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.

Well now looks like T-Mobile has started something that can’t be ignored. Verizon Wireless is going to start offering a month to month (MTM) plan for those that want it. You pay the full boat price for the phone and get to go MTM on the service. –

• Available to Consumer, Corporate Liable, and Employee Liable customers (excludes Federal Government customers)
• Any current voice &/or data calling plan and equipment available
• Customer credit checks apply.
• Device Initiation Fee and/or Activation Fee must be charged (no exceptions)
• MTM customers are eligible to accept any applicable promotional offering but must agree with the contract term associated with the offer (i.e. they will no longer be a MTM customer)
• Customers are not eligible for equipment discounts if they do not agree to a one or two-year minimum term
• Corporate and employee liable customers are eligible to receive accessory discounts on month to month agreements
• MTM customers can terminate their service at any time (effective on their next bill cycle date) without incurring an early termination fee
• New Customers: Use Month to Month as the contract term
• Existing Customers: Use Upgrade Reason Code UN only

Well this is great news for a couple of reasons:

1. You pay for the phone at its true cost. TP has been advocating this as if there is mass adoption it will drive down the true cost of the devices.
2. It eliminates contracts. That is beneficial to both parties. You don’t pay your bill you don’t have service. If you can’t follow that then you don’t deserve a cell phone.
3. Eventually if there are enough MTM customers with all the carriers a battle royale will ensue on the transport costs. We could see savage pricing like we do in the wholesale VoIP space.

What I don’t understand is why a credit check on MTM? If the customer uses a credit card to buy the phone and signs up the same account for the monthly billing why does the wireless carrier care? It drives up their costs actually.

We would like to thank The Boy Genius blog for this information.

The HTC Dream with Android beta code will debut at selected T-Mobile stores nationwide.

Linky

This ladies and gentlemen is HTC’s Android offering in a closed configuration. Possess some iPhone like features as far as presentation. The cover slides up to reveal a chichlet keyboard [I hate them] for texting.

More data and a photo gallery is available here. TMoible will be the first to introduce this fall.

Well it looks like Google Androids will be in the public venue come September. T-Mobile is rumored to be the first carrier to carry an Android enabled phoneset. –

We’re hearing rumor after rumor that Android has been delayed, and pushed back to 2009. Well TmoNews is jumping into the pool or rumors, calling BS on those other rumors, and putting in our vote of confidence on a presale of the Android phone on September 16th, 2008. This information, coming from a trusted source, prices the Android phone, also known as the G1 (Codename or real name, we’re not sure) at $399.

Full invoice that is.

Scare you? Good, well during the presale of the G1, T-mobile customers can pick up the phone for $150. This is where it gets interesting, we’re not seeing any prices for new activations during the presale, so this could mean that only current T-mobile customers can pick up the G1 during the presale. Other customers interested in the G1 may have to wait until beginning/mid October before a national public launch.

$400 for an advanced phone. Scary? Not one bit in my view. This is the price we should be paying for an advanced phone of this type SO LONG as the carrier is reducing their usage rate on the backend. What is this years $400 wonder is next years $100 commodity. That is the way it is in tech. The early adopters always pay the R&D. The price you pay is dependent on patience. I am fine with that. You should be too.

What is most surprising is that T-Mobile has in a very short period of time gone from a follower to a leader. They dumped ETF’s . They are now going to be the first to introduce Andoid. I wonder what else they have up their sleeves?

Linky.

T-Mobile added almost 670k additional users to their 30M user base for 2Q. Probably a little too early to see the results of the ‘no contract’ efforts yet. We’ll have to see what the 3Q results will be. –

T-Mobile USA Inc.’s second-quarter results showed increases in the two Cs, customers and churn. The nation’s No. 4 carrier added 668,000 customers, pushing its customer base to 31.5 million at the end of the quarter, but T-Mobile USA’s churn reached 2.7%, up from 2.6% in the first quarter of this year. The carriers Q2 growth, which was well short of the 857,000 customers it added during the second quarter of 2007, did not include the roughly 1.1 million customers T-Mobile USA added to its network following the acquisition of SunCom Wireless Holdings Inc.

Linky

Yep, we mentioned that the first vendor to provide a no ETF plan would have a leg up on the conpetition, here. That company is TMobile. Are they scared of the California ruling? I don’t know. For the consumer however this is very good news. –

Starting August 6th, T-mobile will be the first national carrier to offer month to month postpaid plans. It sounds like these plans will be very similar, if not the same, to T-mobile’s current offerings of individual, or family time plans, with or without MyFaves. Upfront costs will include an activation fee, and the full retail price of any phone purchased*. To us, this sounds like an extreamely customer friendly step by T-mobile, that we greatly appreciate. Credit checks will be required for this plan, however they will be the same as any 1 or 2 year contract credit checks. Unfortunately T-mobile@Home will not be avalible to customers that sign up for month to month contracts.

We hope this is a trend.

Linky

If one unlimited wireless account isn’t enough for your clan, T-mobile will sell you another at a 50% discount . For the guys to the left that works out to 3 unlimited wireless accounts for the usual price of 2. To me $200 seems like an awful lot to pay for what I can do at no extra cost over a broadband connection even if I’m getting 3 accounts. Then again, if you and other family members need to concurrently gab and text without limits while on the move, this is the best deal going.

Back in February, wireless carriers went a little crazy trying to one up each other by offering unlimited SMS/MMS/voice plans (while quietly taking their wireless broadband offerings in the opposite direction). T-Mobile today threw another “unlimited” offer into the mix, letting users on their unlimited voice plan sign up additional family members at half price. In other words, users who already pay T-Mobile $99.99 for an unlimited account can add up to four other accounts for $49.99 a pop. (Broadband Reports)

In what is a far reaching non-action by The Supreme Court; they have decided to not hear a case steeming from a class action against T-Mobile and AT&T and rendered by the CA SC. –

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday dashed a bid by T-Mobile and AT&T to stave off a class-action lawsuit challenging the carriers’ policies against unlocking mobile phones.

The justices declined to review an October decision by the California Supreme Court that cleared the way for a lawsuit that attorneys claimed could represent “millions” of California customers.

In response to similar lawsuits, Verizon and Sprint, both CDMA carriers, have agreed to provide the software code to unlock cellphones after customers nationwide have completed their original contract, attorneys said. “That was the compromise we ended up with to get the cases settled,” said California attorney Robert Bramson, one of the lawyers suing carriers T-Mobile and AT&T.

As a consequence the CA SC ruling in favor of the plaintiffs suit stands unchallenged. So now the carriers in CA must proceed to trial or settle out of court for some agreed terms. My gut says they settle and agree to unlock phones. If they do that opens the door like the Carterphone decison of the 1980s for serious competition in the handset market in Calif. Calif is the biggest handset market of them all. Representing the biggest chunk of revenue for all of them on a State by State basis. The landscape is going to change very quickly I figure.

Trend? Biggest I see is internet handset sellers/resellers in CA offering unlocked handsets around the country. Once that cats out of the bag the carriers are going to have to open up.

Linky.

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