Archive for the ‘att’ Category

AT&T Outage Has San Francisco Users in a Tizzy

AT&T Wireless customers in San Francisco are in a froth after the network’s wireless data services went offline Friday afternoon.

Reports started appearing on Twitter with the hashtag #attfail starting around 2pm Pacific time. Customers reported having voice service and several bars of signal strength, but no internet connectivity.

Wired tests confirmed that AT&T’s internet service was out from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and continues to be offline as of this writing. Attempts to use internet services were met with the error message, “Could not activate cellular data network.”

Visual voicemail also appeared to be unavailable, but SMS text messaging was working normally as of 5pm Pacific.

AT&T has suffered numerous intermittent connectivity problems thanks in large part to the popularity of the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. The combination of unlimited internet plus a web-friendly phone means that people with iPhones use them for internet browsing far more than users of other smartphones do, studies have shown (and Wired.com’s traffic logs confirm). Also, some applications, such as the live video streaming built into the Major League Baseball app, use large amounts of data bandwidth. These problems have led AT&T to add capacity; the company has also recently floated the idea of providing “incentives” to limit the heaviest users.

“We are seeing a hardware issue in downtown San Francisco that is causing some degradation in service. GSM and Edge voice and data services are still accessible. Our experts are aware and working to resolve it as quickly as possible,” said Fletcher Cook, a spokesperson for AT&T.

Cook wouldn’t comment on when AT&T first noticed the problem, or when it would be fixed. “Our priority is to resolve it as quickly as possible, and then we will focus on what happened.”

See Also:

Posted: December 11th, 2009
at 8:15pm by Dylan F. Tweney

Topics: San Francisco, Wireless Tech, att, iPhone

Garmin nuvifone G60 going for $100 on Amazon

You know what’s insulting? Charging $300 for a nuvifone G60 in the year 2009. It’s cool, though — Amazon, as usual, is our knight in shining armor by swooping in with a $99.99 deal on contract, making the idea of a one-trick pony nav phone with a closed platform and hellish browser just a little more palatable. A big, fat caveat emptor still applies, of course.

Filed under: Cellphones

Garmin nuvifone G60 going for $100 on Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted: October 27th, 2009
at 10:53pm by Chris Ziegler

Topics: G60, Garmin, Nuvifone g60, NuvifoneG60, amazon, att, nuvifone

AT&T Mobility CEO suggests iPhone exclusivity will end… sometime

Well, it’s not much, but AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega doesn’t exactly have to go too far out on a limb to attract attention when he’s talking about something as big as an end to iPhone exclusivity. His latest, and seemingly most extensive ruminations on the matter came during a conference call with analysts this week, where he reportedly said that AT&T has a “legacy of having a great portfolio…that will continue after the iPhone is no longer exclusive to us,” and that he thinks AT&T’s ability to drive results “will continue after the iPhone.” He did seem to dial things back a bit later in the call, however, switching to langauge like “even if we lose exclusivity” instead of “after the iPhone,” and going on to extol the virtues of the iPhone, noting that “others will try to emulate them [Apple], but that device by far is the best in terms of ease of use.”

Filed under: Cellphones

AT&T Mobility CEO suggests iPhone exclusivity will end… sometime originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted: October 23rd, 2009
at 7:21pm by Donald Melanson

Topics: Apple, Iphone3g, Iphone3gs, IphoneExclusivity, RalphDeLaVega, att, exclusivity, iPhone, iPhone exclusivity, iphone 3g, iphone 3gs, ralph de la vega

Amazon Dumps Sprint for Kindle 2, Embraces AT&T

In a stealthy yet significant move, Amazon has dropped Sprint as its wireless partner for the latest versions of the Kindle 2 e-book reader. From now on, new Kindle 2s, in the U.S. and worldwide, will be powered exclusively by AT&T’s 3G network.

“Due to strong customer demand for the new Kindle with U.S. and international wireless, we are consolidating our family of 6-inch Kindles,” says Drew Herdener, spokesperson for Amazon.

The move was announced in a quiet update to Amazon’s product page for the Kindle rather than through a press announcement.

The move is a big blow to Sprint, which was the first U.S. telecom carrier to experiment with supporting mobile devices beyond cellphones and netbooks. It also means AT&T has all but cornered the wireless-connectivity market for e-readers. In addition to the Kindle 2, AT&T’s network forms the backbone of the new Sony touchscreen reader and Barnes & Noble’s recently introduced Nook e-reader. All that’s left for Sprint? Providing service for Amazon’s XL-sized Kindle DX, and supporting all the existing Sprint-connected Kindles.

When Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, the company highlighted wireless downloads of books as the device’s unique feature. The move helped the Kindle gain an edge over Sony, which had introduced its e-reader earlier but without wireless connectivity.

Earlier this year, Amazon offered a second-generation Kindle called Kindle 2 and a big-screen reader called the Kindle DX. Kindle 2 has a basic browser and lets users check text-heavy sites such as Wikipedia. But the devices were restricted to the United States.

Finally, this month, Amazon debuted an international version of the Kindle 2. It was the first Kindle to use AT&T’s network instead of Sprint’s. Kindle DX is still not available outside the states.

“Now that they are selling a Kindle overseas, it makes sense for them to have just one product that they can sell in all markets,” says Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “And, since, in most of the world GSM is what is used, having a single product helps drive down costs for Amazon.” Sprint’s network is based on the CDMA standard.

That doesn’t mean Kindle buyers who bought their device before October will be switching to AT&T.

“Existing Kindle users, owners of the first- and second-generation Kindles and Kindle DX, will not notice any change to their experience. They will continue to utilize the Sprint network in the U.S.,” says Herdener.

And at least until Amazon introduces an international version of Kindle DX, Sprint will continue to be in business with Amazon.

“Sprint still powers the Kindle DX,” a Sprint spokesperson told Wired.com. “So it is not accurate to say that our relationship with Amazon is over.”

Meanwhile, for Kindle users, the switch from Sprint to AT&T raises questions about reliability of service. Weighed down by heavy data use from the iPhone, AT&T’s U.S. network has become congested, leading to slow connectivity and dropped calls.

And with about 3 million e-readers expected to be sold next year, could AT&T’s network face additional strain? Not really, says Golvin. “The type of connection that the Kindle needs is different from that of a phone, since there is no voice component, only a data component,” he says. “The actual capacity consumed by all Kindles now and those coming on to the network is very, very small compared to the rest of the network.”

Kindle users are also less likely to notice small delays or disturbances in the network, says Forrester’s Golvin. Unlike a web page, downloading a book does not require near–real-time display of different components.

“On an e-book reader, the congestion is invisible,” says Golvin. “The downloaded book arrives when it arrives, and a few seconds’ wait does not change much.”

See Also:

Top photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Homepage photo: Gubatron/Flickr

Posted: October 23rd, 2009
at 4:08pm by Priya Ganapati

Topics: Kindle, Media Players, Sprint, amazon, att, e-books, e-reader

Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review

Finally, the teaser’s over. The latest delivery to Engadget’s UK penthouse is the Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset due out in the US on 8th November, and we took no time to extract the pebble from the transparent cylinder. In front of us are the two parts of the STONE: an earpiece of a breakthrough form factor that instantly makes you pity its rivals, and behind it is the accompanying portable charging base which serves as an external battery. The latter is equipped with a micro-USB port and an LED indicator — simply green or red — to show whether there’s enough battery juice for one full charge. It’s a pretty neat idea as this is the only feasible way to fit eight hours of talk time (or twelve days of standby time) into such tiny package: two on the earpiece and an extra six from the surprisingly light battery base — our scale reckons it is just under one ounce. We also dig the auto-off function when you dock the earpiece and vice versa. Docking and undocking are pretty straight forward too: just snap in for the former, and poke your thumb through the bottom hole of the base to push the earpiece out. The generic click button hidden under the Jabra badge is easy to access and responds well. Above that is the invisible vertical touch strip for volume control and similarly it responded nicely to our strokes. What’s left on the earpiece are the two LED indicators on the underside for Bluetooth connectivity and battery. So far so good, but what really matters is the ear-on experience and the audio quality — listen for yourself after the break.

Gallery: Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review