VERIZON BEGINS FREE 4G LTE UPGRADE FOR MOTORLA XOOM

Motorola XOOM owners who want to take advantage of the promised 4G LTE upgrade can finally begin to do so beginning Thursday. Once a customer signs up to receive the upgrade, Verizon Wireless will send the shipping instructions along with a box. The option is free and Verizon Wireless said changes to data plans are not required. Verizon also advises that XOOM owners back up their devices before sending them in for the upgrade. The process is expected to take six business days. Verizon Wireless also announced on Wednesday that it will begin to sell the Motorola XOOM with 4G LTE pre-installed for $499.99 starting October 13th.

VERIZON STARTS "OPTIMIZING" NETWORK FOR DATA HUNGRY USERS

We can't say we weren't warned, since Verizon updated its data policy way back in February, but it's still a punch in the gut to hear its "network optimization" plan went into effect yesterday. A new policy page pointed out by Droid-Life explains how the policy will affect only the "top 5 percent of data users with 3G devices on unlimited data plans" (LTE and tiered data users are in the clear) by managing their speeds when connected to towers it has deemed are congested. Those conditions, termed network intelligence by Verizon Wireless, are what it feels separates this scheme from mere data throttling since it will only affect a few users (those consuming 2GB or more of data per month) at certain times and places, but it's hard to see it any other way. If you're one of those affected, expect a message on your bill or My Verizon account, although you may go into and out of the affected group depending on your usage.

VERIZON TO INTEGRATE AMERICAN EXPRESS MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM INTO DEVICES

Verizon Wireless and American Express announced on Monday that Verizon Wireless will begin to integrate American Express’ “Serve” mobile payment solution into its phones and tablets. The agreement will allow Verizon Wireless customers to make mobile payments from their phones, provided that they have an existing Serve account. “Our collaboration with Verizon highlights the speed at which Serve is evolving to reach a wide audience,” said Dan Schulman, group president, Enterprise Growth, American Express. “Verizon Wireless customers will soon be able to complement their busy lifestyle with a trusted payment platform that delivers a fast, flexible and secure way to manage their day-to-day mobile purchases, and together we’re taking the necessary steps to make mobile commerce a reality.”

Serve is similar to PayPal and allows users to send or receive money for goods and services. American Express announced the service in March in tandem with Serve apps for Android and iOS.

VERIZON WIRELESS WINS J.D. POWER CUSTOMER CARE AWARD

J.D. Power and Associates announced on Thursday that Verizon Wireless ranked highest in the company’s 2011 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, Volume 2. The carrier’s overall score was 770/1000, which was above the average 761 score in the ‘full service’ category. T-Mobile came in second place with a score of 766, followed by Sprint (752) and AT&T (751).

J.D. Power and Associates also noted that non-contract customers have shorter wait times than customers with contracts (5.5 minutes versus 4.4 minutes). “There is also a disparity between the contract and non-contract segments in terms of the quality of the experience with the service representative,” J.D. Power and Associates senior director of wireless services Kirk Parsons said. “In particular, non-contract customers are considerably less satisfied than are contract customers in the areas of knowledge about plans; personal concern for customers; and apathy towards customers.” Boost Mobile ranked the best among non-contract carriers with a score of 763.

MAGAZINES COME TO ANDROID MARKET; NEXT ISSUE MEDIA FIRST IN LINE

On Wednesday Next Issue Media — an independent media venture founded by Conde Nast, Hearst Corporation, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc. — released an early build of its new Android publishing platform. It’s home to popular titles such as Esquire, Popular Mechanics, Parents, New Yorker, Fortune, and Time. The applications for each magazine are only available on Samsung’s original Galaxy Tab on Verizon Wireless for now, and you’ll need to download them from Verizon’s own VCast application store, AllThingsD said.

An issue of Esquire costs $4.99, although it can be purchased for $1.99 per month, too. Next Issue Media’s CEO, Morgan Guenther, said that publishers will receive “at least” 70% of each transaction, and that the company plans to offer at least 40 different magazine titles by the end of 2011. A webOS version is in the works, for HP’s upcoming TouchPad tablet

VERIZON'S 4G LTE NETWORK BACK UP NATIONWIDE

Verizon Wireless announed late Thursday that their 4G LTE network is back up and running. The network went down earlier in the week, but Verizon says they determined the cause of the issue late yesterday afternoon, and posted an update to their Twitter account to let the public know they’re working with their vendors to resolve it. Now, it looks like everything is back to normal.

Verizon Wireless hasn’t fessed up to exactly what caused the issue in the first place, or what they’re going to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Even so, no carrier with as much riding on their network as much as Verizon Wireless has riding on its LTE network would move forward without examining the root cause of the outage and taking whatever corrective action is necessary.

The company did say that while Thunderbolt owners should be relieved, 4G modem owners may still have some issues when moving between 3G and 4G modes. They did note that any issues 4G modem owners had would continue to improve as they continue to work on the network, but stopped short of explaining why. In the meantime, 4G owners can be happy that they have their super-fast network back.

VERIZON WIRELESS ELIMINATING ONE-YEAR CONTRACT

Verizon Wireless has confirmed the carrier's one-year contract option will be eliminated on April 17th. The reason, as you might expect, revolves around historical customer preference. That's a fancy way of saying that most customers prefer the stout hardware discounts that are available with a lengthier two-year agreement, and barring that, they can still choose month-to-month, prepaid or a rival.

VERIZON AND TIME WARNER JOIN AT&T OFFERING FREE CALLS TO JAPAN

AT&T is not the only phone company, wireless or landline, that is offering free calls/texting to Japan. Verizon and Verizon Wireless customers (post-paid for Verizon Wireless) will be able to call Japan for free retroactive to March 11th through April 10th. They will also be able to receive free text and multimedia messaging to Japan during the same time period. Residential landline customers will be able to make calls to Japan during the program period at $0 per minute. Those landline customers with the Verizon World Plan will be able to call Japan without using any minutes from their monthly bank of allotted minutes. The company is even extending the program to Verizon Prepaid Phone Card charges for long-distance calls placed to Japan from the United States.

Time Warner Cable Digital Phone and business class will be able to make free calls to Japan through April 15th. The program will even be retroactive back to March 11th.

VERIZON CEO DENIES LOW iPHONE SALES

According to Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel S. Mead, reports of low iPhone sales by Big Red are extremely exaggerated. Mead says, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, that Verizon has sold more iPhones than any other product....ever.

The low sales rumor started when sales numbers for 5 Apple stores was leaked. Those sales numbers showed lower than expected sales. The assumption then was that the iPhone was a failure for Verizon. The data however does not take into account the other 225 plus Apple stores, or the Verizon stores which also sell the device.

Mead states in the interview that over 60% of Verizon's iPhones are purchased online.

AT&T TO ALTER DATA PLANS FOR LAPTOPCONNECT

According to a well placed source of ours, AT&T will be altering its data plan offerings for LaptopConnect devices this Sunday. Devices that utilize LaptopConnect data plans include data sticks, MiFis, and connected netbooks. Currently, AT&T offers a 200MB monthly plan for $35 or a 5GB monthly plan for $60… not all that savory. After this weekend, however, the company will bring its offerings more inline with those its cnemesis, Verizon Wireless. Ma’ Bell will begin offering a 3GB monthly data plan for $30 and a 5GB monthly plan for $50. Much more savory. We should see an announcement either Sunday or Monday.

LEAKED: VERIZON LTE UPGRADE CITIES FOR 2011

Verizon Wireless was busy in 2010 upgrading a number of metropolitan areas to 4G LTE. Now, Droid-Life has obtained the 2011 upgrade list and it has been confirmed by Verizon. Big Red says that by 2013 over two-thirds of the US will be covered by their LTE.

• Mobile, Alabama
• Montgomery, Alabama
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Gainesville, Florida
• Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida
• Pensacola, Florida
• Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida
• Tallahassee, Florida
• Augusta, Georgia
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Kahului-Wailuku, Hawaii
• Lahaina, Hawaii
• Boise-Nampa, Idaho
• Carbondale-Marion, Illinois
• Wichita, Kansas
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Hammond, Louisiana
• Detroit, Michigan
• Flint, Michigan
• Fayetteville-Lumberton, North Carolina
• Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, North Carolina
• Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
• Wilmington, North Carolina
• Dayton-Springfield, Ohio
• Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Erie, Pennsylvania
• State College, Pennsylvania
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina
• Hilton Head, South Carolina
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota
• Chattanooga, Tennessee
• Clarksville, Tennessee
• Cleveland, Tennessee
• Kingsport, Tennessee; Johnson City, Tennessee; Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee
• Knoxville, Tennessee
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas
• Bryan-College Station, Texas
• Provo-Orem, Utah
• Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah
• Centralia, Washington
• Olympia, Washington
• Charleston, West Virginia
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin

VERIZON WIRELESS ENDING NEW EVERY 2 AND EARLY UPGRADE PROGRAMS

Some bad news is emerging for Verizon Wireless subscribers this evening, and the timing couldn’t be worse. Just ahead of the imminent wave of next-generation Android devices, 4G phones and the highly anticipated Verizon iPhone, the carrier is rumored to be ending two programs that countless customers have enjoyed in recent history. The first is the early upgrade policy, which allowed subscribers on two-year contracts to upgrade their devices after just one year of service. The second is Verizon’s New Every Two program, which gave customers up to $50 every two years to apply toward the purchase of a new phone. Both of these policies are set to come to an end on January 16th, according to what is alleged to be a leaked screen capture of Verizon Wireless’ training manual. New Every Two is simply kaput, says the slide, but the early upgrade policy will apparently stick around in a trimmed state — subscribers will be eligible for an early upgrade after 20 months of service on a two-year contract. [BGR]

BEST BUY STOPS SELLING VERIZON'S DROID 2 GLOBAL AND DROID PRO; NO REASON GIVEN

Several of our Best Buy customers have reported Best Buy has suddenly halted all sales of Verizon Wireless' Droid 2 Global and Droid Pro mobile smartphones. The reasons ahve ranged from referencing the "exploding" handset (it was really dropped) to a pricing dispute between Best Buy and Verizon. Whatever the real reason it sounds like Best Buy hasn't properly informed their sales staff who are left to make up reasons. [BGR]

PIPER JAFFERY ANALYSTS SAYS VERIZON WIRELESS TO SELL 9 MILLION iPHONES IN 2011

In a new research note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates that Apple will sell approximately 9 million iPhone handsets through Verizon Wireless next year. While the figure seems low considering AT&T sold 5.2 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2010 alone, Munster’s numbers are conservative, as he believes the iPhone will have much stiffer competition on Verizon’s shelves than it does in AT&T stores. Munster thinks Verizon Wireless will sell approximately 25 million smartphones next year, and expects the iPhone to account for roughly 36% of sales. He goes on to write that sales of the iPhone through AT&T will be cannibalized by the Verizon launch, and projections have been adjusted from 17.5 million to 11 million units in 2011. This would bring total U.S. iPhone sales for the year to 20 million, or just 2.5 million units more than projected 2010 totals. Munster does note, however, that these estimates may be conservative. [BGR]

VERIZON WORKING ON CDMA TO LTE HANDOFF ISSUE; MAC DRIVERS

According to a spokesperson, Verizon Wireless is working on a fix for a hand-off delay that some users are experiencing on the company’s new Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. The delay, which can last up to two minutes, occurs when the USB data stick attempts to switch from CDMA to LTE — the modem is not responsive during that time. The issue has been reported by several members of the press and early device testers.

In the same breath, Verizon also noted that it is actively working on Mac drivers for its LTE hardware. Although no specific timetable was given, the spokesperson did say that the software would be available “relatively soon.” [BGR]

PANTECH'S VERIZON LTE MODEM HACKED TO RUN ON MAC

Neither Verizon Wireless' LTE modem devices currently run on Mac computers. A member at HowardForums though has hacked Pantech's LTE modem to rectify this. Windows is still needed for the initial activation, and there's no promises it'll work with every Apple computer. [HowardForums]

VERIZON WIRELESS 3G GOES DOWN NATIONWIDE

We've heard from a bunch of folks this morning that Verizon's 3G network is experiencing a slight bout of disconnectedness, causing a great deal of grief and discombobulation around the country. Just sit tight, we're sure engineers are engineering solutions as we type this.

Some parts of the country are reporting their 3G service has been restored, though it's not yet certain that all troubles have been ironed out.

Let us know if you service or are still down.

CONSUMER REPORTS RANKS AT&T LAST IN MOBILE PROVIDERS

Once again AT&T has found itself dead last in a survey of mobile providers. The latest survey, by Consumer Reports, ranks US Cellular and Verizon Wireless as number one and two respectively, followed by T-Mobile and Sprint, leaving AT&T to bring up the rear.

The survey ranked a number of factors including Value, Texting, Voice, Data, Website and Staff Knowledge. AT&T never even made an average rating any of the items examined, receiving a Worse rating in 8 out of all 9 categories.

AT&T responded with a statement:

We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent – the equivalent of just one call in a thousand – of the industry leader.

Readers were asked to grade each carrier on several criteria including value, voice service quality, data service quality and customer support. The ratings were on a scale of “Worse” to “Better,” with three increments in between. [BGR]

VERIZON ANNOUNCES LTE PLANS AND PRICES

Verizon today unveiled more detail about their LTE wireless broadband launch, announcing that they'll be offering the 5-12 Mbps service in 38 markets and 60 airports starting December 5 (AKA this Sunday). Most importantly, Verizon finally unveiled their pricing for the new service, which after a year filled with endless hints by executives about wanting to try something new -- winds up being somewhat underwhelming, traditional, and expensive.

The base pricing for LTE laptop connectivity via USB modem (there will be no smartphones at launch) is significantly more expensive than the 3G pricing they unveiled in October, though the caps are obviously higher. Verizon's LTE pricing will now be $50 for 5GB of usage, or $80 for 10 GB of usage, with $10 per each additional GB. Verizon had this to say:

Verizon Wireless customers can choose from two 4G LTE Mobile Broadband data plans: $50 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance or $80 monthly access for 10 GB monthly allowance, both with $10/GB overage. For laptop connectivity, two 4G LTE USB modems will be initially available: the LG VL600 is available at launch and the Pantech UML290 will be available soon, each $99.99 after $50 rebate with a new two-year agreement. Both USB modems provide backward-compatibility with Verizon Wireless' 3G network. If laptop users travel outside of a 4G LTE coverage area, they will automatically stay connected on the company's 3G network.

It's interesting to note there's not even really an entry level LTE plan (say $25 for a gig of use) after literally dozens of Verizon executive comments claiming usage-based pricing was going to be the future. We'll assume this pricing may evolve as the company begins offering LTE smartphones, which Verizon today announced will arrive sometime in "mid-2011". Verizon also again today confirmed these devices will initially use 3G/CDMA for voice until LTE voice standards are hashed out. [DSL Reports]

WINDOWS PHONE 7 COMING TO VERIZON THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

Verizon will be selling Windows Phone 7 devices starting this 'holiday season' according to a tweet on the official Windows Phone account. No word on when exactly the devices will hit big red or what devices they will carry.

UPDATE: The original tweet has been pulled and replaced with a new one reading "Verizon is a valued partner and we look forward to seeing Windows Phone 7 devices in their stores in 2011,". This doesn't necessarily preclude Verizon getting a device for the holidays, but it doesn't look good either. [Engadget]