Verizon continues to put other carriers to shame with their 4G LTE network. In one day, Verizon manages to blanket more markets than most carriers do in months. At the current rate of expansion, I’d say most other carriers are year’s behind, and according to Verizon’s current forecast, it’s going to get worse.
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!
Now until May 24th, Wirefly and Verizon are offering a $40 bill credit to anyone who activates or upgrades a 4G LTE smartphone. Of course it requires a 2-year agreement, but hey, if you were planning on doing this anyways, you might as well save yourself $40.
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:
