AT&T to wirelessly connect most GM vehicles over LTE in 2014
AT&T Monday said it will supply LTE wireless services to most General Motors vehicles starting in 2014 in the U.S. and Canada.
A multi-year agreement between AT&T and GM subsidiary OnStar calls for vehicles to continue getting OnStar's safety and security services while adding information and entertainment services for backseat drivers, AT&T said.
Millions of vehicles will be affected, as AT&T rolls out LTE to reach 300 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2014.
The AT&T-GM announcement is part of an explosion in the number of devices connected to the Internet, many of them wirelessly, in what some have termed the "Internet of Things." Read more...
Groups to file net neutrality complaint against AT&T
Three advocacy groups plan to file a formal complaint against AT&T, alleging the carrier is violating the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules for blocking a video-conferencing application on Apple's iPhones and iPads.
Free Press, Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute notified AT&T Tuesday that they intend to file a complaint with the FCC.
Apple's newest OS, iOS 6, allows customers to use the popular video-conferencing app FaceTime over mobile networks. In the past, FaceTime was limited, for mobile devices, to those connected to Wi-Fi. AT&T has said it willblock FaceTime on mobile devices unless they subscribe to one of its new Mobile Share plans. Read more...
AT&T may charge fanbois for FaceTime vid chat, hints iOS 6
Early adopters playing with iOS 6 fear users will have to beg AT&T to let them make FaceTime video calls over the cellular network.
An alert box, shown over at MacRumours, pops up and urges fanbois to have a word with the telco if they attempt to make a FaceTime call and Wi-Fi isn't available.
The discovery sparked rumours that AT&T plans to charge for Apple's video-calling service. The network operator hasn't responded helpfully and Apple is as taciturn as ever, so punters will just have to wait until the official launch of iOS 6, the iPad and iPhone operating system.
AT&T already demands a fee for tethering (sharing a phone's mobile internet connection with other devices over Wi-Fi) so the concept of flat-rate data charing is already broken. However, US blogopundits have spilled their cinnamon dolce lattes in shock at the idea that AT&T may bill customers for the privilege of making video calls.
They could use Skype, of course, which happily supports video calling over mobile networks, but Skype is owned by Microsoft and that will be enough to prevent most Apple users from considering it. Read more...
Former AT&T exec leaked iPhone, BlackBerry sales figures
A former marketing executive at AT&T has pleaded guilty to charges related to an insider trading scheme in which he leaked sales information about Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices to members of an investment community.
Alnoor Ebrahim, 57, of Alpharetta, Georgia, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ebrahim provided nonpublic information about device sales to members of an investment community, described as an expert networking firm, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Read more...
AT&T’s app developer billing scheme: Will app makers buy in?
AT&T's trial balloon of charging app developers for bandwidth their users consume might not stay in the air very long.
John Donovan, AT&T's senior executive vice president for technology and network operations, told the Wall Street Journal this week that the carrier was considering developing "a feature" that would be "the equivalent of 800 numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without any network usage" from the end user's perspective. Instead, the company whose app was being used would be the one to foot the bill for the bandwidth consumed. Or put another way: People using the app wouldn't incur any data usage on their monthly service plans but app developers would have to pay a price as condition of users' unlimited data use through the app. Read more...
AT&T hackers have terrorist connections, say Philippines police
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and police in the Philippines have jointly busted a ring of four alleged hackers in Manila with connections to a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippines police said last week.
FBI agents, who have been investigating hacking of telecommunication companies in the U.S. and in the country since 1999, have uncovered a "paper trail" of various bank transactions allegedly linking the local hackers to the cell in Saudi Arabia, whose activities include financing terrorist activities, CIDG said in a statement.
The operation last week followed a complaint from AT&T, which suffered losses of up to US$2 million as a result of a hack of its system, the Philippines police agency said. Read more...
AT&T reports attempted customer data hack
AT&T today notified customers that there had been an "organized and systematic" attempt to hack into their personal account information.
The company sent out an email to customers informing them of an "attempt to obtain information on a number of AT&T customer accounts" but also emphasized that it did "not believe that the perpetrators of this attack obtained access" to users' online accounts. The company said that the perpetrators had tried using "auto script" technology to "determine whether AT&T telephone numbers were linked to online AT&T accounts." AT&T said it is now focusing its efforts on finding out who attempted the hack and what their intent was for gathering customer information. Read more...
AT&T center to tap into Silicon Valley talent
AT&T set up shop in Silicon Valley on Wednesday with its Foundry Development Center in Palo Alto, a facility where software and hardware developers can get help bringing their inventions to the real world.
The site is AT&T's third Foundry Innovation Center, following ones opened earlier this year in Plano, Texas, and in Israel. But the carrier has high hopes for meeting promising startups in the hotbed of U.S. technology.
AT&T wants to free developers from the hassles of dealing with technology on the back end of AT&T's infrastructure, such as billing and location functions, so they can finish their applications and make them work on the network more quickly, said John Donovan, the carrier's CTO. Read more...
Lawmakers question AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile
AT&T's proposed acquisition of rival mobile carrier T-Mobile USA would give customers fewer choices and drive up prices, some U.S. lawmakers said Thursday.
Several members of the House Judiciary Committee's competition subcommittee questioned during a hearing whether the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission should allow the $39 billion deal to happen.
"I see absolutely no redeeming reason for this merger to go through," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the senior member on the full committee. Read more...
After Delays, Windows Phones Get Update
Microsoft on Tuesday started rolling out software updates to users of the Samsung Focus and LG Quantum, following more than a month of delays.
Microsoft and AT&T are still testing updates for the HTC Surround, the last phone model that still needs the updates.
Focus and Quantum users will get a message indicating that the updates are ready. They can then download the February update, which was designed to make the process easier, as well as the so-called NoDo update, which includes the capability to cut and paste. Read more...
Only a carrier could trumpet $500 per gigabyte as a price cut
AT&T announced today that it was cutting the price of data access for prepaid customers -- those who don't sign contracts but instead pay as they go -- to $5 for 10MB of data access on select smartphones, a major cut from the previous $5 for 1MB. But press reports haven't done their math: The costs are 50 times what so-called postpaid customers -- those who sign a contract and get a bill each month -- are charged. An AT&T GoPhone customer pays $500 per gigabyte of data usage, whereas a postpaid Android or iPhone user pays $10 per gigabyte.
Of course, there are other plans: One costs $150 per gigabyte if you buy 100MB increments (15 times what regular customers pay), and the other costs "only" $50 per gigabyte if you buy 500MB increments (5 times over the regular customer cost). Such a deal! Read more...