Gadgets, Wireless Carrier | featured news

The flow of new customers to Sprint stopped in the latest quarter, the company reported Wednesday as it weighed the offers of two corporate suitors. Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's third-largest cellphone carrier, said it added a net of just 12,000 customers to its Sprint brand in the quarter, and it would have lost 252,000 if it wasn't for Nextel customers moving over now that their network is being shut down.

A movement urging Verizon to get rid of wireless contracts appears to be gaining steam. A petition calling for the carrier to end contracts for smartphones and "create an affordable way for consumers to purchase their devices" had attracted more than 55,000 signatures by midday Tuesday on Change.org, the online petition platform.

T-Mobile will start offering the iPhone 5 on April 12. The company is currently the only major U.S. carrier not to offer Apple's popular smartphone.

T-Mobile USA, the only "Big 4" phone company that doesn't sell the iPhone, now wants to snag used ones from AT&T. Starting Wednesday, when Apple is expected to reveal a new iPhone model, T-Mobile will start advertising that AT&T iPhone owners who are out of contract can switch to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile has pulled off a mobile industry first: it has reinstated the unlimited data plan after a year’s hiatus, showing that there may be a plausible business case after all for unfettered access to the mobile internet. Starting Sept. 5, it will begin offering an unlimited option to its smartphone plans.

AT&T Inc pulled back its outlook for business services this year, sending its shares down 3 percent despite its better than expected quarterly profit as it reduced costs from customer upgrades to smartphones such as the Apple Inc iPhone.

Following in Verizon's footsteps, AT&T Inc. said Wednesday that it will introduce wireless plans that let subscribers connect up to 10 phones or other devices. Connected phones get unlimited calling and texting, and all devices get wireless data access. The devices tap into a limited pool of data usage, which gets renewed each month.

Verizon’s new data plans announced on Tuesday are expected to be followed by others in the industry as wireless firms focus their attention on charges for Internet data, according to analysts... The new plans, to launch June 28, are expected to motivate families to get more devices onto a single plan, according to analyst Craig Moffett, of Sanford C. Bernstein. That business strategy benefits the biggest wireless carriers — AT&T and Verizon Wireless — and presents new problems for competitors trying to chip away at those firms’ dominance.

Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest cellphone company, is dropping nearly all of its phone plans in favor of pricing schemes that encourage consumers to connect their non-phone devices, like tablets and PCs, to Verizon's network.

Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be launched by all of the Big 4 national U.S. wireless carriers this month, starting at $199, the phone maker said Monday.