wireless

Verizon Wireless is getting into the cloud business in a big way.

In the coming weeks, Verizon said Tuesday, it will deliver cloud-based storage for smartphones and tablets. The company's customers will receive 500MB of storage at no charge, but can get up to 125GB of storage. Verizon is offering four storage plans to customers:

"The secure storage app gives customers a place to back up and access their information," Verizon public relations manager David Samberg said Tuesday in a … Read more

A year after announcing that it's getting into the home security and remote monitoring business, AT&T is announcing the first markets where the service will be available, plus how much it will cost.

On Friday, AT&T will announce that its Digital Life service is available in 15 markets: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colo.; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; Philadelphia; Riverside, Calif.; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis; and select areas of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The company said the service will be available in up to 50 markets by the … Read more

Could Verizon and Vodafone be getting closer to ending their joint ownership of Verizon's wireless business?

Reuters reported Wednesday that Verizon has hired banking and legal advisers to put together a $100 billion bid for Vodafone's share of Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 wireless carrier in the U.S., and that Verizon's board is expected to discuss details of a potential buyout next week, at a meeting prior to its annual shareholder meeting.

Unnamed sources told the news agency that Verizon is confident it can raise about $50 billion from bank financing and that the rest of … Read more

Consumers watch your wallets. As it gets harder for wireless operators to add new subscribers to their lucrative contract plans, their focus is turning toward getting individual subscribers to spend more each month.

The wireless market is changing, which means mobile operators will no longer be able to rely on adding new high-value contract subscribers to boost their bottom lines. Instead, these companies will need to focus on retaining the customers they have, while encouraging individual subscribers to spend more, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said Wednesday during the company's first-quarter conference call.

Sprint saw big losses in its contract … Read more

AT&T on Tuesday reported a slight gain in profit amid growth powered by its tablet business.

The Dallas telecommunications provider posted a first-quarter net profit of $3.7 billion, or 67 cents a share. In the year-earlier period, it posted a profit of $3.6 billion, or 60 cents a share. Excluding the impact of the sale of its advertising business and a tax settlement, the carrier reported earnings of 64 cents a share, up from 59 cents a share from a year ago.

Revenue, meanwhile, fell 1.5 percent to $31.4 billion, also affected by loss … Read more

Prepaid carrier Cricket Wireless wants to make sure it doesn't get shut out of the no-contract game.

With T-Mobile making a lot of noise about its no-contract plans, Cricket, a unit of Leap Wireless, is offering a family bundle that includes two smartphone plans for $40 each a month. Individual smartphone plans cost $50 a month. The plans were effective starting yesterday.

In addition, Cricket brought its iPhone plan down to the standard $50 price, which includes unlimited calling, text messages, and 1 gigabyte of full-speed data. A more expensive $60 plan provides 2.5GB of data, while the … Read more

Last September, Nokia kicked off the launch of its Nokia Lumia 920 with promises of exposing more people to wireless charging -- an available, but underused capability -- by bringing it to spots where people go.

Specifically, Nokia said it would sponsor wireless charging stations using the Qi protocol at Virgin America airport lounges and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf stores.

Earlier this week, I finally saw Nokia's power-promotion installed at my favorite Coffee Bean location on San Francisco's busy Market Street. What a sorry sight it was.

Market Street is a bustling downtown location, so I'm … Read more

Verizon subscribers awaiting Samsung's Galaxy S4 will be able to pick one up next month.

The carrier tweeted late yesterday that the S4 will arrive in May, and it promised to reveal more details soon via the Samsung Mobile US Twitter account.

Verizon is the last major U.S. carrier to chime in with a time frame for the Galaxy S4.

Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile recently confirmed that the phone will hit stores later this month. Meanwhile, AT&T and U.S. Cellular kicked off preorders for the S4 this past Tuesday.

Verizon hasn't yet revealed its … Read more

One of the big perks of using an iPhone is wireless syncing from iTunes. iTunes to Android Wireless brings the same effect to your Android phone, but it can be a huge pain to set up. Once you have it working properly, you have to pay to make the most of the app. You're better off breaking out the USB cable and syncing things yourself.

This app actually calls itself Synctunes once you've downloaded it. It requires an app on your computer and iTunes to work properly, too. Since most of the work is done on your computer, … Read more