TmoNews

Ok all you blackberry bold lovers out there. Crunchgear gave us a surprise today by showing up with pricing for the blackberry bold. Every carrier is mentioned but really, does anyone really care anymore when Sprint releases phones?? Looks like a September release date for T-mobile while AT&T scores the exclusive starting in June. This is the great part, looking at the bottom it mentions, ready for this, 3.6 HSDPA speeds for T-mobile! Can I get a WHAT WHAT? Also includes wifi (hotspot @ home not included?), 5 hour talktime, 1 gb memory out of box and a partridge in a pear tree. Anyone looking to jump into a curve in the near future might want to wait it out and pick up this super-star come September. Might this phone put my unlocked iPhone to rest??

On a more important note, have you seen our news forums?

Nothing too groundbreaking here folks, but just thought we’d let you in on some confirmations on upcoming phones, and their release dates. Here we go:

• Nokia 2760 - June 16th
• Samsung T339 - June 23rd
• Nokia 6301 - June 23rd
• Samsung T229 - June

Check out the TMoNews Forum for more info and pictures of these phones. Also, members of the forum have access to a calendar which displays information and release dates of upcoming phones. Keep an eye open for release dates on the Nokia 5310 and 5610. Have a great day TmoNewsers!

Ok I’m going to cut right to the chase on this one because I’ll let the steps speak for themselves. Yesterday we reported it first that T-mobile be adding text message blocking and voila! Here are the steps necessary to block unwanted texts to your tmomail address. I’m not sure how long this has been on the support page for T-mobile but a little browsing around on the site yesterday and a eagle eyed tipster brought it to our attention. Remember these steps don’t work for general text/mms/im but this is another clear indication of whats coming. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve received some spam messages in the last few days and I’ll welcome an opportunity to block out those messages. Except the one about the dallas cowboy cheerleaders, that one looked interesting…

Find the link to the rest of the support page over in our brand new forums! Have you registered yet? Why not? All the cool kids are doing it…

Update: We know this feature has been around for a while now. However, from what we hear, very few people actually know about it or use it.

Looks like Crunchgear got wind of this early this morning as well…We love that site.

Remember the class action suit against T-mobile regarding unwanted messaging charges? Well T-mobile has answered by creating a system to block messaging. But why stop there? Lets take this all the way to calls too! While details from our sources are still a bit fuzzy, we can confirm this is all in the works. Now there seems to be multiple levels of this. The general level will allow users to block SMS through a call to Customer Care, or in T-mobile stores. This general phase will still let through system SMS, Voicemail notifications, and OTA updates. Neither the general, nor advanced phases will be able to block internet-based IM or E-mail, or Danger’s messaging services. The more advanced version, which we haven’t confirmed yet, will allow users to block the following:

…Read More

[Head over to the forum to view the rest of this thread and join a lively discussion]

First TmoNews brought you the only T-mobile blog on the net. We’ve been getting tons of comments on our big articles. But comments aren’t enough, they don’t really allow for convenient discussion and also limit you to the topic of the post. Wow, we wish someone would fix this…

May we present you with our solution: TmoNews T-mobile Forums

Thats right you avid T-mobile users, the one and only full T-mobile forum on the net. We are, of course, always working to improve the forum, so keep an eye open for updates!

Update: It’s not much, but the forums can now also be accessed at http://forums.tmonews.com

We hate to be the bearer of bad news so we apologize. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Unfortunately, T-mobile has delayed the launches of the Nokia 5310 and 5610. Oh, and the Motorola Z6w? Looks like that one got some failing grades in early testing and was scrapped. Fortunately, the 5310 will launch in three colors, red, orange, and purple. We don’t know when exactly, but expect the Nokia 5310 in early June, and the 5610 in early July. On the bright side, look for an exciting site announcement, and an article or two on some sweet new services T-mobile will be offering soon!

Happy monday T-mobile faithful, its been kind of a slow news weekend, other that that whole blackberry bold thing. On that note, definitely a week to pay attention to tmonews.com because we are going to have some VERY exciting site announcements this week. I of course have been sworn to secrecy and can’t even tell you how excited I am without putting my myself in the running for witness protection. Stay tuned for details!!!

For the moment though, wanted to kickstart this week with some price changes taking effect Wednesday May 14th. Nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering here on the price front but its our gift from us to you:

Just adding to our earlier posting about this mothers day weekend free activation. Since we all love a good waived activation fee and since I’m up early this morning anyway, damn barking dog. I have gone and captured this screen shot for you, our loyal readers to enjoy:

Here at TmoNews we’re all about bringing you T-mobile news in an orderly, organized fashion. Thats why we have started the weekly recaps. Every Friday we will outline the excitment from the last week, with an informative post full of links, in case you want to read some article you missed. Well here we go!

5/01 - T-mobile’s 3G FINALLY goes live in NYC!

Last Weekend:

5/02 - TmoNews snags some information on the new Sidekick Gekko. It will include a 2 MP camera and video capture. This article was picked up by BGR, Hiptop3, and more. Read

5/02 - News on the Blackberry KickStart surface. As this new flip Blackberry sweeps the web from BGR to Engadget, TmoNews has to join the action with a quick post on this device. We are cautious about this one, as we have heard nothing regarding this, but BGR rarely manages to let us down. TmoNews - Read. BGR - Read

5/03 - Wow, lots of posts today! Starting with new of T-mobile’s upcoming (May 14th) Family 4 pack promotion; that is, unlimited mobile to mobile, night, weekend, MyFaves, and Hotspot@Home calling (Read). Not enough? Well for your convenience, we outlined what T-mobile phones, current and upcoming, will work with all four aspects of the Family 4 plan (Read). In slow news, we ended with a post including another comparison, this time of T-mobile’s rates versus Verizon and Sprint’s (Read).

5/03 - TmoNews is the first to announce that T-mobile will be using HSDPA, and not only UMTS, in comparison to other large blogs which seem to have through the opposite, that T-mobile’s 3G will be voice only. (Read)

5/04 - T-mobile thinking of buying Sprint? We post what we know here

Monday:

5/05 - T-mobile makes 3G official (Publicly). TmoNews: Read. T-mobile - Press Release

5/05 - TmoNews reports that T-mobile has a $50 promotional credit going on. Get $50 for referring your friends! Read

Tuesday:

5/06 - TmoNews is the first to out the Nokia 7376. Not much is known besides the presence of 3G. Read

Wednesday:

5/07 - TmoNews reports a new, very limited online promotion. No activation fees if the user is routed through an ad that will be up on MSN.com’s homepage shortly. Read

Thrusday:

5/08 - T-mobile reports Q1 (1st Quarter) numbers for 2008. Breaking 30 million customers, T-mobile is chugging along smoothly. Read

Friday:

Nothing Yet, but stay tuned! Sorry, slow news day!

Ok magenta fans here is another big shock. T-mobile wins jd powers again! The article here from rcr news crowns T-mobile in all its glory:

“T-Mobile USA Inc. ranked highest in customer satisfaction among the major wireless carrier-owned retail stores, especially on sales staff and store display factors, the firm reported. Alltel Corp. came in a close second, followed by Verizon Wireless.”

Ok now what I am waiting for most is how long it will take the AT&T crew over at howardforums to start one of their famous jd powers is biased against AT&T threads.” Seriously this conspiracy theory ranks up there in the ranks of the Alien landing at Roswell and JFK being assassinated by Castro. EVERY time AT&T loses a JDP review their fanboys rile up the faithful with laughable hatred at jd powers. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a gathering outside of the JDP headquarters with a bunch of orange and blue faithful hurling rocks at the people leaving the building. Honestly, enjoy your iPhone and I’ll enjoy a customer service rep who doesn’t remind me of someone on last weeks Jerry Springer.

On a side note, I love how the article talks about the average wireless sale taking 56 minutes. Having been in this business for the last 5 years, I can tell you if my average transaction was 56 minutes, I would have lasted about 56 minutes before being shown the door. Who came up with that number? Did the people surveyed time their transaction? I have never seen anyone huddling over a stop watch while I’ve been working with them.

Thats all for now, stay tuned for our week in review!

Well well well T-mobile as always proving to be the little carrier that could. Throwing up a huge 1st quarter with 981,000 new subscribers! Coupled in with the 3G launch, this could be our year!

Highlights include:

• 981,000 new subscriber additions
• 13,000 UMTS tower locations (yeah ummm seriously where are they?)
• 1.7% customer churn
• Total subscriber base at 30,798,000 (we first reported T-mobile successfully hitting 30 million!)
• 500,000 new myfaves additions this quarter, 5.5 million myfaves customers total

Check out the rest of the article here, including ARPU, and some other financial stuff which isn’t really important to anyone.

Looks like one of our favorite T-mobile gimmicks is coming back for a 2 day only special. Waived activation fees!! Here is the catch, the promotion will ONLY be offered via an advertisement on the MSN.com home page. From that point it will take you down a special purchase path which will waive the activation fee upon successful ordering.

Here are the bullet points for this mothers day two day special:

• Advertised on the MSN home page only.
• This offer will be honored via the Web and Telesales channels only.
• Offer not available in T-Mobile Retail stores.
• Price matching is not approved for Web and Telesales offers.
• This offer is only for customers who activate a new line of service through T-Mobile.com.
  • Each new line of service will receive a waived activation fee.
• FlexPay monthly contract customers are not eligible.

I guess I can’t complain, a waived activation fee is a waived activation fee, but come on, through msn.com only? I really want to know who still uses msn.com as a home page? Let us know in the comments, when is the last time you visited that site?

Thrown in with this is a change in the Nokia 6263 pricing, looks like it will drop free with a new 2 year activation. As of right now, the promotional pricing includes a mail in rebate, but no more for Mothers Day weekend this bad boy 3G phone (in NYC) is all free. This way when 3G launches in your city, your Mothers will let you know!

With T-mobile’s release of 3G, a lot of concern has surfaced regarding the lack of handsets that support T-mobile’s AWS 3G bands. Well add the 7376 to that short list of 3G enabled handsets. Sporting 1700/2100 IV, this baby should easily be able to pick up T-mobile’s UMTS, and in the future, HSDPA.

Sightings of the 7376 have popped up on a few different site, such as page six of this large PDF and TEMS news. More news to come soon. Enjoy!

Thanks Marco and Matt

Well so this week we have announced 3G (officially) but the last newest 3G carrier on the block has a little enticing offer up their sleeves. Starting tomorrow through June 30 T-mobile is offering a $50 referral fee. Show some love to the people you care about, or at the least the people you want to go mobile 2 mobile with. Either way is fine by us. Your next bill should have a little insert in it or customers should start receiving mailers after May 19th. I know I know this is REALLY exciting stuff.

Here is what you need to do:

Existing customers should advise their referral to provide the following information at the time of activation to ensure they receive the $50 referral credit:

• Refering customer’s name
• Refering customer’s mobile number

So show some T-mobile love, refer your friends, neighbors, girlfriends, husbands, that girl down the block who always walks her dog in skimpy outfits. One of these days I really need to learn her name.

T-mobile has cleared up all the garbage surrounding their 3G nyc launch last week. Nothing really earth shattering here, hsdpa devices on the way and officially clarify that data DOES work. Interestingly enough as you read through this, T-mobile doesn’t give any hints as to how many cities or how broad the rollout will be by years end. All that we get is

“By year’s end, T-Mobile expects its high-speed data network will be available in those cities where a majority of its subscribers currently use data services.”

Head on over to engadget for the full article here.

As many of you have heard, there are a lot of rumors floating around that T-mobile, and big daddy Deutsche Telekom are looking to acquire Sprint. Key word in that sentence being RUMORS. We can credit this wave of rumors to the German newpaper Spiegel, who posted their article online.

Click here to view the Spiegel article translated to English

This would be a huge move for T-mobile USA, and the Wireless market in the US in general. While there is still no official word from either company, we have gotten wind of some interesting news. Supposedly T-mobile is working on a 8 week program to help convert Sprint Customer Care from the dark side, to T-mobile, where they will now be required to assist customers. Interestingly enough, on hofo, it was reported that before hanging up with T-mobile CC, the employee said “Thanks for contacting Sprint…er…T-mobile.” Of course this was most likely a coincidence, but possibly some signs of what is to come.

Check out our new SMS updates on the right sidebar >

After years of delays and assorted issues, T-mobile USA finally has rolled out 3G in New York City. We were told it would come out months ago. It didn’t. We were told it would be voice only. It wasn’t. We were told it will be UMTS data. It wont be. Wait, what?!

Yep folks, T-mobile’s phase I of their 3G launch involves only UMTS data. However, it looks like plans are to do a little upgrading on this fresh 3G network. T-mobile doesn’t plan on stopping with UMTS, but hopefully upgrading to freaky fast HSDPA. For those that don’t know the lingo, UMTS=fast internet, and HSDPA=really really fast internet. HSDPA usually gets between 1.4 Mbps and 14 Mbps. The hardworking 3G engineers that created this network report that HSDPA is paid-for, and installed on almost all 3G-enabled sites. So what is T-mobile waiting for? Well your phone can interact with that cell site at super fast speeds, but what happens after that? Within 8 weeks, minimum, T-mobile will have the necessary T1 lines in place, so whichever HSDPA cell site your phone connects to can be connected to T-mobile, and the internet at super fast speeds. Oh, and a little more exciting news for everyone, guess what these HSDPA speeds were tested on? Nope, not feature-full Nokia 2610, but a Sony Ericsson device which got over 1 MB/S during testing. Could this be a sign that T-mobile is bringing HSDPA Sony Ericsson phones to their lineup soon? Stay tuned to find out

For those Spanish speakers, check out TmoNews.com in Spanish (Español)!

Price questions have been asked and tmonews.com has answered. I’ll let the price comparison do the walking and the talking this time around.

I suppose it would be helpful if we mentioned what phones are currently available and able to take advantage of the FULL Family 4-pack add-on features mentioned earlier? Of course, any myfaves phone will do for 3 of the 4, but if you want the unlimited minutes at home using the router, you’ll need one of their special UMA-enabled phones for each family member that wants those minutes. Currently available phones are:

• Nokia 6086
• Samsung t409
• Samsung Katalyst
• Blackberry Curve
• Blackberry Pearl 2

Looking for new phones? T-Mobile has a few upcoming handsets that also will work with the family 4-pack, or anywhere else H@H can be used. Yes, three new H@H phones for your enjoyment:

• Blackberry 8820 (launching this Monday, May 5th!!) Whoops, so it’s already out.
• Nokia 6301
• Motorola Z6W

Three new H@H phones coming soon alongside an amazing Family Plan add-on? This has WIN written ALL over it.

Oh my faves, my faves how I love thee. Hey T-mobile fans, the commercials are running and we as always have the inside scoop. Starting May 14, you will be able to use your families myfaves as your own. Yup thats right, you have 4 members in your family thats 20 unlimited numbers for you. Guess what, now I can call all of my sisters friends all I want. Er I mean, call my sister whenever I want.

Here is the scoop on T-Mobile’s new Family 4-Pack Promotion: