TMCnet News
Data moving to phones and tablets [The Reporter, Tavernier, Fla.](Reporter (Tavernier, FL) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 29--Sales figures from telecommunications and technology manufactures show a clear trend. More and more business and entertainment is going mobile and wireless. The nations largest phone carrier, ATT, reported big growth in wireless data services and smartphones in the second quarter. Smartphones are digital devices designed to let people talk, work, entertain themselves and interact on the go. Along with tablets, another new class of digital devices, smartphones are letting people move away from computers and some other common gadgets. Smartphones are usually defined as pocket-sized devices for wireless voice (phone) and data (Internet) access. They have advanced operating systems to run programs. Tablets are larger, hand-held devices with touch-sensitive screens -- a lot like smartphones but sized more like the "electronic book" readers. Smartphones are the easiest-to-carry devices that let you connect to people and work from anywhere. Besides voice calling, smartphones handle music playing, picture taking, video recording, network access, game playing, travel navigation, Web browsing and more. They're customizable, letting you rearranging features on screen and install "apps" (short for software applications) to do anything a computer can do. Regular cellphones, PCs and even laptop computers are starting to look like old technology. Recent numbers from ATT show that use of mobile data services and smartphones is growing rapidly. In the second quarter, ATT's total wireless revenue was up 9.5 percent from last year, with smartphones totaling almost 70 percent of sales. ATT sold 5.6 million smartphones, a 40 percent increase over last year. The company added 500,000 data-only subscribers for a total of 4 million, twice as many as a year ago. "Most of those new subscribers were tablets," the company said in its earnings report. Apple's iPhone, bundled with ATT service, kicked off the smartphone revolution. Now ATT reports that sales of smartphones made by other companies more than doubled over last year. One-half of ATT's 68.4 million wireless phone customers now have smartphones. ATT said in its quarterly report. That's 15 percent more than a year earlier. DATA TO GO All smartphones require voice service for phone calls and data service for browsing the Web, e-mail, watching video, getting news, weather reports, stock quotes and all the other bits of information you could want. Voice plans typically cost $40 a month minimum, more for unlimited calling. Data plans start at $15 to $20 a month for a limited amount of data, enough for web browsing and e-mail, or $25 to $30 for a more generous amount, to around $50 and up for more than 2 gigabytes a month. Few unlimited data plans are available now, but carriers have offered them before. Tablets, unless they have phone capability, require only data plans. Most smartphones and tablets can use WiFi to send and receive data separately from the over-the-air (usually called 3G or 4G), metered data services. WiFi is what coffee shops and hotels usually offer, and what "wireless routers" provide at home to make a broadband DSL or cable service work wirelessly over a short distance. With WiFi, smartphones and tablets can send and receive data without it being counted against your 3G/4G data plan. ___ To see more of The Reporter or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.keysnet.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Reporter, Tavernier, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |