technology is on has the same ability to reach the definitions of 4G as much as LTE and WiMax do."

Warren continues to say that the misuse of the term 4G has just gone too far.
"T-Mobile wasn't the first to cross the line in how they used 4G," he said. "But let's just say it went the furthest. Verizon and Sprint each bent the definition, but T-Mobile stretched the most."

Verizon and Sprint are obviously just as guilty as T-Mobile, but standards experts are saying that those companies’ claims are a little more justifiable, since their technology is at least moving towards the direction of true ITU approved 4G standards.

"Never anywhere on the planet have I ever heard of any version of HSPA being referred to as 4G," said Perry LaForge, the founder, executive director, and chairman of the CDMA Development Group (CDG), a trade association that promotes the use of CDMA cellular technology around the world. "In general, the industry looked at LTE and WiMax as the two 4G approaches. And the ITU was going through the process. Then this marketing stuff cropped up."

Honestly, it’s really just all a big mess. If only the ITU had stepped in when carriers started making 4G claims that weren’t meeting 4G standards, then we wouldn’t be in this situation and there would be a lot less customer confusion.

According to Consumer Reports, AT&T Is the Worst Mobile Service Provider

Yes, AT&T is the service provider of the coveted and ever so popular iPhone, but many customers are not even close to being satisfied with the service that the company provides. Consumer Reports did an annual survey of different cell phone carriers and reported Monday that AT&T is the worst cell phone provider in the country right now. Consumer Reports polled 58,000 ConsumerReports.com readers to compile the numbers for their survey. More than half of the respondents whose carrier was AT&T said that they owned some version of the iPhone, but they didn’t seem too happy with their service.

Consumer Reports continued saying that AT&T was the only carrier whose overall satisfaction scores dropped significantly since the survey was conducted last year. AT&T only had a 60 percent score for overall customer satisfaction.

The data that was collected showed that iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their service provider than owners of comparable iPhone-like smartphones that were on another carrier. Electronics editor for Consumer Reports Paul Reynolds said in a statement, “Our survey suggests that an iPhone from Verizon Wireless, which is rumored, could indeed be good news for iPhone fans.” This rumor has been circulating for quite some time. It’s been shot down many times, but I guess it’s begun swirling around again.

“We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is, wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors," said AT&T in a statement. "Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation's fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent - the equivalent of just one call in a thousand - of the industry leader."

So how did the other national carriers do with overall customer satisfaction? Well, Verizon and Sprint were almost tied. Verizon had 74 percent satisfaction, and Sprint had 73 percent satisfaction. Consumer Reports said, "Verizon Wireless has an edge in voice service overall. Sprint scored better in some aspects of customer service, which is a remarkable turnaround from past years when that was a weak point for the company,"

The fourth top national mobile carrier, T-Mobile, came in with 69 percent overall satisfaction rates, making it the third top carrier in satisfaction.

There is also one regional cell phone carrier that did quite well with customer satisfaction. US Cellular is available in 26 different states and has an 82 percent satisfaction rating. Consumer Reports said, "It stands out for value, voice service, and customer service.”

Consumer Reports also went on to evaluate the best smartphones from each carrier. They checked out the Motorola Droid X for Verizon, the Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint, the Samsung Captivate for AT&T, and the Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile.

It was very interesting to see that one of the most popular smartphones is on the worst national service provider. That is encouraging for Verizon though if they are be able to secure the rights to the iPhone sometime soon. AT&T needs to step it up, or they are definitely going to face some major issues in the future.

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First LG Phone for T-Mobile

On June 30TH, LG introduced their first ever T-mobile phone, the LG Sentio. For being LG’s first phone with T-mobile, you would most likely expect something fabulous and show stopping but don’t exactly hold your breath. The Sentio is nothing more then an average, middle of the road type of phone. It does however have a nice smooth and sleek design, and its multimedia features work fairly well. Perhaps the most attractive part of the phone is that it is very affordable.

The Sentio has an incredible slim and stylish design and is quite compact. It is 4.2 inches long and 2.1 inches thick. It is one of the thinnest phones yet to hit the market at only 1.5 inches thick, and its one of the lightest as well weighing in at 3.3 ounces. Although the Sentio is not covered in steel or glass like most other high-end touchscreen phones, it is wrapped in a lovely soft slate gray plastic that grips well. Its smooth corners and edges add to the overall feel of the phone.

The front of the phone features a beautiful 3.0-inch touch-screen display. The Sentio has a resistive screen so it's not quite as responsive as the regular touchscreen that is used on more advanced touchscreen phones such as the iPhone. You have to push a little harder on the screen then you should have to in order to get results from the Sentio. One nice feature the phone possesses is its vibration feedback capability. Vibration Feedback is when there is a slight vibration each time you touch the screen, this allows you to feel the responsiveness. You are given the ability to adjust the type and intensity of the vibration.

You can customize the Sentio's home screen with widgets or application shortcuts. By merely tapping on the arrow on the right side of the screen, you can drag and drop widgets from the slide-out menu to the home screen. You can make any function of the phone into a widget shortcut icon. At the bottom row of the home screen are four additional shortcuts to the phone dialer, the contacts list, the Web browser, and the main menu.

In order to dial a number to make a phone call, you must use a virtual number keypad who’s icon is located at the bottom of the home screen. When you touch the icon your usual phone keypad will appear. The keys are large, and the number input area is quite roomy as well. As far as texting goes, you can stick with T9 predictive text on the nine-key keypad, or you can rotate the phone ninety degrees to the right to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard is spacious enough and is fairly easy to use. On the downside, the text input area is quite small making it somewhat hard to read your whole message as you type.

Underneath the 3-inch touch screen are three real non-touch screen buttons: Send, Back, and the End/Power key. All three keys have a nice appearance and are easy to press. Located on the left side of the phone are the volume button, the task menu key, and the headset/charger jack. Along the right side of the phone is the camera key, and the Sentio’s 3.0-megapixel lens is placed on the back. The camera is okay, but it certainly isn’t above average or anything. A screen lock key is located on the top of the phone and placed conveniently behind the battery cover is a microSD card slot.

The LG Sentio's phone book has the ability to hold 1,000 contacts with room in each entry for five numbers, three e-mail addresses, three instant-messenger IDs, a Web address, a company name, three street addresses, a birthday, an anniversary date, and a memo. Its standard features include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, an alarm clock, a calendar, a notepad, a world clock, a tasks list, a calculator, a stopwatch, a unit converter, and a tip calculator. You also get voice command, instant messenger, e-mail, a HTML Web browser, Bluetooth, and GPS with Telenav Navigator support. For social networking fans, LG includes Social Buzz, an app for managing your various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, on the Sentio.

Overall the Sentio has good call quality, posses the support for 7.2Mbps 3G networks, and has a rated battery life of 6 hours talk time and 13 days standby time. For the most part the Sentio is a fairly decent phone for its price of $69.99 with new two-year contract with T-Mobile.

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More Androids Than iPhones

Research in Motion's Blackberry is the number one smartphone operating system in the country and for a while, Apple's iPhone was number two, but the data is in and there's a new kid in town. Google's Android has now seen to it that iPhone drop to number three in the first quarter.

The data, reported by NPD Group, shows that Android made up 28% of all units sold in the United States during the first quarter. Blackberry made up over a third of the market, selling 36% and the iPhone came in at only 21%. Keep in mind that these numbers are estimated based on consumer surveys. Also, they do not includes sales made to businesses and through enterprise contracts. And while iPhone's operating system is only available, on, well, the iPhone, Android is available on several different phones manufactured by Samsung, HTC, and Motorola.

Even so, there's no doubt, Android is becoming increasingly popular. NPD analyst, Ross Rubin, said that for the first time, Android software is available in all major U.S. networks, which is helping to drive sales of the devices. Verizon has been the most outspoken carrier, as they launched a huge campaign that marketed the devices last year. As a matter of fact, Verizon has been offering buy-one-get-one free smartphones, which include the Androids. T-Mobile is also a major carrier of the Android smartphones, and AT&T has begun selling them as well.

And according to Rubin, while Verizon has been helping Android sales, Android has been helping Verizon's business as well. AT&T makes up about one third or 32% of the smartphone market, but Verizon is catching up with 30% of all smartphones sold in the United States going through the company. T-Mobile and Sprint are pretty far behind with 17% and 15% of sales respectively.

iPhone remains very popular in the United States. Apple reported new activation of 900,000 iPhones in the first quarter, alone, and sales of 1.8 million iPhones to people to people who were already with AT&T. As a matter of fact, NPD suggests that iPhones would be even more popular if they weren't tied to a single carrier (AT&T).

Rubin says that if the rumored Verizon iPhone was available today, Apple would certainly sell more phones. He added, "But it's harder to say what will happen in the long term. It's difficult to know what the feature-set will look like on phones in a year. But it's clear the iPhone still has enough cachet today to pick up market share."

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Verizon's HTC Incredible May Be Closer Than You Think

Confirmation has set in. A word from sources at Verizon Wireless announced that the highly anticipated HTC Incredible is supposed to begin arriving at Verizon stores in two weeks. This isn't that surprising considering the fact that Verizon recently announced that it was beginning a test deployment of Android 2.1 to the Motorola Droid smartphones. Android 2.1 is the OS that is speculated to power the Incredible.

Android 2.1 has a lot of cool features. It adds pinch-to-zoom in the browser, better voice-to-text support, animated wallpapers and tweaks to Google Maps. The Droid is already operating under the Android 2.0 OS but received a slight bump up to the Android 2.0.1 OS through an over-the-air update. But most people are focused on the HTC Incredible, which may turn out to be the slickest Android handset on the market.

According to most reports on the device, the Incredible will boast a 1GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250 SnapDragon ARM CPU as well as 512MB of DRAM, exactly like the Nexus One. Different from the Nexus One, the Incredible's CPU will be underclocked to 768MHz. Some people may frown on the underclocking but even so it should prove to be more than enough speed to run almost any app as well as providing longer talk time than the Nexus One.

The Incredible comes with an 8-megapixel camera with a noticeably larger lens than that of the Nexus One. The camera does make the Incredible ever so thicker than the Nexus One coming in at 117.5x58.5x11.9mm. Another rumor floating around about the Incredible is the addition of 6GB of flash, a microSD expansion slot and an FM tuber with a standard 1300 mAh battery. What carrying the Incredible could mean for Verizon is that they may hold off on the Nexus One for now. However, Sprint is wasting no time on getting the Nexus One out on the its powerful 3G network.

A lot of people are excited for the HTC Incredible. It looks like major U.S. networks besides AT&T have, for the most part, abandoned the Apple iPhone. Most companies are now hotly pursuing the deployment of new Android handsets. The next iPhone is supposed to come out this summer and could see a substantial challenge from the Nexus One an Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile as well as the HTC Incredible on Verizon.

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Sprint to Release First 4G Smartphone This Year

Could 2010 be the year of 4G? It will if Sprint has anything to do with it. The current 4G leader says it will introduce the first 4G smartphone before the middle of the year.

The company introduced its 4G WiMAX network two years ago and so far, wireless cards, mobile hotspots, and USB modems have taken advantage of its speed - ten times faster than 3G - but there have yet to be any phones to use with it. The 4G network doesn't reach as many people as 3G, only about 30 million people in 27 markets, but by the end of the 2010, the company expects to add Houston, New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Washington to that reach.

Forbes made the report last Thursday that the new smartphone would be released during the first half of 2010. Rumor has it that the handset will be dual mode and allow users to take advantage of 3G coverage in areas where 4G is not available. HTC is supposedly going to make the phone which will be based on Google's Android operating system.

To compete with Sprint's WiMAX technology, Verizon says it will introduce its own 4G network this year, using LTE technology. AT&T will launch an LTE network sometime in 2011, while T-Mobile also plans to use LTE in the future.

Being the lone WiMAX-supporting carrier, it's no wonder Sprint is in a hurry to beat out the competition, but it could hurt the company in the long run as other companies work to increase the popularity of LTE. Some say the hurried use of 4G is an attempt to make up for the huge loss the company has suffered since 2005. In the last quarter alone, the company saw a huge loss of both customers and revenue. The new 4G smartphone could attract new customers with the right features and marketing.

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T-Mobile myTouch 3G Available Today August 5 2009

The highly anticipated T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google is now available at T-Mobile retail stores as well as partner locations an online. T-Mobile is going all out to promote the new myTouch by having aerial skydivers, each dressed as a unique individual to reflect the individuality of the myTouch customer, parachute out of a plane in synchronized formations over San Francisco.

According to Chief Marketing Officer Denny Marie Post, "myTouch 3G can be personalized to wholly reflect your individuality, pride and passion, making it 100% you. We'll help this come to life from the get-go at our retail stores, where unique sample personas will be displayed to illustrate some of the many customization options. Also, our skilled myTouch 3G Retail champions will learn about our customer's interests and needs to make sure they're suited to make their myTouch unlike any other."

The myTouch 3G has a sleek and lightweight look and feel to it. In addition to that, there is a number of different accessories and pre-designed shell patterns that you can add to your myTouch which also lets you individualize accessories as well. And if you want to take it even further you can even personally design your own shell. This is accomplished by uploading a personal photo, graphic design, or by selecting shapes, logos, shapes or icons. The list of accessories is very large and includes things like gel skins and device cases to wrist straps and covers. If you go online you can find 5 different accessory packs this month. These packs vary from a music pack that includes speakers and a bonus promotional card for Amazon MP3 downloads to a fitness pack which comes with a fitness belt and arm band. even the inside of the myTouch is customizable by allowing you to customize the entire theme with all new wallpapers, icons and widgets all of which can be added directly to your myTouch from the home screen. Android market has thousands of different apps which give you further customization options.

T-Mobile has also launched a brand new application called AppPack. AppPack gives you a sample of some of the better apps out there. For the launch today, the AppPack has these free applications:

Sherpa - Learns your likes and dislikes through user feedback and behavior. Then it prioritizes recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions.

imeem Mobile - streams customized music based on your tastes. Recommends new songs, artists and albums based on your favorite songs.

WorldTour - Puts live webcams from around the world on your home screen.

Phonebook - An upgraded and more personalized phonebook for Android.

Movies by Flixster - Movie reviews with a little something extra. Through Facebook integration you can find friends who want to see the same movie or read reviews from your friends who have already seen it.

There are also 3 T-Mobile apps: T-Mobile My Account, T-Mobile Visual Voicemail and T-Mobile Mobile Backup.

There are also many other popular phone features on the myTouch like ones that come from T-Mobile's partnership with Google. You can get one touch access to things like Google Search by voice, Google Maps with Street View, Picasa and YouTube.

Designed by HTC, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G will be available at all T-Mobile retail stores nationwide. The myTouch is going to run you $200 with the signing of a two-year contract. Don' live next to a T-Mobile store? Don't worry, you can also get your myTouch online at www.T-MobilemyTouch.com. The myTouch is only available in 3 different colors: black, white and merlot.

Top 8 Business Smartphones for Under $100

It has recently become surprisingly easy to find an incredibly helpful and functional smartphone that will cater to all your business needs for a very reasonable price. You no longer have to pan out anymore than $100 to have an amazing phone with every feature you could possibly imagine. Here's a quick rundown of the smartphones, sorted by provider, that are considered the best possible options available for under $100.

Sprint

BlackBerry Curve 8330
$49.99 (with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate)
Yeah this BlackBerry isn't RIM's newest smartphone, with the release of the Curve 8900, but that doesn't take away from all the great features of the Curve 8330. With the built-in GPS, push e-mail, and fantastic voice quality this BlackBerry just can't be beat for the price tag.

T-Mobile

BlackBerry Curve 8320
$74.99 (with two-year contract)
This smartphone has a wonderful mixture of features and power, and the newly lowered price just tops it all off. Another appealing aspect to consider with this phone is T-Mobile's unlimited Wi-Fi calling capabilities that they offer for a mere $9.99/month.

T-Mobile Dash
$49.99 (with two-year contract)
Now the Dash is certainly considered old and compared to a lot of other smartphones it can thought slow at times, but to posses a phone with the ability to run Windows Mobile 6 and offers all normal Microsoft-related features for such a low price gives reason to look past the sluggishness.

AT&T

Nokia E71x
$99.99 (with two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate)
The E71x is an awesome looking phone. The design is perfect. Add to its attractiveness a powerful Web browser, built-in Office document editing, and Microsoft Exchange support and you have one heck of a phone.

Apple iPhone 3G
$99.99 (with two-year contract)
This smartphone features fantastic Microsoft Exchange connectivity that allows you to sync calendars, contacts, and e-mails with your corporate server. Also with all the amazing applications offered with the iPhone 3G this certainly is hard phone to pass up.

Samsung Jack SGH-i637
$99.99 (with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate)
The Jack is a slick chic phone that instantly catches your eye. Beyond looks, it also features an impressive mix of 3G and Wi-Fi radio, great voice quality, and Windows Mobile messaging. The Jack is a great smartphone for consumers who don't like the iPhone to look into.

Verizon Wireless

Blackberry Curve 8330
$49.99 (with two year contract)
This BlackBerry is also offered by Sprint as I mentioned above. With Verizon however, this smartphone does not include an IM client or mobile TV support, but you also don't have to deal with the $100 mail-in rebate that you would have if you went with Sprint as your provider. So really it just depends on what application you want for your phone.

HTC Ozone
$49.99 (with two-year contract)
The Ozone has plenty of attractive application and features. The highlights would include its CDMA and GSM compatibility and its Windows Mobile abilities. Package it with Verizon's dependable network and your business needs are sure to be met.

T-Mobile's Soon to Be Released Smartphone

T-Mobile will announce their latest smartphone, the Google Android device called the myTouch, on Monday. This will be the second T-Mobile smartphone to utilize Android, Google’s open-source mobile operating system. T-Mobile introduced the G1, which was the world’s first Google Android phone, last fall, but believes that the new myTouch will appeal to a wider variety of consumers.

This summer there has already been a flood of new and improved smartphones. Sprint Nextel’s network released Palm’s long awaited Pre, Nokia introduced their new touch-screen N97, and Apple presented their faster, superior iPhone 3G S. So how does T-Mobile plan on making the myTouch stand out among all the other smartphones? The answer is the personalization of the myTouch.

It is said that there will be no two myTouch phones that are alike. Consumers will be given the opportunity to completely customize their myTouch device with a variety of Android applications. T-Mobile representatives will even be available to assist customers with the set up of their new smartphones before they leave the store.

An example of how the different Android application will make the myTouch more personal can be found in an application called Sherpa. Sherpa uses GPS to assist smartphone users in finding restaurants, movie theaters, and other points of interest wherever they are. What is so cool about this application is that it will remember where you have been previously and will make recommendations based on your past searches. Sherpa will also give you a list of special events currently going on in the area and tell you how far away you are from them. This application will only be available through T-Mobile. The myTouch also includes unique Google applications such as easy upload to Picasa and YouTube. Other areas where consumers will be able to personalize their myTouch include the ability to add music, a personalized calendar, widgets, photos, and shortcuts to Web links.

The myTouch is produced by HTC and basically has the same hardware design as the Google Ion (HTC Magic). The Google Ion is thinner than the G1 and smaller than the iPhone. It has a 3.2-inch touch screen that offers 320 x 480 pixels of resolution. There is no physical keyboard on the Google Ion, and it features 3G and WiFi network support.

The myTouch will come in a variety of new assorted colors. It will come standard with 512 Megabytes of internal memory and allow support of microSD for external storage. The myTouch will come with a 4GB microSD card, but consumers will be able to add more storage if they want to.

T-Mobile is calling the myTouch their premier Android smartphone. T-Mobile customers will be able to get the new phone starting July 8, while non-customers will not be able to purchase the phone until early August. The phone is set to run around $199 with a two-year T-Mobile service contract.

T-Mobile is expecting great things with the Google Android myTouch, and considering all the facts, I can see why. The myTouch sounds like a chic new smartphone with about everything possible to offer. The price is certainly reasonable for what you are getting, and if you don’t mind having T-Mobile as your service provider, then you’re set. I think this will certainly be an interesting phone to watch. We’ll see if the myTouch can truly stand out from among the abundance of new smartphones on the market today.