Verizon today launched a new plan aimed directly at families with children. Appropriately dubbed "Just Kids," Verizon is offering this new plan as an alternative to its standard unlimited plans, as it serves up additional parental controls and restrictions. Essentially, Verizon wants this plan to accompany your child's first smartphone.
It definitely isn't controversial to say that robocalls are one of the most annoying things about living in the information age. Slowly but surely, carriers are finally starting to do something about it, with Verizon announcing back in January that it would make its Call Filter service free for all users later on in the year. The company is flipping the switch this week, so if you've been plagued by robocalls like so many of us, maybe this will help curb them a little bit.
AT&T may have been quick to launch "5G E" branding on its subscribers' smartphones, but the network itself is nowhere near as fast. That's the conclusion one wide-reaching network test has come to, after running speed trials on AT&T's so-called 5G Evolution network that it describes as a stepping stone to true 5G.
Last month, Verizon gave us a fairly vague timeline for its 5G plans in 2019, saying that mobile 5G would launch in 30 cities across the US throughout the year but not really getting specific about the "where" or "when." Today, Verizon is starting to pull back the veil on its 5G Mobility plans a little bit, announcing launch dates for two cities. It also revealed when Motorola's 5G Moto Mod will be launching and how much it'll cost.
Can't wait to get your hands on one of the new Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones? Major wireless carriers in the US have revealed when they will start accepting pre-orders for the devices (hint: it's tomorrow), as well as the special deals they'll be offering customers who make a purchase. Depending on carrier, consumers have a chance to get hundreds of dollars in device credit or a second handset for free.
Travel trailer company Airstream has teamed with AT&T to offer the carrier's 4G LTE data plans with its campers, the company has announced. Called Airstream Connected, the new offering can be used to add mobile broadband access to any of the company's touring coach and trailer vehicles. This service joins the 2019 Airstream Classic trailers that have built-in 4G LTE connectivity.
Back in December, AT&T started rolling out "5G E" branding to some of the phones on its network. 5G E, as AT&T claims, stands for "5G Evolution," or the precursor to the nationwide 5G networks carriers are beginning to build out. There's just one problem: AT&T doesn't offer phones that support 5G yet, and what it brands as "5G E" is actually just 4G LTE Advanced.
While many of us are looking forward to the broader roll out of mobile 5G, T-Mobile is turning our attention back to its 600 MHz LTE. T-Mobile's 600 MHz network got its first hotspot today, dubbed the Coolpad Surf. As silly as the name may sound, this could actually be a useful tool for those in rural areas who rely on T-Mobile's 600 MHz LTE for a more consistent mobile data connection.
Way back in May, Verizon launched a month-to-month service called Visible. At the time, it had a pretty restrictive sign-up process, as it was invite-only and limited to iOS. In the months since, we've seen Visible open up a bit by getting rid of the invite requirement, but today the company takes perhaps its biggest availability leap by introducing support for Android.
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in decades, from “dumb” feature phones to smartphones, is that carriers always try to lock customers into their service. In addition to contracts, carriers also tend to lock their phones so you can’t use any other network’s SIM on them within that period. Of course, platform makers do their share in enabling this business practice and it seems that the next Android release, Android Q, will give carriers even more control in that regard.
For a lot of us, spam calls and robocalls have gone from being an occasional annoyance to a frequent problem. Some carriers are attempting to do something about that, and today Verizon is hopping on that train. The company announced today that it will soon make its spam and robocall protection tools free for all of its customers to use (as long as they have a phone that supports these features).
Yesterday, AT&T began rolling out an update to some Android phones that replaced the "LTE" icon users typically see with a new icon that shows "5G E." The problem, of course, is that customers aren't really tapping into AT&T's 5G network - instead, they're simply getting a 4G LTE connection that has been bolstered by things like 4x4 MIMO, three-way carrier aggregation, and 256 QAM.