Cricket Becomes Fourth U.S. LTE Carrier

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Leap Wireless, parent company of Cricket Wireless, announced on Wednesday the start of its transition to 4G LTE with the launch Cricket's first LTE network in Tucson, Arizona. This makes Cricket the fourth LTE carrier in the U.S., behind AT&T, MetroPCS, and Verizon Wireless.

More than 90 percent of Cricket's Tucson service area should be covered by the new 4G LTE network and further expansion is planned for nearby Nogales, Arizona in 2012. According to Leap, Cricket's 4G speeds range from 5 to 10 times faster than the carrier's current 3G data speeds. 

Right now, Cricket users in Tucson can only tap in to the new LTE network via the Huawei Boltz USB modem, which is available from Cricket for $149.99. The Boltz looks like your standard USB modem, with support for USB 2.0 and a hinged design that allows you to pivot the device to best fit your system's setup. It's also backwards compatible with Cricket 3G networks, so you can use it in non-4G Cricket markets. Cricket plans to offer smartphones and tablets with LTE support in the future.

LTE service plans start at $50 per month for 5GB of data at speeds up to 3 Mbps, and go up to $60 per month, which also gets you 5GB of data, but at speeds up to 6Mbps.

Just keep in mind that, as we discovered in our special report, The Fastest Mobile Networks, not all 4G networks are created equal—and that goes for 4G LTE as well. Verizon Wireless currently offers the greatest LTE coverage in the U.S., along with incredible data speeds, but we've also seen some great numbers on AT&T's newly emerging network as well. MetroPCS, on the other hand, offers merely decent speeds at very low prices. The carrier's average 4G speeds are more like a very good 3G network. Judging by Cricket's 3-6 Mbps LTE data caps, that may also be the case here.

Check back with PCMag for a closer look at Cricket's LTE network as it expands in the future.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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Sen. Franken Releases Details About T-Mobile, Motorola Carrier IQ Use

 

Sen. Al Franken on Wednesday released data about how T-Mobile and Motorola use Carrier IQ software. Both companies denied any wrongdoing, and said Carrier IQ is only used for diagnostic purposes.

Motorola said the software is available on four of its devices, but said it has no control over how Carrier IQ information is accessed or collected. T-Mobile, meanwhile, has it installed on nine handsets and said Carrier IQ is "pre-loaded" on its phones rather than embedded at the manufacturing level, providing more limited access to user data.

Carrier IQ made headlines in recent weeks after a researcher, Trevor Eckhart, suggested that the technology is secretly embedded on many popular phones and can gather personal data about users. Carrier IQ said its technology is used for diagnostic purposes and denied logging keystrokes or being able to read the content of emails, text messages, or Web sites.

Sen. Franken penned letters to Carrier IQ, as well as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola—all companies that use Carrier IQ in some capacity—asking them for more details about its use on their devices. Last week, his office published the responses from AT&T, Sprint, Samsung, and HTC, with T-Mobile and Motorola's replies being made public today.

Motorola's response was quite brief. Motorola added Carrier IQ to four of its phones at the request of Sprint and AT&T, including the Admiral and Titanium from Sprint and the Bravo and Atrix 2 from AT&T.

Beyond that, however, Motorola had no info. "Motorola Mobility neither received nor had access to any data collected by the Carrier IQ software, with the exception of approximately 125 devices used for testing the Carrier IQ software implementation," Dale Stone, senior vice president of government relations for Motorola, wrote to Sen. Franken.

T-Mobile, meanwhile, said Carrier IQ is on nine phones: the HTC Amaze 4G; Samsung Galaxy S II; Samsung Exhibit II 4G; LG Doubleplay; T-Mobile MyTouch and MyTouch Q for LG; and the BlackBerry 9900, 9360, and 9810. The software was first installed in May 2011 on phones that hit the market in August.

Thomas J. Sugrue, senior vice president of regulatory and legal affairs at T-Mobile, said T-Mobile uses something known as the "pre-load" method when it comes to Carrier IQ rather than having it embedded at the manufacturing level. This "only allows access to Operating System API data that is available to application developers," Sugrue said. The embedded option, he said, "permits access to broader data."

Instead, T-Mobile has access to data about the nearest cell phone tower when a customer has a performance issue, as well as the telephone numbers dialed by users and the phone numbers of individuals calling a user.

T-Mobile said about 450,000 of its customers have devices with Carrier IQ software installed. Customer service reps have access to that data for 30 days after collection, while T-Mobile's "products realization" team has access for 45 days.

Last week, Sen. Franken said he was still "troubled" by Carrier IQ after the four other companies' responses. "People have a fundamental right to control their private information," Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement. "After reading the companies' responses, I'm still concerned that this right is not being respected."

Sprint on Friday said it has "disabled use" of Carrier IQ on its handsets. For more, see Which Carriers, Handset Makers Use Carrier IQ?

Sprint 'Disables' Carrier IQ on Handsets

 

Sprint on Friday said it has "disabled use" of Carrier IQ on its handsets.

The news was first reported by PCMag's sister site, Geek.com.

"We have weighed customer concerns and we have disabled use of the tool so that diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected," Sprint said in a statement. "We are further evaluating options regarding this diagnostic software as well as Sprint's diagnostic needs. At Sprint, we work hard to earn the trust of our customers and believe this course of action is in the best interest of our business and customers."

In a statement, Carrier IQ said "Sprint has been a longstanding customer of Carrier IQ. We are actively engaged in discussions with Sprint to address their diagnostic needs in light of recent events."

The announcement comes one day after Sen. Al Franken released statements from Sprint, AT&T, Samsung, and HTC about their use of Carrier IQ technology.

In its letter to Sen. Franken, Sprint said Carrier IQ is on 26 million of its devices, but data is only collected from about 1.3 million devices.

Sprint did not specify exactly which of its phones have Carrier IQ except to say that they include devices from Audiovox, Franklin, HTC, Huawei, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, Novatel, Palmone, Samsung, Sanyo, and Sierra Wireless.

Samsung's response indicated that Sprint devices with Carrier IQ included the Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, the Replenish, Galaxy Prevail, the Transform, the Intercept, the Epic 4G, Galaxy Tab tablet, and more.

Sprint started working with Carrier IQ in 2006. The company stores Carrier IQ data on its servers for 30 to 45 days, keeps the raw data for six months, and saves reports from Carrier IQ for one year.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.