Clearwire has kept their promise of bringing Mobile WiMax to New York City before the end of the year. Mailings are being sent out to customers informing them that Clear service “is finally available in New York City” for an initial offer of $35 a month for the first two months. The flyer amusingly offers a city of 8 million a free USB modem (usually $115) if they’re one of the first 20 to sign up for service. New York City is still only listed as a “a future Clear city” in Clear’s coverage map, and the company has yet to issue an official release, though these kinds of unofficial launches are not uncommon for the carrier.

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If you think 3D TV is little more than a new old gimmick that requires annoying glasses and a new television, you might want to skip this post. If you think 3DTV is a compelling product, you might be interested to note that Verizon has been working with the New York Football Giants on broadcasting the first ever NFL game in 3D (well, preseason, anyway). Verizon will be showing the September 2 preseason match-up between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots in 3D to FiOS TV customers.

If you recall, Verizon earlier this year called similar cable “first ever” 3D sports efforts “hype,” and insisted they’d be ramping up their own 3D efforts ahead of the 2010 holiday season.

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For years wireless carriers have had played fast and loose with the word “unlimited,” advertising their services as such but then quietly imposing caps (usually 5 Gbps) or other restrictions. While Verizon Wireless had their wrist slapped back in 2007 for the practice by New York’s Attorney General, that still didn’t stop many carriers from continuing the practice. Now T-Mobile is being sued in California for inaccurately advertising their limited (10 GB) data services for smartphones as unlimited. Complains the suit:

The only warning given to consumers, according to the suit, is a statement “on the very last page of a T-Mobile brochure, buried in minuscule type barely readable, that ‘Your data session may be slowed, suspended, terminated, or restricted if you use your service in a way that interferes with or impacts our network or ability to provide quality service to other users …”

Parts of the suit are melodramatic for effect, lawyers arguing that the surprise limit makes smartphones “essentially useless for anything other than making or receiving phone calls and text messages.” T-Mobile’s current 10 GB cap is rather generous, and last we checked, unlike some other carriers, T-Mobile only throttles users who cross it they don’t impose unreasonable overages or boot users from the network.

All of that said, the solution for carriers who don’t want suits, user complaints or AG investigations seems pretty simple: stop using the word unlimited, and make your service restrictions clear. False advertising is false advertising, and wireless carriers have been trying to have their cake and eat it too on this front for years. The definition of unlimited is clear, and burying limits for your “unlimited” data plans in fine print on page 50 of your terms of service doesn’t change that fact.

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Last week AT&T posted their second quarter earnings, and while wireless connectivity was hot, the company noted they lost a whopping 347,000 traditional DSL customers on the quarter. Some of those customers upgraded to AT&T U-Verse, but many of them were users in un-upgraded AT&T markets who migrated to cable, either lured by faster broadband speeds or the cable triple play. To try and fight back in legacy areas, AT&T’s again tinkering with their DSL pricing, their website indicating that they’ve brought back the $14.95 per month price point for their Basic (768/384 kbps), Express (1.5 Mbps/ 384 kbps) and Pro (3 Mbps/ 512 kbps) DSL tiers, which are all starting to look very long in the tooth, especially upstream. The company’s Elite (6 Mbps / 512 kbps) tier is now $19.95. All of these deals are for new customers, and the pricing is for twelve months before you need to negotiate a better deal.

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According to a new study from the Yankee Group, 73% of Apple iPhone users are very satisfied with AT&T’s service, a number well above the industry average satisfaction score (69) and AT&T’s score for all phones (68). So what explains this satisfaction given two years of complaints and AT&T’s customer satisfaction scores traditionally falling at the tail end of the spectrum? Researchers guess that users are so in love with the phone as an all-purpose device, they transfer some of this adoration over to AT&T via a “halo effect”:

“Consumers transfer the high gloss of their Apple iPhone experience to AT&T,” says Carl Howe, Yankee Group analyst and author of the study. “The iPhone creates a halo effect that rubs off.” In other words, iPhone customers’ praise for their network may be a result of the famous “reality distortion field” that surrounds Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) CEO Steve Jobs and his company’s products. But AT&T says its network really isn’t as bad as many people think. It’s a perception problem, not a service problem, in the company’s eyes.

Instead of acknowledging the problem and explaining again how they’re working on shortcomings (which they certainly are), AT&T has to insult peoples’ intelligence by suggesting the problems have been hallucinatory in nature. Being unprepared for wireless traffic surges AT&T consistently sees coming isn’t a “perception” problem, and it can’t be fixed by more PR.

One thing that’s also happening in terms of AT&T’s satisfaction rates in the Yankee study is the firm didn’t bother to study users by region. Many of the angry AT&T iPhone users tend to be in San Francisco and New York, where congestion wreaks havoc on AT&T’s network. Unlike say in Cleveland, where users have a completely different experience on the AT&T network (like the ability to make phone calls on major highways).

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Earlier this month, AT&T users in many markets suddenly found themselves with crippled upstream speeds with some users unable to even exceed 50 kbps. AT&T quickly responded to the complaints, noting that they’d found a software defect in Alcatel-Lucent equipment (which isn’t in all markets). While an AT&T statement at the time claimed AT&T was “providing normal 3G uplink speeds and consistent performance,” that wasn’t really the case; users spent most of this month dealing with these crippled speeds.

But based on a tests this morning in the NY/NJ area, it looks like AT&T’s finally deploying a software patch. No comment yet from AT&T if they have a timeline for all impacted markets.

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We’ve noted that AT&T has been crippling many Android devices in their lineup, not only layering them with annoying, unremovable bloatware, making Yahoo the default search engine while making it impossible to install any applications not found in the Android Marketplace. Of course AT&T’s fighting an uphill battle in their effort to retain control, and these kinds of attempts aren’t going to work out in the long run on largely open platforms.

Exhibit A: the free and open source “Sideload Wonder Machine” developed by the folks at Android Central, which allows users of crippled AT&T Android phones to install whatever applications they’d like. AT&T’s essentially trying to swim upstream; the only question is how long it’s going to take them to realize it.

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AT&T’s second quarter earnings are out, and despite “Antennagate” and network coverage criticism, the company still managed to activate a whopping 3.2 million Apple iPhones during the quarter. Overall, the company added 1.6 million wireless subscribers (896,000 of those were not phones but embedded devices like e-Readers) for the quarter, to reach 90.1 million total wireless connections. AT&T saw a 27.2 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up $936 million from last year and their new data pricing only really just kicked in.

AT&T added a net 209,000 U-verse TV subscribers for the quarter, totaling 2.5 million. That said, AT&T overall lost about 92,000 total broadband customers, given they lost 347,000 traditional DSL customers, some to U-Verse upgrades, some to competitors. AT&T’s broadband quarter wasn’t a particularly great one, something AT&T attributes to “seasonal” slowdown, but also because competitors in non U-Verse markets are becoming “more aggressive with promotions.”

In other words, users tired of slow and expensive DSL service are upgrading to cable. AT&T hopes to counter this with bonded VDSL, which will extend U-Verse’s reach to 30 million potential users. But the fact that cable is kicking AT&T around in legacy DSL markets is kind of amusing given all the investor pressure on AT&T to skimp on network upgrades. By lamenting telco network upgrades (be they FTTH or FTTN), Wall Street stock jocks like Craig Moffett wind up helping cable companies.

On their earnings conference call, AT&T dribbled out a few interesting tidbits including the fact that their LTE trials will be starting in just a few months, with the service made available to AT&T customers sometime in 2011. The company also noted that they’ve been working hard to improve network performance in their trouble markets like New York City, where they claim dropped calls are down 23% in Manhattan while 3G speeds are up 31% the last six months. San Francisco upgrades are about 90 days behind NYC upgrades, says AT&T.

As for AT&T’s decision to impose low 200 MB and 2 GB caps on wireless smartphone users during the quarter, AT&T’s CFO Rick Lindner called the results “pretty encouraging.” Interestingly, AT&T says fewer people than they expected downgraded from unlimited to 200MB and 2GB capped plans. “To be honest we had expected virtually all of those customers to migrate down to a lower price point.” Perhaps because low caps and high overages (plus fees) isn’t really a lower price point?

Regardless, AT&T acknowledged their new tiered pricing (which Verizon is expected to mimic later this month) “may reduce the growth rate in the next year.” T-Mobile, Clearwire and Sprint certainly hope so.

Of course rumbling beneath all of this talk about wireless is AT&T’s continued loss of traditional landline voice customers and associated revenues, which AT&T happily insists saw their “smallest year-over-year decline in five quarters.” AT&T saw their wireline voice total (and they include U-Verse Voice in that total) drop to 44.3 million from 46.3 million on the quarter. Those continued losses mean continued layoffs at the company this year.

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According to the New York Times, despite not having the Apple iPhone, Verizon’s been slowly leeching smartphone customers from AT&T for the last two years. Verizon’s share of the smartphone market has jumped from 20 to 26 percent since 2008, while AT&T’s smartphone market share has dropped from 45 to 40 percent during that same period. What’s more, Verizon is only paying $300 for each Android, BlackBerry and Palm phone sold, while AT&T pays Apple at least $450 for each unit sold. There’s no doubt that having the Apple iPhone exclusive helped AT&T, but there’s also no doubt that their inability to provide a network that can handle the device hurt AT&T. The real question is, if AT&T’s bleeding subscribers while they have the exclusive, what happens when that deal expires?

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Verizon neglected infrastructure in West Virginia for years in order to focus their attention on more profitable markets. That’s why it’s not too surprising to see Frontier struggling with transition support in West Virginia, but doing much better with the transition in the Pacific Northwest, where Verizon deployed FiOS service to about 100,000 customers. Oregon regulators say the transition has been smooth so far for the roughly 400,000 phone, DSL and FiOS customers though first bills haven’t gone out yet, and users are still a little annoyed about that suddenly missing FiOS TV functionality.

Frontier tells The Oregonian they pulled that extra functionality (like remotely programmed DVRs) “based on concerns expressed by the cable networks” about “unauthorized distribution.”

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Slashdot directs your attention to the fact that wireless carriers are just starting to realize they can monetize all matter of data collected from mobile users – specifically data that highlights their movement habits. According to MIT Technology Review, researchers and marketers are finding plenty of new uses for call detail records, or CDRs which allow them to study a mountain of user behavior data. That data can be used by researchers or city planners to study travel behavior – but it’s likely going to be a gold mine on the marketing behavioral front:

…cell phone networks are thinking about monetizing their data, says Jean Bolot, a researcher at network operator Sprint. This means a “two-sided” business model where they not only serve end users but also make money through relationships with other businesses. “This is new in the telco space but not in other areas–look at Google, for example,” he says. Since almost everyone has a cell phone, the scale of the data is immense compared to other sources. Mobility patterns might, for example, be used to adjust property or billboard advertising prices. “Just about every operator on the planet is probably thinking about this right now,” says Bolot.

Of course all of this raises a number of privacy concerns, and while much of this data is aggregate – it’s not particularly difficult for those who buy this data to identify individual user identities (most of us do stay in one place most nights). Keep in mind many ISPs sell user clickstream data (but deny it) with little or no acknowledgment of this fact to the end user, no oversight and no ability to opt out. It seems likely that privacy, consumer education and consumer controls will be an afterthought here as well.

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Back in February, BroadbandReports noted how Baltimore was one of a number of cities upset that they were overlooked by the Verizon FiOS installation fairies. As they’ve discussed at length, the company is stopping deployment in any market where a franchise agreement hasn’t already been signed. There’s a number of reasons for this, including the fact that Verizon wants to market the service to deployed areas and ramp up adoption, the company is eager to see if they can grab stimulus bucks, and Verizon CEO (and FiOS’s biggest champion) Ivan Seidenberg is on the way out – and his replacements aren’t as bullish on this whole “future” thing.

Baltimore this week decided to hold a public hearing exploring why they weren’t part of Verizon’s $23 Billion FiOS plans. The city denies that they were in any way the cause of Verizon’s decision, either by being difficult franchise negotiation partners or by imposing heavy conditions on Verizon. Many in the city continue to think Baltimore was ignored because of its lower income and minority neighborhoods – but Verizon again denied such “redlining” allegations at the hearing, according to attendee and Baltimore Sun blogger Gus Sentementes. Still, Verizon’s not disclosing the secret formula used to determine FiOS worthiness:

We still have not heard Verizon’s rationale for avoiding Baltimore and heck, while we’re at it: Boston and Buffalo and Syracuse and Albany, too. Specifically, by what standards did Verizon choose who would get FiOS and who would not? Did they throw darts at a map of the United States? It’s not enough to say “we can’t be everywhere” — I think people generally understand that. But why is Baltimore the hole in the donut, to use Kraft’s analogy? Choices were made probably following a set of criteria. Verizon must have made a business decision (one hopes) on a set of facts, and the city wants more clarification on how they reached that decision.

Obviously Verizon didn’t find installation there to be a profitable equation, but Baltimore still would like to see the math – and Verizon likely felt telling Baltimoreans Verizon felt their city isn’t very nice wasn’t in the cards. To try and calm the locals, Verizon sent a letter to the Baltimore Sun insisting that they remain “committed to Baltimore.” Just not when it comes to actually upgrading the network there:

Although FiOS video may not be available, it’s important to remember that Verizon is able to offer Baltimore consumers High Speed Internet (HSI) service (using DSL technology) at speeds up to 7 megabits per second in much of the city, and DIRECTV with a network that is second to none, our infrastructure keeps residents and businesses communicating. And we’ll continue to make that infrastructure better, faster and more robust.

As for Baltimore figuring out Verizon’s secret formula, the city is probably going to be waiting for a while. Cities like Boston, Alexandria, Binghamton, Albany and many others are asking the same questions but getting no answer. Of course Verizon looked at a huge variety of economic, logistical, competition (or more specifically a lack thereof) and other factors, but Verizon’s never going to let the public see the real data behind their decisions. Perhaps Baltimore (or local businesses) can begin building a Baltimore fiber network, and see if that gets Verizon’s attention?

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