05
Apr
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T-Mobile is starting to get aggressive with customer acquisition and retention, and in light of less than stellar fiscal performance and the news of the AT&T deal, it's not hard to see why.

On April 13, the carrier will begin offering a new off-contract smartphone plan, and it's a steal - for $59.99 a month (down from $79.99), you'll get unlimited talk, text and data*. But, there are some significant catches. The first is that you'll have to pay full retail for your phone of choice - the Even More Plus plan is a month-to-month affair.

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The second is arguably worse - your data usage is technically unlimited, but after the first 2GB (as opposed to the current 5GB) your data speeds will be throttled down until the next billing cycle.

01
Mar
verizon-wireless-logo1

While some people were unable to contemplate the possibility that Verizon's all-you-can-eat data plans would be coming to an end, Verizon's CFO Fran Shammo again affirmed the carrier's commitment to move to a tiered system today. When will life start to suck for new or upgrading Verizon customers? This Summer, apparently.

"But David, I already have an unlimited data contract, they have to honor that!" Why yes, they do. Until you want to upgrade to a 4G device, and you have to sign a completely "new" rate plan contract. AT&T is already doing this with the Inspire 4G - if you upgrade from any previous device to the Inspire, AT&T forces you into their limited data plans because your "service" has changed (to "4G").

27
Dec
Soundhoun

The developers of SoundHound, a music recognition app, have decided to update the free version of their app to allow an unlimited number of music IDs, instead of the previous limit of 5 each month.

Meanwhile, SoundHound's biggest competitor, Shazam, has a very similar offering: a free app that has the same limit of 5 music IDs per month. If Shazam does nothing, which is hard to imagine, and you don't plan on spending any money, there's no contest regarding which app you are going to end up using.

Whether SoundHound might be digging itself into a hole with this move or not is unclear, but unlimited song recognition is one less reason for customers to drop $4.99 for SoundHound Infinity.

06
Nov
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Over the years, Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier, has been notoriously expensive plan-wise, especially compared to Sprint or T-Mobile. For example, you can currently get a 450 minute talk+text plan with unlimited data for $90 over at Verizon, while at Sprint, it will cost you $69.99 (+ the minutes can be used to call any carrier's mobile phone):

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Left: Verizon, right: Sprint

A new plan, or 2 plans to be exact, is being offered in a promotion, BGR found today, that are putting the current pricing to shame. Similar to Sprint, Verizon's new offer, sent to customers via email, now offers 450 minutes together with unlimited texting and data for $69.99, which is $20 cheaper than what we saw above.

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