| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
Ting, the MVNO from Tucows, has opened up its service to customers with Sprint handsets. The "Bring your Sprint Phone" program allows users on Sprint to use the service, with seven handsets from Sprint's range being supported by the carrier, which happens to use Sprint's network to function in the first place.
RadioShack may be launching a contract-less mobile service in the future. Leaked screenshots from the company received by Engadget allegedly show a product listing entitled "HTC One V No-Contract Phone for RadioShack Mobile" based on Cricket. If true, the move would see the electronics retailer becoming a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in an already crowded carrier marketplace.
Amazon will be the first foreign company to offer a prepaid wireless service in Japan. Nikkei [account required] reports prepaid SIM cards with 500MB preallocated to it will be sold for 1,980 Yen ($25) through the website, and as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), will be carried by NTT Docomo's LTE network. This takes place ahead of the expected Japanese launch of the Amazon Kindle in the summer.
An Apple patent application from 2006, recently disclosed by the US Patent and Trademark Office, suggests that Apple at least once contemplated letting users pick from multiple carriers on an iPhone. The current American iPhone is tethered by default to AT&T and affiliates, forcing users to hack it if they want to operate on a choice of networks; under the scheme described by the patent however, network addresses for multiple carriers could be stored on a mobile device, and selected as necessary for the purposes of roaming. This somewhat reflects the way iPhone users can now choose Wi-Fi hotspots.
MVNO carrier Helio has posted a net loss of $326 million for 2007, an official announcement reveals. Although the carrier's revenue grew to $171 million last year from $46 million in 2006, the company has also been facing mounting costs, such as an advertising budget that rose from $21.6 to $47.5 million. Recent losses are notably out of proportion to those from 2006, which were only $192 million.
