Alltel

Federal regulators late on Thursday slapped three wireless firms, including No. 3 operator Sprint Nextel, with a total of $2.83 million in fines for not meeting a long-passed deadline for equipping subscribers with enhanced 911 service.

The Federal Communications Commission had set a December 31, 2005 date by which all mobile carriers had to ensure that 95 percent of their subscribers had location-sensitive handsets--that is, those that allow emergency responders to pinpoint a caller's location upon connection to the 911 switchboard.

Sprint Nextel and large regional operators Alltel Corp. and U.S. Cellular Corp. "failed to meet … Read more

Alltel has recently announced an enhanced caller ID feature that will display the location of incoming phone numbers by displaying the city and state assigned to it.

Alltel hopes the feature, known as City ID, will catch on with those who keep getting phone calls from unknown area codes and numbers. The application will be initially available on the LG AX275, with plans to roll it out on additional Alltel phones in the future.

There's a free seven-day trial to start, and it will eventually cost $1.99 a month.

It shouldn't take an avid cell phone fan long to realize that the Samsung Wafer, aka the SCH-R510, is a dead-ringer for both the Samsung SGH-X820 and the Samsung SGH-T519 Trace for T-Mobile. Though the Wafer shows some subtle differences inside and out, its basic design closely resembles the earlier handsets. Not surprisingly, Samsung continues to push thin phones, with this form factor in particular being a favorite. Check it out from all angles in our slide show.

Alltel Wireless has partnered with Frog Design and eMusic to offer Jump Music, a free application for transferring music from your PC to your cell phone.

Similar to the iTunes Music Store model, consumers can navigate to eMusic directly from the Jump Music interface and purchase songs from eMusic's vast catalog of DRM-free MP3s. New Jump Music users can take advantage of a special introductory offer of 35 free eMusic songs. All this, and you can transfer your existing music collection to your cell phone as well. It's initially compatible with only five Alltel phones: the LG AX8600, … Read more

Alltel scored a coup today when it became the first carrier to offer the Samsung SCH-r510, a handset we first saw earlier this year at CTIA. Also called "The Wafer," the r510 exemplifies Samsung's overt obsession for slim phones. The candy bar cell phone, which is just 0.33 inch thin and weighs only 2.7 ounces, bears a strong resemblance to the earlier Samsung Trace for T-Mobile. Though I get the meaning behind the "Wafer" name (it's wafer thin) I can't say I like it very much. I keep thinking of a … Read more

Alltel has just announced the latest addition to its lineup, a sexy music flip phone it has dubbed the LG AX8600. The phone is almost identical to its Verizon counterpart, the LG VX8600, except that the LG AX8600 comes in marine blue, shimmering gold, and apple green. Most of the features remain the same: a 1.3-megapixel camera and camcorder, a microSD card slot, EV-DO support, a music player with MP3 and AAC formats, a customizable equalizer, external music player controls, and stereo Bluetooth. Replacing Verizon's V Cast and V Cast Music is Alltel's own Axcess TV application … Read more

It may not be one of the big four cell phone carriers, but Alltel continues to surprise us. Today the company launched a new product called Celltop that will allow Alltel customers a new way to organize content on their phone. Celltop puts interactive, changeable windows or "cells" on your phone's display that provide shortcuts to a variety of features, including your call log and message in-box. The idea is to let you scan such information without having to press several buttons. It looks sort of cool, as we tend to like anything that makes a gadget … Read more