metro

MetroPCS is making good on its Android commitment by announcing today the Samsung Admire, a mid-tier Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone.

The Admire comes equipped with a 3.5-inch HVGA touch screen, a 3.2-megapixel camera and camcorder, a Swype virtual keyboard option, and an 800Mhz processor. It also includes a microSD card slot that takes up to 32GB expandable memory.

Those who prefer their Android without adornments will appreciate that the Admire comes without Samsung's custom UI. The Admire stands 4.6 inches tall, 2.4 inches wide, and is less than 0.5-inch thick. If you lust … Read more

Relief is a little iffy for contract-free customers thirsting for smartphones.

Weak quarterly earnings for prepaid carriers, like leader MetroPCS, TracFone, and Cricket-owner Leap Wireless, are making the ability of these second-tiered carriers to act effectively as alternative smartphone providers to the big-four operators a little murkier.

Why? As CNET Senior Writer Roger Cheng noted, the overall growth of tier-two customers is slowing--even dropping, in Cricket's case--and in addition, smartphone-seekers appear to be signing on to other options, including prepaid plans with the major carriers like T-Mobile, or dropping down to government-subsidized feature phones in response to financial … Read more

The prepaid business, long an engine of growth for the wireless industry, is starting to sputter.

TracFone, MetroPCS, and Leap Wireless all reported disappointing second-quarter financial results. The period is typically weaker for the prepaid providers as the business takes a breather following two consecutive quarters of growth.

But their performance fell below even the lowered expectations placed on them, underscoring the pressures that the companies face with intense price competition and a still weak economic environment. Furthermore, some of the companies warned of a weaker third quarter, leading some to wonder if the prepaid business is poised for slower … Read more

Not all 4G networks are created equally. Just look at MetroPCS.

The prepaid provider and Verizon Wireless may share the same 4G technology, Long-Term Evolution, but the two have little else in common. It's a fact well known in the industry but less clear to consumers: MetroPCS's 4G service is significantly slower than the one Verizon is offering.

"The carrier's average speed is like a very good 3G network," PC Mag's Sascha Segan reported from the publication's speed tests earlier this year.

MetroPCS's 4G network was born out of the company's … Read more

MetroPCS' smartphone strategy is paying off, its president said today, after the company reported disappointing second-quarter results.

A fourth of MetroPCS' customers use smartphones already, and 38 percent of its customers are tied to a family plan, Chief Operating Officer Thomas Keys said during a conference call with analysts.

"The growth has been driven by increasing interest in smartphones," Keys said.

Keys' comments were a defense against questions raised by Wall Street over the company's customer growth and rate of turnover, which both left investors wanting. The company attributed the weakness to normal seasonal pressure and the … Read more

I've long been a fan of the well-arranged portrait keyboard. MetroPCS' Samsung Freeform III possesses one of these QWERTYs on its candy bar feature phone. It also has a 1.3-megapixel camera and a microSD card slot that takes up to 32GB external memory.

Features-wise, the Freeform III keeps it simple with text, Bluetooth, voice commands, and a music player. MetroPCS' additional apps round out the feature set on what is otherwise an unremarkable but mostly adequate phone.

Call quality was the real surprise. The phone impressed us with its robust volume and nearly pristine clarity. Even speakerphone calls … Read more

Verizon Wireless is expected to end up as the carrier with the most momentum in the second quarter when the dust settles after earnings reports, which will begin in earnest in two weeks.

An impressive quarter for Verizon's version of the iPhone 4, along with strong interest in the company's speedier 4G wireless network, helped it add an estimated 1 million customers. Best of all, they're the kind of customers willing to sign up for long-term contracts. A recent study by Localytics showed that Verizon already accounts for a third of all U.S. iPhone 4s, an impressive statistic considering the phone's February debut.

Certainly, Verizon can thank the iPhone for its expected strong showing. But there's another factor: an established, speedy 4G network. Sprint Nextel saw similar benefits from its 4G network in past quarters and, no surprise, AT&T has moved up its timetable for deploying its own next-generation network, which uses a technology called Long-Term Evolution.

Verizon's shiny new wireless network unsurprisingly drew in a lot of curious consumers. By comparison, Verizon's rival carriers saw only modest customer growth, while a few lost customers in the period. Sprint, which also has a 4G network--that doesn't look quite so superior anymore with Verizon in the game--is expected to lose contract customers.

Regardless of whatever losses Sprint might experience, 4G networks remain crucial to the carriers' efforts to lure customers, particularly customers who are willing to sign up for long-term contracts. Such customers are highly coveted because they're less likely to leave the carrier and more willing to spend additional money each month for the best smartphones and service plans. Prepaid customers, on the other hand, aren't bound by contracts and can leave anytime, and they're more likely to look for the best price regardless of carrier. … Read more

I have a skeptical view of education. It doesn't seem to be that those who have more of it necessarily become more interesting, or even more useful.

As my evidence, might I present this cell phone video, uploaded to YouTube, which shows an interesting and intellectual discussion between a conductor and a passenger on a Metro North train in New York.

It seems the woman might have been disturbing some passengers with the volume and vocabulary of her cell phone conversation. That would mirror an incident earlier this year when a woman was ejected from an Amtrak train after … Read more

Excuse us for not getting to this yesterday--E3 and Apple's WWDC keynote kept us a tad busy--but MetroPCS sneaked out a little announcement of its own yesterday by unveiling a visual voice mail service.

Like the services available on other carriers, MetroPCS' visual voice mail will enable customers to listen to individual voice messages without having to scan through their entire lists. Voice mails will show up on the phone's display along with the contact's picture and they can reply to the message by calling back or by sending a text message or an e-mail.

The … Read more