Carriers

We admit that we expected CTIA Fall 2010 to be rather slow, as the fall version of the wireless trade show is usually not as eventful as the one in the spring. Boy, were we wrong. More than 10 new devices made their debut this past week, pushing the holiday gadget season into full swing.

Motorola kicked off the festivities with the announcement of five new Android smartphones--three for AT&T and two for Verizon Wireless. They are the Motorola Bravo, the Motorola Flipside, the Motorola Flipout, the Motorola Citrus, and the Motorola Droid Pro. The Motorola Droid … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--They're not phones, but AT&T has announced its first HSPA+ and LTE-compatible devices: the USBConnect Adrenaline and USBConnect Shockwave mobile broadband modems.

The Adrenaline, which is made by LG, will be the first LTE-upgradeable device. A software update will be made available for the USB modem when AT&T rolls out LTE in mid-2011, which will allow it take advantage of the faster speeds. Till then, you can use it on AT&T's current 3G network.

It also offers built-in GPS and a MicroSD slot, so you can use it as a storage … Read more

The CTIA fall show used to be known as CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment, but for 2010, it is called CTIA Enterprise & Applications, which shows a deeper emphasis on business and development of mobile applications.

Still, we expect quite a bit of news on the consumer front. Sprint and Samsung are planning announcements, and we won't be surprised if we see more news about tablets, especially with the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook announcement from last week and the impending arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Perhaps more interestingly, Microsoft is skipping the show this year, maybe to concentrate … Read more

AT&T announced new payment plans for GoPhone today that drastically cut costs to the wireless carrier's prepaid phone service. The revised plans go into effect on October 3, and lower the price of using the Unlimited Daily Talk and Text and Simple Rate plans.

Unlimited Daily Talk and Text users will now pay $2 per day for days they use their phones, as opposed to $3, and the plan includes 200 MB of data. Simple Rate users will see prices drop from 25 cents per minute to 10 cents per minute. Charges apply for making or receiving … Read more

U.S. Cellular announced yesterday that it is launching a new customer loyalty program called the Belief Project. The program, which is one of the first of its kind in the wireless industry, puts an end to many common carrier practices like forcing customers to sign a new contract if they buy a discounted phone.

Many of the Belief Project's benefits will depend on "Belief Points," which customers will start earning automatically and free of charge. The points then can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, such as earlier phone upgrades, additional lines, new phones handsets … Read more

Welcome to the 411, my column answering all your questions about cell phones and cell phone accessories. I receive plenty of questions about these subjects via e-mail, so I figured many of you might have similar queries, too. At times, I might solicit answers from readers if I'm stumped. Send your questions and comments to me at nicole.lee@cnet.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, let me know in the e-mail.

In light of BlackBerry DevCon happening right now, I decided to take this opportunity to answer a few of your BlackBerry-related questions.

I'm excited about … Read more

Months after Verizon first hinted at a move toward tiered pricing, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that it'll introduce the new plans in four to six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes in the wake of its burgeoning LTE implementation, though we don't yet know if this will affect the current 3G CDMA network. Seidenberg was careful to note that the company is not just copying AT&T, which also moved to tiered data pricing earlier this year.

Interestingly, Verizon also indicated that the move to 4G would hopefully move suppliers like Apple to … Read more

Sprint customers in San Francisco who have a 4G-enabled device woke up to a pleasant surprise today as the carrier began a few public tests of its WiMAX-based 4G network there. So those who have the HTC Evo 4G, the Samsung Epic 4G, or the Sprint Overdrive might finally see the 4G bars light up in certain parts of the city.

We did detect some 4G activity here in our CNET office on Second St., though we found that speeds varied. Running the Speedtest.net app, we found that indoor speeds often averaged around 500kbps downstream and 1.2Mbps upstream. … Read more

A few days after Clearwire and, by extension Sprint, announced a big expansion of their WiMax 4G network, representatives from AT&T and Verizon Wireless made their own 4G promises at separate conferences. Though both carriers have chosen the competing LTE standard for 4G, Verizon is in the lead.

At the Bank of America Merrill and Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference today in Newport Beach, Calif., AT&T Operations CEO John Stankey said the carrier will launch commercial LTE service by the middle of the next year. Stankey didn't specify initial cities, but he said AT&… Read more