Look I am a live and let live kind of guy. But there is a point where actions of certain people have to be questioned even if they aren’t breaking any laws. Case in point –

At the office, in the car, even walking down the street, Nick Andes and Doug Klinger are constantly texting. They both have unlimited plans.

“Basically because of us being bored at work and just texting back and forth a bunch of times and we would try to bother each other,” said Andes.

Because they were already sending so many messages they decided to see what the standing record was for sent and received texts. They looked it up online.

“I think initially neither of us thought that the record was beatable; 182,000 texts is a lot of texts,” said Andes.

All told they sent 217,000 texts and ran up a $26,000 text bill. T-Mobile is supposed to have a unlimited that both these guys subscribed to. but the programming in the system was capped at 100k under the assumption that no one would go beyond that. If I were T-Mobile I would stick them with the bill.

Oh and guys I have a suggestion for your boss. They ought to fire you both. That should certainly liven up your life.

Linky.

This is two days old but worth noting. T-Mobile, has launched a $50 deal for selected legacy customers. Its an all you can drink voice plan. The new floor is no longer $99. –

T-Mobile USA Inc. is offering a $50-per-month unlimited voice plan to its veteran customers nationwide. In combination with the recent price cut on its unlimited data and unlimited text monthly add-on price to $35 per month, according to a customer service representative, T-Mobile USA has an industry-low $85 per month unlimited voice, text and data offering.

Peter Dobrow, spokesman for T-Mobile USA, said there are offers out there, but would not provide specific details or confirm the reduced unlimited data and text price.

Downside? Well none in general, its a good rate regardless of how you option it up. But the thing the carriers need to realize is the pot of gold is in the data plans. Somebody come up with a $60 all you can drink data MTM with VoIP options, they will gain share.

Linky.

To the extent that I believe in the JD Powers surveys, it is interesting that Verzion Wireless has been dethroned. T-Mobile has scored the highest in customer satisfaction of any of the carriers. –

This time, T-Mobile USA’s trick was being able to quickly and seamlessly transfer calling customers over to a real customer service representative after they passed through the carrier’s initial automated response system.

“Much of T-Mobile’s success can be attributed to its ability to reach the customer very quickly,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. “More than one-third of T-Mobile subscribers report waiting less than two minutes on hold to speak with a representative. T-Mobile has proved successful when it comes to being prompt, courteous and efficient at identifying and resolving problems in the eyes of its customers.”

“This time, T-Mobile USA’s trick was being able to quickly and seamlessly transfer calling customers over to a real customer service representative after they passed through the carrier’s initial automated response system.” Excuse me but that is not a ‘trick’. That is getting the customers problem resolved as quickly as possible without falling into IVR Hell. Kudos to T-Mobile on that score.

Linky.

Found on YouTube. If it is and the price points are favorable Apple better sharpen the pencils some.

Coolest Gadgets is reporting a background story that T-Mobile/HTC have a Android based G2 due out by no later than April of next year. This model will ditch the chicklet keyboard for a touch screen interface ala iPhone. The roller ball will be retained however.

I wish some innovative company would develop a simple voice command nav system. It does not have to be sophisticated. Fact for mobile devices it can be very simple –

• ‘Mail’, ‘Phone’, ‘Web’, ‘Time’ as the main command structure.
• ‘Next’, ‘Last’, ‘Return’, ‘Dive’, ‘Read’. Where ‘Next’ and ‘Last’ went up or down a menu list like in email. ‘Return’ to take you back to the previous menu. ‘Dive’ would take you down a menu level. ‘Read’ would trigger a Text to Speech rendering.

Those 9 commands would eliminate most of the need for a keyboard in a handheld device. Odd that Microsoft has developed voice recognition for their in-car nav system but has not caught on in portable devices yet.

Posting is here.

Rather than a whole string of individual posts on what’s happening in the Telcom marketplace here’s the Mother of All Bad News. The numbers in the various firms are having rather negative effects across the board I am afraid. –

Motorola

Standard & Poor’s lowered its long-term corporate credit rating on Motorola Inc. on Friday to “junk (bond) territory,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

S&P’s rating change was to “BB+” from “BBB.”

Moody’s Investor Services warned last week that it, too, may cut its credit rating on Motorola.

Sprint

After speaking with Sprint Nextel CFO Bob Brust, Pali Research predicts that the carrier will sacrifice employees in order to save a drowning company. The report’s author, Walter Piecyk, said he expects Sprint Nextel to announce a slew of layoffs in January.

And even though it may adversely affect Sprint Nextel’s first-quarter results, Pali Research expects ultimately the move will better position the company to overcome dismal financial estimates for 2009 and 2010.

[Editor note: No surprise. Volunteers in November, draftees in January. We already predicted it.]

AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced a planned reduction of approximately 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of the company’s total workforce, citing economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure.

In response to these business and economic factors, AT&T plans to reduce its 2009 capital expenditures from 2008 levels. Capital plans for 2009 are being finalized now and specific guidance will be provided when the company releases its fourth quarter results in late January.

Associated with these job reductions which will occur in December and throughout 2009, AT&T will take a charge of approximately $600 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 to pay severance to affected employees.

Verizon

Verizon’s total operating revenues grew 4.1 percent to $24.8 billion in the third quarter 2008, from $23.8 billion in the third quarter 2007. This is an increase of 5.4 percent when adjusted for the spinoff of non-strategic local exchange and related Wireline business assets earlier this year (non-GAAP). Total operating
expenses increased 5.2 percent to $20.6 billion, or 5.4 percent on an adjusted basis, comparing third-quarter 2008 with third-quarter 2007.

[Editors Note] What’s not said in these 3Q results is that for all intents an purposes earnings are flat. We have had a 4.8-5.2% inflation rate this year.

T-Mobile

• Contract customer churn was 2.4% in the third quarter of 2008, up from 1.9% in the second quarter of 2008 and 2.0% in the third quarter of 2007.
o The sequential increase in contract churn was primarily due to the continued impact of customers coming to the anniversary of their two-year contract that was first introduced in April 2006. The second quarter of 2008 was the first quarter these two-year contracts could have expired. Competitive pressure also contributed to the sequential increase in contract churn.
• Blended churn, including both contract and prepaid customers, was 3.0% in the third quarter of 2008, up from 2.7% in the second quarter of 2008 and 2.9% in the third quarter of 2007.

Clear indications that even for Telecom the economy is softening. Personally the bottom end of the market needs to be opened up. Let the market in small rural areas go unregulated for 5 years or so. Let capitalism work its magic of expansion and employment at the bottom end of the scale.

Sources various.

Nice little article over at eWeek by Clint Boulton. The jest of the piece is that the Android G1 is not ready for prime time enterprise deployments. Now as it is right now that is the case But I will attempt to point out after the jump why that is parochial –

Mort Rosenthal, CEO of Enterprise Mobile, which helps companies plan enterprise mobility implementations for devices based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, discussed why the G1 doesn’t pass the enterprise mobility acid test with me Oct. 21.

I know what you’re thinking. Rosenthal would seem to have good reason to knock the G1 down a few pegs. This may be particularly true given the speculation from GigaOm’s Om Malik via eWEEK’s own Joe Wilcox that Windows Mobile is the odd man out in the accelerating smart-phone race between Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian. You may well be right.

Yet what Rosenthal told me makes solid sense, as long as you agree that the so-called cloud, or Internet, is no platform on which to base a device designed to house and transmit sensitive and proprietary corporate information.

Rosenthal said what’s missing in cloud computing from an enterprise perspective is control of the information in the cloud. Most enterprises are not going to be happy with an open communication structure.

Followed by…

Now the G1 finds itself in the same boat, requiring not only Exchange integration but some degree of device management, which would allow a lost device to be wiped, as well as ways to control what is and isn’t put on the device. Rosenthal added:

Google’s strength is not really in enterprise-specific tools. It’s not clear whether that will ever emerge from Google. It certainly may emerge from people who take the open-source [Android platform] and build on top of it. No one will say the cloud is the most secure environment.

One company that might help with securing Android devices is Mocana, which Oct. 22 unveiled its NanoPhone Suite for Android, which lets developers build firewall, VPN and encryption features for Android handsets. But Mocana is not enough.

Rosenthal said the ideal scenario for the G1 would be a range of integration that involves applications and connection to back-end enterprise systems.

The 5 reasons this is a effete FUD piece –

1. I hate FUD pieces and this is just over the border a classic example of that archtype of writing.
2. Enterprise snobbery. 80% of all businesses are 100 employees or less as plumbers, electricians, carpet cleaners, etc. They don’t have state secrets, unless having Sam the flunky bring over another 2″ plumbing wye will bring down the western world. Realizing that is the case, having a phone lacking SOX compliant enterprise features is not a earth shaking need as most would think in the scheme of things. eg iPhone, Motos success.
3. Given that this is an early introduction and the fact that Android is open source the big enterprises now have the opportunity to morph the OS to their will. They throw a couple of programmers at it, cobble together some encryption of their own and be done with it till a better 3rd party product comes alone.
4. But that is the point isn’t it? Being Open Source the Android platform is malleable beyond anything that either RIM or fruitPhone offer. The platform base and options will transcend anything for any other supplier. Even for enterprise snobby reporters.
5. The cloud is not the issue that the article paints it to be. If your message base is encrypted going into the cloud it should be so leaving it as a reasonable expectation. Over 50% of most messages today are transported in the clear over broadband. Probably that same % of traffic is done so in the wireless realm. If security is a concern it is applied, little noticed to the cloud. A FUDish red herring if there ever was one.

Linky

Yes. 1,500,000 in preorders for the G1. That bests iPhone v3 by half a mil on a number 4 carrier. Nor will they be available till the 22nd. Thats $450m cold cash. Even today 2-3 weeks in a money market account before you ship is a nice bonus! –

That’s an insane amount of interest for such a device. Sure, Apple says that it sold 1 million 3G iPhones the first weekend the device was available, and that’s nice. But here comes T-Mobile, the nation’s fourth-largest wireless network operator, coming up with 1.5 million pre-orders on a brand new mobile platform.

HTC must be beside itself with excitement. The Taiwanese firm that is manufacturing the G1 has had plenty of success with its Touch line of Windows Mobile smartphones, but this is extraordinary. HTC was projecting that it would sell several hundred thousand G1s by the end of 2008. To learn that 1.5 million people have pre-ordered it is incredible.

Somebody at HTC is headed for VP of engineering.

Linky.

Grumbling in the peanut gallery for a product that officially does not debut for another week or so? Seems so. TMobile has gotten feedback that the 1Gb cap is not enough bandwidth. –

“Our goal, when the T-Mobile G1 becomes available in October, is to provide affordable, high-speed data service allowing customers to experience the full data capabilities of the device and our 3G network. At the same time, we have a responsibility to provide the best network experience for all of our customers so we reserve the right to temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of our customers who have excessive or disproportionate usage that interferes with our network performance or our ability to provide quality service to all of our customers.

We removed the 1GB soft limit from our policy statement, and we are confident that T-Mobile G1 customers will enjoy the high speed of data access over our 3G network. The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers.”

Linky.

Well today is Android day! T-Mobile and Google roll out the beastie for the world to beat on. Catch this the price is $179 with a 2yr contract. Half the iPhone. Check out all the release highlights at Wired.