cellular

U.S. Cellular pushing ahead with 4G LTE plans

Smaller carrier U.S. Cellular has designs to serve up 4G LTE to an additional 14 states this year.

By the second half of 2012, the wireless provider has said it will roll out cutting-edge 4G data infrastructure to "select" cities in multiple parts of the country: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

In addition to offering high-speed wireless access to these areas, the company will also hawk a Samsung 4G LTE mobile hot spot in the spring designed to spread its 4G signal to up … Read more

U.S. Cellular wooing new customers with $100 credit, cheaper phones

U.S. Cellular may not be able to offer double the data cap for free, but it is hoping that crediting new customers $100 bucks for a two-year agreement will attract customers tired of their current carrier.

Starting today, new post-paid customers will receive a $100 credit on their bill, plus the option to get another $50-to-$150 in cash for trading in a used smartphone.

To round out the offer, U.S. Cellular is also lowering prices on its smartphone portfolio, offering the Motorola Electrify and HTC 7 Pro for $129.99, the BlackBerry Curve 9350 for $49.99, … Read more

Clear Spot Voyager review: Big deal in tiny package

The Clear Spot Voyager is tiny, just about the size of a large pebble, but it's in no way a small deal.

The mobile hot-spot router offers almost all you can expect from a mobile router including two very important factors for travelers: Internet speed and battery life. … Read more

U.S. Cellular unveils voice-mail-to-text service for a fee

Teaming up with Nuance, U.S. Cellular just unveiled a voice-mail-to-text solution that unfortunately is not free.

In the Chicago-based carrier's defense, the big boys like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile all charge for the privilege of using their visual voice mail software, typically $2 to $3 a month. U.S. Cellular's product is right in line with the market, and expects to tack on an extra $2.99 to monthly phone bills if customers subscribe.

Don't get me wrong, visual voice mail is a technical achievement right up there with sliced bread in terms of convenience. I personally don't feel, however, that I should have to pay for a carrier-branded service when Google offers its Google Voice application for free. In fact, besides not having to cough up a red cent for it, Google Voice is much more capable. Not only does it list calls in an e-mail-style inbox, it transcribes spoken messages to text--or tries to, at least. … Read more

U.S. Cellular launching 4G LTE in March with Galaxy Tab, Aviator

U.S. Cellular is getting into the 4G LTE network game, launching a tablet and a smartphone as its first LTE devices in March.

The nation's sixth-largest wireless provider will inaugurate its LTE network with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE tablet, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator smartphone.

Samsung's Galaxy S Aviator features a 4.3-inch WVGA Super AMOLED Plus touch screen, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a front-facing camera for video chats. It runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread. For its part, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (reviewed) runs off the Android 3.… Read more

Verizon adds twin 'global-ready' jetpacks to its 4G LTE hot-spot portfolio

LAS VEGAS--I wish I had one of these while covering this show.

Verizon announced today at CES 2012 not one, but two, new 4G mobile hot spots: the Jetpack EuFi890 and the Jetpack MiFi 4620L. The carrier said both offer 4G cellular speed up to 12Mbps down and 5Mbps up, and are global-ready, which allows customers to use wireless data services in more than 205 countries (more than 125 with 3G speeds).

Other than that, the common features of the two also include:

Supports up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices Supports virtually all Wi-Fi clients regardless of their platform.Backward-compatible with … Read more

How to prevent iTunes Match from exceeding your iPad cell-data limits

Apple's iTunes Match service is running up cell-data charges for some unsuspecting iPad users.

For $25 a year, iTunes Match stores your iTunes library on Apple's iCloud servers and makes them available on any PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and other iOS devices. CNET blogger Lance Whitney describes the iTunes Match service in a December 28, 2011, post; Apple provides an iTunes Match FAQ.

When I signed up for the iTunes Match service, it took several hours to upload via a cable-modem connection about 5,500 MP3s that were stored in the iTunes Library on a Windows … Read more

U.S. Cellular: We'll have LTE phones by April, we swear

CES, shmee-ee-es. Why wait for the country's largest consumer electronics show to announce new products and services when you can break the news yourself over Twitter?

That must have been the logic behind U.S. Cellular's tweet this afternoon promising a 4G LTE smartphone and tablet by March and April, respectively.

Although the nation's sixth-largest carrier hasn't shared much more about its product plans, U.S. Cellular does advertise on its Web site that its forthcoming 4G LTE network will launch in Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin in early 2012, keeping on-track with … Read more

U.S. Cellular nabs Android-powered Huawei Ascend II

U.S. Cellular is stuffing its pockets with more Gingerbread.

Next week it starts stocking the Huawei Ascend II, an Android 2.3 smartphone that first debuted for Cricket. The rather modest touch-screen phone has a 3.5-inch display, a 5GB camera, and Swype preloaded on the virtual keyboard.

The carrier will offer it for free--after a $100 mail-in rebate--on its Web site next week. Alternatively, you can swoop by a store beginning in early January to pick it up in the flesh.… Read more