Wireless

Updated 1/6/10 12:55 p.m. PT: More up to date information on where the Nokia Ovi store is offered has been added to this story.

LAS VEGAS--Nokia on Wednesday said its Ovi application and mobile-content store is now available in the United States for AT&T wireless customers.

Consumers using Nokia devices such as the E71x, the Surge, the Mural, the 6650, the 6555, and the 6350 are now able to download free and paid content from the Ovi Store. Paid content will be billed directly to their AT&T bill. Nokia said more devices soon coming to AT&T's network will be able to access the Ovi Store.

Nokia announced in May that AT&T would make the Ovi Store available. AT&T customers will be able to access the Ovi Store via their Nokia phone's browser. They then can download the store and to download content such as games, ringtones, productivity applications, and movie trailers.

The Ovi storefront is now up and running in 17 countries: Australia, France, ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

(Credit: eMarketer.com)

Data from a new report shows that the iPhone may finally have a true competitor with Android phone users' profile appearing very much alike that of iPhone users'.

According to eMarketer.com, the marketing intelligence firm comScore found that 37 percent of U.S. mobile users had heard of Android in November 2009, up from 22 percent in August, and "likely due to the Verizon Droid ad campaign." More interestingly, "17 percent of mobile users in the market for a new smartphone in the next three months planned to buy an Android phone compared with 20 percent who would pick up an iPhone."

The report also shows that usage patterns for Android and iPhone owners were very similar in terms of media consumption, Web browser, and application usage, but e-mail usage on Android devices oddly tracked behind that of other platforms. This is likely because of the immaturity of the e-mail application that ships with Android and not a change in use patterns.

This news obviously keeps the iPhone in the dominant position, but shows that other smartphones finally present a real challenge. It's notable because BlackBerry and iPhone users have always seemed worlds apart, whereas Android users seem to be using their devices at parity with the iPhone crowd.

The fact that the Droid runs on Verizon instead of AT&T no doubt helps with data usage, though only time will tell if Verizon can handle the traffic or if T-mobile can handle the pressure of a huge influx of new Google Nexus One phones running Android.

AT&T has resumed selling iPhones through its Web site to New York City customers, with no indication as to what prompted the halt.

Over the holiday weekend, New Yorkers who tried to order an iPhone through AT&T's Web site were left out in the cold. Making matters worse, explanations ranged from network congestion problems to online fraud to this fine example of corporate-speak: "We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels."

But at some point on Monday, sales could once again be processed for New York City ZIP codes through AT&T's site. An AT&T representative did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on what knocked out online iPhone sales for Gothamites.

Update at 1:50 p.m. PST December 28: AT&T has resumed sales.

AT&T has stopped selling the Apple iPhone in the New York metropolitan area through its Web site, perhaps due to data congestion, credit card fraud, or routine sales strategy changes, depending on whom you believe.

Online sales of the phone were apparently suspended Sunday. Prospective customers attempting to buy an iPhone through the Web site and using a New York area ZIP code get a message saying, "We're sorry, there are no Packages & Deals available at this time. Please check back later." However, changing ZIP codes to other U.S. metro areas yields a bevy of iPhone choices.

An AT&T representative's statement to CNET suggested that the move to not offer any iPhones online to buyers in the Big Apple was a routine strategic decision.

"We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels," said Fletcher Cook, an AT&T spokesman.

However, customer service representatives, who are likely not authorized to comment officially for the company, painted divergent pictures.

One customer service representative hinted that data congestion may be the reason for the suspension, telling The Consumerist that "New York is not ready for the iPhone. You don't have enough towers to handle the phone."

In light of AT&T's tarnished reputation for its 3G service, this is certainly a plausible explanation. For more than a year, iPhone users have complained about dropped calls and poor service on the 3G network. The problems appear to be particularly acute in densely populated urban areas, such as New York and San Francisco.

However, another representative suggested that credit card fraud is responsible. Sales were suspended due to "increased fraudulent activity in that area when ordering the iPhone," the other representative told the Gearlog blog. However, the iPhone is apparently still for sale at Apple stores in the New York area.

No word on what the nature of the alleged fraud may be, but as others have certainly pondered, isn't online fraud as likely to happen in Dallas, Seattle, or San Francisco?

AT&T 3G wireless customers in San Francisco had problems making calls, sending and receiving text messages, and accessing data on Friday evening.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said that starting at about 4 p.m. PT on Friday afternoon, AT&T experienced a hardware issue in San Francisco that disrupted its 3G wireless network within the city. The hardware issue, which he did not elaborate on, was fixed by around 6:15 p.m. PT. And the 3G network has been working fine ever since, he said.

The problem did not affect AT&T's older and slower networks that use 2.5G EDGE or GSM technologies. This means that even though 3G service was disrupted, most customers' devices were able to switch to the slower networks to make calls and to send and receive data. Still, Siegel noted that AT&T detected that customers were having trouble accessing the 3G network, and the company quickly figured out the problem and resolved the issue within hours.

Even though their phones were likely switching over to AT&T's slower technology, many AT&T customers still noticed the issues, with many people reporting having problems with their 3G service on Twitter. Some of these customers said they were unable to access voice, data, or SMS messages at all.

Truth be told, the service disruption in San Francisco was not a really big deal. It affected a handful of customers. But at this point, any network problems, particularly in tech-savvy areas of the country such as San Francisco, only flames the fire of criticism that is heating up around AT&T's 3G service.

The disruption comes at a time when AT&T's reputation for 3G service is already tarnished. For more than a year, iPhone users have complained about dropped calls and poor service on the 3G network. The problems appear to be particularly acute in densely populated urban areas, such as New York and San Francisco.

Last week, Ralph de la Vega, head of AT&T's wireless business, admitted that AT&T is having problems in these cities. He said the company is working on resolving the issues.

De la Vega also admitted that AT&T is struggling to keep up with demand for data on its 3G network. And he alluded to adopting new "incentives" to encourage wireless customers to use less data.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T's biggest competitor, sees AT&T's problems as a golden marketing opportunity. And the carrier started running advertisements recently that highlight AT&T's lack of 3G coverage in some parts of the country. AT&T sued Verizon last month over the ads, accusing Verizon of misleading consumers.

AT&T has dropped its lawsuit, but the publicity around the tiff has likely not endeared AT&T to its customers, nor has it painted the company in a favorable light to anyone considering becoming an AT&T customer.

Meanwhile, AT&T claims in its own ads that it has the fastest 3G wireless network, a notion Verizon disputes. Earlier this year, Verizon also filed a lawsuit against AT&T claiming that the company was not being truthful in its advertising. But Verizon has also decided to dismiss its complaint.

The biggest problem for AT&T is that it is the only carrier in the United States that offers the most data-friendly and data-hungry mobile phone on the market: the iPhone. Analysts say users of the Apple smartphone consume five to seven times more data per month than other wireless subscribers.

AT&T has been upgrading its network to add capacity to keep up with demand, but for many consumers, the upgrades have not solved their service problems. AT&T recognizes more needs to be done. It has launched a new application for the iPhone that lets users report service problems. And the company is urging the Federal Communications Commission to find more wireless spectrum to auction off. But these solutions will take years to implement.

In the meantime, AT&T is faced with a major dilemma. It must continue to market the iPhone and all its bandwidth-hungry applications in order to continue growing its subscriber base, but it also needs to curb data usage until its network can handle the additional load.

In short, AT&T is in an impossible situation. If it backs off on its marketing, it risks losing Wall Street's confidence. If it continues to add new iPhone users, and its service suffers for it, it risks alienating its customers. And then the company may find itself spending the next several years repairing a severely damaged reputation.

Correction made December 9 at 7:51 p.m. PDT: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that AT&T had announced a tiered pricing plan. The company is considering incentives to curb heavy wireless data usage.

AT&T wants its iPhone users to use less wireless data, and it may consider new pricing models to curb users' data usage as it tries to keep up with growing demand.

At an investor conference in New York on Wednesday, Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's head of wireless, said the wireless operator is considering incentives to get consumers to reduce their data usage.

De la Vega said 3 percent of smartphone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity.

"We're going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don't crowd out the other customers in those same cell sites," said de la Vega according to a transcript of the conference. "And you'll see us address that more in detail."

He went on to say that most consumers aren't aware which applications use a lot of bandwidth and which do not. For example, email does not consume a lot of bandwidth, whereas streaming video and audio do consume a great deal of bandwidth.

"What's driving usage on the network and driving these high usage situations are things like video, or audio that keeps playing around the clock," he said, according to the transcript provided by AT&T. "And so we've got to get to those customers and have them recognize that they need to change their pattern, or there will be other things that they are going to have to do to reduce their usage."

AT&T has been struggling to keep up with demand for wireless-data usage on its network. The iPhone, launched more than two years ago, has revolutionized mobile Web usage. The device, which was built more for accessing the Net than making calls, can access more than 100,000 applications, many of which use the mobile Internet.

iPhone users on average consume five to seven times more data per month than average wireless subscribers, according to analyst firm Sanford Bernstein. And all this usage is clogging the network, causing many iPhone users, especially in large cities such as New York and San Francisco, to experience dropped calls, slow 3G service, and issues connecting to the network at all.

AT&T has been reluctant to admit that there is a problem, but recently, the company has acknowledged that problems exist. According to The Wall Street Journal, de la Vega admitted that New York and San Francisco have been experiencing service issues. And the company recently launched an iPhone application that allows users to report service problems.

AT&T has been upgrading its network to the next generation of 3G wireless service to increase network capacity. But now the company is saying it needs to actually curb usage in order to get a handle on demand.

De la Vega didn't provide specifics about how the company would actually get consumers to use less data. But he said that a usage-based pricing model may be considered in the future.

"I think longer-term, there's got to be some sort of a pricing scheme that addresses the usage," he said. "But that's going to be determined by industry competitive factors, regulatory factors and customer [successes]."

The idea is that usage based pricing may actually deter consumers from using high-bandwidth applications. Unlike voice service, which is already tiered, wireless-data service is charged at an all-you-can-eat flat rate. iPhone users select a voice plan, then pay an extra $30 a month for unlimited data usage. By contrast, AT&T has limited the amount of data that its wireless-data card users can consume each month to 5GB. After that limit has been reached, customers who use the AT&T network to access the Net from their laptops get charged more based on their usage.

But asking iPhone users and other smartphone subscribers to cut back on their data usage may be somewhat unrealistic, and it could actually stifle innovation and development of the mobile Internet.

AT&T seems to realize that this is not a long-term solution. And not only is the carrier upgrading its network, but it's also asking the Federal Communications Commission to find more spectrum to auction off that can be used for wireless-data services. Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs for AT&T, said in a separate interview with CNET on Wednesday that something needs to be done to deal with the flood of wireless-data traffic.

Cicconi and AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson met with FCC staff members earlier this week to discuss the spectrum issue.

"Clearly, there is a looming crisis that needs to be addressed when it comes to spectrum availability," Cicconi said in an interview at his office in Washington, D.C. "Wireless-data usage is growing far faster than anyone had expected. And if we don't do something soon, we will run out very fast. And then we will have to start telling wireless customers that they can't do all the things they want to do with their devices."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has made freeing up more spectrum a top priority. And he has already proposed that the FCC look into taking some spectrum away from TV broadcasters to give to wireless operators to deliver more wireless-broadband services.

Naturally, the TV broadcasters oppose such a proposal.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T's main competitor, has already amended wireless-data pricing for its low-end phones in an effort to squeeze out more revenue from users. But drastic changes in data pricing could scare off some customers and curb smartphone adoption altogether.

If you were watching Florida impersonate a headless chicken against Alabama Saturday, you might have been aware that Luke Wilson, AT&T's disarming new pitchman, had also lost his head.

For the game was interrupted by Wilson's need to talk, with his filmic features and without.

The battle between AT&T and Verizon has been peppered by startling doses of objectivity. So to demonstrate the clear, obvious, incontrovertible fact that Verizon's 3G is but a Wendy's-stuffing, cake-loving, 15-beers-a-night slob when compared with AT&T's Usain Bolt, Wilson performs a side-by-side that would put the Pepsi Challenge to shame.

On AT&T's 3G, Wilson, finally not dressed in a painful shade of tree bark, downloads himself with the speed of an unfaithful, burglarizing vicar fleeing from the press.

When he tries using the Verizon 3G, which AT&T declares is very much slower, Wilson is up to his neck in it. There is no time to bring his head into the picture.

Naturally, AT&T's hope is that Wilson's charm will encourage people to use their hearts at least as much as their heads. No one using the latter will really believe he is using Verizon's 3G to materialize his headless self.

So smartphone seekers will be left trying to decide between a network that is allegedly everywhere, but is slow, and one which, according to critics, isn't remotely everywhere, but is faster and, oh, has that supposed digitally clueless pageant queen of an iPhone.

It's not quite George Clooney vs. Brad Pitt, is it? It's more, well, Luke Wilson vs. Owen Wilson.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T have ended their public legal spat over advertising, and have thus agreed to stop complaining about each other's advertising campaigns.

On Wednesday AT&T announced it dropped its suit against Verizon Wireless for allegedly misleading customers by showing its weak 3G coverage. And Verizon said it agreed to drop a suit it filed earlier this year against AT&T for claiming it had the "More Bars in More Places," the "Best Coverage," and the "Best Worldwide Coverage."

In its amended suit filed in August, Verizon said that AT&T had no basis to refer to its network as the best, because Verizon claims in its own advertising to have "America's Most Reliable 3G Network" and "America's Best 3G Network."

"Through these advertisements, AT&T claims to have a wireless network that is superior, both qualitatively ("More Bars") and quantitatively ("More Places") to the wireless networks of all other U.S. wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless, both in the United States and worldwide, when in fact, none of those claims is true," Verizon said in its complaint.

But now it looks like AT&T and Verizon have made peace with one another, as AT&T dropped its case in Atlanta and Verizon dismissed its case filed in New York.

However, the lawsuits bring up an interesting trend that was noted recently in an article published by The New York Times. Increasingly, companies are suing each other over claims made in their advertising campaigns.

In addition to AT&T and Verizon Wireless, other longtime foes, such as shampoo and soap makers Pantene and Dove, dog food makers Science Diet and Iams, and soup companies Campbell Soup and Progresso have all haggled over ads, challenging competitors to prove their claims.

Some complaints over "misleading" advertising are filed with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which is the industry's main self-regulatory program for national ads. But others go to court and file lawsuits under the Lanham Act, which was passed in 1946 to strengthen trademark law. Verizon's lawsuit cited the Lanham Act.

While these lawsuits and complaints may be legitimate, the truth is that most consumers take these advertisements claiming to be the "best" or the "strongest" at anything with a grain of salt. And there is some indication that the mere publicity from these lawsuits can backfire on companies, giving consumers a negative impression of the company that files the lawsuit.

It can be argued that this has happened to AT&T. There have already been numerous reports about problems with AT&T's network, particularly for iPhone users. And when the company filed its lawsuit against Verizon, many consumers expressed anger at AT&T for whining about the advertisement, when many felt that the claims expressed in the advertisement were true.

By contrast, Verizon's lawsuit against AT&T was not well-publicized. In fact, most technology reporters and bloggers hadn't even known about or mentioned the suit until Wednesday when the two companies agreed to drop litigation against each other. It remains to be seen if consumers will also deem the dismissed Verizon lawsuit a bit whiny.

AT&T has dismissed its lawsuit against Verizon Wireless for using an advertisement that AT&T complained confused customers about its 3G wireless coverage.

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

On Wednesday, AT&T formally dismissed the lawsuit. Last month, the wireless operator suffered a major legal setback when a judge rejected the company's request to force Verizon to pull its "There's A Map For That" advertising campaign.

AT&T filed its lawsuit in federal court in Atlanta in early November asserting that Verizon Wireless' advertisements mislead customers by suggesting that AT&T subscribers cannot access wireless Internet services throughout its network. AT&T has called the ads blatantly false and has said that the commercials have caused irreparable harm to the company.

The advertisements that Verizon is running show two maps that each indicate 3G wireless coverage. One map shows coverage for Verizon and the other depicts AT&T's coverage. Verizon just recently started airing another commercial that depicts Santa Claus' reindeer referring to Verizon's and AT&T's 3G coverage maps.

AT&T has also started running its own advertisements that are critical of Verizon Wireless. The ads feature Luke Wilson and slam Verizon for not allowing users to talk and surf the Web at the same time, something that wireless subscribers can do on AT&T smartphones.

Verizon Wireless declined to comment on the news of the dismissal. And AT&T also declined to comment further on the matter.