Collective $328 million to be paid out by four major US mobile networks for mobile cramming

Each of the four major mobile carriers has been ordered to pay

As ordered by the FCC and the FTC, Verizon and Sprint will soon be paying out a collective 158 million dollars due to mobile cramming. If you haven’t been following the story, mobile cramming is described by the FTC as “a long-time scam in which consumers’ phone bills are used as a vehicle for unauthorized charges placed by third parties.” This basically means that some mobile phone companies have been adding small extra charges, usually ambiguously named so as to avoid questions, by allowing spam texts that charge upwards of 100 times the cost of a regular text (around $10). Some of the money from these spam texts would then go to the mobile companies themselves.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) have partnered in their common goal of righting the wrongs of the four major mobile networks and issuing refunds to customers. There are a lot of numbers floating around, but it seems like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile will be paying out amounts of $90 million, $68 million, $80 million and $90 million respectively to customers and to the US government based on the FTC Mobile Cramming site and this FCC mobile cramming document

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EE’s 10 million 4G customers are great news for BT

EE was the first mobile network to offer 4G in the UK, and now, more than two and a half years later, it’s still easily the most popular. The company has accumulated 10 million 4G customers, beating the numbers last reported by Three, O2 and Vodafone. It’s a huge lead and one that will please BT, which is in the midst of buying EE’s business. BT wants to strengthen its quad play offering and EE, provided the deal goes through, will give it a substantial network and subscriber base to work with. The company already offers mobile contracts — using EE’s network, unsurprisingly — and Sky has confirmed it’ll launch an O2-powered network in 2016. Three UK’s owner, meanwhile, is acquiring O2 in order to leapfrog EE and become the UK’s biggest carrier. While they sort out the details, BT has some time to fortify its position — after all, EE’s base of 4G subscribers will only continue to grow, benefitting the provider when its £12.5 billion buyout is finally approved.

Filed under: Networking

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You can get a $100 credit from T-Mobile if you buy a phone and a tablet together tomorrow

T-Mobile is offering an exciting deal for customers of its smartphones or tablets. Users who get a smartphone and a tablet from the carrier will receive a $100 credit. Users will receive credit in the form of a prepaid card powered by MasterCard.

One caveat here is that only Samsung smartphones and tablets are applicable under this deal. Available devices include Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Tab S and the trio of Galaxy Tab 4 tablets.

The deal is only applicable tomorrow i.e. May 13, so this is a one day promotion from Samsung and the carrier. You won’t have to get the two devices together though as you’ll have up to 30 days to purchase the second device after getting the first one tomorrow.

The second device however will have to be registered on a qualifying postpaid plan, with both upgrades and new activations being applicable. If you think these caveats don’t bother you, make sure you head over to a T-Mobile store tomorrow to learn more about this.

Via: TMo News

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Legacy MetroPCS CDMA networks closing on June 21

Although T-Mobile is reputed as a GSM carrier, it still has a few CDMA networks out there in the wild. The company however has been very keen to shut down these networks as it pushes customers towards using its GSM (HSPA+ and LTE) bands.

A new report now suggests that the MetroPCS CDMA networks will officially shut down CDMA networks from June 21. This is T-Mobile’s prepaid subsidiary in the U.S. and was long expected to shut down its CDMA services. There are still plenty of users relying on these networks, so a lot of customers will have to switch over by then.

The carrier originally planned to close its CDMA networks by the second half of 2015 and this news will certainly speed up that process. The MetroPCS site mentions the following – “MetroPCS will be converting our legacy network to our new network, making the network bigger and faster in these markets,” leaving nothing to the imagination.

The company also says that devices that are running on the legacy networks are not guaranteed to have service after June 21. So if you fit the criteria, you might want to contemplate switching to the carrier’s GSM networks before that.

Source: Prepaid Phone News
Via: Fierce Wireless

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MetroPCS shuts off its old phone network on June 21st

You’d better move quickly if you’re holding on to an older MetroPCS cellphone. The T-Mobile-owned carrier has posted a Frequently Asked Questions warning that its outgoing CDMA network will effectively shut off on June 21st. Any legacy phones are “not guaranteed” to work after that, the contract-free network says. It’s no secret that the end was nigh given that MetroPCS began winding down CDMA last year. However, we won’t blame you if this early transition is catching you off-guard. T-Mobile only said it was turning off MetroPCS’ old network sometime in the second half of the year — it’s clearly eager to conduct some spring cleaning, even if it means asking people to upgrade sooner than expected.

[Image credit: Jim Carroll, Flickr]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

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Via: FierceWireless, Android Central

Source: MetroPCS