O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: GSM

  • U.S. government to work with wireless carriers to create national stolen phone database

    This could be perceived as sort of “Big Brother”-ish, but also pretty helpful.

    Per the Wall Street Journal, four of the largest wireless carriers in the US are working with the US government to create a national stolen phone database. Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will develop their own databases and then merge them into a centralized server within the next 18 months. Eventually, regional carriers will also participate in this initiative.

    The database will help carriers and law enforcement track lost and stolen phones. Besides tracking phones, carriers have agreed to block both calling and data services for these blacklisted phones. This will be an easy task for Verizon and Sprint, but not so simple for T-Mobile and AT&T.

    Verizon Wireless and Sprint already track each subscriber’s phone using the phone’s unique electronic serial number. This lets them easily block any phone that’s been reported lost or stolen. AT&T and T-Mobile do not have a similar service in place, because their GSM phones use SIM cards. As long as you have a valid SIM card, you can use any phone, regardless of whether it is lost or stolen. These two GSM carriers are working on new technology that would let them track and block a phone using a unique ID.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

  • Five regional U.S. wireless carriers to offer iPhone units, service starting April 20th

    If you felt left out of the iPhone party, there’s a decent chance it’s coming to your area.

    Per AppleInsider, a total of five regional U.S. carrier announced on Wednesday that they will begin selling Apple’s iPhone on April 20, as Alaska Communications, GCI, Appalachian Wireless and Cellcom join an earlier announcement from nTelos.

    The iPhone 4S will become available to customers of five regional U.S. on April 20. It will be sold for US$50 cheaper than its traditional subsidized price at other carriers, starting at US$150 for the 16-gigabyte model, US$250 for 32 gigabytes, and US$350 for 64 gigabytes. The 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 will also be available for US$50.

    And one of the carriers announced Wednesday, GCI, has a GSM network, which means it will also be able to offer Apple’s iPhone 3GS for free with a two-year contract.

    Two of the carriers announced on Wednesday are based out of Alaska: Alaska Communications and GCI. The iPhone 4S will be available through Alaska Communications from its 14 retail stores, as well as the company’s website.

    The carrier offers nationwide unlimited talk plans for US$90 with 2 gigabytes of data, while adding unlimited texting brings the monthly cost to US$101 and bumps the data cap up to 5 gigabytes. The subsidized iPhone pricing requires a two-year service contract.

    Cellcom offers wireless service in parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, while Appalachian Wireless is based in Kentucky.

    The announcement of four more wireless partners as an official carrier partner of Apple came on the same day that nTelos Wireless was also revealed. nTelos will also begin selling the iPhone 4S on April 20 to its more than 400,000 subscribers.

    Apple began expanding availability of the iPhone to smaller, regional carriers last October when a deal with C Spire Wireless was announced. That carrier has about 900,000 customers.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

  • China Telecom announces iPhone 4S launch date of March 9th

    If you’re overseas and have been waiting for the iPhone 4S, it’s almost here.

    After months of ads, China Telecom has announced that it will begin sales of the newest iPhone on March 9, 2012. The company will begin taking reservations for the iPhone 4S on March 2 in anticipation of the rollout a week later according to MacStories.

    China Telecom is the second largest carrier in China, and uses a CDMA network as opposed to the GSM network run by market leader China Unicom (which has been selling the iPhone 4S since January). The iPhone 4S is the first iPhone that can run on both networks without requiring separate models.

    As part of China Telecom’s rollout, the carrier will be offering the 16 GB iPhone 4S for free with a 2 year contract. According to a tweet from Asymco analyst Horace Dediu, China Unicom currently has 37 million 3G customers, with China Telecom adding another 33 million 3G users. That’s a huge potential iPhone 4S market for Apple, and one that the company is eager to tap.

    During last week’s Goldman Sachs technology conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook made repeated references to the vast Chinese market and how the company is making that market a key target for its growth strategy in the future.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

  • AT&T ends T-Mobile acquisition effort

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    Sometimes you’ve just gotta throw in the towel.

    Per AppleInsider, AT&T has given up its efforts to buy carrier T-Mobile, citing opposition from federal regulators.

    A statement by AT&T says the company will take a pretax charge of US$4 billion that was stipulated in the agreement between the two carriers if the deal were dropped before being finalized.

    In addition to the payoff, T-Mobile patent company Deutsche Telekom is also entering into what AT&T described as “mutually beneficial” roaming agreements with its attempted buyer.

    “The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry,” AT&T stated. “It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.”

    The merger was opposed throughout the year by the US FCC and the DOJ, both of whom cited limited competition and job layoffs as reasons for opposing the deal.

    AT&T’s chairman and chief executive Randall Stephenson wrote that “to meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest. However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things.

    “First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.”

    It is not known if the new roaming agreement between T-Mobile and AT&T would enable Apple to sell its existing iPhone models to T-Mobile, or if it would still need to develop a unique version of the iPhone to sell on the carrier, which uses a different AWS band for 3G service than the rest of the GSM/UMTS world.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

  • Some users reporting “Invalid SIM” error after updating iPhone 4S units to iOS 5.0.1

    This doesn’t bode too well…

    Per AppleInsider, multiple users on Apple’s discussion boards complaining that the recent iOS 5.0.1 update has lead to messages that read “Invalid SIM” and “SIM Failure” on their iPhone 4S users. This person said the errors began occurring after they updated to iOS 5.0.1, though other users posting on Apple’s official Support Communities website, in a thread with more than 30,000 views to date, have experienced similar problems since the iPhone 4S first went on sale in October.

    “This problem can only be solved when you reboot your iPhone,” the person, who is an AT&T customer, wrote in an e-mail. “Everything else fails — restore, removal of the SIM, etc.”

    When users experience a SIM-card-related error, basic functions including making phone calls, sending text messages, and using mobile data become unavailable, as the handset cannot make a connection with the wireless data provider.

    The iPhone 4S is a “world phone,” which means its redesigned antenna and internal components are compatible with both CDMA and GSM carriers. Micro SIM cards placed in the iPhone 4S are only used by GSM carriers to identify a subscriber and grant them access to a carrier’s wireless network.

    But while only GSM carriers, like AT&T in the U.S., use the micro SIM slot on the iPhone 4S, users on CDMA carriers, like Verizon and Sprint, have also reported experiencing SIM-card-related errors. iPhone 4S units sold through CDMA carriers come with a “roaming SIM” installed, which allows CDMA customers to roam worldwide on GSM networks.

    “No service on my white 32 GB 4S on Verizon,” user ‘racyb’ wrote in October. “Did a shutdown and reboot….it went into searching mode and finally found Verizon again after 1 minute. What is going on?”

    Since the release of iOS 5.0.1 earlier this month, another thread at the Apple Support Communities website features more users who say the problems began occurring after they updated their iPhone 4S. Some say their iPhone displays full signal reception, yet error messages like “Call Failed” and “Invalid SIM” continue to display.

    “Same problem here in Brazil,” user ‘GuiMedrado’ wrote on Wednesday. “Bought my 4S – 32GB unlocked in Switzerland and couldnt’ make it work after upgrading to 5.0.1. Any solution?”

    The iOS 5.0.1 update was released earlier this month in an attempt to address battery life issues reported by some users. But some battery-related problems have remained, and Apple has publicly said it is still working to fix those issues.

    One rumor this week claimed that Apple will issue a new update, iOS 5.0.2, no later than next week in a second attempt to improve battery life with iOS 5. There was no mention of any fixes for SIM card issues or error messages.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve seen this bug on your end, please let us know.