AT&T

AT&T "Team USA" Olympics Soundtrack to Benefit Athletes

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 7, 2008 - 12:35pm.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T (NYSE: T) announced on Monday that a number of top-selling artists will record exclusive tracks for a "Team USA" soundtrack for the U.S. Olympic Team, with proceeds from music downloads and ringtone sales to benefit the team. NBC will also feature excerpts from the songs and music videos from the album in its Olympic Games coverage. Contributing artists on the project include 3 Doors Down, Army of Me, Colbie Caillat, Sheryl Crow and Nelly.

iPhone 3G Price Tag Without 2-Year Contract: $599/$699

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2008 - 9:00am.

Dallas - AT&T (NYSE: T) on Tuesday announced its pricing for the Apple (NASD: AAPL) iPhone 3G, noting that some time in the future it will for the first time sell the device without a two-year contract agreement, for an extra $400.

tags: Mobile | Apple | AT&T | Cellphones | iPhone |

AT&T Considering Extra Bandwidth Fees for Heavy Downloaders

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 13, 2008 - 9:06am.

New York - AT&T (NYSE: T), the nation's largest Internet service provider, is looking at charging its customers who consume the most bandwidth downloading and uploading content extra for its services, the Associated Press reports.

tags: Video | Policy | P2P | AT&T | ISP |

Starbucks Offers Two Hours of Free AT&T Wi-Fi Per Day

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 3, 2008 - 11:34am.

Seattle - Starbucks (NASD: SBUX) has begun offering customers two hours of free Wi-Fi access per day through its new Internet partner, AT&T (NYSE: T), USA Today reports.

Supreme Court: Cell Phone Unlocking Class Action Deserves Trial

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 28, 2008 - 11:21am.

Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a case involving the rights of consumers to "unlock" mobile phones from a particular network, which in effect will allow a lawsuit charging AT&T (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) with unfair business practices to proceed to trial, Wired.com reported.

AT&T Speeds Completion of U.S. 3G Network for iPhone Launch

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 22, 2008 - 8:35am.

San Antonio - AT&T (NYSE: T) has announced that it expects to complete deployment of its U.S. 3G mobile broadband service by the end of June, just as reports have begun to pile on that Apple (NASD: AAPL) plans to launch its 3G iPhone in the second week of June. AT&T said its 3G network will deliver 1.4 Mbps download and 800 Kbps upload speeds, which the company noted "will be even more enticing with the addition of more 3G-enabled smartphones in the summer and fall of 2008."

tags: Mobile | Apple | AT&T | Cellphones | iPhone |

Social Media Analytics Firm Sometrics Gets Seed Funding

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 16, 2008 - 7:58am.

Los Angeles - Sometrics, a provider of analytics tracking and measurement services for social media, announced this week that it has raised an undisclosed sum of seed funding, led by The Mail Room Fund with participation from AT&T and Greycroft Partners.

AT&T to Launch Mobile TV Service on Sunday

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 1, 2008 - 10:09am.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T (NYSE: T) plans to launch its AT&T Mobile TV service for cell phone users on Sunday, providing its customers an alternative to Verizon's similar V CAST service.

Starbucks Retools Entertainment Group, Cedes Control of Label

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 25, 2008 - 8:34am.

Seattle - Starbucks (NYSE: SBUX) announced on Friday that it is restructuring the entertainment side of its business, and, after just a year at the helm, will turn over management of its Hear Music record label to partner Concord Music Group. In connection with the change in strategy, Ken Lombard, SVP and president of Starbucks Entertainment, has left the company to pursue other business interests, while chief technology officer Chris Bruzzo was promoted to SVP and head of the Entertainment group.

AT&T to Offer Live Webcast from Coachella Festival

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 23, 2008 - 11:20am.

San Antonio - AT&T has announced that it will provide an exclusive live webcast from the 2008 Coachella music festival this weekend from its broadband AT&T blue room site. On-demand content from the festival will also be available from blue room, AT&T U-verse and via AT&T mobile devices in May.

Sony, AT&T to Debut Mobile Movie Channel

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 31, 2008 - 11:20am.

Los Angeles - Sony Pictures Television (NYSE: SNE) has signed a deal with wireless carrier AT&T (NYSE: T) and mobile TV firm MediaFLO USA, a unit of Qualcomm (NASD: QCOM), to launch the first linear mobile movie network in the U.S., according to The Hollywood Reporter.

AT&T Mobile TV Coming in May; Mobile Music Services Debut

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 27, 2008 - 12:54pm.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T (NYSE: T) said on Thursday that it will launch its delayed mobile TV service with partner MediaFLO USA, a unit of Qualcomm (NASD: QCOM), in May. The service will initially support two handsets: the LG Vu and Samsung Access. Separately, AT&T launched two new mobile music applications, and said it will expand its Napster Mobile (NASD: NAPS) over-the-air downloads. The company now offers mSpot's Make-UR-Tones and Remix, which lets users create custom ringtones from their phones, and download songs from their PCs to their phones, respectively. AT&T also said its Napster Mobile service will be available to more than 12 million customers, beginning this summer.

tags: Mobile | Mobile TV | TV | Music | AT&T | Napster | mSpot |

Verizon, AT&T Are Big Winners in FCC Spectrum Auction

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 24, 2008 - 7:44am.

Washington - Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T), the nation's two largest wireless carriers, were the big winners in an auction for wireless spectrum that closed last week, according to information released by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

tags: Law | Policy | Verizon | AT&T | Google | FCC |

William Morris, VC Firms & AT&T Launch Digital Media Fund

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 3, 2008 - 10:12am.

Los Angeles - Hollywood talent agency William Morris Agency (WMA) announced on Monday that it has partnered with venture capital firms Accel Partners and Venrock, and telco giant AT&T (NYSE: T) to establish a new investment fund to seed start-ups in Southern California and elsewhere. The joint fund will be managed by Richard Wolpert, a former president of Disney Online and chief strategy officer at RealNetworks.

Yahoo to Cut 1,000 Jobs; Names CTO, Signs Ad Deal with AT&T

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 30, 2008 - 8:37am.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) said yesterday that it will lay off 1,000 employees, or about 7% of its staff of 14,300, as part of a company realignment, after reporting that its fourth quarter profit was down 23%. The company said it would take a charge of between $20 and $25 million to pay for costs associated with the layoffs, which along with other cost-cutting measures are expected to reduce its annual expenses by over $100 million.

Report: 27% of U.S. iPhones "Unlocked" for Other Networks

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 29, 2008 - 10:07am.

San Francisco - An analyst has estimated that more than a quarter of U.S. consumers who purchased Apple's (NASD: AAPL) iPhone last year "unlocked" the device for use on networks other than AT&T's (NYSE: T), Reuters reports.

tags: Mobile | Apple | AT&T | Cellphones | iPhone |

FCC Receives Initial Bids in Wireless Spectrum Auction

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 24, 2008 - 8:11am.

Washington - Companies bid more than $2.4 billion in the opening round of the Federal Communications Commission's wireless spectrum auction on Thursday, which took place as scheduled despite calls by some to delay it in light of the recent credit crunch. Bidders are vying for pieces of coveted 700 megahertz spectrum in the auction, which is expected to last for several weeks.

tags: Law | Policy | Verizon | AT&T | Google | FCC |

AT&T May Begin Filtering Copyrighted Content on its Network

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 10, 2008 - 7:21am.

Las Vegas - AT&T (NYSE: T) and other Internet service providers are considering ways to filter trafficking in unauthorized copyrighted content on their networks via peer-to-peer services, The New York Times' Bits Blog reported from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. AT&T SVP of external and legal affairs James Cicconi said during a panel discussion that his company is already discussing potential content filters with producers including NBC Universal.

tags: Law | TV | Music | Movies | AT&T | Copyright |

AT&T Announces Top-Selling Ringtones of 2007

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 20, 2007 - 9:54am.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T (NYSE: T) announced on

tags: Mobile | Music | Ringtones | AT&T |

AT&T Gets Exclusive Ringtones From Dave Matthews, Van Halen

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 12, 2007 - 12:44pm.

Los Angeles - AT&T (NYSE: T) has recently scored exclusive ringtone deals with former ringtone holdouts the Dave Matthews Band and Van Halen, Billboard reports. Van Halen, which is on a reunion tour, gave AT&T a limited exclusive on ringtones for its popular songs, which will eventually be available across all networks. AT&T is exclusively offering ringtones from live Dave Matthews performances, but will later add studio tracks as well. As to why Matthews finally decided to offer ringtones, AT&T director of music and personalization products Mark Nagel told Billboard, "It was a case where he was being searched for literally thousands of times a month with no content to give. We took those figures to the label and the band's management and let them know that people are asking for this."