Sprint Chairman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told reporters in Tokyo early Wednesday that job cuts at Sprint will be "in the thousands" as part of a restructuring plan.His comments came as SoftBank, which owns more than 70% of Sprint, reported its quarterly earnings."Sprint is now in the position to increase the pace of user acquisition while cutting costs," Son said, according to Bloomberg and other news sources. "We will also cut staff. The cuts will be in the thousands."Son's comments are not out of line with things Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has been telling Sprint workers for months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google's crusade to light up U.S. cities with gigabit speed Google Fiber has expanded to potentially include Oklahoma City and Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida.In a blog posted Wednesday, Google said it invited the capital city of Oklahoma and the two Florida cities to "explore" bringing faster fiber to their communities.In September, Google also invited San Diego and Irvine, Calif., and Louisville, Ky., to explore bringing Google Fiber to their communities.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD How Google Fiber is disrupting the broadband deployment model +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On Wednesday Verizon launched ThingSpace, a development platform for companies of all sizes to create Internet of Things applications more efficiently and then later manage those apps.The carrier also announced it is creating a new dedicated network core for IoT connections that can scale far beyond the ability of its existing networks with the intent to reach billions of sensors and devices."Continued innovation in smart cities, connected cars and wearables demonstrates that IoT is the future for how we will live and work," said Mike Lanman, senior vice president of enterprise products at Verizon during an event held at Verizon's San Francisco Innovation Center. He said Verizon is taking a "holistic approach" to help expand the IoT market from millions of connections to billions. The event was webcast.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
JP Morgan Chase Bank tweeted in error that its chip credit cards would be getting PIN security, a bank spokesman confirmed Thursday.The tweet, posted mid-day on Wednesday by @ChaseSupport, said: "Your security is our priority! We're planning to add Chip and PIN to our credit cards in the near future.""That tweet was sent in error yesterday," said JP Morgan Chase Bank spokesman Paul Hartwick in an email to Computerworld. "At this time we do not have current plans to offer chip-and-PIN credit cards."MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords
The bank, one of the nation's largest card issuers, has already distributed 64 million of the newer, more secure chip cards, he said. Of those, 51 million are credit cards and 13 million are debit cards. The vast majority are on Visa's network and some are on MasterCard's.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint will likely cut its 31,000-person workforce as part of up to $2.5 billion in cost reductions in the next six months, a company spokesman said Friday."It's likely some jobs will be impacted by this [cost-cutting] process, but it's premature to talk about details," said Sprint spokesman David Tovar in a telephone interview on Friday.In addition to 31,000 workers, the company also employs about 30,000 contractor employees, he said. Sprint, with 57.7 million customers, fell to the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier in August, behind T-Mobile.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Despite an Oct. 1 deadline for U.S. merchants to accept secure chip-enabled credit and debit cards, experts believe it will take years for the conversion."Realistically, we should expect the adoption of chip cards in the U.S. to take a few years," said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner who has been following the conversion for a decade, in an interview this week.Oct. 1 is the deadline for merchants to begin using newer point-of-sale terminals to accept chip cards. Meanwhile, banks are steadily sending chip cards to millions of customers as replacements for magnetic stripe cards. Chip cards are more secure than the older technology, and the U.S. is one of the latest countries to make the conversion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
LAS VEGAS -- Apple gave Sprint a little gift this week with the new iPhone 6S in the form of faster wireless speeds via a technology called carrier aggregation.The only problem is that Sprint is just at the beginning of rolling out carrier aggregation capability nationwide, a process expected to take place over the next two years. Just this week, Sprint announced the technology's availability in Denver.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon engineers have finished lab and field tests of a new fiber optic network capable of 10Gbps, or 10 times the speed of Google Fiber and some other currently-available networks.
A popular Verizon FIOS service now offering 75Mbps speeds can transfer a two-hour HD movie in 17 minutes; the new 10Gbps network can transfer the same movie in just 8 seconds, according to Shweta Jain, a FIOS engineer at Verizon. She spoke in a Verizon video to announce the successful testing.
Verizon hasn't said where the service will first be offered and at what cost. The company will seek proposals for equipment and software later this year to support commercial development.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A cell phone and Internet outage Tuesday evening in several Southeastern states was caused by a hardware problem, AT&T reported."Wireless and wireline service has been restored for all customers in parts of the Southeast affected by a hardware-related network issue," AT&T said in a statement Tuesday. "Our engineers completed repairs and service is running normally. We apologize for any inconvenience."AT&T would not describe the nature of the hardware problem, and said it only could speak about service for its own customers.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
However, the outage was reported on social media and other sources to have affected thousands of customers for all the major carriers, lasting from about 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET Tuesday. It hit customers in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri, and possibly other states.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
T-Mobile on Thursday announced that there would be no added charges for its U.S.-based Simple Choice customers when they call, text or use data to Mexico and Canada or when traveling there.The move, which takes effect Wednesday, makes T-Mobile the first carrier to offer continental phone service under a single plan anywhere in the world, company officials said.The new Mobile without Borders plan means that customers can call from the U.S. to both countries for no added cost as well as when they travel in both countries.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
Both consumers and business customers will be eligible, although business customers will pay $1 more per phone line for accounts with more than 10 phone lines, with no added cost for the first 10 lines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint this week quickly reversed plans to impose a 600 Kbps limit on streaming video as part of a promotion called "All-In" that charges $80 a month for unlimited talk, text and high-speed data.The All-In plan, announced Tuesday, ironically was intended to "end consumer confusion & frustration," according to a press release.But the 600 Kbps video stream cap, originally contained in a footnote about the plan, incited widespread frustration and anger on social media sites and elsewhere.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
The 600 Kbps limitation was interpreted by Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics, as a violation of Title II net neutrality rules, which Sprint had supported before the Federal Communications Commission. "To throttle video is such a clearcut violation of Title II," he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint this week quickly reversed plans to impose a 600 Kbps limit on streaming video as part of a promotion called "All-In" that charges $80 a month for unlimited talk, text and high-speed data.The All-In plan, announced Tuesday, ironically was intended to "end consumer confusion & frustration," according to a press release.But the 600 Kbps video stream cap, originally contained in a footnote about the plan, incited widespread frustration and anger on social media sites and elsewhere.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
The 600 Kbps limitation was interpreted by Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics, as a violation of Title II net neutrality rules, which Sprint had supported before the Federal Communications Commission. "To throttle video is such a clearcut violation of Title II," he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Major U.S. banks have been rolling out new, secure smart chip debit and credit cards for months, but the real end-user impact hasn't yet been felt.Some experts say typical consumers will get confused and may even balk when first attempting to use these new "pin and chip" smart cards. As a result, customers may choose to rely on the less-secure magnetic stripe also on the new cards for in-store purchases.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
Or, customers could even turn to mobile wallet alternatives, like Apple Pay or the coming Android Pay, and skip the credit and debit card experience altogether.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There's a lot of confusion, disruption and even turbulence in the market for enterprise mobility management (EMM) software, which is used to manage smartphones and tablets and the data and apps running on them."BlackBerry deserves to be considered a leader in EMM today," Beard concluded.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Is Apple planning some variation of a 2-in-1 device that would combine the iPad with a detachable keyboard?It's not completely far-fetched.If Apple did so, it would be keeping with a growing industry trend, analysts said. Apple wouldn't comment on this story, but that hasn't kept people from speculating.Of course, the iPad already works with various Bluetooth keyboards, including Apple's own and those from some third-party manufacturers. There are also various covers that can double as a way to prop up the tablet.+ ALSO: 20 best iPhone/iPad games +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Charter Communications' planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable faces a regulatory review by the same federal officials who were widely blamed for nixing the recent proposed merger of Time Warner with Comcast.The $55 billion deal (plus $23 billion in debt) between TWC and Charter, announced Tuesday, led immediately to an unusual three-sentence challenge by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler that succinctly stated: "The Commission will look to see how American consumers will benefit if the deal were to be approved."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint held on -- barely -- as the nation's third-largest carrier in the first quarter of 2015, with T-Mobile continuing in fourth place.Sprint said today it had 57.1 million total connections to its network, compared to 56.8 million for T-Mobile, as reported last week.T-Mobile was expected to edge ahead of Sprint, given T-Mobile's aggressive growth in the past year.Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said in a conference call that T-Mobile CEO John Legere had spoken "prematurely" in statements he made last week about T-Mobile's improvement compared to Sprint.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 12 most powerful Internet of Things companies
Claure called out Sprint's addition of 1.2 million net customer in the quarter, up from 967,000 in the prior quarter, and net losses of 383,000 in the same quarter in 2014. He said those additions were the highest in nearly three years, while churn (losses) among postpaid customers dropped to 1.84% and network performance improved, "all of which will position the company for profitable growth."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn't an evangelical preacher, but his latest video promoting the new Internet.org Platform is filled with a missionary zeal for free basic Internet for the 4 billion people worldwide without access.The nearly seven-minute video is also partly an ethical appeal by Zuckerberg to the tech community to put those without basic Internet service before their interest in "the intellectual purity of technology."Even though the appeal is evidently heartfelt, almost spiritual, analysts noted that Facebook, the corporation, stands to benefit ultimately from its free basic Internet message.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Problems with the new Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone have infuriated some early adopters, but they still stay loyal to their favorite brand.Some have taken to user forums and tweets with expletive-deleted missives. This post Wednesday on an Android Central forum by Edge smartphone user Ajay Rivera seemed to summarize recent sentiment: "This was my second device to crap out and [a support rep] still treated me like an *****"Despite such anger, many in the industry dismiss glitches -- and subsequent user furor -- as par for the course with most new products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Project Fi, Google's Wi-Fi and cellular network service announced Wednesday, can variously be described as low-cost, disruptive, cutting edge, tantalizing, confusing, even awesome.Google is offering the lowest entry-level wireless price plan in the U.S. at $30 a month. That sum includes $20 for talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering and international coverage in 120 countries plus $10 for 1 GB of data. The plan adds $10 a month for each additional 1 GB of data thereafter. Google is partnering with Sprint and T-Mobile for the cellular service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Matt Hamblen