Verizon Wireless

Capping a day of dueling announcements from rival cellphone service providers, AT&T said Tuesday that it would allow users of Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone to make Internet telephone calls over its wireless network. Hours earlier, Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest mobile carrier, said it was teaming up with Internet search giant Google Inc. to release a family of cellular devices powered by Google's Android software, whose capacity to run a vast array of "apps" is widely thought to represent a threat to the iPhone.

We've all found unexpected charges on our phone bills at one time or another. But nothing compares with the nearly $10,000 hit that Aliso Viejo resident Mark Elliot took from Verizon Wireless. And even though it seems pretty obvious this had to be a mistake on somebody's part, Verizon's first instinct was to stick to its guns. "We believe in the accuracy of the charges," Ken Muche, a company spokesman, told me after checking into Elliot's situation.

Verizon Wireless said Wednesday that it planned to offer a new high-speed network in all U.S. regions by 2015 and picked Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to build the system. Verizon will start offering the new wireless standard, called Long-Term Evolution, in some parts of the U.S. in 2010, said Dick Lynch, the company's chief technology officer. Verizon Wireless is co-owned by New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group.

Raul Martinez's cellphone plan offered free roaming for calls to anywhere in the United States and Canada. So when the 50-year-old resident of East Hollywood took a two-week vacation north of the border last summer, he assumed he had nothing to worry about. He didn't read the fine print. Martinez said he was astounded when about $400 in roaming fees appeared on his next Verizon Wireless bill. The free roaming included calls made to Canada, but not from Canada.

The nation's two largest wireless companies emerged as the biggest winners in a record-setting auction of public airwaves, increasing the odds that they will continue to dominate that market for years to come. Verizon Wireless agreed to pay more than $9 billion of the $19 billion raised for government coffers and got the largest chunks of the spectrum, which it is expected to use for such high-volume transmissions as video and corporate data. AT&T Inc.

The highest bidder in the multibillion-dollar sale of prime airwaves disclosed its plans for the wireless spectrum Friday, and the most prominent loser explained why it was still a big winner. A day after rules prohibiting participants in the federal government's online auction from discussing their strategies lifted, Verizon Wireless said it would use the new capacity to roll out faster wireless Internet service by 2010. Verizon outbid Google Inc., paying $4.

Every so often history seems to repeat itself right before your eyes. That happened last week as Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo sued Time Warner Cable Inc., alleging that it failed to deliver on promises of better service. Those vows were made a couple of years ago when Time Warner joined with Comcast Corp. to buy bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corp. for $12.7 billion. Time Warner and Comcast then swapped franchises so they wouldn't have to cooperate or compete with one another.

The Happiest Place on Earth will soon know where in the world you are. Walt Disney Co. has struck a deal with Verizon Wireless that will allow it to remain in wireless contact with its theme park visitors -- even when they step outside the turnstiles in Anaheim and Orlando, Fla.

Verizon Wireless added 2.3 million customers, most of them prized monthly subscribers, to put a shine on a fourth quarter in which Verizon Communications Inc.'s profit was cut by restructuring costs. In reporting the 38% drop in quarterly profit Monday, Verizon Communications emphasized that growth in its DSL and new FiOS Internet businesses had outpaced the loss of traditional telephone customers. In the final three months of 2006, Verizon earned $1.

The jockeying to bring the most popular names from TV and the Web to cellphones produced another exclusive deal Thursday with Verizon Wireless nabbing a multiyear agreement to offer ESPN's flashy feed of sports scores, newscasts and video highlights on the tiny screen. The plan to revive Mobile ESPN -- initially born as a full-blown cellphone company that would compete with big players such as Verizon before Burbank-based Walt Disney Co.