cellular

More than a day after it surfaced in San Francisco, AT&T's 4G LTE network now seems to be available in the Los Angeles area, as well.

CNET editor Jessica Dolcourt noticed the 4G LTE icon on her phone in the City of Angels just about an hour ago. A quick speed test with the Speedtest.net app showed that she got download speeds of around 15Mbps and upload speeds of some 7Mbps.… Read more

Cellular carriers are evil.

Or dumb. Because what but an evil or dumb company would punish its best customers for underestimating the amount of their product that they want? Cellular overage charges are insultingly high. That's why people over-buy the service plans they need: to "save" by making sure they don't get into the carriers' punishing overuse charges.

Can you run a mobile carrier with a more transparent, customer-friendly service model? While charging less for the same service? Tucows will be trying to do so when it rolls out Ting, an MVNO on the Sprint network, … Read more

The HTC Wildfire S for U.S. Cellular certainly packs a punch for such a small device. But it's not for everyone.

The Wildfire S has a 3.2-inch touch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, and it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with HTC's Sense interface. As with other entry-level smartphones, it doesn't break any new ground, and its specs are far from top of the line. Still, if you're looking for a bargain and your hands aren't too big, this phone (free after a rebate) holds some appeal. The phone is ideal for first-time users … Read more

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple has not given in to pressure from Japan's largest cellular network, NTT DoCoMo, to include carrier-specific apps on the iPhone. Apple's stance has caused negotiations to get the iPhone on NTT DoCoMo to stall.

NTT DoCoMo CEO Ryuji Yamada says that his company's apps, specifically an e-wallet app and an e-mail service app, are important for his Japanese customers. While that may be true, Apple isn't budging. Providing the user with a clean, nonbloated experience out of the box is what Apple is all about.

Most … Read more

Just over a year after enthusiastically telling CNET that U.S. Cellular wanted the iPhone, the carrier's CEO has changed her mind.

During the company's third-quarter earnings call today, Mary Dillon said that U.S. Cellular considered adding the iPhone to its lineup, but that Apple's "terms were unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint." Dillon didn't offer specifics, Fierce Wireless reported, but she added that the potential strain on the carrier's data network was not a factor.

Though U.S. Cellular's decision may come as surprising following the arrival of the … Read more

With the introduction of 3G, and especially 4G, mobile Internet access is no longer considered inferior to home broadband. In fact, in certain locations, it can actually be much faster than many residential DSL plans.

That said, as you roam around, even within one city like the case of the iPhone 4S, you'll experience changes in connection speed and coverage. That's just the nature of any cellular data connection.

Generally, it's best to use a 4G connection. However, since, for now, none of the wireless providers can guarantee the availability of 4G coverage throughout the U.S., … Read more

U.S. Cellular has just announced the PCD Wrangler, which isn't as exciting as its name makes it out to be.

This basic clamshell phone won't wow anyone with its features and design--it only has a 2.2-inch QVGA display, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a microSD card, a speakerphone, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, and not much else.

But it does have one important thing going for it, and that's durability. The Wrangler has apparently been designed to withstand water, extreme temperature, dust, shock, poor weather conditions, and scratches to the screen.

There's no word on pricing and availability just yet, but since the phone has already made an appearance in U.S. Cellular's online store, we're sure it'll be any day now.… Read more

The T-Mobile Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot, though fast enough for most Internet applications, wasn't the fastest mobile router in terms of data speed I've seen. In fact, in my testing around San Francisco, on average, it was actually slightly slower than the previous model, the T-Mobile 4G Mobile Hotspot ZTE MF61, which came out a while ago. Still, overall, it makes a very good investment.

First of all, it comes with a very strong battery that lasted up to 8 hours in our testing, which is about 2 hours more than what T-Mobile claims. A mobile router's battery life depends a lot on how much you use it on the go. The good thing about the Sonic 4G is the fact that it can go in and out of standby mode very quickly without any user interaction. While other mobile routers need to be "waken" by a press on the power button, the Sonic seems to wake when there are data requests. And the router can stay in standby mode for days on a full charge.… Read more

Cool as she is, the iPhone 4S' new personal assistant Siri hasn't been able to tell me in a meaningful way which iPhone 4S offers the fastest data speeds. In the end, I resorted to the usual do-it-yourself approach: a real-world test. And the results were interesting.

Prior to the testing, I expected some big differences between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S (both GSM versions), since the iPhone 4S supports AT&T's faster HSDPA 14.4 network, which is capable of reaching an upload speed of 14.4Mbps and download speed of 5.8Mbps, theoretically twice the speeds of the iPhone 4.

This wasn't always the case, however, and sometimes it was quite the opposite. But first let's talk about how the testing was done.

How we test It's generally hard to figure out the way to get the best picture of how fast a mobile cellular Internet device's data rate is. The truth is that the speed of a cellular Internet connection varies a great deal from one location to another. It also depends on the server on which the app's data resides and sometimes even on the time of day.

For the testing, I used the Speedtest.net mobile app, which is the most popular app for the purpose. The app automatically connects to a nearby server to download and upload data. How busy the server is during the test affects the scores, but the app still offers a good representation of data speeds in a local area.

I gathered iPhone 4Ses from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, and tested the three smartphones against an iPhone 4 at a few well-known places in San Francisco: CNET's lobby, Union Square, and the Fisherman's Wharf area of Pier 39. I picked the first location for an obvious reason: it's the lobby of the building where I work, which is near the Financial District. The others are two of the most popular spots in the city, with lots of people using their phones. Also, I tested three 4G hot spots from various carriers for a comparison.

Keep in mind that these tests only evaluate data speeds for these phones in San Francisco and are not designed to be representative of data speeds you'll find in your area. However, they at least should show how the data speeds compare between each carrier version of the iPhone 4S, as well as the difference between AT&T's iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4.… Read more