The cell phone companies have most of us precisely where they want us: shackled to one- or two-year contracts, threatened with hefty fees for early escapes. It's not exactly indentured servitude, but it still is an irksome surrender of freedom. What if service worsens, or you leave the country for a while? What if you use 800 minutes some months and 100 during others? Some wireless carriers offer an alternative: prepaid plans.
CANNES, France - With a covetous eye on the success of portable music players, mobile phone makers are going after would-be iPod buyers by building high-quality players into their handsets. Sony Ericsson announced Monday it would soon market music-player mobiles under its parent's Walkman brand, drawing on the music catalogue of a sister company, Sony BMG, the world's No. 2 record company.
Verizon has backed off plans for a $2 fee, in response to public outrage. The government plans to investigate the public's new bully- of-the-week, as if Super Nanny must determine the value of competitive private-sector services. The company, one of many that offer mobile phone services and other digital communication options, announced plans to charge a $2 fee for one-time bill payments made by phone or on the company's website. No fees would be charged for monthly bill payments deducted automatically from bank accounts or charged to credit cards. No fees would be charged for traditional-style payments made by checks mailed directly to the company. In other words, avoiding the $2 fee would have been simple.
Through Wednesday, U.S. Cellular is using on-the-go free coffee, pastries and cereal bars to promote changes to its mobile phone plans nationwide and in Southwest Virginia. The Chicago-based wireless company is dispatching mobile cafe vans, called Wake-up Wagons, throughout the Roanoke Valley to serve coffee and food and to get people's attention about new services available to customers.
SPECULATION is rife that telco giant Maxis will relist on Bursa Malaysia. How will this affect the sector? MALAYSIA'S ALREADY ACTIVE telecommunications sector could be about to get even busier, with the country's largest mobile phone services provider mulling plans to list on the stock exchange and predictions the industry will defy the global downturn by continuing to post solid growth for the next five years at least.
Mergers in Mexico and Brazil that will create strong regional and global competition in a number of industries overshadowed a dormant mergers & acquisitions market in the US in January. In Mexico, Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world, orchestrated a consolidation of his telecom empire. America Movil, Latin America's leading mobile-phone services provider, which Slim controls, plans to acquire Mexican telephone company Telmex and Telmex Internacional through holding company Carso Global Telecom. In Brazil, Braskem agreed to acquire a 60% interest in petrochemicals manufacturer Quattor Parcicipacoes from rival Unipar in a deal valued at more than $4 billion, including the assumption of $3.68 billion in liabilities, according to Thomson Reuters.
T-Mobile West Corp. has revised its application for a cell phone tower at 1175 E. Garvey Ave., ending plans for a 55-foot tower that neighbors had complained would be a nuisance. The new plan calls for constructing a screened enclosure on top of a commercial building to house the cell antenna. The screen will extend the height of the building to 37 feet.
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