If you've ever hankered to listen to your iTunes selections from your Alltel phone, now you can. Alltel Wireless announced Wednesday that it's offering Nutsie--which lets you upload your library to the Web and then stream it to your phone--on more than 10 of its devices. There are some restrictions, however.
Developed by Melodeo and launched last year, Nutsie will be available on Alltel phones including the Motorola Razr V3m and V3c; the Motorola Krzr K1m; the Motorola Razr2 V9m and Motorola Rokr Z6; the LG AX565, Wave, and AX8600; the Samsung Muse and Wafer, and the Alltel Hue by Samsung. More Alltel phones supporting Nutsie will be announced in coming months, the company says.
The service will cost $4.99 a month or $19.99 for one year. It can be accessed via the Alltel Shop located on the handset. Alltel customers will also be able to listen to recommended music based on their playlists and explore hundreds of thousands of playlists from other users.
When Nutsie launched last year, it provided a nice alternative to $500 iPhones. Now that you can get one for 200 bucks--and at that price its install base will only continue to grow--I have to wonder just how long a service like this can remain viable.
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Alltel Wireless)
Sometimes paying more money saves you more money. My girlfriend recently increased her AT&T text plan from 250 texts a month to 400 texts a month. The result is that she's actually paying less now than she was before, since going over her 250 test message limit was actually more expensive than just paying for 400 up front.
She could have just texted less, but that's not very realistic, and it's nice to know wireless companies have a fail-safe for those of us who have a hard time controlling our indulgences. Alltel Wireless on Monday announced that it is offering its customers a way to save money on content that they'd have to pay extra to get before. Called Alltel Connect Packs, they give customers the ability to bundle their favorite apps and services and supposedly save up to 40 percent on their monthly bills.
Alltel Connect Packs are only available to current Alltel customers with capable phones and with current post-paid rate plans of $39.99 and higher.
- Connect Pack 1: Providing Alltel Mobile Web along with unlimited data minutes, this package is available for only $9.99 per month and provides unlimited access to the Web, e-mail, news, weather, and more. The unlimited data minutes can be used on Alltel applications, including Alltel TV, Celltop, ringtones, games, and others.
- Connect Pack 2: This option, available for $14.99 per month, delivers everything from Connect Pack 1 as well as unlimited Alltel TV on Demand (with seven popular channels), Alltel Radio Basic (with 10 great channels of commercial free radio), and a subscription to Alltel's popular Ringback service (allowing customers to change the usual ringing sound that callers hear with thousands of tunes that match their personality).
- Connect Pack 3: This pack provides everything included in Connect Pack 1, plus unlimited messaging. For $19.99 per month, customers have unlimited access to the Mobile Web along with unlimited text, picture, video and instant messaging.
- Connect Pack 4: Delivering everything from Connect Pack 2, Connect Pack 4 adds unlimited messaging and e-mail for $24.99 per month.
- Connect Pack 5: Available for $34.99, this pack is the ultimate bundle. It provides everything offered by Connect Pack 4 plus unlimited access to My Cast Weather, a RealTone-Jukebox monthly membership (with access to three new RealTones each month), and unlimited Alltel Navigation.
Young Chad has a bit of an attitude, it seems.
(Credit: Alltel Wireless)We all love Chad, don't we? You know Chad: the good-looking, unassuming guy who's taller than his rivals, but not too tall as to intimidate shorter guys, with the square jaw and fauxhawk (are those still in play?), who's so nice and just sincerely wants everyone to be able to share their wireless plans? As long as the plan is from Alltel Wireless Network, that is.
Well, haven't you always wondered what it would be like if we saw those guys as kids? No? Me neither. That's not stopping Alltel from releasing a new spot debuting August 22, but already on YouTube, which shows Chad, as well as his antagonists, as kids.
In the spot, Chad is running his own lemonade stand and is letting his customers share their lemonade with their families. The Sprint (and whatever) kids, they don't like it. The end. The sequence is actually a lot shorter than I expected, but that's probably a good thing. I have to say, though, Campbell-Ewald Detroit, the company that developed the ad, did a great job with casting as the young actors they got to play the kid versions are very spot on. I still miss the chubby Sprint guy they replaced a few months back, though.
The Little Rascal--I mean the "Sales Guys" as kids.
(Credit: Alltel Wireless)Alltel is using the spot to promote its new "My Circle" Family Choice Plus plans. According to Alltel, for $84.99 per month, customers will receive two lines with 1,000 shared minutes and the ability to call any 10 numbers on any network. Also, customers can receive two lines with 2,000 shared minutes and unlimited calling within their "Circle" of 20 numbers for $114.99.
In addition to the unlimited calling within their "Circle," Family Choice plan customers will receive unlimited mobile-to-mobile calls and unlimited nights and weekends. Customers will also have the ability to choose either free evening calls starting at 7 p.m. or 1,000 text/picture/video messages.
The plans include unlimited texting to their "Circle of Friends" and other Alltel customers. Also, customers can add lines to their My Circle plan for $9.99. Not bad, actually. Too bad I just bought an iPhone 3G (which incidentally works much better in Minneapolis than it does in San Francisco, just FYI).
Alltel wireless
(Credit: Alltel Wireless)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, the Motorola Krzr K1m, the Motorola Razr V3m, the Samsung u520, and the Samsung Wafer.
Alltel hopes to add more phones to the list. You can purchase a Jump Music accessory kit--featuring a 256 MB memory card, a USB cable, and a stereo headset--for $49.99 from the Alltel store.
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