Boingo Wi-Fi flies into 17 more airports with AWG acquisition
Boingo is buying a key competitor in the airport Wi-Fi business, Advanced Wireless Group (AWG), which runs hotspot networks in 17 U.S. airports, including heavily trafficked terminals like LAX, Miami...
View ArticleFon breaks into the U.S. with AT&T Wi-Fi roaming deal
The Madrid-based Wi-Fi sharing community Fon is finally moving into the American market, through a Wi-Fi roaming deal with local carrier AT&T. Fon’s customers, known as “Foneros”, have been able to...
View ArticleSeriously, Samsung? Sorry, roamers, but the new Galaxy Note 3 is region-locked
NOTE (Friday September 27th): Samsung has now said that the region-locking only applies at the time of initial activation, allowing the use of any SIM card after that. I really thought the days of...
View ArticleGreat Roaming Rip-off takes another hit as U.K.’s Three axes premiums for...
In a thoroughly consumer-friendly move that challenges its rivals, the British mobile operator Three has effectively eliminated all its roaming premiums for customers traveling to the United States....
View ArticleSprint is building a bigger LTE network with the help of rural carriers
Sprint has teamed up with the Competitive Carrier Association and the NetAmerica Alliance to form a kind of LTE cabal. Sprint and rural carriers are joining together to build broad coverage networks...
View ArticleVodafone UK turns on 4G roaming for customers visiting Spain, Italy and Portugal
The British carrier Vodafone has expanded the number of European countries in which its customers can use 4G while abroad. Having begun with Greece in March, the company added Spain, Italy and Portugal...
View ArticleTime Warner Cable spreads its Wi-Fi wings with Boingo deal
Now that Time Warner Cable has it made it easier for customers to access its Wi-Fi hotspot networks with its recent upgrade to Hotspot 2.0, and it’s starting to expand its wireless coverage with...
View ArticleSprint plans to expand LTE into rural nooks with 12 roaming deals
Sprint’s LTE rollout may be behind those of its nationwide competitors, but it appears to be getting close to completion. Its 4G network now covers 225 million people, and it plans to hit the 250...
View ArticleSan Francisco, San Jose combine their Wi-Fi networks using Hotspot 2.0
The cities of San Francisco and San Jose are merging their two municipal Wi-Fi networks; at least on the virtual level. The two cities are using a new technology — Hotspot 2.0 — to let smartphones...
View ArticleEurope’s roaming data cuts are welcome, but not the end of the story
From Tuesday, Europeans traveling around the union will pay a lot less for mobile data, voice and SMS. The most drastic cut will be for data, with the retail price cap dropping from 45 euro cents...
View ArticleVerizon iPad 2 Displaying Strange Roaming Behavior
A number of Verizon iPad 2s are exhibiting issues with 3G networks, prompting Apple to replace some. But that's not a satisfactory fix, as replacement units show the same problem. Neither Apple nor...
View ArticleApple Acknowledges Verizon iPad Issues, Fix Reportedly Coming
Apple is aware of the Verizon iPad 2's roaming issues, which we reported last week. The company is "investigating" the issue, according to an official statement, and it may already be hard at work on a...
View ArticleEuropean Commission Proposes A Crackdown On Roaming Rates
Just as the warm weather and vacation season begin to kick off in Europe, the European Commission has beamed a light on one of the most expe… European Commission Proposes A Crackdown On Roaming Rates...
View ArticleSprint takes iPhone 4S freedom away, will give it back if you ask nicely
Sprint issued a press release Friday notifying iPhone 4S owners that their SIM slot will now be locked for devices on its network, even though they were sold unlocked. You can still put the world back...
View ArticleAT&T awfully picky about the spectrum it claims to need
AT&T-Mo may be stalled, but Ma Bell is aiming for a consolation prize: Qualcomm's 700 MHz spectrum. Regulators, however, may impose restrictions on the deal making it easier for small operators to...
View ArticleT-Mobile’s consolation prize: No LTE but lots of airwaves
Deutsche Telekom has revealed the details of its breakup fee now that the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile is officially dead. T-Mobile gets: one check for $3 billion, one nationwide roaming agreement,...
View ArticleHow T-Mobile’s roaming data caps would affect you
T-Mobile may soon begin restricting roaming data usage to cut down on the amount of packets its customers consume off the carrier’s networks. If true, the new caps could affect many of T-Mobile’s...
View ArticleVodafone lashes out as EU votes to cut roaming charges
European politicians have just voted up proposals to slash roaming charges for mobile users who stray across the continent's borders. But it's drawn a violent response from Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao...
View ArticleRoaming: the missing piece to the smartphone-Wi-Fi puzzle
Soon your smartphone will be able to connect seamlessly to your mobile operator’s Wi-Fi hotspots. But what about hotspots that your carrier doesn’t manage? It turns out the world of Wi-Fi roaming is a...
View ArticleVerizon offering new international data plans, but they ain’t cheap
Verizon Wireless next week will begin selling international data roaming plans much the same way it sells domestic data: buckets of megabytes for a set price. But don’t expect to get a lot for your...
View ArticleHow Apple will become a mobile carrier
Wireless industry veteran Whitey Bluestein writes that it isn't a question of if Apple will offer its own mobile service. It's merely a question of when. Apple has all of the infrastructure and...
View ArticlePioneer launches rural LTE over Verizon spectrum
Pioneer Cellular has added a small but notable entry to the growing list of LTE networks in the U.S. Telecompetitor reports Pioneer’s LTE service has gone live in six counties in Oklahoma, making it...
View ArticleSeamless Wi-Fi on your smartphone could quickly become reality
The Wi-Fi Alliance won’t accept its first devices for Passpoint certification until late June, but once the doors to its labs swing wide there may not be much of a lag time before our smartphones start...
View ArticleConfirmed: European mobile data roaming costs to fall
With near-unanimous approval, the European Parliament has voted to make it much cheaper for people in the EU to use the mobile internet on their smartphones and tablets while travelling between the...
View Article5 cable companies cut the cord, offer free Wi-Fi roaming
A wireless network comprised of 50,000 free hotspots will appear in the coming months, but there's a small catch: To use the free Wi-Fi service, you'll need to be a subscriber to one of five cable...
View ArticleVerizon turns on Razrs’ GSM radios, pushes out Android 4.0 upgrade
We knew international roaming was coming to Verizon’s LTE phones, but on Friday Verizon is finally turning it on two of its devices, the Motorola Razr and the Razr Maxx, as part of the same update that...
View ArticleSmall and medium-sized carriers join forces to combat AT&T and Verizon
The Rural Cellular Association is now the Competitive Carriers Association. The name change acknowledges the new reality that not all nationwide mobile carriers are created equal -- T-Mobile and Sprint...
View ArticleWhy the Verizon iPhone 5 is a globetrotter’s best friend
The Verizon version of the iPhone 5 will come with all of its radios, save CDMA, unlocked. That means any Verizon iPhone user can insert any carrier's SIM card and be on another network. That's great...
View ArticleThanks to telecom oligopolies, it’s always raining in the cloud
Even using a smartphone in fairly normal ways -- checking your location with a web-based map, sending email or text messages, uploading photos and so on -- can result in massive charges when it is done...
View ArticleCourt sides with FCC over Verizon in fight over data roaming
Verizon Wireless challenged the FCC's requirements that it make its data networks available to any competitor through roaming agreements, but in a appeals court decision on Tuesday, the commission...
View ArticleInternational data roaming is broken. Can MVNOs fix it?
If you travel overseas and want to maintain your mobile data connection, you're either going to pay criminal roaming rates or endure tremendous hassles avoiding them. But a new breed of virtual...
View ArticleTruphone creates a shared data plan that will cross international borders
The world's first international MVNO, Truphone is now offering shared plans for business, allowing companies to offer a single pool of minutes and megabytes their employees can use in multiple...
View ArticleCox opens the gates to the country’s largest Wi-Fi hotspot network
Cox will give its home internet customers free access to 150,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in major cities. Cox didn't build the whole network itself. Instead its tapping into the other cable operators' networks....
View ArticleBoingo turns Chicago’s O’Hare Airport into the world’s biggest Hotspot 2.0...
Hotspot 2.0 bolted from the gate more than a year ago, but since then it's gone nowhere. Boingo is trying to break the stalemate between carriers and device makers by opening up an enormous trial....
View ArticleCheaper roaming and net neutrality: Here’s what the new EU telecoms law would...
Good news -- the finalized text of the EU Regulation for creating a single telecoms market is a lot tighter than earlier drafts when it comes to protecting consumers from net neutrality abuses. Maybe...
View ArticleAT&T’s LTE network dome now covers 300 million people
Though AT&T didn't say it was stopping, its LTE network rollout is effectively complete, matching if not surpassing Verizon's in size. To get to the remainder of rural America, though, AT&T...
View ArticleSprint adds 15 new regional carriers to its LTE rural roaming program
Sprint's rural carrier partnership program has now grown to include 27 different operators, covering a population of 38 million. Sprint adds 15 new regional carriers to its LTE rural roaming program...
View ArticleUK carriers reject government-proposed national roaming scheme, report claims
British mobile operators have, according to a Sunday article in the Financial Times, rejected a proposal by the government to have them share their networks. The plan was formulated as a way of...
View ArticleComcast and Liberty Global agree to share their Wi-Fi networks
Both cable operators are using crowdsourcing to build massive hotspot networks on their customers' home routers. Comcast and Liberty Global agree to share their Wi-Fi networks originally published by...
View ArticleSmall carriers want guarantees they won’t get burned at next year’s spectrum...
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wants small carrier support for the the upcoming 600 MHz auction, but those carriers are reluctant to give it. They trusted the FCC in the 700 MHz auction and they got screwed....
View ArticleT-Mobile starts selling cheap international voice plans
Last year T-Mobile started offering free SMS and 2G data to customers that ventured beyond U.S. borders. Now it’s taking a crack at the other side of that cross-border communication equation. T-Mobile...
View ArticleWorldSIM’s new gadget combines Wi-Fi and storage with power bank
The British firm WorldSIM is both a global-minded virtual mobile network operator, with SIM cards that help people use their mobile devices relatively cheaply while travelling, and a provider of travel...
View ArticleEU digital chief tries to maintain single digital market momentum
European member states may be keen to water down current net neutrality proposals and push back against the centralization of radio spectrum policy in the EU, but new digital single market chief Andrus...
View ArticleTime Warner Cable, Boingo turn on Hotspot 2.0
Time Warner Cable and wireless ISP Boingo signed a roaming deal in June, which allows TWC’s broadband customers to use Boingo’s Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and convention centers and Boingo subscribers...
View ArticleUK carriers agree to boost coverage, avoiding national roaming
The British government has gotten the country’s four big mobile operators to agree to boost their coverage, to tackle so-called not-spots in rural areas. EE, O2, Three and Vodafone said Thursday that...
View ArticleAT&T goes pan American, closing its $2.5B Iusacell deal
AT&T is now officially the first North American mobile carrier to run networks on both sides of Rio Grande. On Friday, Ma Bell announced it has finalized its $2.5 billion acquisition of Mexico’s...
View ArticleWhatSim sells a WhatsApp-only mobile plan on the cheap
WhatsApp is now capturing a good deal of the world’s texting traffic, so an Italian company figured it was time to create a WhatsApp data plan for the world. The people behind Italy’s Zeromobile have...
View ArticleAT&T begins building a unified US-Mexico footprint with Cricket
AT&T promised it would create the first pan-North American service area when it bought Mexico’s Iusacell last month, and it’s wasting no time getting started on the multinational footprint. On...
View ArticleAlarms sound over changes to EU roaming, net neutrality and privacy rules
The European Parliament’s liberal-centrist bloc has warned over changes being made by EU countries to incoming telecoms legislation, saying they will severely weaken efforts to introduce unified net...
View ArticleLet roaming fees hang around for a while longer, EU countries say
The Council of the European Union – the part of the EU legislature that represents member states – has formally laid out its stance on changing incoming legislation around roaming and net neutrality....
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