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Alltel steps down to one-year contracts without changing phone prices

by Chris Ziegler posted Jun 4th 2009 @ 10:22AM

Here's a refreshing shocker: the industry-standard two-year contract is effectively going away -- at least temporarily. Starting tomorrow, the 91 markets of Alltel that Verizon is required to divest are now offering one-year contracts for all new and renewing customers, but there's no increase in phone pricing -- you'll pay exactly the same amount at the register as if you were signing a two-year deal. The move almost seems like a little "screw you" to whomever ends up acquiring the markets, since those companies will effectively have to deal with the lost revenue -- but on the record, anyhow, the divested trust's main sales guy says that they're "excited about the possibility of joining AT&T." We're not so sure that AT&T feels the same way, but in the meantime, this is a nice little win for customers.

Nokia pulling all OEM contracts?

by Chris Ziegler posted Mar 27th 2009 @ 5:04PM

iSuppli, of all companies -- you know, the teardown people -- is reporting that Nokia has stopped using outside contractors altogether for manufacturing its hardware. Nokia has always had a good deal of in-house manufacturing capability, but certain products -- including its upcoming MID, allegedly -- have been contracted out to ODMs like Foxconn and its contemporaries, so this calls a whole slew of initiatives into question. Notably, many of its recent CDMA devices are made outside of Nokia proper, so we've got to wonder -- does this mean they'll be taking up the slack internally, or is CDMA once again on the outs for these guys? See iSuppli's full press release after the break.

[Image via Unwired View]

Continue reading Nokia pulling all OEM contracts?

Supreme Court rejects T-Mobile appeal over contracts

by Darren Murph posted May 29th 2008 @ 4:34PM

Just a day after hearing that T-Mobile lost its magenta suit against Telia, more bad news on the legal front has been handed down to the carrier. Just this week, the Supreme Court decided to reject T-Mob's appeal in a trifecta of cases "involving the legal remedies available in millions of cellphone contracts." Each case centered around the same issue: "whether state laws that limit the ability of companies to prohibit consumers from banding together to pursue class action lawsuits are preempted by federal law." In layman's terms, T-Mobile had attempted to ban class actions and require its customers to resolve any gripes via arbitration, which clearly didn't pan out so well. Hit the read link to read the rest, Mr. 1L.

[Via PhoneScoop]

T-Mobile releases HSDPA PC card in the UK

by Evan Blass posted May 12th 2006 @ 2:10PM

T-Mobile has just released a PC card for UK subscribers that will allow them to hop on the company's HSDPA network when it goes live, and will also work immediately to access UMTS-speed data services. The purchase of a "web'n'walk" card, which has a quad-band radio for international -- including US -- use, also includes twelve free months of WiFi access at any of T-Mob's UK Hotspots. Customers subscribing to 18 or 24 month data contracts at 17 pounds/month will receive the card for free, but need to keep an eye on their usage, as the fine print states that T-Mobile will warn, and possibly even shut off, customers who download more than 2GB of data in a given billing period.

[Via CoolSmartPhone]