The Federal Communications Commission announced on Monday the reformation and modernization of the Lifeline program. The revamped program will ensure affordable phone service is available to low-income families. Lifeline is a “universal service program that fulfills Congress’s mandate to ensure the availability of communications to all Americans.” The percentage of low-income households with phone service has increased dramatically since the program began in 1985, from 80% to nearly 92% las...

Democratic Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts released a draft of his cell phone privacy bill on Monday. The Mobile Device Privacy Act is designed to protect consumers from tracking software such as Carrier IQ, which caused an uproar late last year when it was discovered to be secretly monitoring 150 million smartphone users. The bill would require companies to disclose the use of such tracking software and clarify exactly what information the software collects. Customers would have to consent to a...

If you are an everyday wireless consumer walking into a store to purchase a new smartphone, the terms HSPA+, WiMAX and LTE may mean very little to you. Yet, each of those networks is different and each is being advertised as “4G” in the United States, thanks to an International Telecommunications Union policy that allows carriers to market newer 3G technologies as “4G” networks. A new bill presented to the U.S. Senate this week hopes to force wireless carriers to clarify what exactly t...

Google may be preparing to take its mobile efforts to the next level as it tests a Google-branded MVNO in Spain. Unconfirmed reports accompanied by photos of a Google SIM card and a Nexus S running on a “Google_Es” network suggest that Google is toying with the idea of becoming a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or a company that provides cellular service by leasing capacity from existing wireless carriers and piggybacking on their networks. The photos suggest that testing is in the late stages as...

Sprint’s already been very vocal about its opposition to AT&T’s planned purchase of T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom, but on Tuesday the carrier officially asked the Federal Communications Commission to step in and block the purchase. In its 377-page filing, Sprint argued that the acquisition would make AT&T the nation’s largest carrier with a total of 118 million subscribers and a 43% grip on the postpaid market. The carrier added that Verizon and AT&T would earn 78% of all wirele...

AT&T, the nation’s second largest wireless provider, has just announced that it will acquire T-Mobile USA from parent company Deutsche Telekom in a cash and stock deal worth approximately $39 billion. With all of the talk of Sprint and T-Mobile joining up, the AT&T news comes out of the blue — though strategically it makes more sense due to both carriers’ spectrum and network technology. It has been widely reported that Deutsche Telekom was looking to get rid of T-Mobile USA for various ...

According to information garnered by UK paper The Independent, Apple will not include Near Field Communications (NFC) technology in its next generation iPhone. Citing sources at “several of the largest mobile operators in the UK,” the paper states that Apple informed mobile carriers of its decision to forgo NFC over several meetings. Analysts suspect that Apple may be working on its own NFC-like payment system — one that routes payment through the company’s iTunes Store — as it has been ...

According to a report on Wednesday from industry watcher DigiTimes, Acer is seeing higher than expected interest in its upcoming line of tablets. Demand is so high, the report claims, that it exceeds the initial supply Acer has ordered from its manufacturing partners. The strong demand comes from various cellular carriers around the world that are seemingly eager to bundle Acer’s upcoming devices with data plans. According to the report, Acer plans to launch four devices between now and April: The 10-in...

The recent resurgence of “iPhone nano” rumors has Wall Street analysts working overtime. They already love Apple, which has basically been printing money lately, and rumors of Cupertino cooking up a smaller, cheaper iPhone could certainly send Apple’s mobile profits even further skyward. In fact, one analyst thinks a cheap version of Apple’s iOS-powered smartphone could expand its addressable market by a whopping 600%, therefore potentially giving iPhone profits a 250% boost. Bernste...

In a press release today, Chinese electronics manufacturer ZTE announced its plans to open a carrier-centric, cloud-based app store at next week’s Mobile World Congress. The store will allow wireless providers to “manage their own-branded delivery services and content” online and off; the store can also be configured to work on PCs and tablets.“Operators can in turn give their customers access to a vast range of applications and content such as videos, games, animations and books,̶...

We have been getting tips all morning that RIM’s BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) has been down for a number of hours nationwide, for all carriers. Unfortunately this outage looks like it’s not just the email portion of the BIS service, but all data as well, which is quite frustrating. Is your BlackBerry data not working? Hit us in the comments with your carrier and approximate location, alright?Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

Now that Google has finally brought incoming number portability to its Google Voice service, we wanted to ask: how many of you have taken advantage of the new feature? It’s a difficult call to make and many people have reached out to us to ask us what our thoughts on it. Since you’re porting your existing number, you’ll need a new number for your actual cell phone and that’s where things can get tricky for some people. Also, many people have early termination fees to consider, so that ...

ComputerWorld has published a study that sheds some light on which manufacturer and wireless carrier in the U.S. provide Android users with operating system updates in the most timely fashion. Data was collected on handsets released by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon from 2009 through 2010. The report examines how many phones were upgraded to Froyo (Android 2.2), how many days it took to receive this upgrade, and what percentage devices are still waiting. The study indicates that HTC has delivered t...

Among the top carriers in the U.S., AT&T is the worst by a healthy margin. The news comes from this year’s Consumer Reports reader survey, which ranks Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile along with some regional carriers. Verizon Wireless was ranked as the nation’s top major carrier, though its score of 74 positions it in the No. 2 spot overall behind U.S. Cellular. Readers were asked to grade each carrier on several criteria including value, voice service quality, data service qua...