Father's Day is now less than a week out, and just in case you haven't yet figured out what you're going to do for Dad, T-Mobile has officially announced its Father's Day sale. The promotion will be taking place this at T-Mobile stores Friday and Saturday (June 15 and June 16) and will see all of T-Mobile's 4G smartphones, as well as select mobile broadband devices, have their prices knocked down to $0 after mail-in rebate. Both new and existing customers are eligible for the Father's Day sale, though T-Mobile notes that current Classic subscribers are subject to the standard upgrade eligibility rules if they decide to stay with a Classic plan. Existing Classic plan customers that opt to switch to a Value plan and have less than 18 months contract tenure will be subject to the standard migration fees.
In order to give us an idea of the devices available during the Father's Day promo and the Equipment Installment Plan (EIP) pricing that Value customers can expect, T-Mobile has given a few examples of what interested subscribers will see once this sale kicks off on Friday. Folks selecting an HTC One S with a qualifying Classic plan will pay $299.99 out of pocket in store, and they'll then be able to send T-Mobile a mail-in rebate worth $300 to bring the net cost of the handset to $0. On the Value plan side of things, customers will pay an out of pocket down payment of $199.99 at their T-Mobile store and then will receive a $200 mail-in rebate card to bring the net down payment to $0. The EIP monthly payment for the One S is set at $20.
T-Mobile is known for holding sales on or around Father's Day, and it's nice to finally have the details of this year's promo laid out. I'm sure that there'll be a number of folks that will be disappointed that the Samsung Galaxy S III isn't a part of the promotion (since, you know, it's not launching until June 21), but there are some nice devices that are included in the sale, like the aforementioned HTC One S and the Samsung Galaxy S II, the latter of which will be receiving an update to Android 4.0 later today. If you'd like some more details on the Father's Day 2012 sale before deciding whether or not you'll be making the trek to a T-Mobile store this weekend, we've got more pricing examples and a full press release below.
T-Mobile Says, “Thanks, Dad” with Free 4G Smartphones for Father’s Day
For two days only, June 15–16, all of T-Mobile’s 4G smartphones and select mobile broadband devices are free
BELLEVUE, Wash. — June 11, 2012 — To say thanks to dads for all they do, T-Mobile USA, Inc. will once again hold a special “Father’s Day Sale.” For two days only, Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16, all of T-Mobile’s 4G smartphones and select broadband devices will be offered for free with qualifying plans.
T-Mobile has a history of creating great offers to celebrate Father’s Day, and this year it’s making it even easier and more affordable for dads and their families to stay connected. The Father’s Day promotion includes T-Mobile’s fastest 4G smartphones and select mobile broadband devices running on America’s Largest 4G Network®, such as the HTC® One™ S 4G, Samsung Galaxy™ S® II 4G, Nokia Lumia 710, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and the T-Mobile® SpringBoard™ tablet with Google™.
“We want to say thanks to fathers for all they do and keep them easily and affordably connected to family throughout the entire year,” said Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile USA. “Whether through voice calls, photos, texts, video conferencing or social media updates, T-Mobile’s ‘All Phones Free’ promotion provides families a great opportunity to get the latest cutting-edge smartphones running on lightning-fast speeds via America’s Largest 4G Network.”
New and existing eligible customers can take advantage of this deal, receiving their device for free after a mail-in rebate card1 when they sign up for a new two-year contract on any qualifying unlimited Classic plan2 or for a $0.00 down payment after a mail-in rebate card when signing up on a new qualifying Unlimited Value® plan with an Equipment Installment Plan (EIP).3
The Father’s Day promotion will be available from June 15 through June 16 at participating T-Mobile retail stores nationwide. For more information about T-Mobile’s “Father’s Day Sale” and details about qualifying plans, visit http://t-mo.co/LGxKbc.
1 Mail-in rebate not required in R.I., Conn. or Miami-Dade County, Fla.
2 Standard upgrade eligibility rules apply for existing Classic customers that stay on a Classic plan; standard migration fees will apply for existing Classic customers that switch to a Value plan and have less than 18 months contract tenure.
3 Equipment installment plans: On approved credit and 0 percent APR. Down payment and unfinanced portion required at purchase. Remaining balance paid in 20 monthly installments. Total price of each device equals down payment amount plus monthly payment amount times 20.
About T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile USA, Inc. is the U.S. wireless operation of Deutsche Telekom AG (OTCQX: DTEGY). By the end of the first quarter of 2012, approximately 129 million mobile customers were served by the mobile communication segments of the Deutsche Telekom group — 33.4 million by T-Mobile USA — all via a common technology platform based on GSM and UMTS and additionally HSPA+ 21/HSPA+ 42. T-Mobile USA’s innovative wireless products and services help empower people to connect to those who matter most. Multiple independent research studies continue to rank T-Mobile USA among the highest in numerous regions throughout the U.S. in wireless customer care and call quality. For more information, please visit http://www.T-Mobile.com. T-Mobile is a federally registered trademark of Deutsche Telekom AG. For further information on Deutsche Telekom, please visit ww.telekom.de/investor-relations.
Samsung Galaxy S3: Next Galaxy is Worthy iPhone Rival, Say Analysts - ibtimes.co.uk
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"Considering the current market atmosphere, the company can expect to sell 30 million Galaxy S3s this year alone. The new release will keep Samsung atop in the global market until its next product. The sales number will be very high until then," said Kim Uoon-ho, an analyst at Hanwha Securities, according to an IBTimes UK report.
The Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), meanwhile, suggests five to six million units of the Galaxy S3 will be shipped during the second quarter of this year and 10 - 12 million per quarter in the third and fourth of this year. BNP Paribas, stated shipments of the Galaxy S3 were expected to reach 15 million units in the third quarter; this is double the average sales of the Galaxy S2.
"The Galaxy S3 is being rolled out to all operators supporting all communication standards, including the TD-SCDMA and LTE. And given its large volume, Android application developers are focusing their resources on the Galaxy as the reference phone," said Peter Yu, an analyst at BNP Paribas.
The Galaxy S3 ranks as the UK's most popular smartphone and has replaced Apple's iPhone 4S, based on live searches and sales, according to uSwitch Tech's Mobile Tracker. uSwitch is a phone comparison and switching service in the UK and according to them the Galaxy S2 was on top of the list for 11 consecutive months before being replaced by the iPhone 4S in May. However, soon after the Galaxy S3 released in the UK, Samsung's new phone pushed the iPhone 4S to second, the Telegraph reports.
"Feeling surprisingly light to carry due to its brushed polycarbonate casing, especially considering the vast 4.8 Super AMOLED screen, the Samsung Galaxy S3 looks set to five the iPhone a serious run for its money," said Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.
Top ten handsets by web search in March, according to uSwitch:
T-Mobile: Free Phones For Fathers - MediaPost
T-Mobile will be offering all of its 4G smartphones for free as part of a Father’s Day promotion this weekend.
The phones will be free (after a mail-in rebate) for customers after they sign-up for a new two-year contract on a qualifying unlimited plan. The promotion will include the HTC One S 4G, Samsung Galaxy S II, Nokia Lumia, Blackberry Bold 9000 and the T-Mobile SpringBoard tablet.
“We want to say thanks to fathers for all they do and keep them easily and affordably connected to family throughout the entire year,” said Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile USA, in a statement.“T-Mobile’s ‘All Phones Free’ promotion provides families a great opportunity to get the latest cutting-edge smartphones running on lightning-fast speeds via America’s Largest 4G Network.”
REFILE-REUTERS SUMMIT - M&A could help telcos close Europe's network gap-Kroes - Reuters UK
(Fixes garbled text in third paragraph)
* EU proposal on fiber networks in "coming weeks"
* Kroes supports consolidation if not bad for competition
* More network investments needed to spur Europe economy
By Leila Abboud and Claire Davenport
PARIS/LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - Europe's top technology regulator Neelie Kroes supports consolidation as one way to create a handful of strong cross-border telecom leaders, which can invest more in mobile and broadband networks to close the gap with the United States and Asia.
Speaking on Monday at the Reuters Technology and Media Summit, Kroes also said a long-awaited proposal on how member states should encourage investment in ultra-high speed fiber broadband networks will be released in the coming weeks.
Such fiber deployments have been slow in Europe as telecom operators have been weakened by anemic consumer demand, sinking revenue and tougher competition from new players such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O).
"Europe needs to get back to the driver's seat of the digital society, like we were a decade ago with third-generation mobile technology," said Kroes in an interview.
"Having a few pan-European operators that are strong in the cross-border market would not necessarily be bad for competition," said Kroes, adding that protecting consumers was about more than just ensuring a giv en nu mber of operators in each country.
"It can make sense ... and be good for investment and innovation."
Kroes is a tough-talking former liberal Dutch politician who was Europe's top anti-trust official from 2004 to 2009. She now serves as Europe’s commissioner for the "Digital Agenda".
Her comments come as Europe's telecom sector has entered a period of turbulence, in which shares of leaders such as Telefonica SA (TEF.MC) and Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE) have hit lows not seen in a decade.
RISING COST
Europe's telecom sector is chasing ways to meet the rising cost of keeping pace with technological advances and customer demands, with tie-ups and co-operation deals the order of the day.
The arrival in Europe of emerging markets billionaire Carlos Slim, who has scooped up a stake in Telekom Austria AG (TELA.VI) and mounted a raid on Dutch telco KPN (KPN.AS), is also ramping up the pressure for consolidation.
Buildouts of fourth-generation mobile networks have begun in some countries such as France and Germany, prompting operators to seek network-sharing deals to share the investment burden.
But Europe remains far behind Japan, Korea and the United States, where such technology is already commonplace. The European Union had just a quarter of Japan’s 20 million fibre customers at the end of 2011, despite its much larger population.
Yet Kroes maintained the European Union was still on track to meet its target of connecting 50 percent of households to high-speed broadband by 2020, one of a series of ambitious goals for the technology sector.
Telecom operators grumble that Brussels' heavy-handed approach to regulating everything from international roaming to mergers has sapped their ability to invest.
The fiber proposal has been brewing as the latest battleground since last autumn, and Kroes says the EU will make its position "crystal clear" in coming weeks.
Kroes floated a proposal in an October speech to a telecom industry conference, that countries ratchet down the price that such ex-monopolies such as France Telecom SA (FTE.PA) or Deutsche Telekom rent out their old copper networks to rivals to spur investment in faster fiber networks.
SIMPLY CRAZY
That sparked the instant ire of chief executives in the audience, including Telecom Italia SpA (TLIT.MI) CEO Franco Bernabe, who called the idea "simply crazy," arguing it would only make it tougher for them to invest in fiber.
Such fiber buildouts won't be profitable for decades, sector executives say, while companies have to justify their performance to investors quarter by quarter.
Kroes hinted that the commission's proposal on fiber would be flexible enough to take into account differences between various countries. The commission will not release a fully-fledged recommendation in the coming weeks, but will set out principles on what companies and investors can expect on fiber.
"We don't aim to deliver higher or lower copper prices, nor to mandate the switch-off of any technologies," Kroes said.
"We want to give economically sound principles to countries' regulators to help them set regulated copper prices, and we are identifying the most appropriate costing methodologies."
Alternative telecom companies that compete with the ex-monopolies, such as upstarts like France's Iliad SA (ILD.PA) and Italy's Fastweb SpA (FSWBF.PK), support Kroes' idea of lowering copper fees since it would reduce their costs and spur investment.
They also argue the incumbents built copper networks when they were state-owned so shouldn't make excess profit from them today.
Analysts say funding for fibre is in suspense as investors remain wary and telecom operators wait to see how the Commission will regulate prices.
"You cannot ask pension funds to put money into something that has an eight-year payback with no guarantee that the rules won’t change in a way that destroys any return,” Robin Bienenstock, a European telecoms analyst, said.
Kroes promised clarity would come soon, but signaled she did not believe that telecom operators could not afford to invest.
"It is not a matter of lack of cashflow, there is money available in the sector," she argued.
"I have the feeling that some of the players have been a bit spoiled - to speak in a direct Dutch way - and they would prefer to continue in old way. But that will not give Europe’s economy a boost."
(Additional reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic, Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by David Holmes)
((leila.abboud@thomsonreuters.com)(+33 1 49 49 51 82)(Reuters Messaging: leila.abboud.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)(Twitter: @labboudles)) Keywords: MEDIA TECH SUMMIT/KROES
(C) Reuters 2012. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing, or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Tested: iPhone 4S on T-Mobile 3G at WWDC - PC Magazine
SAN FRANCISCO—T-Mobile has been the only national network which couldn't run iPhones at 3G speeds - until now. The carrier is "refarming" 1900-MHz airwaves to 3G, making itself finally iPhone-compatible.
Whether it's a total coincidence (as T-Mobile insists) or a publicity stunt, the carrier turned on a single 1900-MHz 3G cell site in San Francisco's Moscone West this week – the exact location where Apple will announce its new iOS 6. I took an unlocked iPhone 4S down and tested it out against AT&T and Verizon iPhones. (Sadly, I don't have a Sprint iPhone at the moment.)
The default state for an iPhone on T-Mobile is EDGE, and EDGE is really slow. I ran several tests on an iPhone on T-Mobile's EDGE network today and generally got speeds between 30-50kbps. Ouch.
But as soon as I walked alongside Moscone West, a "3G" indicator appeared in my iPhone 4S's status bar.
It's definitely a test network, using only one in-building cell site. The signal was much stronger at the front of Moscone West than at the back, and it vanished altogether half a block north of the convention center.
I ran 10 tests using the Speedtest.net app on the T-Mobile iPhone and got very erratic results; some numbers were clearly impossible, so I had to exclude them. Of the valid results, I saw download speeds from 500kbps to 6.5Mbps, but mostly in the 1-2Mbps range.
That's much less than what T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network can produce. On an HTC One S in the same location, I got 9.9Mbps down and 1Mbps up. And I got consistently faster speeds on AT&T, which has a slower HSPA network.
There are two factors at work here.
First, the iPhone 4S isn't capable of T-Mobile's full speeds. It's an HSPA 14.4 device like the HTC Sensation, which reached speeds of 4.3-6.5Mbps down during testing last year.
So why wasn't I getting the same 4-6Mbps on the iPhone? This was definitely a test network, and probably one designed not to emanate far outside the Moscone Center itself. Who knows what they're using for backhaul, or how much spectrum is devoted to the 1900 3G network. I wouldn't draw conclusions about future speeds from this test network.
I will draw conclusions about price, though. As I said last week, T-Mobile's no-contract plans are competitive with Virgin Mobile and much cheaper than AT&T and Verizon, with potentially faster data speeds than any of them on 3G devices. For more on that, see Virgin Mobile's $30 iPhone Plan Gamble.
So when will the wonders of refarming come to you? T-Mobile is remaining vague except to say that it'll arrive in a "large" number of markets this year.
T-Mobile offers all of its 4G Smartphones for free for Father’s Day - The Oakland Press
For two days only, June 15–16, all of T-Mobile’s 4G smartphones and select mobile broadband devices are free
To say thanks to dads for all they do, T-Mobile USA, Inc. will once again hold a special “Father’s Day Sale.” For two days only, Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16, all of T-Mobile’s 4G smartphones and select broadband devices will be offered for free with qualifying plans.
The Father’s Day promotion includes T-Mobile’s fastest 4G smartphones and select mobile broadband devices on its 4G network, such as the HTC One S 4G, Samsung Galaxy S® II 4G, Nokia Lumia 710, BlackBerry Bold 9900 and the T-Mobile SpringBoard tablet with Google™
“We want to say thanks to fathers for all they do and keep them easily and affordably connected to family throughout the entire year,” said Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile USA. “Whether through voice calls, photos, texts, video conferencing or social media updates, T-Mobile’s ‘All Phones Free’ promotion provides families a great opportunity to get the latest cutting-edge smartphones running on lightning-fast speeds via America’s Largest 4G Network.”
New and existing eligible customers can take advantage of this deal, receiving their device for free after a mail-in rebate card1 when they sign up for a new two-year contract on any qualifying unlimited Classic plan or for a $0.00 down payment after a mail-in rebate card when signing up on a new qualifying Unlimited Value plan with an Equipment Installment Plan
The Father’s Day promotion will be available from June 15 through June 16 at participating T-Mobile retail stores nationwide.
For more information about T-Mobile’s “Father’s Day Sale” and details about qualifying plans, visit http://t-mo.co/LGxKbc.
Follow @MattMyftiu on Twitter. Email him at matt.myftiu@oakpress.com.
Samsung Says Speculation It Will Buy Nokia Is Groundless - Bloomberg
Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest mobile-phone maker, said market speculation that it is interested in acquiring competitor Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) is groundless.
Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, made the comment today in an e-mailed statement. Shares of Espoo, Finland-based Nokia fell 0.7 percent to 2.35 euros at 11:27 a.m. Helsinki time, after jumping 6 percent on June 8 amid speculation Samsung is preparing an offer.
Nokia, struggling to recover lost market share, has declined 46 percent in the past year as consumers snapped up Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhones and Samsung smartphones running on Google Inc.’s Android software. Samsung overtook Nokia in the first quarter as the world’s largest handset maker, according to Gartner Inc.
Samsung also denied it’s interested in Nokia a year ago, responding to reports that it was getting ready to make a bid.
To contact the reporters on this story: Saeromi Shin in Seoul at sshin15@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net
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