AT&T "toll free" plans will provide free access to some online content

Unlimited data plans are becoming scarce options for smartphone and tablet users. Sprint remains the only carrier to offer an unlimited data plans. Most Verizon and AT&T customers, however, need to make do with tiered data plans. Tiered data plans get more cash from customers and deter customers from overloading mobile networks with excessive data use.

As a result, a lot of us try to avoid excessive data use by limiting the types and amount of content that we access when using a device’s 3G or LTE connection. That, in turn, blocks many content companies from capturing ad or subscription revenue from mobile users. That reality is leading major content companies to complain to the carriers and which AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson recently said may lead to “toll free” data plans.

NVIDIA was full of news today. First they announced that the NVIDIA Icera 410 LTE multimode data modem chipset had been tested and validated for operation on the AT&T 4G LTE network. Then, in the company’s annual investor meeting today, Nvidia GM Mike Rayfield, revealed quite a bombshell: 30 quad-core Tegra 3 smartphones by the end of 2012!

That’s a lot of smartphones in general, but 30 quad-core Tegra 3 devices in half a year’s time is astonishing. The insane part about it is, almost half of them will be budget phones! Say what? Tegra 3 budget phones? It’s going to be one hell of a summer!

While Verizon is busy setting the U.S. ablaze with 4G LTE, AT&T continues their embarrassingly slow rollout. In a less than exciting announcement, AT&T has informed us that three new cities have been blessed with their 4G LTE network. Those of you living in the following cities will now have access to faster speeds thanks to good ol’ AT&T:

By now, I’m sure you may have heard about how U.S. Customs is holding all of the HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE phones hostage as they investigate allegations over patent infringement stemming from a ruling Apple won against HTC back in December. The ban essentially went into effect in April of 2012, but what most of us don’t understand is why the investigation at Customs? HTC has already created a work around for the infringement and even responded back in December about it:

The sign-up page for the Samsung Galaxy S III has gone live, allowing users to register for up-to-date information (for before-the-date information follow an Android blog such as CoA) regarding the Samsung Galaxy S III U.S. launch. It’s interesting to see all major and regional carriers listed under the “carrier preference” drop-down menu and this indicates Samsung plans to bring the Galaxy S III to as many U.S. carriers as possible. Whether or not these carriers will feature the device, and at what dates, remains anyone’s guess — although Samsung did say it would hit the U.S. sometime in the summer.