iPhone Carriers

One of the most convenient ways to pay for iTunes, App Store and other content on iOS devices is through carrier billing. Using this service means that all charges are simply tacked onto your monthly wireless bill. In similar fashion, prepaid subscribers will have costs for music, movies and iBooks automatically subtracted from their account balance. Apple has already started to offer carrier billing to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in select regions.

It has long been a practice of wireless carriers to "lock" cell phones and other devices they sell to customers, so the customer can't leave them for another carrier. The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a bill that will outlaw that practice.

Legislation for the "Unlocking Consumer Choice Act" passed the Senate last week. President Obama will need to sign it into law, which he looks forward to: "The bill congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more

A recent report accused Apple and wireless carriers of purposely slowing down data speeds on iOS devices. The controversy revolved around so-called "throttle coding" in carrier files used for network provisioning. The site AnandTech has now published a thorough report explaining why this is not the case.

Not only does Apple have no incentive to limit data speeds on iOS devices, but traffic is better managed on the network as opposed to locally on individual iPhones. AnandTech also throws cold water on the concept that installing modified carrier files can "magically" increase data speeds on iOS. Basically, nothing on Apple's mobile devices prevents the iPhone or iPad from utilizing whatever is provided by the cellular network.

Mobile carrier AT&T is set to launch a new pre-paid cellular service named "All In One" on June 15th. The company plans to test the new plans in Florida and Texas before rolling out the program nationally. For those who don't like contracts and are looking for a more affordable data plan option on their mobile devices, AT&T will provide a competitive option.

Data tiers come in at $35 for feature phones, $50 for 2GB of smartphone data, or $70 for 5GB of smartphone data. All plans include unlimited voice and texting as part of the package. These new offerings are separate from AT&T's current pre-paid service known as GoPhone, which comes in at $65 per month with only 1GB of data and unlimited voice and texting

Apple has released an iPhone 5 carrier update that will bring Verizon settings from version 13.0 to 13.1. The update comes as reports have surfaced that some iPhone 5 users' cellular data plans were ringing up data usage despite being connected to Wi-Fi.

Installing the carrier update should fix the issue, and Verizon has announced it will not charge for any incorrectly clocked cellular data. Normally connecting to a Wi-Fi network ensures that no cellular network data is used. The update can easily be installed directly on your Verizon iPhone 5.