An image of the call completed by AT&T and AST SpaceMobile.
Verizon and AT&T have each announced milestones in making cellphone-to-satellite video calls in partnership with satellite company AST SpaceMobile.
Verizon has completed its first cellphone-to-satellite video call, while AT&T has completed its first using satellites that will be used as part of a commercial network. There’s lining up competition to T-Mobile’s arrangement with SpaceX and Starlink on satellite-to-cell service which launched a public beta for messaging via satellite earlier this month. AT&T and Verizon have said that T-Mobile and SpaceX’s offerings would harm their networks.
Verizon pulled off “a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon’s terrestrial network connection,” according to a company press release. In AT&T’s case, “AT&T and AST SpaceMobile have successfully completed another video call by satellite to an everyday smartphone over AT&T spectrum,” per AT&T’s press release.
Both phone companies relied on AST’s constellation of five BlueBird satellites that were launched last September for the tests. AT&T’s initial video call test happened in June 2023.
AT&T has introduced SplitPay, a new payment option that lets those sharing a phone plan with others split their payment line-by-line, so no one person has to pay the entire bill. The company says the program is available for “select postpaid wireless plans,” and that those using SplitPay can still get multi-line discounts.
It sounds like a nice idea, especially if you’ve ever had the experience of bothering people you’re sharing a plan with for their part of a bill that you pay. As for what happens if not everyone pays up, AT&T says the account holder is still responsible for the bill, and late payments could still result in extra fees or suspended service. The company writes that it will text each payer a payment link and what they owe when a billing cycle begins, and says it will notify the primary payer about any outstanding payments prior to the bill’s due date.
To set up SplitPay, you can head to AT&T’s SplitPay page, select the account holder, and then pick the individual lines and devices, like smartwatches or tablets, you want to assign to each payer, according to a help page on the program.
Cameron John Wagenius pleaded guilty to hacking AT&T and Verizon and stealing a massive trove of phone records from the companies, according to court records filed on Wednesday. Wagenius, who was a U.S. Army soldier, pleaded guilty to two counts of “unlawful transfer of confidential phone records information” on an online forum and via an […]
Hacker Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after he took over the SEC’s X account in January 2024. Once Council gained access to the account, his unnamed co-conspirators posted a doctored image, message, and fake quote by then SEC Chairman Gary Gensler saying Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETC) have been approved, which caused the currency’s value to spike more than $1,000.
The 25-year-old Alabama resident had used a SIM-swapping attack to move a phone number associated with the @SEC account to the SIM card in an iPhone he had purchased. After others obtained the personal information of a person with access to the account, Council printed off a fake ID and used it to get AT&T to give him control of their number so that he could have the account’s recovery codes sent to his own phone. The co-conspirators paid Council in Bitcoin for his role in the scheme.
Investigators found after Council’s arrest that he’d made some choice searches, including: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
Council is scheduled for sentencing on May 16th and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
It might take a magnifying glass to notice, but the Galaxy S25 family brings subtle differences.
Thousands of retailers and carrier stores in the US will be stocked with the Samsung Galaxy S25 ($799.99), S25 Plus ($999.99), and S25 Ultra ($1,299.99) on Friday, February 7th. Hardware-wise, the S25 series is a marginal improvement over last year’s S24 series, with the most noteworthy changes coming in the form of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and an expanded 12GB of RAM. Each device also supports Qi2 Ready charging (with a magnet case) and a spate of new AI features thanks to Android 15, while the S25 Ultra gets an upgraded 50-megapixel ultrawide camera.
Samsung is offering similar incentives, but they’re oddly split between an instant credit and a bonus for upgrading to the next storage tier. For example, opting for a 128GB S25 Plus for $799.99 will net you a $100 credit that you can use toward anything in Samsung’s online store after purchase, or you can step up to the 256GB model for $809.99 ($50 off) and receive an additional $50 credit.
The base S25 Plus with 256GB of storage is available with $150 in credit from Samsung, along with an extra $50 upgrade credit toward the 512GB model. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also comes with a $150 credit for its 256GB base model, but you can effectively double your storage for free with an additional $150 credit, plus get another $110 credit on top of that when jumping up to 1TB.
Carriers might be the way to go if you aren’t buying the S25 unlocked, with many offering monthly bill credits when trading in a device and activating service on an unlimited plan. Verizon is offering a free Galaxy S25 or S25 Plus, or up to $1,000 toward a Galaxy S25 Ultra with qualifying trade-ins, for example. T-Mobile is pushing a similar promotion for the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra, as is AT&T (S25, Plus, and Ultra), with the latter also allowing you to activate additional lines with the Galaxy Watch FE or Galaxy Tab A9 Plus for $.99 each a month. You can find more details about each carrier and retailer offer in our Galaxy S25 preorder guide.
Customers on AT&T’s network are getting one more tool to help them decide when to pick up the phone: an indication of why a business is calling you, right from the incoming call screen. It’s a continuation of the branded calling feature that AT&T and TransUnion introduced last year, and only works on Android phones.
This feature starts with the business making the call, which can choose to display a message like “refill reminder” or “delivery service.” The message will also show up in the call details page. There’s nothing that the receiver needs to do in order to see the message; it’ll just pop up the way verified number badges do now.
In theory, it’ll let you know whether your pharmacy is calling to let you know about a refill or if your DoorDash driver is standing outside your apartment building. Sounds pretty nice.
If this all sounds familiar, that’s probably because Google introduced a similar feature for its phone app a few years ago — though it has since been discontinued. TransUnion’s verification works with the STIR/SHAKEN protocol responsible for helping carriers label potential spam calls as such.
But being limited to Android means a lot of AT&T customers in the US won’t see the message since we’re a notoriously iPhone-carrying people. That might not always be the case; James Garvert, senior vice president of TruContact Communications Solutions at TransUnion tells The Verge “we expect that capability to become standard on all mobile devices over time.”
Correction, February 7th: A previous version of this article stated that TransUnion’s branded calling feature worked as part of Google’s call verification program; it is not related to Google’s program, which has since been deprecated.
Vodafone has made what it calls “the world’s first” satellite video call using a standard smartphone, in a test of a system it says will provide mobile broadband service to 4G and 5G phones without dedicated satellite hardware. The service, using satellites from SpaceX rival AST SpaceMobile, is expected to launch in Europe before the end of 2025.
AT&T and Verizon have also cut deals with Texas-based AST SpaceMobile to provide satellite-to-smartphone services across the US. The company has received FCC approval to begin testing its US-based coverage for AT&T this spring, meaning a full rollout is likely to lag behind Europe.
Last year SpaceX demonstrated its own Starlink satellite-based video call between two US-based employees using “unmodified mobile phones.” That means Vodafone’s effort may not quite be a world-first, though unlike SpaceX it made the call from a remote area that apparently has no existing cell service.
For Vodafone’s demonstration, an engineer (and, charmingly, his dog) made the call to Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle from an unnamed “remote mountain region” of Wales which the company says has never had mobile coverage before. The quality isn’t pristine — the video is choppy, with noticeable lag — but the call, which lasts about 45 seconds, does seem stable.
Vodafone partnered with AST SpaceMobile for the satellite service, using the five low Earth orbit BlueBird satellites the company has launched so far. The signal is routed through a space-to-land gateway which connects the satellites to Vodafone’s terrestrial network. Vodafone sees it as a “complementary” technology that can plug the gaps in its existing mobile network, covering remote areas including mountains and out at sea. The direct-to-smartphone satellite service is expected to “close the last remaining coverage gaps” in Europe in 2026.
AST SpaceMobile’s satellite system connects using standard 4G and 5G signals, so there’s no requirement to use a phone with dedicated satellite components. Beyond video calling, Vodafone says it offers a “full mobile broadband experience,” with peak speeds of up to 120 megabits per second, that “goes beyond other low Earth orbit satellite constellations which have so far only facilitated text messaging.”
Satellite connectivity is already available on certain iPhones and Google Pixel phones that include specific modem components, but is mostly limited to emergency alerts, location-sharing, and SMS messages. T-Mobile is beta testing its own US network in partnership with the Starlink Direct-to-Cell service that will also work with standard smartphones, though this will be limited to text messages at first, with calls and data to be added in the future.
“Vodafone’s job is to get everyone connected, no matter where they are,” says Della Valle. “We are bringing customers the best network and connecting people who have never had access to mobile communications before. This will help to close the digital divide, supporting people from all corners of Europe to keep in touch with family and friends, or work, as well as ensuring reliable rural connectivity in an emergency.”
There’s been no announcement yet about pricing for the service.
AT&T has stopped offering its 5G home Internet service in New York instead of complying with a new state law that requires ISPs to offer $15 or $20 plans to people with low incomes.
The decision was reported yesterday by CNET and confirmed by AT&T in a statement provided to Ars today. "While we are committed to providing reliable and affordable Internet service to customers across the country, New York's broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state," AT&T said. "As a result, effective January 15, 2025, we will no longer be able to offer AT&T Internet Air, our fixed-wireless Internet service, to New York customers."
New York started enforcing its Affordable Broadband Act yesterday after a legal battle of nearly four years. Broadband lobby groups convinced a federal judge to block the law in 2021, but a US appeals court reversed the ruling in April 2024, and the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case last month.
AT&T, following last year's embarrassing botched update that kicked every device off its wireless network and blocked over 92 million phone calls, is now promising full-day bill credits to mobile customers for future outages that last at least 60 minutes and meet certain other criteria. A similar promise is being made to fiber customers for unplanned outages lasting at least 20 minutes, but only if the customer uses an AT&T-provided gateway.
The "AT&T Guarantee" announced today has caveats that can make it possible for a disruption to not be covered. AT&T says the promised mobile bill credits are "for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers."
The full-day bill credits do not include a prorated amount for the taxes and fees imposed on a monthly bill. The "bill credit will be calculated using the daily rate customer is charged for wireless service only (excludes taxes, fees, device payments, and any add-on services," AT&T said. If an outage lasts more than 24 hours, a customer will receive another full-day bill credit for each additional day.
An AT&T customer who switched to the company's FirstNet service for first responders got quite the shock when his bill came in at $6,223.60, instead of the roughly $260 that his four-line plan previously cost each month.
The Texas man described his experience in a now-deleted Reddit post three days ago, saying he hadn't been able to get the obviously incorrect bill reversed despite calling AT&T and going to an AT&T store in Dallas. The case drew plenty of attention and the bill was finally wiped out several days after the customer contacted the AT&T president's office.
The customer said he received the billing email on December 11. An automatic payment was scheduled for December 15, but he canceled the autopay before the money was charged. The whole mess took a week to straighten out.
AT&T and Verizon reportedly are not notifying most customers whose call records were stolen in the ongoing attack attributed to Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon. NBC News reported today that "the vast majority of people whose call records have been stolen by Chinese hackers have not been notified, according to industry sources, and there is no indication that most affected people will be notified in the near future."
US government officials said last week that major telecom companies have been unable to fully evict the Chinese state-sponsored hackers from their networks. There have been direct notifications to specific targets, such as government officials, whose calls were listened to and whose text messages were accessed. "President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, senior congressional staffers and an array of US security officials were among scores of individuals to have their calls and texts directly targeted," The Wall Street Journal wrote.
For most other victims, the data accessed apparently didn't include the contents of communications. It instead consisted of metadata like the numbers that phones called and when. These people are not receiving notifications from carriers, NBC News wrote today:
AT&T this week detailed plans to eliminate copper phone and DSL lines from its network while leaving many customers in rural areas with only wireless or satellite as an alternative.
In a presentation for analysts and investors on Tuesday, AT&T said it has a "wireless first" plan for 50 percent of its 500,000-square-mile wireline territory and a "fiber first" plan for the rest. The more sparsely populated half accounts for 10 percent of the potential customer base, and AT&T does not plan to build fiber home Internet for those users.
AT&T said it expects to be able to ditch copper because of state-level deregulation and the impending shift in power at the Federal Communications Commission, where Trump pick Brendan Carr is set to become the chairman. California is the only state out of 21 in AT&T's wireline territory that hasn't yet granted AT&T's request for deregulation of old networks.
