T-Mobile

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pczODHEO23I]

As part of its new “Alter Ego” ad campaign, T-Mobile posted the above TV commercial comparing the speed of the iPhone 4S on AT&T to devices on its 4G network. The carrier recently did a similar comparison when launching its Test Drive tool for comparing its 4G devices with the iPhone on other networks. In related news, yesterday we reported T-Mobile was preparing to rollout an iPhone-compatible 4G HSPA+ 19000 MHz network to various markets by the end of the year.

Although many thought the comparison of the 3G iPhone on AT&T to 4G Android devices on T-Mobile was unfair, Apple is rumored to launch a new LTE iPhone following the introduction of the new 4G iPad last March. Recent reports indicated Qualcomm was having trouble meeting demand for LTE chips likely to land in the next-gen iPhone, indicating T-Mobile will likely have to take a new approach to its ads come October.

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PC World tested 3G and 4G wireless data transfer speeds for the top four carriers —both indoors and outside with multiple devices across 13 major cities in 130 testing locations— and discovered some surprising results.

During average wireless speed tests for 3G networks with the smartphones pictured below, T-Mobile took home the fastest download and upload speed prize at 3.84 Mbps and 1.44 Mbps, respectively. AT&T landed the No. 2 spot with its 2.62 Mbps download speed and 0.85-Mbps upload speed.

The slower 3G network provider reclaimed its pride and rose to fame with its 4G wireless speeds, however. AT&T garnered 9.56 Mbps while downloading and 5.15 Mbps for uploads. Verizon debuted at second with its 7.35 Mbps download speed and 5.86 Mbps upload speed.

The overall winners are named below.

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It appears AT&T has been hit hard by complaints from Apple iPhone users who used up their two-year subsidy and want to go elsewhere, such as T-Mobile in the United States or just roaming internationally without paying AT&T’s high international costs.

Our report from last week about Tim Cook’s office doing special requests to open iPhones may have set off a storm. We received upwards of a hundred reports that, through Cook’s office, 9to5Mac readers were able to unlock their iPhones, but perhaps Cook is now tired of his office handling these requests.

AT&T will now unlock your iPhone—if you are in good account standing and are done with your obligated term of commitment (including having paid an early termination fee.)

Here is AT&T’s statement:

“Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.”

Here is another fun fact:  If you have paid the no-commitment price, AT&T will unlock your phone too.

Chalk one up for the good guys.

[tweet https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/189077291270283264]

Update (Sunday): How was unlocking? Talk about it in the forums!

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When 9to5Mac brought you the story about Tim Cook convincing AT&T to unlock an iPhone on a customer’s behalf, we knew it would cause a bit of controversy because of AT&T’s questionable unlocking policies. Confusion among consumers regarding inconsistent policies for unlocking iPhones that have finished contractual obligations is nothing new. As witnessed in our original story, the carriers often make special exceptions for some customers while redirecting others to Apple. In many cases, they simply flat-out refuse to unlock iPhones.

It is not clear if AT&T is getting ready for a full-fledged policy change, but it looks like your best shot at getting an iPhone unlocked is by emailing Apple’s chief Tim Cook. A significant number of readers reached out to us since our original story that confirmed AT&T is continuing to unlock iPhones at the request of Cook’s office.

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Officially from the T-Mobile Blog:

Will refarming make your network compatible with the iPhone? And will you stop offering 2G services?
A nice side benefit of the refarming effort is that our 4G network will be compatible with a broader range of devices, including the iPhone. The other important benefit of our network modernization effort is the coverage improvements it will deliver, especially when it comes to in-home coverage. As we refarm our 1900 spectrum, we will continue to fully support our customers with 2G devices.

The move is a result of the “re-farming spectrum” from the botched AT&T merger.

We are also going to make more effective use of the spectrum we already have by refarming a portion of our 1900 MHz PCS spectrum to support HSPA+ services, which frees up additional AWS spectrum for LTE. With the AT&T breakup spectrum factored in, T-Mobile will have sufficient spectrum to roll out LTE with 20MHz to about 75% of the top 25 markets in 2013. Most remaining markets will have 10MHz. Our course, we’d love to have more spectrum to further strengthen our position to compete in the marketplace.

T-Mobile executives told analysts as much last month, but this is the first official word on T-Mobile’s website. We are hearing that 3G iPhone owners on T-Mobile could start seeing access in areas like Philadelphia in a matter of weeks.

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T-Mobile USA executives are talking reinvigorated challenger strategy and the carrier’s Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray (whom we interviewed last month) just confirmed that its 4G network, being deployed in 2013, “will be compatible with a broader range of devices, including the iPhone.” He also warned T-Mobile “will continue to need more AWS spectrum to support a deeper LTE rollout.” Luckily, the carrier walked away from that failed AT&T merger with not only $3 billion but also some AWS spectrum.

Basically, in addition to its 1700MHz AWS band, the carrier will also use the 1900MHz band for HSPA+. This will result in a faster 84MBps HSPA+ service and iPhone compatibility because Apple’s handset utilizes the more common 1900MHz frequency band. Following the network reconfiguration, users of unlocked iPhones should be able to enjoy true 3G HSPA+ speeds on T-Mobile USA’s network.

Chief Executive Officer and President Philipp Humm stressed he wants his company known for “4G services, 4G devices and a great 4G network.” T-Mobile will re-launch its brand at some point and reposition as the Best Value in Wireless. As for the prospect of landing the iPhone this year, Humm said there is “nothing new to report,” and he argued such a deal would require “right terms” —a notion shared by U.S. Cellular.

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The nation’s fourth-largest wireless carrier T-Mobile USA just reported it lost 802,000 contract customers during the holiday quarter, causing revenues to dip 3.3-percent to $20.6 billion. For comparison, the company reported 186,000 net contract customer losses in the third quarter of 2011 and 251,000 in the year-ago quarter. The Deutsche Telekom-owned carrier put the blame for such a huge decline in customers and mindshare on Apple’s iPhone 4S that bypassed T-Mobile to launch last October on AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and regional carriers C Spire Wireless and Claro Puerto Rico, the largest Puerto Rican telecommunications services company.

A statement from Deutsche Telekom said:

For T-Mobile USA, the past year was characterized by significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October. […] However, not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011. […] Sequentially, the decline in branded net contract customers was driven primarily by higher branded contract deactivations as a result of the launch of the iPhone 4S by three nationwide competitors in mid-October.

The Bellevue, Wash.-headquartered firm contemplated for far too long whether to invest big bucks into 4G LTE deployment, and it clung to a hopeful merger with AT&T to solve its capital investment issues. With that deal off the table now, the company is promising to launch 4G LTE service sometime next year, tapping $1.4 billion of its own investment, re-farmed frequencies, and extra spectrum acquired from AT&T.

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T-Mobile will begin offering more than 1 million unlocked iPhone customers additional support starting Jan. 30, according to a report from TMO News who obtained internal documents. The documents said the new support offerings would include, “common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions.”

The carrier is also updating the iPhone website within its Community so it fits in with the rest of the T-Mobile supported device pages and “Integrated Scope of Support” for representatives. Earlier this month, we had a chance to talk with T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray regarding the failed AT&T merger and the carrier’s plans to hit the switch on 1900 MHz HSPA+ spectrum in a number of cities in the Eastern U.S.

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AT&T has a grudge with the Federal Communications Commission, and during the mobile carrier’s quarterly earnings call today, CEO Randall Stephenson criticized the FCC over spectrum availability and the bombed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, with him further claiming that AT&T’s spectrum crux could cause jacked prices against its highest data users.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, founded in 1876, once held a monopoly on wired phone service in the United States, but the U.S. Department of Justice broke up Alexander Graham Bell’s company into seven “Baby Bells” with an antitrust lawsuit that turned into a settlement in 1982.

Since then, the company has slowly reassembled. Six of those seven “Baby Bells” merged into two single companies: AT&T, Inc., (Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Telesis, and Southwestern Bell) and Verizon Communications, Inc., (NYNEX and Bell Atlantic). The acquisition of the fourth largest wireless service provider in the U.S., Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA, would have poised AT&T to gain a monopoly once again, but this time through its 3G GSM service in the U.S., while garnering the No. 1 spot in the U.S. wireless market. However, the FCC stepped in this time and dashed the company’s monopolizing hopes.

The FCC requested a formal administrative hearing into AT&T’s proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA last fall, subsequently causing the U.S. carrier to withdraw the pending approval applications in November 2011. The decision rolled into a killed bid and garnered a $4 billion pretax charge on AT&T’s Q4 2011 accountancy sheet that includes a $3 billion default payment due to Deutsche Telekom over the deal’s non-completion and an additional $1 billion in spectrum value that AT&T would have to forgo.

AT&T CEO Stephenson released his frustrations concerning the debacle at the company’s Q4 2011 financial conference call today. He set his sights on the FCC and lambasted the agency while decrying it of choosing “winners” and “losers” in regards to approving and regulating deals…

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Update: Reports that T-Mobile knows Apple’s chipset roadmap are false I’ve confirmed with T-Mobile’s PR department.  Ray only said that Apple could choose to use Chips that are AWS compatible, which is obvious.

I had a few minutes this evening between Colbie Cailat songs at T-Mobile’s CES 2012 party to talk to CTO Neville Ray on what the future holds for T-Mobile since the AT&T merger is off. T-Mobile walked away with not only $3 billion but also some AWS spectrum from AT&T.

First, Ray is excited.  He talked like someone who has been imprisoned by the merger over the past year, unable to make any long term moves. T-Mobile is still evaluating its long-term options (like LTE) but there is a buzz in the air now.  While the parent company Deutsch Telekom gets the $3 billion payoff from AT&T, it seems that there will be big investment over the next few years in the T-Mobile USA subsidy.

On Dec. 19, T-Mobile’s official AT&T breakup release stated what —besides the $3 billion— T-Mobile would get:

As part of the break-up fee, T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of AWS mobile spectrum in 128 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle).

The UMTS roaming agreement for the U.S. in T-Mobile USA’s favor has a term of over seven years and will allow the company to improve its footprint significantly among the U.S. population and offer its customers better broadband coverage for mobile communications services in the future. Population coverage will increase from 230 million potential customers at present to 280 million. As a result of the agreement with AT&T, coverage will be extended to many regions of the U.S. in which T-Mobile USA previously had neither its own high-speed mobile communications network nor the associated roaming agreements.

That spectrum will allow T-Mobile to light up HSPA+ radio frequency used by the iPhone’s 3G.

I asked Ray about the reports that claimed T-Mobile networks in the Northwest were already broadcasting 1900 MHz HSPA+.

Nevada, parts of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest are also seeing some pockets of 1900MHz spectrum refarming for HSPA+. There are other parts of the country T-Mobile can refarm the 1900MHz spectrum but, the focus is on the Pacific Northwest, Nevada, Utah and California for right now from what we’re told. We should emphasize and emphasize greatly that this post does not mean that all of the aforementioned areas are seeing this refarmed spectrum, just pockets inside those areas.

Ray said those networks were not officially lit up (perhaps some tower testing or AT&T roaming confusion happened).

Nevertheless, there is good news for those who want to use an iPhone on T-Mobile’s 3G network…

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Although T-Mobil USA wrote in the September letter to customers that they were “interested in offering all of our customers a no-compromise iPhone experience,” the fact of the matter remains that the carrier’s network bands are not supported on the iPhone 4S.

T-Mobile’s 14.4 HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) GSM/UMTS network operates on the rather odd 1700/2100MHz frequency bands that are incompatible with iPhone 4S and other UMTS phones supported by standard 850/900/1900/2100MHz bands. However, some unlocked iPhone users are detecting 3G signals on parts of T-Mobile USA’s network utilizing the 1900MHz bands, according to Tmonews.com:

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With Apple deciding not to include support for T-Mobile’s bands in the US, T-Mobile has turned into an Android wasteland with over 90% of the smartphones sold on the network running on Google’s OS. Looking for some diversification (besides the over million legacy iPhones), T-Mobile looks to be one of the first in the US to roll out one of the new Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices which they plan to announce on Dec 14th, a little late for the holidays.

Image via ARS

Big news today (surprisingly on a 4 day US weekend).  The AT&T and T-Mobile merger was withdrawn from the FCC today.

 On November 23, 2011, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG electronically withdrew without prejudice, as of that date, the pending applications listed in the Public Notice released by the Federal Communications Commission on April 28, 2011 in that proceeding. Associated manual notification of withdrawal filings also are being made.

The two companies look to be pursuing an alternative plan…
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Update: This only works until the TMSI is refreshed which means it won’t last very long

Michael Capozzi (via Chronic) has apparently discovered how to unlock the iPhone 4S (reportedly AT&T version only) without any software or hardware tweaking. The unlock will assist you in using your iPhone 4S on T-Mobile’s network as long as you have a T-Mobile SIM card. Before you get started, go ahead and cut down your T-Mobile SIM card to match your AT&T SIM card’s size. Go ahead and give the following directions a try:

1. Insert original carrier AT&T SIM card
2. Dial 611 for AT&T customer service hotline and drop the call
3. Turn on Airplane Mode
4. Take out AT&T SIM card
5. Insert T-Mobile SIM card

Update: the unlock also works with the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, and will need to be done again if you reset your device. Continue after the break..

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBk_iHJU4tM]

Verizon isn’t just selling Droids these days, they are still making an effort to sell some iPhones on their talk network reputation. AT&T has seen much less churn than was expected when it lost its exclusivity. We hope to see more entertaining back and forth as we ease into the holidays.

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Out of the AT&T idea factory comes a new app that allows users to make calls via Voice over IP.  While it doesn’t say so explicitly, Verizon and Sprint users can use this VoIP app to make cheaper(?) calls on their iPhones even though they don’t use AT&T’s wireless service.  Theoretically, International iPhone users could as well.  The app is also available for Android.

The costs are billed directly to a credit card and not necessarily to an AT&T card holder’s account.

Just think of it as a more expensive Skype or (insert your favorite VoIP service here) with more limitations.

Also, while traveling in some countries, AT&T will allow you to use Wifi to make international calls over VoIP.

Here’s a few situations where this makes sense:

1. If you don’t have an AT&T signal but have Wifi – like Midtown Manhatten or the greater San Francisco area for instance.  T-Mobile already does this and it is a great service.  However, T-Mobile lets you recieve calls over Wifi too – which is awesome anywhere (including overseas) where a T-Mobile signal isn’t available.  T-Mobile’s is also integrated into the phone and is free — see where I am going here?  AT&T has a ways to go.

2. If you are travelling internationally and don’t want to get hit with International roaming fees.  Using Wifi saves some money here.

3. If for whatever reason, your Verizon or Sprint long distance calling service is too expensive.

4. International users may be able to get better rates f they can provide AT&T with an acceptable credit card.

Just think, a few years ago VoIP apps were being blocked and now the Telcos are doing it themselves.  Full App info below:

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China Mobile doesn’t officially offer the iPhone yet. But it is carrying 10 Million iPhones on its network according to Reuters.

“We have not yet got agreement with Apple,” Wang said on the fringes of the ITU World telecoms fair in Geneva. “Apple promised to provide, when they develop the iPhone for LTE, that it will include TD-LTE. We are discussing the details.”

There had been rumors that Apple would offer a TL-LTE version of the iPhone 4S earlier this year with China Mobile going as far as saying:

China Mobile and Apple hope to find a solution for close collaboration. We discussed this issue with Apple. We hope Apple will produce a new iPhone with TD-LTE. We have already got a positive answer from Apple.

It appears that positive answer wasn’t for this round of devices, though the CDMA Verizon iPhone arrived off schedule in January. TD-LTE will require some separate chips which could be hard to fit inside the iPhone 4S’s enclosure. Apple however has to look longingly at that 600 million+ subscriber base, however.

While T-Mobile USA is on the opposite end of the subscriber spectrum (China Mobile has around the same amount of subscribers as the populations of Europe and the US combined), T-Mobile is the #4 carrier in the US in the midst of AT&T attempting to swallow it.

But they both don’t officially offer the iPhone, yet have a significant number of iPhones floating around on their network. Both offer a different type of high speed 4G network that stock iPhone 4Ses can’t take advantage of. Both networks do offer EDGE/GSM speeds however which some may find valuable tied with reduced fees or better coverage. T-Mobile told us earlier this year that they had over a million iPhones on their network, a figure that is likely to go up with Apple sneakily offering iPhones 4S unlocked at launch.

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It’s interesting that you can’t take your unlocked iPhone 4S over to Sprint or Verizon to enable service, at least explicitly. Also, it appears that you can take your unlocked iPhone 4S over to T-Mobile (Apple says “GSM Networks” but doesn’t mention T-Mobile specifically), but only expect to use the EDGE 2G speeds.  Being unlocked also means swapping out micro SIMs when travelling internationally is possible.

The unlocked iPhone includes all the features of iPhone but without a contract commitment. You can activate and use it on the supported GSM wireless network of your choice, such as AT&T in the United States.* The unlocked iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint.

If you don’t want a multiyear service contract or if you prefer to use a local carrier when traveling abroad, the unlocked iPhone is the best choice. It arrives without a micro-SIM card, so you’ll need an active micro-SIM card from any supported GSM carrier worldwide. To start using it, simply insert the micro-SIM card into the slot on your iPhone and turn it on by pressing and holding the On/Off button for a few seconds. Then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your iPhone.

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Remember when we brought you news way back in June that AT&T would be increasing its premiums on iPhone insurance on October 4th?  This was the very first indication that Apple’s iPhone launch event would be on October 4th.

Deductible: A tiered deductible per the terms of your Mobile Insurance Coverage Certificate, will apply as follows:

Now that is out in the open.  Prices for iPhones will increase from $4.99 to $6.99.  Such an arbitrary date may signal that the new iPhones may be ready sooner rather than later after the announcement.  Perhaps as early as October 7th.  See new screenie below
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