Wireless provider Cellular South on Wednesday announced it will soon sell its own subsidized 3G-capable netbook, the 10.1-inch Dell Inspiron Mini 10. Its version, like that for AT&T, holds an internal 3G modem that supplies long-range data access wherever the carrier has coverage. As a CDMA carrier, though, Cellular South will use EVDO instead of HSPA.
AT&T upgraded its data devices this morning with the USBConnect Mercury. The company's latest USB adapter lets modern Macs and Windows PCs with a free USB port connect to the carrier's full HSPA network. AT&T has upped its estimated speeds and now says the adapter should download as quickly as 1.7Mbps in real-world conditions and can upload as quickly as 1.2Mbps in those areas with fully updated networks. It also tucks away a microSD slot to turn the modem into a makeshift storage drive.
Palm today announced that it has sold 1 million of its Centro smartphones, which has company representatives attributing to its lower price tag. According to The NewsMarket, the phone accounted for 11-percent of all domestic mobile phone sales during 2007, and is currently available in 10 countries – Palm also confirmed it has desires to sell the device in additional areas, but has not announced a formal timeframe for the move.
Over 25 percent of those who have bought US iPhones to date are using them on networks other than the intended one, says Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research. Reuters quotes the analyst as basing numbers on discrepancies between Apple and AT&T, the latter of which is the only authorized iPhone carrier in the States. By the end of 2007, some 1.45 million iPhones were "missing in action," built but not subscribed to AT&T. The carrier is believed to have held 480,000 of these back as inventory, but that leaves nearly 1 million -- 27 percent -- unaccounted for.
Investor jitters over statements by AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson about the home phone business are "overdone" and neglect the likely growth triggered by the iPhone, says a new research note from financial institution Cowen and Company. The group contends that a 10 percent drop in AT&T's stock value triggered by warnings about sagging landline subscriptions are exaggerated and that the company's cellular service is more than compensating for the drop. The carrier will outgrow its rivals by as much as 15 percent over the next year, Cowen predicts.
