Tag Archives: LTE

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

T-Mobile USA Reports Preliminary First Quarter 2013 Customer Results

Leave a comment

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

T-Mobile USA Reports Preliminary First Quarter 2013 Customer Results

Positive Branded Net Customer Additions and Churn Improvements Demonstrate Continued Momentum and Solid Foundation for Bold ‘Un-carrier’ Moves in 2013


Summary of First Quarter 2013 Preliminary Key Customer Results:

  • Total customer base increased 579,000 in the quarter to 34 million
  • Branded net customer additions were positive in the quarter, a significant improvement of 352,000 sequentially
  • Branded postpaid net customer losses improved to a loss of 199,000, a 61% improvement from a fourth quarter 2012 loss of 515,000
  • Branded prepaid additions of 202,000, increased sequentially from 166,000, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of branded prepaid customer additions; T-Mobile has added approximately 1.7 million branded prepaid customers over the past seven quarters
  • Branded postpaid churn declined to 1.9%, an improvement of 60 basis points sequentially and the best branded postpaid churn results in four years

BELLEVUE, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– T-Mobile USA, Inc. (“T-Mobile”) today provided a preliminary view of key customer results for the first quarter of 2013, demonstrating continued positive momentum and the building of a solid foundation for growth. The Company generated positive branded net customer additions, a significant improvement in branded postpaid net customer losses and continued improvement in churn performance in the quarter. The business returned to branded customer growth in the first quarter, ahead of the March 26 Un-carrier launch which includes a radically simple unlimited plan; no annual service contracts; unbundling the cost of the plan and device with lowest up-front costs; introduction of iPhone 5; and launch of LTE in seven metropolitan areas. T-Mobile will release full first quarter 2013 results on May 8, 2013.

Preliminary Key Customer and Churn Performance Results

Total net customer additions for the first quarter of 2013 were 579,000, with total branded customer growth of 3,000 customers. This is a significant improvement from a net loss of 349,000 branded customers in the fourth quarter of 2012.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

1 More Hint of a Coming Amazon Kindle Phone

Leave a comment

By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

E-tail kingpin Amazon.com is working on a smartphone. This much we can already safely assume. The device may even approach the phablet category, with a 4.7-inch display, according to the most recent batch of rumors. Investors now have one more clue that Amazon is preparing to launch a Kindle Phone: the company has hired a former smartphone executive.

Charlie Kindel used to be a Microsoft Windows Phone general manager, helping the software giant grow its smartphone developer ecosystem. Kindel spent over two decades at Microsoft and helped launch Windows Phone 7 before leaving the company in 2011 to launch a start-up.

Kindel has confirmed on his LinkedIn profile that he now works for the e-tailer and is “building a new team going after a total new area for Amazon.” The list of totally new areas that Amazon could be exploring is rather small, especially ones where smartphone experience comes in handy.

This isn’t the first Windows Phone exec that Amazon has grabbed from Microsoft. Another Windows Phone developer exec, Brandon Watson, made the switch last February, and Windows Phone director Robert Williams jumped ship last July to become director of Amazon’s app store.

Don’t forget that Jon Rubinstein, the former CEO of Palm, still sits on Amazon’s board. While Palm’s turnaround fell flat before being put out of its misery by Hewlett-Packard, Rubinstein is still a good resource to have, and he has experience launching smartphones. His years as a hardware exec at Apple reporting directly to Steve Jobs don’t hurt, either.

At this point, Amazon has almost everything it needs to launch a smartphone. It already has a forked version of Google Android; it has a wide range of content services and apps; it has contract manufacturers already building tablets for it; it has existing relationships with wireless carriers that sell its LTE-equipped tablets; and it has plenty of smartphone talent.

The only thing Amazon doesn’t have is a disruptive approach to pricing a Kindle Phone.

Everyone knows Amazon is the big, bad wolf in the retail world right now, but at its sky-high valuation, most investors are worried it’s the company’s share price that’s due for a correction. The Motley Fool’s new premium report will tell you what’s driving the company’s growth, and fill you in on reasons to buy and reasons to sell Amazon. The report also has you covered with a full year of free analyst updates to keep you informed as the company’s story changes, so click here now to read more.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Does NVIDIA Deserve a Place in Your Portfolio?

Leave a comment

By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

I’ve had my eye on NVIDIA for a while now. As an old-school fan of PC games, I’ve used several NVIDIA graphics cards over the years, and as a follower of the fast-changing mobile landscape, I can appreciate the chipmaker’s efforts to diversify into the biggest new personal computing market since the market was created in the 1980s. However, I haven’t quite been able to step over the line and actually buy NVIDIA for my personal portfolio, as I’ve watched its stock lose an unexpectedly large amount of ground against the indexes for the last two years despite a stream of (generally) positive news:

NVDA Total Return Price data by YCharts.

What’s wrong with NVIDIA today? Are its problems too great to justify investing in it, or is the company poised for a mobile turnaround on the strength of its latest Tegra processors? Let’s dig into some pro and con arguments to figure out whether NVIDIA should be part of my (or your) portfolio, or if it’s better watched from afar.

Pro: Tegra 4i looks to get a leg up on the competition
NVIDIA‘s latest smartphone chip, the Tegra 4i, is shaping up to be a watershed release for the company’s mobile efforts. It’s the first NVIDIA chip with an integrated wireless 3G/4G LTE modem, and just as importantly, it’s purportedly half the size of smartphone processor market leader Qualcomm‘s competing Snapdragon 800. Small is beautiful when it comes to smartphone components, both in terms of the space premium for a device’s internal layout and in terms of its power consumption. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang pointed out that “we’ll have some phone success this year, but we’re not expecting to have a whole lot of phone design wins until we engage the market with LTE.” Well, NVIDIA‘s engaged the market now.

Con: NVIDIA is still far behind in mobile processors
The Tegra 4i is a big leap forward for NVIDIA, but it may not be enough to upend Qualcomm from its dominant position in smartphone processors. The Tegra 4i may be smaller than Qualcomm’s latest, but the new Snapdragons purportedly retain a power-consumption advantage. Qualcomm executives continue to boast of superior performance, which could be bluster, but may well not be — the market leader’s R&D spending over the past four quarters is nearly four times NVIDIA‘s, and Qualcomm has every incentive to laser-focus itself on holding that lead.

In the most recently available quarter, Strategy Analytics showed Qualcomm far in the lead on smartphone applications processors with a 42% market share. Samsung comes in second with 27%, in large part because of a long-standing relationship with Apple . NVIDIA doesn’t even crack the top five, and its smartphone share has been “relatively flat” year over year.

Pro: NVIDIA leads in non-Apple tablets
There is one area where NVIDIA bests Qualcomm: Android tablets. Apple still controls nearly half of the total tablet …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Ixia Joins Forces With Developing Solutions to Validate the Mobile Core

Leave a comment

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Ixia Joins Forces With Developing Solutions to Validate the Mobile Core

Ixia IxLoad with technology from Developing Solutions helps mobile operators avoid LTE network failures and billing errors

CALABASAS, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Ixia (NAS: XXIA) has collaborated with Developing Solutions to validate and harden the mobile core to accelerate application delivery across growing LTE networks. The market-leading IxLoad solution now leverages Developing Solutions‘ technology to promote high-performance testing of Diameter signaling- used for policy, charging and subscriber management- and deliver actionable insight into difficult-to-predict LTE signaling traffic.

Mobile operators face a major challenge in coping with surging traffic that can overwhelm infrastructures, which causes network outages and critical billing issues. Since these failures most often occur at high scale or under extreme conditions, Ixia provides mobile operators the solutions needed to proactively assess and validate the performance, resilience and scalability of LTE network cores and charging systems prior to live deployment.

Product highlights

Ixia offers the industry’s only end-to-end test solution used to harden and optimize LTE network designs and customize testing for unique live deployments. IxLoad delivers insight and visibility into network behavior; device performance; and the scalability of subscriber, billing and policy management systems using both Diameter and non-Diameter protocols on a single test system.

  • IxLoad LTE test solutions deliver repeatable, large-scale testing so mobile network operators can emulate, isolate and verify LTE network performance.
  • Rather than rely on isolated testing of distinct components, IxLoad enables system-level testing and generates both network and signaling traffic to deliver unprecedented data with unprecedented ease.
  • IxLoad EPC solutions now leverage Developing Solutions‘ dsTest® to promote high-performance testing of Diameter-based billing and policy systems. Additionally, customers now benefit from Developing Solutions‘ SmartAVP™ technology, which allows flexible testing of mandatory and custom Attribute Value Pairs, and SmartEvents™, which enables rapid custom testing of specific implementations and triggers.
  • IxLoad with dsTest features extensive Diameter interface support including multiple interfaces such as S6a, S6d, Gx, Ro/Gy, Rf/Gz, S6b, Rx, Sh, Cx and Sy.
  • These features, in addition to support for Diameter Dictionary, allow validation of feature functionality as …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
News, Politics, Government

Broadcom Could Dial Up $44 On These Drivers

Leave a comment

By Trefis Team, Contributor

Quick Take Broadcom gained additional market share in all of its business segments in 2012 – connectivity & baseband, network solutions and broadband. Though the short-term growth will be impacted by macro headwinds, we believe Broadcom has strong fundamentals to support a higher valuation. Broadcom will retain its market leadership in connectivity solutions for mobiles and tablets, and it expanded its wireless product portfolio with NFC quad-core chips and will launch the first 5G Wi-Fi smartphone in a few weeks. Strengthening 3G business and LTE compatibility can increase Broadcom’s market share in the baseband and application processors market. Softness in data center & lower enterprise spending led to a decline in Broadcom’s networking business, but it has expanded its addressable market with an enhanced product portfolio and will witness growth as the economic situation improves. The company will benefit from strong demand for advanced set-top boxes in developed countries. Despite an annual contraction in the overall semiconductor industry, Broadcom closed its fiscal 2012 with an 8% increase in annual revenues as it gained additional market share in all of its business segments – connectivity & baseband, network solutions and broadband. However, it marked a 22% annual decline in net income in 2012 on account of higher operating expenses. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

T-Mobile's Legere on "Greedy Hedge Funds" Trying to Stop the MetroPCS Merger

Leave a comment

By Dan Radovsky, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere is trying to rebrand the nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier as the only one seeking not to pull the wool over unsuspecting customers’ eyes. By using some colorful language in his characterization of the other mobile operators’ pricing policies in January at the CES, Legere is branding himself as an unfiltered straight-shooter.

And Legere has continued along that path in his remarks yesterday regarding his company’s proposed merger with MetroPCS , a transaction that has seen some vocal and insistent opposition from unhappy shareholders.

The merger has already passed regulatory scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but still has to be approved by shareholders in a vote taken at a special meeting to be held on April 12.

Legere was asked about the merger’s prospects at yesterday’s T-Mobile event. The proceedings were focused on kicking off T-Mobile’s new LTE network, touting the iPhone, and announcing its new “Uncarrier” pricing policies.

“It will be approved,” Legere said of the merger, “despite the greedy hedge funds that are trying to take a double-dip out of that process.”

He was referring to Paulson & Co., controller of 9.9% of outstanding MetroPCS shares, and P. Schoenfeld Asset Management, or PSAM, controller of 2% of MetroPCS shares.

Paulson has already flatly said he will vote against the proposed deal as it is currently structured, and PSAM has filed a series of proxy statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission imploring other shareholders to vote the transaction down.

In addition, PSAM, has also called for the resignations of MetroPCS Chairman and CEO Roger Linquist, as well as director Kevin Landry, for “aggressively selling down their positions in PCS stock while simultaneously recommending the T-Mobile transaction to PCS stockholders.”

“I get what they are doing,” Legere said. “If you are an investor, and it’s before the vote, you are rattling your saber around to get more money.”

If this is just the beginning of John Legere‘s open-mouth policy, he may become the most interesting communications executive since… well, since DISH Network‘s Charlie Ergen.

A fresh idea for 2013
The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.

The article T-Mobile’s Legere on “Greedy Hedge Funds” Trying to Stop the MetroPCS Merger originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Dan Radovsky has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

T-Mobile's Legere Kicks Butt. Will It Matter?

Leave a comment

By Dan Radovsky, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

T-Mobile has been mentioned more lately than any time since the FCC and Department of Justice pulled the company from the wide-open merger maw of AT&T-Rex last year.

That mega merger not-to-be put a few billion dollars of penalty fees in T-Mobile’s treasury, but the question of “What next?” for the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary still lingered… along with something else: the chip on T-Mobile’s shoulder from being the U.S.’ No. 4 mobile carrier (after No. 3 Sprint Nextel , no less).

Here’s T-Mobile CEO John Legere’s no-holds-barred assessment of the quality of his company’s former altar-mate at this January’s CES:

Anybody here from New York? Any of you use AT&T? Any of you that use them, are you happy? Of course not, the network’s crap.

And that was just the beginning of the colorful language, folks. He got more explicit yesterday at the T-Mobile event in NYC staged to kick off the carrier’s LTE network, confirm getting the iPhone, and announce its new “Uncarrier” plans. Legere derided the postpaid contract model pushed by Verizon , AT&T, and Sprint.

“Carriers are really nice to you … once every 23 months,” he added.

A contract is a contract is a contract
But when consumers put the Uncarrier to the sniff test, they may come away with the same assessment of the plan that Legere has of the other carriers’ plans.

The current two-year commitment consumers must make at the other three first-tier U.S. wireless carriers gives them a phone at a much lower cost than what the phone’s retail price would be. Sometimes the phone even comes free.

A base iPhone 5’s retail price of $649 falls to $199 when coupled to a two-year contract from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Of course, the $450 price difference will be made up for by the 24 monthly plan payments to come.

The T-Mobile plan, on the other hand, does not subsidize the cost of the phone. An iPhone 5, which T-Mobile will begin offering on April 12, will cost the full retail price. However, if customers prefer not to — or cannot afford to — pay full price, they will have the option of buying that phone over time.

For example, the iPhone 5 from T-Mobile will cost $580 — without a contract, of course, because there are no more contracts at T-Mobile. But, one can get that same phone by putting $100 down and committing to two years’ worth of $20 monthly phone payments .

But won’t the customer have to sign a two-year contract stipulating the 24 $20 payments? Of course they will. So is there really a difference between T-Mobile and the other carriers? In reality, no.

And who is eating/subsidizing the $70 difference between Apple‘s retail price for that phone and the price charged by T-Mobile? It looks like T-Mobile will have to choke down the difference.

In the end, I think, any subscriber increase for T-Mobile will have to come from quality of service coupled …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Tim Scronce Settles Dispute with PCTEL

Leave a comment

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Tim Scronce Settles Dispute with PCTEL

BLOOMINGDALE, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– PCTEL, Inc. (NAS: PCTI) , a leader in simplifying wireless and site solutions for private and public networks, announced today that its Board of Directors has accepted a settlement offer from Tim Scronce. The settlement relates to matters surrounding PCTEL‘s recent acquisition of certain TelWorx Entities assets. The details of the settlement are disclosed in PCTEL‘s 8-K filing made earlier today.

PCTEL continues to seek restitution from Scronce’s advisors. The company will continue to cooperate with the SEC‘s investigation of this matter.

Marty Singer, PCTEL‘s Chairman and CEO, said, “We are turning our attention now to accelerating synergies between our Lexington and Bloomingdale operations and developing our kitting, tower and enclosure businesses.”

About PCTEL

PCTEL, Inc. (NAS: PCTI) , develops antenna, scanning receiver, and engineered site solutions and services for public and private networks. PCTEL RF Solutions specializes in the design, optimization and testing of today’s wireless communication networks. The company’s SeeGull® scanning receivers, SeeHawk® visualization tool, and Clarify® system, measure and analyze wireless signals for efficient cellular network planning, deployment, and optimization. PCTEL develops and supports scanning receivers for LTE, TD-LTE, EV-DO, CDMA, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, GSM, and WiMAX networks. PCTEL Secure, which is part of RF Solutions, focuses on Android mobile platform security.

PCTEL Connected Solutions™ simplifies network deployment for wireless, data and communications applications for private network, public safety, and government customers. PCTEL Connected Solutions develops and delivers high-value YAGI, Land Mobile Radio, WiFi, GPS, In-Tunnel, Subway, and broadband antennas (parabolic and flat panel) through its MAXRAD®, Bluewave™ and Wi-Sys™ product lines. PCTEL also designs specialized towers, enclosures, fiber optic panels, and fiber jumper cables to deliver custom engineered site solutions. The company’s vertical markets include SCADA, Health Care, Smart Grid, Positive Train Control, Precision Agriculture, Indoor Wireless, Telemetry, Off-loading, and Wireless Backhaul. PCTEL‘s products are sold worldwide through direct and indirect channels. For more information, please visit the company’s web sites www.pctel.com, www.antenna.com, www.rfsolutions.pctel.com, www.connectedsolutions.pctel.com, www.towerworx.com, or www.pctelsecure.com.

PCTEL Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Specifically, the statements regarding PCTEL seeking restitution from Scronce’s advisors and acceleration of synergies between …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Radisys LTE Solutions Enable Rivada Networks' Technology to Dynamically Allocate Excess Spectrum for

Leave a comment

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Radisys LTE Solutions Enable Rivada Networks’ Technology to Dynamically Allocate Excess Spectrum for Public Safety Networks

Radisys’ unique combination of carrier-grade hardware, software and services take Rivada’s Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage (DSA) innovation from concept to reality

HILLSBORO, Ore.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Radisys® Corporation (NAS: RSYS) , a market leader enabling wireless infrastructure solutions, and Rivada Networks, a leading public safety communications company, today announced that Radisys’ complete end-to-end LTE network solutions and Professional Services have enabled Rivada Networks‘ Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage (DSA) innovation. DSA, developed for the public safety market, is the first solution to enable the allocation of excess spectrum resources to other network providers on a real-time basis. For the standards-based network, Radisys leveraged its award-winning Trillium® TOTALeNodeB™ and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) software, carrier-grade COM Express platform and Professional Services. Radisys is the only company with hardware, software and LTE integration expertise all in-house, enabling the delivery of a pre-integrated solution that reduced Rivada’s integration risk and time to market significantly.

“Rivada Networks has opened a new chapter in the history of public safety communications,” said Declan Ganley, CEO, Rivada Networks. “Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage unlocks the potential for supply and demand economics to bolster the quality and coverage of wireless broadband services. The technology is a market-changing breakthrough with serious potential to improve cellular communication networks and public safety communications capabilities, and our collaboration with Radisys has enabled us to bring this exciting technology to market.”

The U.S. public safety market is evolving rapidly with the introduction of LTE networks. The industry is transitioning to a combination of private and public networks, all with available spectrum that often goes unused. Rivada’s DSA innovation allows unused spectrum to be easily reallocated across networks to where it’s needed most by combining prioritization of users on the network with a real-time auctioning process. Deployment of DSA will lead to a new approach in how network operators use and charge for their network resources. Operators will be able to apply varying levels of priority to every user on the network and charge users based on demand, opening up the market for innovative business models. Radisys is providing the test network to demonstrate the viability of this industry-first solution.

“We’ve developed a ground-breaking technology that enables operators to loan out their unused spectrum to other overloaded networks, thereby enabling efficient spectrum use for the public safety industry,” said Clint Smith, CTO, Rivada Networks. “We invest …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

T-Mobile, Seeking to Fill 'Huge Void,' Will Begin Selling iPhones

Leave a comment

By The Associated Press

t-mobile sell apple iphone without contract

Filed under: , , , ,

Mary Altaffer/AP T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert speaks at a news conference Tuesday in New York. T-Mobile will start offering the iPhone 5 on April 12, filling what the company says is “a huge void” in its phone lineup.

By PETER SVENSSON

NEW YORK — T-Mobile USA on Tuesday said it will start offering the iPhone on April 12, filling what its CEO said was “a huge void” in its phone lineup.

T-Mobile, the fourth-largest of the national U.S. phone companies, has been losing customers to the bigger companies, which all sell Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone.

“This is a big deal for us,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said at an event in New York.

The company will charge $100 up front for the iPhone 5, then another $20 per month for two years. That’s on top of service fees for voice, text and data that start at $50 per month. The total monthly cost starts at $70 per month, a substantial discount to prices offered by bigger companies.

In some areas, where its network supports them, T-Mobile will also sell the older iPhone 4, for $15 down and $15 per month for two years, and the 4S for $70 plus $20 a month for two years.

T-Mobile’s network has, until recently, not been able to offer high-speed data service to iPhones. It’s now able to deliver high-speed data to iPhones in some cities, and it has lured over 2.1 million off-contract AT&T Inc. (T) iPhones, executives said Tuesday.

The company also announced that it is firing up an even faster data network, based on so-called “LTE” technology, in Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose, Calif., and Washington. Unofficially, the network is also active here and there in New York, as demonstrated at the event.

By the end of the year, T-Mobile says LTE will be available where two-thirds of the nation’s population lives. The iPhone 5 can access the LTE network for faster data downloads, while the older iPhones can’t.

T-Mobile is the last of the four major carriers to launch an LTE network, but already has a relatively fast “4G” network. It’s been hamstrung by a lack of space on the airwaves, but gained some room last year from AT&T as part the compensation for a failed buyout attempt. That’s allowing it to start building the LTE network.

Sponsored Linksadsonar_placementId=1505951;adsonar_pid=1990767;adsonar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=242;adsonar_zh=252;adsonar_jv=’ads.tw.adsonar.com’;

T-Mobile wants to boost its LTE capacity and speeds even further by merging with No. 5 carrier MetroPCS Communications Inc. and thus gaining access to its space on the airwaves. That deal faces opposition from MetroPCS shareholders. By coincidence, they are voting on the merger on April 12, the same day T-Mobile starts selling the iPhone.

T-Mobile also said it will start selling the Samsung Galaxy S 4 …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

T-Mobile's iPhone 5 is AT&T's iPhone 5, But It's Not

Leave a comment

By Matt Hickey, Contributor

T-Mobile’s new iPhone 5 – which is launching on the “uncarrier’s” network on April 12th – is the same model of the iPhone 5 that AT&T customers currently enjoy, except that it will be newer and feature AWS (or Advanced Wireless Services), a newer set of frequencies that T-Mobile is using for its LTE network. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

How T-Mobile Aims to Win Over Apple Fans

Leave a comment

By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

We’re known for a while that Deutsche Telekom unit T-Mobile is intent on disrupting rivals such as AT&T and Verizon to win subscribers here in the U.S. A deal with Apple has been in the works since at least early December.

We’re due a glimpse at what else the telco has planned at its “Uncarrier” event scheduled for Tuesday. A likely topic: LTE. GigaOm reports that T-Mobile is on the verge of launching hyperfast wireless broadband service in eight cities, including Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas (both Kansas and Missouri), New Orleans, San Diego, and Seattle, as well as New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the following video, Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova says the rollout comes at the right time, especially in underserved markets such as Denver. Making fast LTE service available to iPhone owners in these areas could lead to a windfall of sign-ups of disgruntled AT&T and Verizon users, Tim says. Do you agree? Disagree? Please weigh in using the comments box below.

Still hungry for Apple information? The Motley Fool’s senior technology analyst and managing bureau chief, Eric Bleeker, has the skinny on the various reasons to buy or sell Apple right now. Click here to get his latest thinking on the stock and what opportunities are left for Apple (and your portfolio) going forward.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “TickerReportPitch”, contentByline: “Tim Beyers“, contentId: “cms.26826”, contentTickers: “NASDAQ:AAPL, NYSE:VZ, NYSE:T, NASDAQOTH:DTEGY”, contentTitle: “How T-Mobile Aims to Win Over Apple Fans”, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Apple's iPhone Finally Arrives on T-Mobile

Leave a comment

By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Following years of speculation, the No. 4 domestic carrier has now officially launched Apple‘s iPhone.

At T-Mobile’s “Un-carrier” event today, the company announced that the iPhone will launch on its network April 12. T-Mobile also recently completed its shift away from smartphone subsidies and service contracts.

Instead, T-Mobile is offering a payment plan to make the device more affordable, with an upfront payment alongside 24 monthly payments for the iPhone. T-Mobile also said it launched 4G LTE service in seven major metropolitan markets, and plans to expand LTE coverage to more than 200 million people by the end of 2013.

T-Mobile has always welcomed unlocked iPhones on its network, although previously those devices were relegated to slower speeds due to technical incompatibilities.

link

The article Apple’s iPhone Finally Arrives on T-Mobile originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

(function(c,a){window.mixpanel=a;var b,d,h,e;b=c.createElement(“script”);
b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
‘//cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2.2.min.js’;d=c.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
d.parentNode.insertBefore(b,d);a._i=[];a.init=function(b,c,f){function d(a,b){
var c=b.split(“.”);2==c.length&&(a=a[c[0]],b=c[1]);a[b]=function(){a.push([b].concat(
Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}var g=a;”undefined”!==typeof f?g=a[f]=[]:
f=”mixpanel”;g.people=g.people||[];h=[‘disable’,’track’,’track_pageview’,’track_links’,
‘track_forms’,’register’,’register_once’,’unregister’,’identify’,’alias’,’name_tag’,
‘set_config’,’people.set’,’people.increment’];for(e=0;e<h.length;e++)d(g,h[e]);
a._i.push([b,c,f])};a.__SV=1.2;})(document,window.mixpanel||[]);
mixpanel.init("9659875b92ba8fa639ba476aedbb73b9");

function addEvent(obj, evType, fn, useCapture){
if (obj.addEventListener){
obj.addEventListener(evType, fn, useCapture);
return true;
} else if (obj.attachEvent){
var r = obj.attachEvent("on"+evType, fn);
return r;
}
}

addEvent(window, "load", function(){new FoolVisualSciences();})
addEvent(window, "load", function(){new PickAd();})

var themeName = 'dailyfinance.com';
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24928199-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function () {

var ga = document.createElement('script');
ga.type = 'text/javascript';
ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Why Is Amazon Dropping Kindle Fire Prices?

Leave a comment

By Adam Levine-Weinberg, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Last week, Amazon.com announced that it was reducing the price of its Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet from $299 to $269, while also cutting the price of the LTE version from $499 to $399. In the press release, Amazon stated that the launch of those tablets in Europe and Japan allowed the company to increase production volumes and therefore lower prices. However, this announcement should be taken with a grain of salt. It is much more likely that weak sales of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire devices led to the price cut. While Amazon has generally tried to sell its tablets at cost, the 8.9-inch devices were previously priced to be profitable. With the failure of that strategy, Amazon seems to be reverting to its primary strategy of pricing tablets at cost and hoping to sell content at a profit.

Who wants a $500 Kindle Fire?
Other vendors, such as Motorola (Xoom), BlackBerry (Playbook), and Hewlett-Packard (TouchPad), have previously tried to compete with Apple in the upscale tablet market. Each of those would-be iPad competitors flopped at the $499 price point. Even at greatly reduced prices, none of these tablets were able to come close to the iPad’s sales volume.

Despite this harsh lesson, Amazon decided to attempt a $499 tablet last year. The highlight of Amazon’s high-end tablet was a 4G LTE modem, and an option for customers to buy a discounted $49.99 basic data plan for the first year. Amazon also introduced an 8.9-inch Wi-Fi version of the Kindle Fire HD for $299. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch began shipping on Nov. 15, with the LTE model shipping the week thereafter.

As early as December (one month after the launch of the Kindle Fire HD), analysts began warning that demand for the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire models was very weak. One analyst estimated that Amazon sold 6 million tablets in the holiday quarter, with most of those being the $199 Kindle Fire HD 7-inch. (Amazon has not released official sales statistics for the Kindle Fire tablets.) While some analysts had expected the new Kindle Fires to steal market share from Apple, the reverse seems to have occurred. Apple introduced the iPad Mini shortly after the Kindle Fire HD launch, with a starting price of $329. With a 7.9-inch screen, the iPad Mini is in between the two Kindle Fire HD size options. Apple reportedly expects to sell 55 million iPad minis in 2013. The iPad Mini’s runaway popularity suggests that customers comparing it to the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch are overwhelmingly willing to sacrifice on screen size (and pay an extra $30) to get the iPad’s superior overall experience.

Enter price cuts
By cutting its prices to $269 and $399 for the Wi-Fi and LTE 8.9-inch tablets, Amazon will put a little more distance between itself and Apple, price-wise. As analyst Colin Gillis of BGC Partners recently argued, the price cut may be …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Can New Products and Better Focus Drive Broadcom?

Leave a comment

By Richard Saintvilus, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The semiconductors industry can be pretty ruthless and filled with high stakes. It’s a sector consumed with rivals wanting nothing more than to put each other out of business with every new product launch. But Broadcom has always managed to stand out and remain a step ahead, which was the reason the company (rightfully) got the benefit of the doubt from the Street after posting soft fourth-quarter results.

Reasons to expect an outperformance
Nevertheless, the company’s been making up for it ever since. For instance, on Feb. 12, Broadcom announced the BCM21892, the company’s first LTE-compatible baseband chip that supports all 4G LTE bands — saying it was 35% smaller than current products, making it the industry’s smallest 4G LTE chip.

A couple of weeks later, the company announced the first Femtocell chip that integrates radio frequency and baseband modem. But that wasn’t all. In the weeks that followed, it’s been a succession of product releases and announcements. The benefit of the doubt aside, is the Street now discounting Broadcom’s true potential? This is a company that’s coming off a 14% year-over-year increase in revenue. Yet some investors considered that performance subpar.

Let’s keep things in perspective. Aside from Qualcomm , which grew chip revenue 34%, the sector’s overall performance was abysmal. So in light of Broadcom’s new products, which should help strengthen the company’s market position, it’s a safe bet that Broadcom should win market share in the coming quarters against Qualcomm and NVIDIA.

What’s more, even though Broadcom’s management played it conservative with guidance, the company’s strong position with Apple and Samsung, shouldn’t be discounted, either. Recent reports suggest that not only is Apple ramping up iPhone distribution in China, but Apple also plans to release a cheaper version. That’s not to mention the strong anticipation for the iPhone 5S. Meanwhile, although the Samsung Galaxy S4 didn’t exactly woo the Street, Broadcom should still benefit from any type of the demand the phone enjoys. Essentially, forget the smartphone war between Apple and Samsung: Broadcom wins either way.

Where’s the company heading?
Management has made it very clear where it wants to take the company. If the recent product announcements serve as an indication, the company also wants to be better diversified. When Broadcom held its analyst day last December, management revealed encouraging strategies related to near-field-communication, or NFC, and how the future of mobile payments can become a strong revenue stream for Broadcom. Here too, is an advantage with Apple.

There were also positive remarks about fifth-generation Wi-Fi. Management said new standards can generate 20% to 30% higher average selling prices. But there was also a significant focus on long-term-evolution, or LTE, technology. The company has held true to its promise and has taken on the LTE platform and has pioneered new designs such as the BCM21892.

It remains to be seen, however, how these new chips can affect Qualcomm, which has a sizable lead in mobile baseband technology. But given the traction that NVIDIA is starting to gain, Broadcom understands how important it is to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance