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Archive for the ‘cellphones’ Category
AT&T Moves Closer To Usage-Based Fees For Data
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
CWmike writes "AT&T has moved closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, came close on Wednesday to warning about some kind of use-based pricing while speaking at a UBS conference. 'The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data and...we're improving systems to give them real-time information about their data usage,' he said. 'Longer term, there's got to be some sort of pricing scheme that addresses the [heavy] users.' AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users — primarily iPhone owners — are responsible for 40% of total data usage, largely for video and audio, de la Vega said. Educating that group about how much they are using could change that, as AT&T has found by informing wired Internet customers of such patterns. De la Vega's comments on data use were previewed in a keynote he gave in October at the CTIA, but he went beyond those comments on Wednesday: 'We are going to make sure incentives are in place to reduce or modify [data]uses so they don't crowd out others in the same cell sites.' Focus groups have been formed at AT&T to figure out how to proceed."
VMware’s Dual OS Smartphone Virtualization Plan Firms Up
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Sharky2009 writes "VMware is developing virtualisation for smartphones which can run any two OSes — Windows Mobile, Android or Linux — at once. The idea is to have your work applications and home applications all running insider their own VMs and running at the same time so you can access any app any time. VMware says: 'We don't think dual booting will be good enough — we'll allow you to run both profiles at the same time and be able to switch between them by clicking a button,' he said. 'You'll be able to get and make calls in either profile – work or home – as they will both be live at any given point in time.'" Also mentioned in February of this year, but now the company's announced a target of 2012 for mass production.
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FCC Inquires About Controversial Verizon Fees
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
olsmeister writes "As previously noted here on Slashdot, Verizon Wireless has been increasing their early termination fees and actively charging non-data customers who accidentally press the wrong button and go online. The FCC has now sent them a letter asking why. The PDF of the letter can be viewed online. Maybe someone at the FCC does read Slashdot."
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Why Open Source Phones Still Fail
Friday, December 4th, 2009
adeelarshad82 writes "Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900 will never hit the mainstream in the US because wireless carriers in the country hate the unexpected, writes PCMag's Sascha Segan. The open-source philosophy is all about unexpected, disruptive ideas bubbling upwards, and that drives network planners nuts. So, you get unsatisfactory hybrids like Google Android, which uses some open-source components but locks third-party developers into a crippled Java sandbox. The bottom line is that while Linux the OS, the kernel, and the memory manager are attractive to phone manufacturers, Linux the philosophy — and users banding together ad hoc to create new things — is anathema to wireless carriers."
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Nokia Offers Glimpse of Symbian Facelift
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Barence writes to mention that Nokia is giving users a first glimpse at what promises to be a completely overhauled Symbian user experience this coming year. Nokia's chief exec blamed the user interface — as opposed to the OS itself — as the root problem. "The company will roll out a completely re-engineered user interface in 2010, aimed at addressing many of the criticisms associated with the OS. 'We will reduce the clutter and improve the input methods including multi-touch and single tap,' Kallasvuo told delegates. 'It should be just two taps to get to your favorite music or videos, rather than eight. We'll improve browser experience so that it's a quicker, flash improved, media experience with pinch-to-zoom and so on.' And, Kallasvuo wasn't stopping there. Aside from completely redesigning the interface, he also suggested that future Symbian OSes would be much faster."
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