T-Mobile, MetroPCS look to eat Sprint's prepaid lunch - CNET [awgadget.blogspot.com]
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Eight Wonder - When the phone stops ringingIt's easy to understand why I was in love with her 20 years ago...
T-Mobile and MetroPCS could combine to offer better service and phone selections than they could manage separately.
T-Mobile and MetroPCS are set to merge, which isn't great for Sprint.
(Credit: T-Mobile USA )A combination between T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS could make for a potent player in the rough-and-tumble prepaid business.
T-Mobile has over the past few years expanded its no-contract options to consumers, giving it a badly needed source of customer growth. MetroPCS, meanwhile, has long been an aggressive -- albeit small -- provider of prepaid services with experience in running a low-cost business.
Together, the companies could present a challenge to Sprint Nextel, long the biggest champion of no-contract services with multiple prepaid brands under its umbrella. T-Mobile and MetroPCS, however, today touted the establishment of the "leading value-focused wireless carrier" with their deal, and are poised to shake up the low end of the wireless industry.
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"It's about how to become a better value player," said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics.
The deal is illustrative of the broader shifts in the industry, where Verizon Wireless and AT&T continue to grow at the high end, forcing smaller national carriers Sprint and T-Mobile to look toward scooping up more bargain customers on the low end. But with the more lucrative contract business starting to slow, every carrier is starting to take a more serious look at prepaid.
Ultimately, the deal represents a chance for prepaid customers to see better network service and smartphone options. Once the deal closes, MetroPCS customers will get a chance to access T-Mobile's products and network, which offers wider coverage and higher speeds. T-Mobile CEO John Legere talked about the multiple options available to both customer bases, and specifically touted unlimited as a key tool to attracting customers.
"This deal will allow us to win in no-contract services," Legere said during a press conference today, adding that the combined company will be the leader in prepaid services by revenue.
That's bad news for Sprint, which has a number of prepaid arms in Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Assurance Wireless. Sprint was reportedly close to buying MetroPCS, but its board nixed the deal amid concerns that the company's financial resources were already tied up with its own network upgrade and the costs associated with carrying the iPhone.
"It makes life more difficult for Sprint," Entner said. "It forces them to up their game."
The deal could motivate Sprint to make an acquisition play itself, but the company continues to be hamstrung by financial limitations. Leap Wireless, another regional provider that offers services under the Cricket brand, is a potential target, although analysts warn are skeptical over whether any deals would be struck in the near future.
A Sprint representative declined to comment on the deal to CNET.
Sprint, however, will likely be up for the fight. And the carrier could pick off prepaid customers if T-Mobile and MetroPCS dawdle with the integration efforts.
Still, T-Mobile narrows the gap between it and Sprint with the deal. The combined companies boast a customer base of nearly 43 million customers, compared with Sprint's customer base of 56 million customers, as of the end of the second quarter.
Legere demonstrated some of the new swagger T-Mobile will be displaying under the new CEO, taking a jab at Sprint and saying the deal wouldn't "smash two different networks together" like the botched merger between Sprint and Nextel.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere.
(Credit: T-Mobile )"I actually love the Sprint-Nextel analogy," he said. "It's a great opportunity to explain what this is not."
If there was any doubt that the prepaid business would be a focus, Rene Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, obliterated them with his comments today.
"I like to be in prepaid because it's the fastest growing part of the industry," he said. "It's a great business."
Indeed, the prepaid part of wireless is growing three times faster than the contract segment, largely because so many people are already signed up. Prepaid previously had a stigma attached to it that it was largely a service for poor people, but it in recent years has gone mainstream. The economic crisis forced more people than ever to look at prepaid options, which don't require arduous credit checks, while the improvement of handset options -- including the iPhone -- caused consumers to give them a harder second look.
MetroPCS was at the forefront of bringing low-cost smartphones to its customers, and it's likely that the company will bring its culture of moving quickly to T-Mobile. MetroPCS wasn't a serious competitive threat to Sprint because it was a regional carrier that operated in select markets. But with a national footprint and roughly 70,000 points of distribution thanks to T-Mobile, MetroPCS will be a major player.
T-Mobile and MetroPCS will operate as separate brands under the newly combined T-Mobile when the deal is completed, expected to be by the end of the year.
T-Mobile and MetroPCS each also recently unveiled their own unlimited data plans, and Legere said unlimited would be a key selling point.
That's a direct shot not just at Sprint's prepaid businesses, but Sprint itself, which has long been defined as the simple, unlimited carrier.
It's like just the first of many shots as the battle heats up in the prepaid world.
More T-Mobile, MetroPCS look to eat Sprint's prepaid lunch - CNET Issues Question by JeffXM: What is "The Phone" Can someone please explain? Random people wherever I go put their fingers in their ears and say, "Your on the phone" "Get off the phone". It seems to be a telepathic phenomenon because I am not on a cell phone or talking out loud. Someone said that its unconscious thought broadcast. Can someone please explain what is going on around me, cause it is happening with so many more people everyday. Best answer for What is "The Phone" Can someone please explain?:
Answer by starlight
Short for telephone. Surely I don't have to say telephone every time when you know what I mean.
Android vs. Windows Phone: Which smartphone is simply faster? |We offered Android fans 0 if their smartphones are faster at everyday things, like searching for a restaurant and getting directions. newwp.it
Question by Larry David: How do you become a contestant for MTV's "The Phone"? How do you become a contestant for MTV's "The Phone" Best answer for How do you become a contestant for MTV's "The Phone"?:
Answer by PSN=AntonioCro21
http://www.deltaparkproject.com/2009/03/the-phone-justin-timberlake-wants-to-freak-people-out.html scroll down and it gives you directions
Emergency Solar PhoneLIKE/FAV FOR SOLAR POWER! Win this at: facebook.com Detailed project instructions below: We are going to modify a cheap cell phone to charge off of solar power. Here are the items you will need. 1. Cheap Throwaway Mobile phone 2. Basic small solar panel (available at electronics stores) 3. Standard blocking diode (also get at the electronics store) Attach the solar panel to the back of the phone with hot glue or epoxy. You can then burn a couple holes in the case with a soldering iron to run the wires through. Next, burn some grooves into the plastic phone molding so that we can store the wires without them stopping the phone from closing. Now the fun part! Solder the positive output of the solar panel to the diode, make sure you wire it to the back end of the diode, you can tell which side is which by looking at the diode itself. Diode's have a single white line on the end which designates the front, so just wire the solar panel to the si de without the white line! Next, wire the other side of the diode to the phone's positive battery prong (this should be marked on the phone itself). When that is done take the negative end of the solar panel and wire it to the negative battery prong on the phone. Now pop in the battery and close up the phone! Your cheap emergency phone is now ready for action! Thanks to all of you for your support and thank you to Squarespace for helping to keep this show going! Check them out at: squarespace.com and use the code science9 for 2 weeks ...
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If Microsoft really is considering its own “Surface†smartphone, the business decision would be a callous, cold-hearted one that could alienate future partners and leave just two other manufacturers of Windows Phones. But as history has shown, this kind of bold move could pay off.
Boy Genius Report claimed Tuesday that Microsoft plans to release its own Windows Phone 8 smartphone under the “Surface†name, although the phone’s release wouldn’t come until the second round or so of Windows Phone 8 devices. That report has apparently been confirmed, or at least echoed, by the China Times.
Microsoft's official comment almost seems to indicate that the BGR report is on target. A company spokeswoman didn't deny the accuracy of the report, but underscored Microsoft's commitment to its partners. “We are big believers in our hardware partners and together we’re focused on bringing Windows Phone 8 to market with them,†she said.
Just for the record, I suspect Microsoft has indeed designed its own smartphone as a back-room project, although it's probably using an Asian contract manufacturer for a prototype. BGR’s report seems reasonable, although the company would risk severe consequences if it did release a phone: the loss of Samsung.
Just Do It, Microsoft!
But just because Microsoft could build its own smartphone, does that mean it should? Speaking as a consumer, absolutely.
No one believes in the value of a platform or product more than the company that designed it; my brief hands-on time with the Surface convinced me of that. Microsoft has the engineering knowhow to bring a Surface phone to market, especially if it can sit back and learn from the mistakes of its partners. But the effort would also take hundreds of millions of dollars at the very least, and a commitment to the platform all the way up to Steve Ballmer himself. I think that commitment is there.
Microsoft hasn’t always succeeded. The company launched the Zune, a dedicated MP3 player to compete with the iPod, just months before Apple convinced the world that its iPhone could play music just fine, too. But the Zune failed because the market left it behind, not because it didn't offer world-class industrial design. Microsoft has shown a commitment to quality on the hardware front, and a polished, poised and publicized Windows Surface Phone could elevate the platform to the upper echelons of smartphone society.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has also tried a smartphone before: the Kin, which debuted in two models in 2010. Microsoft took the Danger smartphone it acquired, slapped the Windows Phone operating system on top of it, asked Sharp to build it, and hoped consumers would buy it. They didn't, although Verizon was assigned some of the blame. Some key features of the Kin now appear in Windows Phone: cloud storage, for example, and the prominent social connections that the Kin called the Loop.
Anaysts Don't Agree
Analyst Carolina Milanesi of Gartner said that she believes there's no reason for Microsoft to debut another smartphone itself when its partners could fill the bill.
"This seems to be a recurrent rumor started after the [Surface] tablet was announced," Milanesi wrote in an email. "I still do not believe that Microsoft needs to have a phone when it can get Nokia and now HTC and Samsung to deliver. In the tablet space Microsoft had to show vendors the kind of tablet they feel better fits the Windows UI. I do not see what Microsoft would gain or be able to deliver through their own phone that they cannot do with their partners. The last time they tried to make a phone it did not last a quarter in the market; since then, the competitive environment has got worse, not better."
Still, you could make the same argument about Google, which now releases its own co-developed "Nexus" line of phones and tablets for its own premium experience.
What If Microsoft Did Release Its Own Surface Smartphone?
The delay in a Microsoft “Surface†phone would presumably allow Nokia - whose chief executive, former Microsoft employee Stephen Elop, has bet the company’s future on Windows Phone - breathing room to establish its own Windows Phone 8 phones, alongside Samsung and HTC.  The three primary Windows 8 phones at launch are expected to be the HTC One X+, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Samsung ATIV S.
By now, most smartphone aficionados know where Microsoft stands in the smartphone opearating system hierarchy: well down the list. In fact, Gartner’s worldwide smartphone report for August places Microsoft’s market share at just 2.8%. That’s just a hair behind the Bada OS, a mobile phone operating system that few have actually heard of, let alone use. Google's Android controls 64.1% of the market, followed by Apple’s iOS (18.8%), Symbian (5.9%) and RIM's Blackberry (5.2%).
Samsung, for its part, is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, with 21.3% of the market, up from 21.6% the year before. Nokia is second, with 19.9% of the market; HTC is eighth, with just 2.2%.
Shaking Up The Smartphone Market
So far, Samsung has remained a staunch Google partner: its Galaxy S III tops sales charts of Android phones, and it manufactures Chromebooks and Chromeboxes using Google's Chrome operating system. Samsung's sales volume commands gives it clout that both Nokia and HTC sorely lack. Nokia, of course, has basically bet the farm on Windows Phone 8. HTC, once a darling of the Android market, has fallen back into the pack of “me-too†Android phones, and needs something to differentiate it. Betting on Microsoft and Windows Phone seems their best course of action, no matter what Microsoft decides to do.
Basically, Nokia and HTC need Microsoft more than it needs them. And that’s been the relationship Microsoft has long enjoyed with most of its hardware makers, at least in the PC space.
The threat, of course, is the Xbox. Microsoft launched the console in 2001, disrupting the Nintendo-Sony-Sega hegemony, and for the past year has outsold all other game consoles in the U.S. Granted, Microsoft didn’t have any partners to irritate with the Xbox. But the company successfully built a mass-market hardware product, developed Xbox into a product and brand, committed to it, and grew it into a platform that has attracted its own products and services. That seems to be the same strategy that Microsoft has adopted for Windows Phone 8. If the partners can’t do it, the argument goes, Microsoft will.
I still don't know for sure if Microsoft is really planning on releasing a Windows Phone 8 "Surface" phone. But I'm confident it could create a viable product without seriously alienating partners it can't live without. When you look at it that way, why wouldn't Microsoft make a smartphone?
Lead image source: Nokia.
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Suggest A Surface Smartphone From Microsoft? Yes, Please! - ReadWriteWeb Issues Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone review - part 1 of 2 |MobileBurn.com - Part one of our look at the gorgeous Nokia Lumia 800, one of the manufacturers initial pair of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango smartphones. The Lumia 800 features 1.4Ghz Snapdragon processor, a 720p HD capable 8 megapixel camera, and one of the cleanest hardware designs found on the market since its body is carved out of a solid block of polycarbonate material. More info: www.mobileburn.com
THEN WHO WAS PHONE?So ur with ur honey and yur making out wen the phone rigns. U anser it n the vioce is wut ru doing wit my daughter? U tell ur girl n she say my dad is ded. THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
... thing is the iPhone 5 impact. 'For me and a lot of other people the iPhone 5 was very much an incremental upgrade. If people are in the market for a new phone, and people who were on a two-year contract are looking to upgrade, EE will say 'come to ... UK's first superfast 4G phone network to launch on October 30
The FTC announces a crackdown on a massive international computer tech support scam that allegedly swindled tens of thousands of consumers in six countries.
Regulators from five countries joined together in an operation to crack down on a series of companies orchestrating one of the most widespread Internet scams of the decade.
Scammers would use remote desktop tools to access the victim's computer.
(Credit: Google )The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other international regulatory authorities today said they shut down a global criminal network that bilked tens of thousands of consumers by pretending to be tech support providers.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, speaking during a press conference with a Microsoft executive and regulators from Australia and Canada, said 14 companies and 17 individuals were targeted in the investigation. In the course of the crackdown, U.S. authorities already have frozen $ 188,000 in assets, but Leibowitz said that would increase over time thanks to international efforts.
"These so-called tech support scams are the latest variation of scareware," Leibowitz said.English-speaking consumers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. were targeted in the global scam. Most of the scammers were based in India, but some also came from the U.S. and U.K.
The scam involved cold callers who claimed to work for major technology companies, such as Microsoft or Google, and who told consumers they had viruses on their PCs. The callers would attempt to dupe users into giving them remote access to their computers, locking the user out while attempting to "fix" the malware that the scammer claimed was on the machine.
In some cases, ads were placed on Google to lure in unwitting consumers when they searched for their PC's tech support phone number. And many of the people called were on do-not-call registries.
Windows PC users were targeted seemingly indiscriminately and charged between $ 49 to $ 450 to remove the non-existent malware that the supposed tech company representative claimed was on the PC.
Leibowitz said the frozen assets could be distributed to victims once they are identified, but he warned it's rare to "get 100 percent back in restitution." The FTC said that more importantly, it should be able to stop the scams going forward.
It is thought there could be upwards of tens of thousands of victims worldwide in total across six countries, and the FTC warned that the figure could be "significantly higher."
The scammers attempted to avoid detection by using virtual offices, including more than 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers. Officials said many of the scammers from India were using U.S. carriers, and the carriers agreed to block the numbers.
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A U.S. District Court for judge, at the request of the FTC, ordered a stop to six alleged tech-support scams pending further hearings. A further 17 individual defendants were also targeted by the FTC in six legal filings with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The FTC charged the suspects with the Federal Trade Commission Act, which bars unfair and deceptive commercial practices, and were also charged with illegally calling numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.
More than 10,000 complaints were drawn from Australian citizens to the country's regulator as early as 2009. Once the scam began to spread around the world, the Australia Communication and Media Authority contacted U.S. authorities with intelligence on the scammers, which had by then received 2,400 complaints. The FTC said "hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers" could have been affected.
Canada had also received "thousands and thousands" of complaints, but Andrea Rosen, chief compliance and enforcement officer at the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, said it was difficult to identify exactly how many. In Australia, it was estimated that the scammers made about $ 85 from each successful scam.
The FTC is working with the Indian authorities, but did not disclose confidential details due to the ongoing investigations.
Leibowitz thanked U.K.'s Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for their "invaluable assistance" to the FTC.
Canada's Rosen said "we make a difference by working together," highlighting how the agencies and regulators collaborated across borders to investigate the scams.
The FTC also acknowledged investigative assistance it received from Microsoft, as well as from other technology companies.
Frank Torres, Microsoft's director of consumer affairs and senior policy counsel, said at the press conference that Microsoft will continue to work with the agencies as other scams emerge. He noted that Microsoft will never cold call customers and ask for their credit cards to charge them for services they don't need.
"It's like playing a game of whack-a-mole, really, for cyber criminals to find ways to deceive people," Torres said. Suggest Regulators shut down global PC 'tech support' scam - CNET Issues Question by Micheal: What's wrong with the "Phone" app on my Samsung Galaxy S smartphone? The "Phone" app crashes if I don't dial the number really fast when I am trying to make a call. If I can dial the number before the app crashes, the call will go through. If not, I am taken back to the home screen. I can't find anything in the Settings to fix it; Google has no results. How can I fix it? Best answer for What's wrong with the "Phone" app on my Samsung Galaxy S smartphone?:
Answer by Matthew
Try this, Go to settings, manage applications. Find the phone app, and hit wipe cache
On The Phone - Mansioningles.comwww.mansioningles.com Man phones computer helpline.
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