News has it that T-Mobile will commence the HTC HD2 Windows Mobile 6.5 phone on March 24th for $199 with a 2-year contract at a cost of $449 without a contract. According to the grapevine, HTC has said that the HD2 will not be attuned with Microsoft’s most recent mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series. It is the reason why an upgrade will not be in the device’s future.
T-Mobile USA reports that it now has 33.8 million subscribers total, up from 33.4 million in Q3 and 32.8 million in Q4 of 2008. Data revenues were $1.03 billion for the quarter, coming out to 22.2 percent of blended ARPU and equating to $10.20 per customer, up from $10.00 per customer in Q3 and $9.30 per customer in Q4 of 2008. T-Mobile also further that its 3G network now covers 205 million people and that there are 3.9 million 3G capable devices in use on the network, which is a 40% growth from Q3.
In response to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding early termination fees (ETF), AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile have all said that the fees were set to help recover the cost of financing handset prices. According to the Associated Press, AT&T senior vice president Robert Quinn said that “customers clearly understand that they have choices,” while Sprint’s senior vice president of government affairs said Sprint offers “clear and conspicuous disclosures,” about ETF. Verizon will start charging ETF for each handset on pricing displays within its stores. T-Mobile and Google both safeguarded the double early-termination fees for the Nexus One.
As announced earlier during the CES, T-Mobile USA is now set to distribute HD2, carrying aboard the BLOCKBUSTER on Demand for downloading new movies, MobiTV for watching live on-demand TV, a Barnes & Noble eReader for viewing books and magazines, and up to six months of free in-flight Wi-Fi through Gogo. The device will also ship with two movies: “Transformers” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” preloaded.
T-Mobile has just announced the webConnect Rocket USB laptop stick, a device that supports T-Mobile USA’s budding high-speed packet access evolved (HSPA+) network in the Philadelphia region. The device will also work on T-Mobile’s current 3G network, which is available in 271 U.S. cities. T-Mobile USA plans to set out its HSPA+ network countrywide by the end of this year.
