Displaying items by tag: Mobile Carriers

If you never thought that Copyright was out of hand then you might be interested to know that Copyright laws are being use to stomp on your right as a consumer to choose the mobile carrier you want and take any devices that you might own with you. The mobile phone industry (hand in hand with the carriers) is trying to put the baseband locks on a phone into the realm of copyrighted material. The way they are doing this is by claiming that the locks protecting the baseband are the same as those found on a DVD or Blu-ray disk. Since they have convinced the US lawmakers that this is so we now find that unlocking your phone (any phone) is illegal and punishable by a minimum of $2,500.

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources "familiar with the thinking mobile operators", U.S. AT&T is considering expansion into the European market. The expansion of the company, if they decide to, should come to an end this year, sources said.

The company AT&T's growth in the realm of new cell phone service subscribers is 57% lower than expected for this quarter. Who's to blame? Well, other than AT&T of course, Verizon and the iPhone, apparently. AT&T relies heavily on the iPhone for its user base, and the new iPhone 5 has been in such high demand, but has also a low supply.

Sprint has been purchased by the Japanese firm Softbank, as announced in a joint press meeting with the CEOs of both companies. Softbank will be purchasing 70% of the shares of Sprint for the staggering sum of $20.1 Billion dollars. This large chunk of change will directly revitalize Sprint, the underdog, when compared to Verizon or AT&T. Softbank, one of the larger mobile communication firms in Japan will gain access to the American market, which is less mature than the Japanese mobile market.