Service

With a whole new line of smart phones coming onto the market, Verizon Wireless said that starting November 15 it is doubling to $350 the penalty fees for subscribers who leave their contracts early.

More here.

Clearwire Communications and Sprint announced plans to launch their respective 4G mobile Internet services in additional cities in Q4. Each of the companies will offer 4G under their own 4G brand. Clearwire and Sprint will each launch 4G service in Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina; Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas in November. Service will be available from both companies in Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii in early December.

Sprint has reportedly launched its new 4G mobile broadband service throughout the Philadelphia area.

This launch follows the announcement of both Clearwire Communications, an operating subsidiary of Clearwire Corporation and Sprint, to launch its respective 4G mobile Internet services in additional cities in the fourth quarter of 2009. Each of the companies had planned to offer 4G under their own 4G brand. Sprint is the only national wireless carrier to offer 4G services on the Clearwire WiMAX network.

Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel announced support for new legislation that bans texting and emailing while driving.

More here.

Updated to include J.D. Power survey

J.D. Power and Associates today named T-Mobile as the winner in its 2009 wireless retail sales satisfaction study. Sprint tied with Verizon for third in overall retail sales performance.

According to Sprint, the company increased its overall score and its score in each of four subcategories in the semi-annual survey from the last survey, done this spring. Sprint “showed the most improvement in all categories compared to the competitors,” the company said.

In contrast to the PC World network test posted below, a test by Wired.com's Gadget Lab puts Verizon on top.

Time Warner on Friday launched an expansion of its business class service in the Kansas City area.

The company is promoting Business Class PRI, for larger businesses.

According to Time Warner, the business class product "uses the latest in IP technology to support up to 23 simultaneous voice calls on each two-way trunk." Unlimited local calling is included, along with Caller ID.

Sprint Nextel was victimized in last week's West Coast attack by the telecom terrorists.

The culprits who snipped AT&T fiber-optic cables at several locations in California last Thursday also damaged equipment belonging to Sprint Nextel, a spokeswoman confirmed.

"In the location the fiber was cut, our fiber was interwoven with AT&T's fiber," said Crystal Davis, a Sprint spokeswoman. "I don't think we were the target of whatever this incident was, but we happened to be one of the victims."

The nation’s wireless carriers waste few opportunities to thump their chest about how they are investing in expansion and enhancement of their networks.

The millions of dollars in new cell towers and other equipment does appear to be bringing improvements, according to the new J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Wireless Call Quality Performance Study.

“As carriers continue to invest heavily in infrastructure upgrades and improvements, the differences in their network performance has truly resonated with customers,” said Kirk Parsons, J.D. Power’s senior director of wireless services. “The expansions in coverage will become increasingly important as carriers continue to roll out next-generation technologies.”

Notably, as we reported yesterday, Sprint received a top ranking in the West, one of the regions considered by the Power analysts.

Sprint ranked better than AT&T and T-Mobile USA in the Northeast, better than T-Mobile in the Mid-Atlantic and North Central and better than everybody but Verizon Wireless in the Southeast.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse often says that the company’s networks are performing as well or better than they ever have.

He’s an honorable guy, but what do you expect him to say? Really.

Hesse’s also a realist so he knows how important it is to get the validation of an outsider. J.D. Power is the often-cited “Gold Standard” of outside observers. Well, today, Sprint gets a gold medal from the Gold Standard of wireless industry consultants.

AT&T had to give up its crown as the nation’s No. 1 wireless company, but it plans on reclaiming top status in another way.

The company said recently that it would invest $17 billion to $18 billion in 2009 in network projects, which AT&T said is expected to “exceed the planned investment of any other U.S. telecom company.”

Sprint Nextel refreshed its Simply Everything plans this week. Maybe it's time for a similar refresh of the company's advertising.

Don't get us wrong.

The SprintConnection scribes aren't agitating for major changes. In fact, after recovering from whiplash induced by the stop, start, "Yes you can," no you can't, slam on the brakes, "Sprint ahead" series of ever-changing marketing messages in recent years, it's refreshing to see Sprint stick with a key basic theme for so many months in a row.

You can do some amazing things, Simply Everything, in fact, with your Sprint phones on Sprint's fast 3G network, and a fourth-generation of service is coming soon, CEO Dan Hesse implores again and again in the black-and-white commercials set in generally stark urban landscapes.

Hesse starred in the ads as the company worked behind the scenes to fix an ailing service operation widely seen as driving many customers away.

Unlike at times in the past, is Sprint desperate for wholesale marketing changes? Not necessarily, some might say.

The company is starting to get some credit for its improvement work.

The words grueling and Sprint were used, and this time they weren't used in the context of the wireless company's financial performance.

This time, as a matter of fact, the news was positive.

The No. 3 wireless company came in No. 1 in a "grueling" and "definitive" test of 3G networks operated by AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

Sprint Nextel told the teacher, or in this case the National Advertising Division of Better Business Bureaus, that Verizon Wireless wasn’t exactly telling the truth in its ads about push-to-talk, walkie-talkie-style cell phone service.

Maybe you have seen the ads recently.

Here’s how the advertising division, or NAD, described one:

“The challenged television commercial features a construction worker wearing a yellow hard hat and holding a clunky, older-looking, yellow and black PTT phone. He attempts to use it, and the audience hears an empty “click, click” sound. A fellow construction worker (wearing a red Verizon Wireless hard hat), drives by, holds up a more modern-looking PTT phone, and states “We all upgraded to Verizon Wireless. Got push to talk and the reliability of the network. That old service is useless now.”

AT&T, the nation’s No. 1 wireless company, is rolling into Manhattan.

No, not the one on the East Coast. It's already there, we would assume. This time we are talking about the Little Apple: Manhattan, Kansas.

The company will open its first retail store in Manhattan on Saturday and will build more than 20 new cell towers in the surrounding region that is home to Kansas State University, Fort Riley and Junction City.

AT&T has invested nearly $75 million in Kansas since 2006 to expand and enhance its wireless network, including a planned investment of more than $25 million in 2008, the company said in a statement today.