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Report after report points to AT&T marrying Dish Network after Ma Bell’s forced breakup with T-Mobile , but given the companies’ increasing belligerence, you wouldn’t think that was the case. AT&T is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to impose network buildout conditions on Dish’s satellite spectrum –- requirements that would be passed onto AT&T if it acquired the satellite TV provider.
You know the saying, second place is the first loser? Well, it looks like AT&T, which recently saw its attempt to absorb T-Mobile thwarted , is living up to that adage by petitioning the FCC to impose an “overly aggressive buildout” of Dish’s planned mobile network .
Industry watchers agree that smartphone sales will continue to balloon in 2012, but much of the projected growth will seemingly be enjoyed by just two companies. In a report to clients earlier this week, UBS analyst Maynard Um lowered his full-year unit sales projections for cell phones to 1.69 billion from his earlier estimate of 1.7 billion units.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut HHI in Berlin are working on optimizing data managers with DASH, this soon allowing LTE to bring citizens across the earth perfect streaming video. Streaming video will no longer judder or stop entirely, but will instead rise or lower in picture quality as the device’s signal gains or loses strength.
Google has released Google Wallet for the AT&T Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S, bringing the NFC-enabled smartphones up to speed with contactless payments. However, the download requires that an AT&T SIM be loaded into the phone – though you can still download over WiFi – since with a T-Mobile USA SIM the app simply disappears from the Android Market.
Qualcomm and Ericsson revealed on Thursday that they have successfully passed a voice call from an LTE network to a 3G one, paving the way for mobile carriers to begin migrating their voice traffic onto all-IP 4G networks. That’s a big deal because the sooner carriers move their voice and SMS services to LTE, the sooner they can shut down their pokey 2G and 3G networks and establish a mobile broadband continuum across the airwaves.
So far, Google Wallet has its official US availability on NFC-compatible handsets limited by unfriendly carriers with their own mobile payment services in mind , but it appears that is no longer the case for Nexus handsets with AT&T SIMs inserted. Droid-Life reported the app is available in the market for AT&T-SIM’d HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus phones, which we were able to confirm on our own device (over any connection, as long as the AT&T card is in, switching back to a T-Mobile SIM made it disappear from the market again, although of course the app still worked).
By now, most of you know the story behind Google Wallet and the fact that it has only been officially available to the Nexus S 4G on Sprint, something that irritates the hell out of all new Galaxy Nexus owners. The other 3 major carriers here in the U.S.
AT&T has managed to beat out all its rivals in the latest mobile phone customer service survey conducted by Vocalabs , despite being ranked worst by Consumer Reports. According to data collected from the firm’s survey, which involved telephone interviews immediately following a customer service call during the last three-month period in 2011, AT&T had the highest percentage of customer satisfaction among the four major US wireless carriers.