unlimited

Slowly but surely the unlimited data plan for mobile phones is slipping away.

First it was AT&T, which announced last year that it was getting rid of its unlimited data plan to ensure mobile data overeaters didn't gobble up a disproportionate share of network resources. T-Mobile followed with a plan that it still calls "unlimited," but actually throttles usage after users hit a certain threshold. And soon Verizon Wireless will also be saying bah-bye to unlimited data.

For most consumers, who use well below the thresholds that carriers charge for overages, the switch to a … Read more

Stephane Richard knows a thing or two about the iPhone.

In addition to carrying one of Apple's iconic smartphones, Richard is also the CEO of France Telecom, whose networks carry traffic from more iPhones than any other carrier except AT&T. France Telecom, with its Orange brands, sells the iPhone in 15 countries.

"They just created smartphones with the iPhone," Richard said during an hour-long chat over breakfast at the W Hotel in San Francisco last week. "Everybody should be grateful to them to have put such a product in our market."

But, while … Read more

T-Mobile announced several new plans today to help give its customers more choices based on their needs.

New and existing customers can now get their hands on a range of single-line and multiline unlimited plan options. The company's simplest smartphone-focused option, offering unlimited talk and text, as well as 200MB of data, costs $69.99 per month for a single line. The same plan for 5GB of data costs $89.99, while the 10GB option will set customers back $119.99. A 2GB plan with unlimited talking and texting was announced last month. Consumers who subscribe to that plan … Read more

Verizon Wireless planted a bigger flag in prepaid this week with the announcement of its new "Verizon Unleashed" plans. Though only available in Southern California and most of Florida for the time being, the plans offers unlimited services for $50 per month.

Verizon Unleashed will offer subscribers unlimited calling minutes regardless of time of day, unlimited calls to other Verizon subscribers, unlimited domestic messaging, and unlimited messaging to select carriers in Canada and Mexico. Unlimited mobile Web is a feature as well, though the plan is not available on handsets that have full HTML browsers.

Verizon has long … Read more

T-Mobile USA is taking on its wireless competitors with its new "unlimited" everything cell phone plan for only $79.99 a month, proving that it's still looking to compete as regulators consider AT&T's bid to buy it.

Today the company launched the new plan that includes unlimited talk, texting, and data up to 2GB a month. While talk and texting appear to be unlimited, the fine print for T-Mobile's deal reveals that the data service is not actually unlimited. Consumers are allowed to use up to 2GB of data per month. After that, … Read more

Sony's Music Unlimited service is coming to the PlayStation Portable.

Starting on Thursday, PSP owners with PlayStation Network IDs will be able to access Music Unlimited from their portable gaming devices. When people load up the app, they will be able to access millions of tracks on the streaming service from a range of major and independent labels.

The news of Music Unlimited coming to the PSP isn't all that surprising. Late last month, Shawn Layden, CEO of Sony Network Entertainment, told Eurogamer that Music Unlimited would be available to PSP owners "in a matter of weeks.&… Read more

Sony plans to expand its Music Unlimited streaming service to more of its gaming hardware, the company reportedly told Eurogamer in an interview published yesterday.

Speaking to the gaming publication, Shawn Layden, executive vice president and CEO of Sony Network Entertainment, said that Music Unlimited would be made available on the PlayStation Portable "in a matter of weeks." He then turned his attention to Sony's upcoming gaming device, codenamed the Next Generation Portable (NGP), which the company plans to release at the end of 2011.

"We will make it happen," Layden said to Eurogamer in … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--To reinvent the fuel business, engineers at biofuel start-up Joule Unlimited tinker with tiny life forms all day.

The four-year-old start-up is on the front lines of a branch of biotechnology that taps into the wealth of knowledge from genome sequencing and powerful computer tools to start from scratch and ask: if you wanted the ideal fuel, how would you make it?

The answer they've come up with is a diesel secreted by a genetically engineered microbe in flat plastic bioreactors. The only inputs for its "biofactory" organism are sunlight, pumped-in carbon dioxide, and some … Read more

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Warner Bros. is renting out movies inside Facebook

The beta of Google Maps Navigation for Android helps you avoid traffic jams

YouTube acquires Next New Networks

HBO is said to be relaxing black-out agreements to advance UltraViolet cloud streaming

This year's Wimbledon finals will be broadcast in 3D

Owners of the original iPad 3G will be able to port their unlimited data plans over to the new iPad 2

Consumer Reports finds that 30 percent of teens are texting while driving