Free Republic

NEW YORK (AFP) – US telecoms giant AT&T announced Thursday that it was hanging up its sponsorship deal with disgraced golfing star Tiger Woods who has been embroiled in a sensational sex scandal. "We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future," the company, which backs the US PGA Tour event operated by the golfer's foundation, said in a terse, one-line statement. It was the latest blow for Woods since he inexplicably crashed his car into a tree and fire hydrant outside his Florida home in the early hours of November 27, unleashing...

AT&T Inc. said Thursday it would no longer sponsor Tiger Woods, joining Accenture in dropping support for the world’s top golfer, who’s taking a break from the sport to focus on his marriage after his admitted infidelity. The phone company hasn’t used Woods’ image extensively in advertising, but its logo appeared on his golf bag. That deal had been billed as a “multiyear” agreement when it was signed early in 2009. Woods has also been the host of the AT&T National PGA Tour event since it started in 2007. The phone company said it would continue to sponsor the event,...

A San Francisco-based wireless company is unabashedly mixing its liberal political activism with business, a strategy that has won the praise of President Obama but not the confidence of marketing analysts. A San Francisco-based wireless company is working liberal political activism into its business plan in a unabashedly partisan marketing strategy that experts say could catch on in today's polarized culture -- but also could alienate many potential customers. The company, CREDO, even boasts that it has the support of President Obama as it markets itself as an agent of social change. It pitches its mobile phone services with a...

AT&T and the All-You-Can-Eat Dilemma By Chris Maxcer MacNewsWorld 12/11/09 4:00 AM PT Some AT&T customers are fuming about comments a company executive made recently about why the carrier is having such rotten network issues -- some users tend to use up an awful lot of bandwidth. AT&T certainly isn't the hero of this story, but it is worth taking a closer look at what was really said why some of it actually makes sense. Listen. Wow. If you're reading this, there's a decent chance you've seen the inundation of whiny news stories and blog posts over the widely reported...

AT&T Inc. plans to take steps toward curtailing excessive data usage by some iPhone customers as it battles growth in both wireless traffic and perceptions of network problems. Ralph de la Vega, who run's AT&T's wireless and consumer businesses, said Wednesday the company will introduce "incentives" to encourage customers to cut back on their data usage. Mr. de la Vega said AT&T's strategy wasn't set yet, but said the incentives wouldn't affect the majority of AT&T's subscribers. He said details will likely be available early next year. The wireless industry has been wrestling with the exponentially growing use of data...

While rumors of a possible Verizon-compatible iPhone in 2010 persist, one analyst has predicted that Apple will instead bring the iPhone to another GSM-based carrier in the U.S.: T-Mobile. In a note to investors released this week, Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel Partners said his firm believes that T-Mobile, and not Verizon, will be the beneficiary when Apple's exclusive agreement with AT&T expires next year... AT&T's exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone is due to expire in 2010... While the iPhone in its current iteration is compatible with T-Mobile's network, it is not capable of connecting to its high-speed...

I am looking for an iPhone that I can later unlock and use with other carriers and plans. Let's take, for example, iPhone 3GS, 32 GB. Am I missing something in my analysis? Apple sells this 3GS for $299, provided you commit to a two year plan. If you cancel before that time, you pay a fee of $175. I have looked on the internet and see unlocking software for as little as $30. Given these facts, why then would anyone want to pay more than $299+$175+$30=$505 for an unlocked iPhone 3GS? I see prices of $600 and above on...

BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros' hedge fund increased the value of its holdings by $US2 billion ($2.14bn) over the past three months, boosting his stake in the telecommunications and financial sectors. Soros Fund Management reported holdings of $US6.2bn as of September 30, up from $US4.2bn as of June 30, according to a filing today with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr Soros significantly increased his positions in AT&T and Verizon Communications by 3.4 million shares and roughly 4m shares, respectively. Mr Soros now holds 4.2m shares of AT&T, valued at $US113 million as of September 30. The fund owns more...

The leftists are marketing "Credo Mobile" against AT&T and Verizon. Their advertisement asserts that AT&T and Verizon "support politicians opposed to real healthcare reform, like a single-payer system or public option" and that they "fund anti-environment politicians". Who knew? If that's true, support AT&T and Verizon!AlterNet's promotional e-mail tells its followers to "Join the mobile phone company that's fighting for a robust public option in healthcare reform-and hasn't given a cent to Joe Lieberman."

Cell Phone Service Interruption

An AT&T executive has asked employees to post opposition to net neutrality rules being considered by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on an FCC Web site using their personal e-mail addresses, prompting accusations of unfair advocacy by an opposing group. The AT&T letter, sent this week by Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs, asks employees to go to OpenInternet.gov and use a personal e-mail address to join the discussion forum there. The letter then gives five talking points that AT&T employees can use to argue against net neutrality in the days leading up to Thursday’s...

FirstCall/ -- AT&T* announced today a donation of more than $250,000 to the Patriots' Path Council, serving Boy Scouts of America in northern and central New Jersey. The money is a result of the first annual AT&T NJ Golf Classic which was held at Fiddlers Elbow Country Club in Bedminster and featured appearances by former NY Yankees Joe Pepitone and Lee Mazzilli. Proceeds will be used to support Inner City Scouting programs providing camp scholarships for children living in urban areas and will also fund the cost of a full-time bilingual Program Director for Hispanic communities.

Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened. On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and...

... Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. But deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment. ... “I was more concerned for the person’s life,” Williams said. “It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his...

Authorities hope a quarter-million-dollar reward will shake loose a tipster to lead them to the vandals who severed underground fiber-optic cables, cutting off phone service for tens of thousands of people and disrupting life throughout southern Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. Investigators said Friday they are tracking down at least 10 leads and reviewing traffic-camera footage taken near one of four sites where the cables were cut Thursday in hopes of a breakthrough.[snip] Contract talks The sabotage in the South Bay came as AT&T was negotiating with the Communications Workers of America for a contract covering more...

(04-09) 16:37 PDT SAN JOSE -- Vandals cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T at two locations early today, knocking out phones and access to 911 emergency services to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County, in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties and along the Peninsula, authorities said. Four AT&T fiber-optic cables in an underground vault were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Four more underground cables, at least two of which belong to AT&T, were cut about two...

DOVER — AT&T Call Center workers knew they were walking into a dreary employment scene when they walked out the doors of the Cochecho Millworks, clutching the last of their belongings in a small, plastic box. But rather than dwelling on the bad news that has been the topic of conversation since AT&T announced the closure of the National Passport Information Center nearly three months ago, many employees decided to approach the final hours at the job a different way.

(02-23) 17:32 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge in San Francisco is raising questions about the constitutionality of a law designed to dismiss suits against telecommunications companies accused of cooperating with government wiretapping. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has asked President Obama's Justice Department to present its views by Wednesday on whether the law gives the attorney general too much power to decide whether a company is immune from lawsuits. Obama supported the measure as a senator when Congress approved it last year. Department spokesman Charles Miller declined to discuss the administration's response before Wednesday's filing. But Obama's...

Thinking about dumping comcast and going to Att-Uverse. My sis-in-law has it on her analogue TV, with wireless to her laptop and she likes the DVR. What to my fellow FReepers have to say about it? I want the 400 channel lineup, max Internet and their Voice phone service...all for about $200/mo. saving me about $50/mo with Comcast. Would have it for three HD sets, desktop and two laptops. Read lots of on line reviews, both pro and con, however, FReepers always have the best advice. Do they have to rewire with fiber-optic cable all over the house? G

The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic...

Josh Martin beat me to the punch with his post on the Apple press release this morning (curse you!), but I thought I’d add a bit more context to the story. Those one million iPhone 3Gs sold this weekend provide a pretty good clue for why Apple and AT&T’s activation servers are slammed and barely able to keep up. This was a big deal. Why? Because not only was it about 4 times more phones than Apple had to deal with last year at this time, but because it is probably the largest consumer electronics launch in history. I noted...

Doom-filled warnings arrive from AT&T this week. The company says that without substantial investment in network infrastructure, the Internet will essentially run out of bandwidth in just two short years. Blame broadband, says AT&T. Decades of dealing with the trickle of bandwidth consumed by voice and dialup modems left AT&T twiddling its thumbs. The massive rise of DSL and cable modem service in the 2000s has had AT&T facing a monstrous increase in the volume of data transmissions. And that's set to increase another 50 times between now and 2015. That's enough, says AT&T, to all but crash the system....

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India. "We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located. So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India. "We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.

Excerpt - NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- AT&T Inc. (T) raised the price of its high-speed Internet service by $5 a month. The San Antonio telecommunications giant will raise rates for its bottom three tiers of DSL service in the 13 states which made up SBC Communications. The price for the lowest priced service - 768 kilobits per second - is now $20. The 1.5-megabit-per-second service is now $25, and the 3-mbps service is $30. The move comes after Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said last month the softening economy was affecting its DSL service in certain markets. ~ snip...

Chances are that as you read this article, it is passing over part of AT&T's network. That matters, because last week AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws. The prospect of AT&T, already accused of spying on our telephone calls, now scanning every e-mail and download for outlawed content is way too totalitarian for my tastes. But the bizarre twist is that the proposal is such a bad idea that it would be not just a disservice to the public but probably a disaster...

AT&T Inc today announced that more than 10 million AT&T broadband subscribers will soon have free unlimited access to the company’s nationwide Wi-Fi network, the largest Wi-Fi network in the United States. The offer delivers an annual saving of $60 for AT&T broadband customers, and an annual saving of nearly $240 compared with AT&T Wi-Fi costs for consumers who do not have an AT&T broadband plan. The enhancement plays directly into the company’s efforts to increase the value of broadband by adding more ways for consumers to stay connected to their worlds. The move also reflects the growing popularity of...

The ubiquity of the cell phone has finally prompted AT&T to pull out of the pay-phone business, the company announced on Monday. By the end of 2008, AT&T says, it will have exited the business completely. The nation's No. 1 wireless-network operator, AT&T says it expects independent operators to pick up service contracts on its pay phones, which, over the past 10 years, have shrunk in number to about 1 million nationwide from 2.6 million.

A Cleveland, Ohio man has pled guilty to participating in a scheme that involved using AT&T employee passwords and identities to place false 911 calls to emergency dispatch centers. Stuart Rosoff is facing as much as five years in prison and a US$250,000 fine after pleading guilty to charges of harassing people by tricking 911 operators into dispatching police SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams to the homes of their unsuspecting victims. Rosoff was part of a group of about 15 to 20 people who met in chat rooms and telephone party lines to exchange information on how to conduct...

You Tube About This Video: AT&T makes San Diego Fire victims pay for destroyed $300 SAT receiver AT&T makes Azola couple a victim again This is a news report showing AT&T being totally insensitive to the victims of the devastating San Diego County fires. The Azola family lost their home and AT&T was only concerned about letting them know about the $300 they would owe for the fire damaged SAT receiver. This is a shameful display by a large company to victims of one of the worst fire in this Counties (sic) history. Added: October 24, 2007

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- AT&T Inc. on Tuesday agreed to pay $2.5 billion in cash to buy licenses for a valuable slice of wireless spectrum suitable for delivering television to mobile phones. The nation's largest phone company would obtain the spectrum from Aloha Partners L.P., which holds licenses that cover 196 million people in 281 markets, including the 10 largest and 72 of the top 100. San Antonio-based AT&T said the move would give the company 12 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz range. It may buy more in January, when the Federal Communications Commission holds a major auction of...

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings. In section 5 of its legal ToS, AT&T stipulates the following: " AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you,...

I am actively considering switching to the iphone but have heard mixed reviews about the usage with the AT&T network. I am looking for feedback from Freeper users. Are you able to download webpages in a reasonable time and do you get kicked off the network in the middle of browsing ? How is the quality of phone calls and do you get back connections / dropped calls frequently ? I live in the Greater Boston area. Does the battery last as long as advertised and how often do you recharge ? Have you been able to sync your iphone...

NEW YORK — A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones. George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J., confirmed Friday that he had unlocked an iPhone and was using it on T-Mobile's network, the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhone's cellular technology. In a video posted to his blog, he holds an iPhone that displays "T-Mobile" as the carrier. While the possibility of switching from AT&T to T-Mobile may...

When Pittsburgh-based blogger and freelance graphic designer Justine Ezarik discovered an inches-thick bulging envelope in her mailbox, she was initially excited by the prospect of receiving a gift. Instead, it was a 300-page iPhone service bill from AT&T, Ezarik's first monthly statement for the new and much-touted service. "I was like, 'Oh, cool, I got a package,'" Ezarik told ABCNEWS.com. "I honestly had no idea it was my phone bill." Ezarik is just one of many iPhone users who received itemized bills over the weekend, some of whom are amused at the bulk of the billing and annoyed by its...

"AT&T Inc on Tuesday launched a service with eMusic, a retailer of music from independent labels, that allows customers to download songs directly to their mobile phones. ~snip~ The eMusic service will not work on iPhone.

iPhone Activation Disasters Three hours after getting my hands on one, I am ready to drop the thing from the 44th floor of the New York Hilton. I was so excited flying from my home in Halifax to New York this morning--I was getting an iPhone! But three hours after getting my hands on one, I am ready to drop the thing from the 44th floor of the New York Hilton--and I probably would if I was sure it would hit someone from AT&T. Earlier this week I transferred my Macworld business account to an individual account solely for the...

NEW YORK -- Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, half the price of its cheapest advertised plan. The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December. The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed Monday. Local phone service and a one-year...

AT&T is getting together with Hollywood studios and recording companies to develop technology to snoop on your Internet traffic in search of pirated material, according to a story posted today by the LA Times. You'll need to register for free with the Times site to read the original story. At a time when Apple, EMI and other companies are making the no-brainer, money-making decision to sell music without cumbersome and annoying digital-rights management, AT&T has decided to go the "Privacy? What privacy?" route. This should flat out be illegal. To me, it's akin to AT&T deciding they're going to wiretap...

Excerpt - NEW YORK - Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, half the price of its cheapest advertised plan. The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December. The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed Monday. Local phone service and...

Excerpt - A federal agency on Thursday barred the import of new models of cell phones that contain semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc., because the chips violate a patent held by a rival, Broadcom Corp. The U.S. International Trade Commission's decision represents a compromise between a ban on all phones with Qualcomm chips, as Broadcom requested, and a ban only on the chips themselves, as recommended by an ITC administrative law judge late last year. ~ snip ~

WASHINGTON, April 4, 2007 – Brittany and Robbie Bergquist, respectively 16 and 15, got a pleasant surprise recently when telecommunications giant AT&T responded to their request for help and agreed to support Cell Phones for Soldiers, their troop-support organization. “I actually e-mailed AT&T directly and explained our need for phone cards and what Robbie and I have been doing to support the troops, and I received a response,” Brittany said. “AT&T/Cingular has recognized what Robbie and I have started and have offered to help, which is amazing because they are such a big corporation.” The company is providing the...

Telephone giant AT&T, which spent millions last year to influence legislation giving the company access to California's cable television market, gave about $500,000 Tuesday to a private after-school program founded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger, who signed the 2006 cable law, attended a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas, where AT&T's philanthropic arm announced the donation to the governor's nonprofit After-School All-Stars program. Schwarzenegger founded the national program in 1992 as a way to provide tutoring services and sports to at-risk middle school students. It has affiliates in 14 cities. For AT&T, Tuesday's donation followed a 2006 legislative session in which...

...Net neutrality travels under the euphemism of "nondiscrimination," which sounds very nice. But what it really means in practice is that the government dictates what AT&T and other Internet access companies can charge users of their pipelines. So there's "discrimination," all right -- against the companies that have invested billions to lay that pipe. The beneficiaries of this discrimination are Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other very rich Web businesses, which have loaded up on Beltway lobbyists to have these mandates imposed. Democrats are taking the PAC money and running interference. The Democratic Commissioners -- Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps --...

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved AT&T Inc.'s $86 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. Friday, the day after the company offered a new slate of concessions for consumers and competitors. The FCC's approval was the last major regulatory hurdle for the proposed deal, which is the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history. Lawyers for AT&T and the two Democratic commissioners who had opposed the merger, hammered out a compromise, the details of which were released Thursday night. Among the conditions offered by AT&T is a promise to observe "network neutrality" principles, an offer of $19.95 per month stand-alone...

(AP) The Federal Communications Commission has unanimously approved AT&T's takeover of BellSouth.

AT&T says it is still investigating what caused one of its access equipment cabinets to explode and catch fire in a suburban Houston neighborhood nearly two weeks ago. According to residents in the 8200 block of Clover Gardens Drive, the explosion shook one nearby house, damaged a fence and some siding, and destroyed several thousand dollars worth of telecom gear, including a DSLAM, installed as part of AT&T's Project Lightspeed. "We're looking into all the possibilities for this fire, including a gas leak, electrical issue, or an act of vandalism," says AT&T spokesman Wes Warnock, in an email response to...

DOJ Approves AT&T-BellSouth Merger Plan; FCC Members Copps and Adelstein Criticize Move WASHINGTON (AP) -- AT&T's $78.5 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. won Justice Department approval Wednesday, a decision that sets the stage for further reuniting modernized parts of the old Ma Bell phone monopoly broken up by the government in 1984. The Justice Department approved the deal without conditions, which leaves the Federal Communications Commission as the final hurdle to the merger creating the nation's biggest provider of phone, wireless and broadband Internet services. The decision was immediately criticized by the FCC's two Democratic members -- Jonathan S. Adelstein...

A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone.