AT&T's new pricing: more data for more money

AT&T is raising the prices and the allotments of its data plans for smartphones and tablets -- more money and more data for new customers.

If you already have AT&T service, your contract and bill will be unaffected.

The new plans roll out Sunday, the Dallas-based company said Wednesday.

AT&T's current smartphone data plans come in three flavors: 200 megabytes of data for $15 a month, two gigabytes for $25, or four gigabytes for $45. As of Sunday, those plans will be scrapped in favor of a new trio: 300 megabytes of data for $20 a month, three gigabytes for $30 or five gigabytes for $50.

In the new pricing structure for tablets, the nation's second-largest mobile carrier will increase the price on only the top two tiers of data. So the 250-megabytes-for-$15 plan will remain in tact for tablet owners, and the new options will be three gigabytes of data for $30 a month and five gigabytes for $50.

Although the plans are more expensive, the adjustment offers more gigs for the money -- essentially tacking on an extra gigabyte of data for $5 a month in the top two plans.

So what's with the rate change? Is this a consequence of the failed attempt to purchase T-Mobile USA or a move to fuel AT&T's new, expanding 4G LTE network?

"Customers are using more data than ever before," David Christopher, AT&T's chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "Our new plans are driven by this increasing demand in a highly competitive environment, and continue to deliver a great value to customers, especially as we continue our 4G LTE deployment."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: AT&T logo. Credit: Lisa Poole / Associated Press

CES 2012: ng Connect promotes new uses for broadband

Broadband speeds have increased steadily in the United States, reaching an average of 5.8 Mbps in mid-2011. That's 50% faster than in mid-2009, and it's likely to keep going up. But aside from streaming movies and doing video chats on Skype, what will people do with all that bandwidth?

Alcatel-Lucent, a leading supplier of networking gear to telecommunications companies, is trying to give the public and broadband service providers a better idea of what connectivity can deliver. Just as important, it's trying to show DSL and cable-modem providers how they could offer new services, giving them more ability and incentive to invest in higher-capacity networks -- and less incentive to cap their customers' usage or bill them by the gigabyte.

It's doing so through an inter-industry coalition it founded called ng Connect, which brings high-tech companies together to brainstorm and combine their technologies into new service concepts. It's been showing off some of those ideas  this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including new approaches to television, fitness, public safety, shopping and healthcare.

On Monday the coalition announced that it had expanded to more than 125 members. New additions include Fitting Reality, whose software creates virtual dressing rooms for retailers; MetaWatch, whose wireless watches can display Web data and alerts from the wearer's smartphone; and Zephyr Technology, which specializes in remote body- and health-monitoring.

The demonstrations at CES included some familiar concepts, such as using a smartphone in a store to gather more information about the products displayed there, or continuously connecting service and public-safety vehicles to all sorts of information sources and devices (see the "Striker" concept vehicle above). But there were also some intriguing new mash-ups of capabilities on display.

For example, there was a prototype of a table for bars or restaurants that combined Microsoft's Surface computing technology, Brass Monkey's cloud-based games, streaming video and advertising, and 4G wireless broadband. And the "Avatrainer" demo combined a fitness game with wireless heart-rate monitors into a cloud-based service that enables travelers to keep track of their workouts away from home.

Jason Collins, an Alcatel-Lucent vice president who leads ng Connect, said the point of the coalition is to help tech companies combine their specialties into services that improve the experience for broadband users. It's also to help broadband providers "become part of the value equation" of the services made possible by their networks.

The demand for what's already available through broadband is ever-increasing. The question is how telecommunications companies will afford the investments needed to keep up with that demand. Obviously, Alcatel-Lucent wants service providers to expand their capacity by buying more of the company's gear. But its interests -- and ng Connect's -- are aligned with consumers' when it comes to finding alternatives to bandwidth caps, metered pricing and similar strategies that broadband providers have been exploring.

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-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division. Follow him at @jcahealey.

Photo: The Striker concept public-safety vehicle. Credit: Alcatel-Lucent

Sprint announces first 4G LTE cities for mid-2012 -- no L.A. yet

Later this year, Sprint plans to launch its 4G LTE network in the cities of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio; no plans for Los Angeles have been announced as of yet.

So what does that mean for Sprint customers? Hopefully, noticeably faster download and upload speeds on smartphones, tablets and mobile hotspots.

Sprint's first LTE markets are to be activated "in the first half of 2012" along with improved 3G coverage and improvements in "boosting voice and data quality," Sprint said in a statement. In December, Sprint also began testing its LTE towers in Kankakee, Ill.

Of course, once Sprint begins its move over to an LTE network, its current customers with 4G WiMax phones may be left wondering what will happen to their devices -- and maybe even what the difference between WiMax and LTE is.

Sprint's current WiMax network offers users average download speeds of about 3 to 6 megabytes per second, which is about four times faster than 3G service. LTE, which uses different cellular-tower and in-phone-chip technology to build out the network (among other differences), offers higher top speeds than WiMax or the 4G HSPA networks AT&T and T-Mobile use.

LTE networks promise speeds that can be as much as 10 times faster than 3G service, with theoretical peaks of 300 megabytes per second for downloads and 75 megabytes per second for uploads. Among the nation's four largest carriers, only Verizon and AT&T currently have LTE networks up and running.

Sprint said that it planned to launch up to 15 devices, "including handsets, tablets and data cards," in 2012 that would be able to run on its LTE network and its 3G CDMA network if LTE was out of range.

Current WiMax devices won't suddenly be downgraded to 3G service or anything like that, Sprint said, adding that it "remains committed to our WiMax customers and plans to sell WiMax devices with two-year contracts through 2012."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: The Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, which runs on Sprint's 4G WiMax network. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times

AT&T's 4G LTE enters 11 new markets, including Los Angeles

AT&T announced that its 4G LTE network is growing, spreading to 11 new markets.

The 11 markets added Thursday are Los Angeles; San Diego; San Francisco; Oakland; San Jose; the New York City metropolitan area; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; Orlando, Fla.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Raleigh, N.C.

By the end of 2011, AT&T's 4G LTE service was available in 15 markets: Athens, Ga.; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C.

AT&T said its 4G LTE service's coverage area now includes a combined 74 million people across those 26 markets.

The nation's second-largest wireless provider also said it expected its LTE network to be "largely complete" across the U.S. by the end of 2013. Sprint and Verizon have both said they plan to have their respective LTE expansions wrapped up by then as well.

Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, has a 4G LTE network in 190 markets, covering an area with about 200 million people. 

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: The LG Nitro HD, a 4G LTE-capable phone from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times

Jamesburg Earth Station sale: 'Great place for armageddon'

Interested in owning your very own nuclear bomb-proof earth station, a massive satellite dish and a piece of American space history?

As we told you earlier, the Jamesburg Earth Station, which transmitted some of the first images of the Apollo 11 moon landing, is on the market.

The one-of-a-kind securely fenced 160-acre property comes with a three-bedroom house, a 20,000-square-foot building, a helicopter landing pad and a 10-story satellite dish and antenna. It's in Cachaua Valley, not far from Carmel Valley and about 20 miles southeast of Monterey.

I spoke with Jeffrey Bullis, CEO of Absolute Turnkey Services Inc., who has owned the Jamesburg Earth Station for seven years.

He says he bought the property next door to his friend Jack Galante who runs a family vineyard. Bullis and his son Adam cleaned up the decommissioned satellite communications station and planted fruit trees and had some cattle.

Bullis paid $1.7 million for the property and then poured another $2 million into it. Then Adam, just 23, died of leukemia.

"It really knocked the wind out of me," Bullis said. "He was the one who really liked the property."

After grieving for a few years, Bullis said he put the Jamesburg Earth Station on the market. But so far, no takers.

"It makes a great place for armageddon," Bullis said. Sheltered from the winds and operating its own self-contained air system, it could survive a biological or nuclear attack, perfect for a survivalist or Ted Nugent, Bullis said.

"It's an above-ground bunker," he said. "The building is so strong that you couldn't knock it over with a 5 megaton nuclear blast. And you could defend it strategically with a small platoon of Marines."

For the tamer of heart without a military contingent at the ready, the picturesque property in rolling hills could be turned into a winery or olive orchard, he said.

Bullis is a Santa Clara entrepreneur who runs a 30-employee electronic assembly business, a holdout among manufacturing companies increasingly moving offshore. One of his current projects: Building a security system for nuclear sites around the United States.

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Photo: Jamesburg Earth Station in Cachaua Valley, Calif. Photo credit: Jamesburgdish.org

 

For sale: Nuclear bomb-proof space station in Carmel Valley

Who wouldn't want to own a nuclear bomb-proof earth station and a piece of space history?

The Jamesburg Earth Station, which transmitted some of the first images of the Apollo 11 moon landing, is on the market.

The one-of-a-kind securely fenced 160-acre property comes with a three-bedroom house, a 20,000-square-foot building, a helicopter landing pad and a 10-story satellite dish and antenna. It's in Cachaua Valley, not far from Carmel Valley andabout 20 miles southeast of Monterey, a bit off the beaten track and offbeat, period.

The unusual selling point of this picturesque property situated among rolling hills and wine vineyards: Built at the height of the nuclear arms race with the former Soviet Union, the 20,000-square-foot earth station can withstand a five-megaton nuclear blast.

The dish used to transmit satellite communications between the U.S. and other Pacific Rim countries. It was shut down in 2002 by owner AT&T and put up for sale. Some ham radio operators restored and fired up the dish in 2007 and bounced 20 radio signals off the moon.

The current owner of Jamesburg hails from Silicon Valley. He had hoped to turn it into a residence. He even added an exercise room and an indoor basketball court, according to his real estate agent.

For the last year he has been trying to sell the property for $4.2 million, but Bert Aronson of Keller Williams Realty in Carmel said the owner is considering dropping the price by $1 million or so. Local TV reports may generate interest among space history buffs or nearby geeks in Silicon Valley.

"We've gotten lots of inquiries but no offers," Aronson said. "Somebody could use it as a server farm or to store vintage cars or wine. Someone will come up with a use for it."

Aronson said he has received plenty of interest in the satellite dish from as far away as Australia. "But in this day and age," he said, "nobody has any money."

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 Photo: Jamesburg Earth Station in Cachaua Valley, Calif. Photo credit: Jamesburgdish.org 

Verizon: Recent 4G LTE outages are 'growing pains'

Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network, normally known for its speed and stability, has had a rough time this month with three nationwide outages.

So what's the problem? Well, according to Verizon, this is all just some "growing pains."

"The Verizon Wireless 4GLTE Network is BY FAR the largest and the most advanced 4GLTE wireless network in the world," Verizon said in a statement posted to its website. "It is available in 190 US markets and covers more than 200 million people, providing the fastest 4G Network in the U.S."

Currently, only Verizon and AT&T are the only major wireless carriers in the U.S. with active 4G networks, and AT&T's 4G LTE network is much smaller.

Sprint is in the early stages of building up its 4G LTE network and T-Mobile will follow soon as well.

"Being a pioneer comes with growing pains," Verizon said. "The recent issues that affected our customers' 4G LTE service were unforeseen despite careful, diligent planning, deployment and ongoing upgrade programs.

"Problems customers experienced affected connectivity to the 4G LTE Network and data service. Several times, we have proactively 'moved' 4GLTE customers onto our 3G Network to ensure all would have a data connection. For brief periods, such as on Wednesday (12/28), 4G LTE customers could not connect to the 3G Network as quickly as we would have liked."

Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier with about 90 million customers, also estimated that the outages resulted in its network being in service about 99% of the time this year.

"Each incident has been different from a technical standpoint," Verizon said, failing to go into detail about just what has been the cause of the outages over the last four weeks. "Our engineers have successfully diagnosed those past triggering events, and they have not re-occurred. We also work diligently to rectify technical problems in the network before they affect any customers."

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, available from Verizon and running on the carrier's 4G LTE network. Credit: Nathan Olivarez-Giles / Los Angeles Times

Verizon abandons $2 'convenience fee' after consumer backlash

Verizon Wireless announced on Friday, after one day of consumer backlash and interest from a federal regulator, that it has decided to scrap a $2 "convenience fee" for credit and debit payments made either online or by phone.

"At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers," said Dan Mead, Verizon Wireless' president and CEO, in a statement. "Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time."

The decision to not implement the controversial fee came down "in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions," Verizon said in the statement.

The $2 fee was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 15 and be charged to customers each time they paid their bills with a credit or debit card -- unless that customer was enrolled in automatic bill-paying options that can charge credit and debit cards or withdraw money directly from bank accounts.

The decision also came after the Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that it would look into the charge as well as an online petition at the website Change.org that contended the fee was unnecessary.

When Verizon introduced the fee on Thursday, it said it was doing so to help cover the costs of processing fees taken from credit and debit payments by credit card companies.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

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Photo:  A Verizon Wireless store in Portland, Ore.  Credit: Don Ryan/Associated Press

Verizon's $2 'convenience fee' sparks online petition, FCC interest

Verizon Wireless' new $2 "payment convenience fee" for online credit and debit payments is sparking a consumer backlash and a some scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission.

Since the fee was announced Thursday, customers of the nation's largest wireless carrier have complained about the charge on Twitter, in Facebook groups and pages and Google+ too. The $2 charge is set to go into effect starting Jan. 15 for Verizon users not enrolled in automatic bill pay options who pay their bills online with a credit or debit card.

On Friday morning, the FCC said in a statement that, "On behalf of American consumers, we're concerned about Verizon's actions and are looking into the matter."

Molly Katchpole, a Washington activist and Verizon subscriber, started a petition at the online activism site Change.org calling for Verizon to scrap the $2 fee.

The Change.org petition, launched late Thursday, is a tactic Katchpole used earlier this year when Bank of America attempted to institute a similar $5 fee for those who use its debit cards for purchases.

The Bank of America fee promoted a national outcry and eventually the bank abandoned the fee before it could go into effect.

Time magazine identified Katchpole's petition as one of the many instrumental actions that defeated the Bank of America fee and the activist is hoping to have similar success this time around with Verizon. As of the middle of the day on Friday, the petition had more than 37,000 signatures.

"Verizon just announced a new $2 fee for paying your bills online. Really. Even though paying via internet is fully automated," Katchpole's petition reads. "It's not just about the money (though if you're like me, you don't have extra cash to be sending to a giant phone company in order to pay your own bills.) It's that Verizon thinks it can do anything to its customers, and that we're powerless to stop it. (Spoiler alert: We're not.)"

Verizon, which has more than 90 million customers, said it was introducing the fee to help make up for the frees credit card companies take when they process payments.

In 2010, Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless' parent company, reported a profit of $10.2 billion, down from $11.6 billion in 2009. Last quarter, Verizon doubled its profit from a year earlier to $1.38 billion.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles and Jim Puzzanghera

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A sign at a Verizon store in New York. Credit: Seth Wenig / Associated Press

Motorola Droid Xyboard tablet prices drop $50, with Verizon plan

Like the Xoom tablets before them, Motorola's two latest Android tablets, known as the Droid Xyboard 8.2 and Droid Xyboard 10.1, sit on the high side of tablet prices.

Thankfully, Verizon has dropped the price of the Xyboards by $50 -- as long as you sign up for a two-year data plan for your device as well.

When the Xyboard line launched earlier this month, the Xyboard 8.2 (with an 8.2-inch display) was priced at $430 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $530 for 32 gigabytes of storage, on a 4G LTE contract.

At launch, the Xyboard 10.1 (with a 10.1-inch screen) rolled out in three storage options and three different prices on contract. A Xyboard 10.1 with 16 gigabytes of storage fetched $530, a 32-gigabyte model sold for $630 and a 64-gigabyte unit ran $730.

With the $50 across-the-board price cut, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $380 and the Xyboard 10.1 starts at $480, each with a two-year data plan.

While the price is lower and undercuts the Apple iPad (which is the best selling tablet on the market), it's still on the higher end of current tablet prices.

As noted by The Verge, which first reported on the price drop, it isn't clear whether or not this price drop is a permanent move or a temporary cut. Verizon is currently running a $50-off 4G LTE tablet promotion that ends Saturday. Verizon officials weren't available for comment on Friday morning.

If you're looking for a Xyboard and don't want to take on the two-year contract, the price of the tablets won't be receiving a price drop. Instead, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $599.99 and Xyboard 10.1 starts at $699.99 free of contract.

Aside from the different prices, screen sizes and storage options, the Xyboards are largely the same. The tablet line runs on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, although an upgrade to the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is said to be in the works.

Regardless of screen size, the Xyboards feature a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera for video chatting, and micro USB and HDMI ports. Unlike the Xyboard 8.2, the Xyboard 10.1 can also make use of a stylus.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Image: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Motorola/Verizon Wireless