contracts

Google TV is live

  Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded: Barnes & Noble's PubIt Amazon lets you purchase inside Facebook Google TV is live Virgin Mobile announces no-contract Android phone Skype and FringOut say hello to Android

U.S. Cellular rewards customer loyalty

U.S. Cellular announced yesterday that it is launching a new customer loyalty program called the Belief Project. The program, which is one of the first of its kind in the wireless industry, puts an end to many common carrier practices like forcing customers to sign a new contract if they buy a discounted phone.

Many of the Belief Project's benefits will depend on "Belief Points," which customers will start earning automatically and free of charge. The points then can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, such as earlier phone upgrades, additional lines, new phones handsets … Read more

Check proves Ceglia paid Zuckerberg--what now?

There's yet another episode to the oddball tale of Paul Ceglia, the New York man who says a 2003 contract with eventual Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to an 84 percent share of the company: Ceglia's local newspaper, the Wellsville Daily Reporter, produced a canceled check allegedly proving that Ceglia did, indeed, pay $3,000 to someone named Mark Zuckerberg for...something.

Facebook has not said it's authentic, but it isn't disputing the authenticity of the check, either.

"We have never disputed that Mark did some work for Ceglia," a statement from Facebook … Read more

Existing T-Mobile customers won't get the $179 price for the Nexus One

If you're a T-Mobile customer and tried to buy a Nexus One today, you might be surprised that you don't qualify for the $180 contract price that was mentioned in today's press announcement. This is apparently the case even if you're out of contract with T-Mobile and just want to renew your plan. Here is the plan breakdown, according to Google:

Nexus One without service: $529 Nexus One with new, two-year T-Mobile U.S. service plan for new customers only: $179 Nexus One with new, two-year T-Mobile U.S. service plan for qualifying existing T-Mobile customers … Read more

Simple small business accounting

Cashbook Complete Accounting can help manage your company's finances. It can handle most any bookkeeping task. It will manage incoming and outgoing expenses, employee timesheets, list of contacts, and invoices for projects and jobs. You can also use it to run and print invoices, balance sheets, and profit and loss reports, and e-mail them to your customers or export them to financial-planning software. It will manage your company's bank accounts and even import data from your bank. There's a built-in backup utility, too.

Cashbook Complete Accounting is a good accounting solution for small- to medium-size companies. The … Read more

Oracle sues Qtrax, claims P2P site owes $1.8 million

Oracle, the giant enterprise software company, has accused Qtrax, the legal peer-to-peer music service, of copyright infringement and breach of contract in a $2 million lawsuit filed last week in Northern California.

Qtrax is the music service that was ridiculed in January 2008 after the four major labels denied the company's claims that it had licensing agreements with them. Eventually, Qtrax did get the major label deals. Nonetheless, the start-up has apparently run into some trouble paying bills in the past several months, said a source close to the company.

Oracle said in the complaint, filed with U.S. … Read more

On Call: Is carrier exclusivity really a problem?

Try as I might, I can't get that worked up about carrier exclusivity. If a cell phone carrier and a manufacturer want to pair up and offer a handset for a certain period, I'm not going to oppose it purely on principle. Granted, such deals may not be fair to absolutely everyone, but I'd argue that there are much bigger problems with how the U.S. wireless industry operates.

Yet, a few U.S. Senators don't appear to agree. On July 7, a few weeks after a Senate committee grilled national carrier reps on device exclusivity, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) wrote letters to both the federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division asking the agencies to investigate the issue and suggest possible regulatory proposals.

"The practice of large cell phone companies gaining exclusive deals to the most in-demand cell phones is a serious barrier to competition," Kohl wrote. "Consumers are unlikely to obtain cell phone service from companies if they cannot obtain desired handsets."

I'm no carrier lackey, but I find it fascinating that Congress is just now noticing that carrier exclusivity exists. The practice, which is hardly unique to the United States, has been around for a long time. So from where is the sudden interest coming?

… Read more

iPhone 3G S: Were you able to upgrade?

The iPhone 3G S launch is well under way, and AT&T made a big deal this week with a capitulation to iPhone customers under contract (click the link for the CNET story). It promised that some 3G customers who would normally be upgrade-eligible later this summer (June, July, August) will finally be able to get their 3G S now for the new-contract prices of $99, $199, and $299.

It was a nice promise, but were you able to take advantage of it? I ask because I bought my 3G last August 31, and I pay more than $99 … Read more

Alltel Wireless to offer one-year contracts

Alltel Wireless has announced that starting June 5, it will bring back one-year service contracts for all of Alltel's new and renewing customers.

Though one-year contracts aren't new, most of the cell phone industry uses two-year service agreements for new contracts. Even if your carrier does offer one-year contracts, your new phone will likely cost less with a two-year agreement. Not so with Alltel. In fact, it says it will be the only carrier to offer the same handset pricing as you would get with a two-year contract, but with one-year agreements instead.

However, this one-year contract option … Read more