Thursday, April 21, 2011

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Review: T-Mobile G2x (Optimus 2X)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:55 PM PDT


Short version: Perhaps the most powerful phone on the market, the G2x is certainly impressive technically, but physically it’s uninspiring, and a lack of compelling HD and gaming content compatible with Android makes its greatest assets (large screen and powerful processor) underwhelming. And where’s my Gingerbread?

Features:

  • Dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor and 512MB of RAM
  • 4″ 800×480 screen
  • 8-megapixel camera/1080p camcorder
  • 1080p content playback and HDMI out
  • Supports T-Mobile’s HSPA+ “4G” network
  • MSRP: $200 with 2-year contract and (after $50 mail-in rebate

Pros:

  • Can handle the best games and 3D apps out there
  • Snappy performance in normal tasks
  • Solid camera

Cons:

  • Large even for a 4″ screen
  • “4G” speeds don’t impress (partially T-Mobile’s fault)

Full review:

The G2x, third in the series of G-series phones from T-Mobile but the first made by LG, is probably the most powerful phone on the market right now. Its dual-core Tegra 2 processor is more powerful than many tablets out there, though of course as an Android 2.2 handset it has fewer opportunities to show this off.

But first, let’s talk about the physical aspects of the phone, since that’s the other major difference between this and, say, a Droid Incredible or something.

The G2x is really very anonymous. The front of the device is dominated by the 4″ screen, with the usual Android buttons at the bottom. The top has the HDMI port with cover flap, the on/off button, and the headphone port. Left side is empty, right side has volume. Bottom has stereo speakers and the charge port. On the back is the camera with LED flash, on a little plateau perhaps a millimeter up from the rest of the back. There’s a strip of metal embossed with Google’s logo, but the rest of the branding is very subtle. Its measurements are 4.9×2.5×0.4 inches, or 124x64x10mm.

The design of the phone is very much intended to be understated and clean, to the point where there is almost no personality visible anywhere on the phone — unlike the slightly polarizing Droid branding or the reassuring textured grey of the G2. That’s not to say there aren’t details to the design: the bezel curves ever so slightly downward at the sides, and upward at the top and bottom, and there is a bit of a lip at the four corners of the phone, on the underside, that doesn’t really serve a purpose but does help distinguish the back panel from the front.

Just pretend you don’t see the sticker on the thing, there.

And although I say there’s no personality, it’s still tasteful and clean, which is more important to some.

The G2x has a large screen, but even so, the phone feels large to me. I put it next to an HTC Inspire with a 4.3″ screen, and the G2x was still longer and felt bigger (though the screen aspect ratio has something to do with that). The amount of bezel on the top and bottom is really quite ridiculous; there’s almost three-quarters of an inch of space on the bottom and half an inch on top. The buttons and front-facing camera are swimming in empty space, and it seems wasteful to me.

Removing and replacing the back panel is extremely easy. Underneath, the battery blocks access to the SIM but not the micro SD card, so you can easily swap if necessary.

Screen

I found the screen to be nice but ultimately unimpressive. 800×480 at 4″ is plenty sharp, but it’s lacking in brightness. I regularly thought it was at medium brightness when in fact it was at full. For comparison, I’ve regularly thought the opposite of the Defy (thought it was on full when it was only on medium, that is), which really has my favorite screen on a non-iPhone handset right now. That said, if you’re not in too bright of lighting conditions, the screen is vibrant and contrasty.

The touchscreen was responsive and quick, though I felt that it was not always responsive to quick taps. I touched the screen at the same rate and with the same pressure as I’ve done with the last few phones I’ve reviewed and used, so I don’t think it’s me, though I haven’t seen the issue in other reviews. That said, most of the time (and especially with “normal” touches as opposed to the light taps used on “next” buttons and such) it tracked beautifully.

Speed

A quick note on the network speed. The G2x is, like the G2, kitted out for T-Mobile’s “4g” HSPA+ network. The G2 got around 9Mb/s down in my neighborhood, with around 3Mb/s up. The G2x reliably goes at half that rate – between 3 and 5 megabits down and around 1.5 up. Not exactly the lightning-fast advertised speeds, but they were fairly consistent and for all the usual uses it was quite fast – loading pages and games in the browser or downloading apps, that is to say.

Camera

I’m not a fan of mobile phone cameras at all, with their slow lenses and smeary artifacting, and the G2x’s is no different in most respects. The 8 megapixel sensor does not imply a better resolved image than a 5 megapixel sensor, like the one on a Defy I had around. I took the following two pictures within a minute of each other. There’s virtually no difference in terms of fine detail, and if anything the Defy better reflects the color; pictures taken with the G2x camera seemed to have a sort of bluish-green cast. The third picture is from a cheap Kodak point-and-shoot, for reference.

That said, it was much snappier to access, and browsing between pictures in the gallery is quick and easy. Unfortunately you can’t view the full-resolution picture in the built-in gallery app, pictures are just a preview.

1080p video gets more or less the same treatment. 1080p, as is often the case with small devices like this, really is just a number and has little to do with how good the video looks. In this case the video looks like any other cheap 1080p video camera.

The front-facing camera is about what you’d expect quality-wise, but instead of taking 640×480 images (like most), it takes 1280×960 (sample photo to the right, there). I couldn’t test the video-chatting ability because I don’t know anyone who uses Qik Video Chat. Nobody does, and I doubt all your friends are going to sign up, and T-Mobile is rolling out a competing service anyway. And since the experience is very much service-limited, I didn’t want to pass judgment on an aspect of the phone over which LG had very little control. When more video chatting apps are out there to make a legit comparison, we’ll include more on this topic.

Performance

The main selling point of this phone has to be its processor. Tests performed on this device have borne out that it is quite a bit faster on benchmarks than any other phone, though the sad truth is that there’s not much to show it off with. It ships with a couple games, but very few games are made with this much power in mind, and big ones like NFS Shift, while they run extremely well, don’t really look that impressive (like, say, Infinity Blade, made with iPhone 4 in mind). There will be better ones in the future (Galaxy On Fire II looks fantastic), but right now the “Tegra Zone” app is full of May, June, and beyond release dates. I can’t fault LG for being ahead of the curve, but no one should buy this phone thinking they’re tapping into a secret Android treasure trove of high-powered gaming excitement.

The most important bit for many people is actually the 1080p support and HDMI out. And it’s everything they say it is. I didn’t have any videos on my hard drive in 1080p that the device could read (WMV, MOV, and MKV files, which make up a lot of 1080p content, don’t go), but MP4 and AVIs at 720p played smoothly and looked great. And of course with a screen resolution of 800×480, 720p is indistinguishable from 1080p.

If you want to put it on a big screen, HDMI out works as advertised. Greg notes that you may have to turn off “overscan” if you’re mirroring the display. There may also be frame rate restrictions, but I was unable to test for that. The 1080p sample files played well, but of course they would. Your mileage may vary depending on bitrate.

Day-to-day use, I should say, was very snappy and responsive. I felt less hesitation and stuttering in normal apps, and webpages (including Flash stuff) loaded and moved smoothly.

Battery life is surprisingly good. Normal use of 3G-4G networks with a little light video watching or gaming will probably net you at least 12-15 hours, and easily more if you’re conscientious. After half an hour of 720p content and a 40-minute phone call today (plus about five hours of idle time), by battery is at 43%. So yes, HD stuff will kill your battery, though there’s enough juice to watch a movie.

Minor issues

I can’t be sure this isn’t an Android problem, so I’ve separated it out here, but I haven’t experienced it with other phones so it’s worth mentioning. The G2x seems a little slow to wake, in that when you press the wake button, you often will see your homescreen for a fraction of a second before the lock screen appears. This seems strange and potentially a security risk, though I couldn’t get it to activate anything during that short time. It also would only update the clock and notifications bar after a noticeable (but still only a fraction of a second) interval. It’s just a little jarring to have the world’s most powerful phone, but know it’s displaying the time from an hour ago for some reason.

There’s also no notification LED. Combine this with the slow wake mentioned above and it seems like you’re constantly turning your phone on and off to check whether you have messages, only to see your home screen or an out-of-date clock for a quarter of a second. Again, a minor issue but one that would bother me if I’d shelled out top dollar for what’s supposed to be one of the world’s most advanced handsets.

Lastly, there is, as expected, a number of carrier garbage apps on the phone. I count about a dozen.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a big phone, you should certainly at least give the G2x a look. And if you’re interested in the future of Android as a gaming platform, this is probably the best device to test on or just have fun with. And if you’re a ROM hacker looking at trying to get 3.0 on a phone or just love to get cool unsigned apps on your handset, this could be a good choice, as it’s powerful enough to handle anything out there currently and do work (like operating a VM or something) on which other phones might choke. But for the casual user who hears it’s a powerful phone with a big screen, I’d have to recommend they look into the other powerful phones with big screens out there before throwing down on this one in particular.

More information on the G2x can be found at T-Mobile.

50% Of Apple’s Revenue Now Comes From The iPhone

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:34 PM PDT

Over the last 3 months (December 26th, 2010 – March 26th, 2011), Apple pulled in a grand total of 24.6 billion dollars. Now, how much of that do you think is from the iPhone? 10%? 25%?

Get this: 50%. Yep. According to Apple’s latest earning report, an entire half of Apple’s quarterly revenue is coming in from the iPhone and iPhone-related products.

As we mentioned earlier, Apple sold 18.65 million iPhones last quarter. This works out to roughly 12.3 billion dollars in revenue — or 50% — for the iPhone division alone.

Of course, its worth mentioning that these numbers aren’t based on just iPhone hardware — it also includes “Related Products and Services”. According to a footnote in Apple’s report, this is defined as revenue from “carrier agreements, services, and Apple-branded and third-party iPhone accessories.” It does not, however, include revenue from the App Store (that’s categorized as iTunes revenue), iPod touches, or iPads.

To dive back into old data for a second, the iPhone is getting more and more important with each quarter. In fiscal Q4 2010, the iPhone accounted for roughly 33%. In Q1 2011, it was 39%. If you’re looking for a reason as to why Apple is getting increasingly bullish about protecting the iPhone, that ought to do it.

CrunchBase Information
Apple
Information provided by CrunchBase

Apple Breaks Their Own Record Once Again, Sold 18.65 Million iPhones In Q2 2011

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 01:51 PM PDT

Apple may not be able to make a white phone to save their collective life, but that hasn’t hurt the iPhone’s sales at all. For the third quarter in a row, Apple has sold more iPhones than in the quarter before.

Q4 2010? 14.1 million. Q1 2011? 16.24 million. And Q2 2011, which Apple just released their earnings for moments ago? A staggering 18.65 million. (Remember, we’re talking fiscal quarters here, not calendar quarters, which makes things a bit confusing. Apple’s fiscal quarter Q2’11 ran from December 26th, 2010 to March 26th, 2011).

That’s a monstrous 15% increase, quarter-over-quarter. That spike almost undoubtedly owes thanks to the launch of the Verizon iPhone — without it, it’s quite possible that this quarter’s iPhone sales numbers might not have been on the up and up.

CrunchBase Information
Apple
Information provided by CrunchBase

Verizon Fascinate To Get Android 2.2 Tomorrow

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 12:17 PM PDT


Just a quickie for all of our friends out there rockin’ the Verizon Fascinate (otherwise known as Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy S): you’ve got an update coming. Better yet, it’s not just some little security update — at long last, the Fascinate is getting Froyo.

Verizon will begin rolling out the update come tomorrow (4/21) morning. To get the ball rolling, just pop into the “Home” > “Menu” > “Settings” > “About phone” > “System updates” menu and tap the “Check New” button. Don’t go too crazy hitting that button at the stroke of Midnight; depending on how Verizon pushes things out, it may be a few hours before everyone has access to it.

Surprise! Your iPhone Is Tracking Your Every Move

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 11:29 AM PDT

Thanks to CSI and every action movie ever using it as a plot device, everyone knows that cell phones make you easier to track. Between cell tower triangulation and remote GPS pinging services, you’re trackable to the nth degree as soon as your shiny new smartphone slips into your pocket.

But here’s a twist: what if your phone not only kept a record of where you are, but also where you’ve been? According to research announced today, that’s exactly what the iPhone has been doing for months.

At today’s Where 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden announced that both the iPhone and 3G iPads are storing a persistent list of locations and timestamps, and have been doing so since iOS 4′s release. While that’s mysterious and somewhat spooky in and of itself, it gets a bit stranger: the “consolidated.db” file is synced (in plaintext) as part of your iPhone backup, which means that it’s chillin’ on any machine you’ve synced your iPhone with recently. This data can then be taken and mapped to show where you’ve been and where you’ve gone since the last time you cleared everything off your device.

Now, before you bust out the pitchforks: as far as anyone can tell, Apple doesn’t seem to be doing anything with this data. They don’t seem to be phoning it home or transferring it beyond your machine, so anyone without access to your backups can’t peruse through your every move. Also, the precision of your stored location seems to be incredibly varied. Unless you’ve got backups on a bunch of machines (and, more importantly, unless you’re someone whose location over the past year anyone would actually care about), there’s no immediate danger presented here.

Still, there’s plenty of reason to be irked by this; now that the information is out there, tools to sift through the data are undoubtedly on the way. Hell, the aforementioned researchers have already built one that lets you mash it up against a map. Got an angry ex trying to prove that you were seeing someone else while the divorce was still in progress? Hope she doesn’t have a backup of your iPhone. Taking it one step further into the creep-zone, this seems like something that could potentially be used as evidence in a criminal case. Just don’t ever be in the wrong place at the wrong time ever again, right?

So, are there any legit reasons for Apple to be storing this data? Sure. Maybe they’re using it to map signal strength/call quality. Maybe it’s required for some technical reason that I can’t come up with. Maybe it’s just accidental debug output from when they were testing the GPS. Whatever it is, though, it’s creepy, and Apple should definitely explain it with haste.

AT&T’s Best First Quarter Ever Saw 3.6 Million iPhones Sold

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:03 AM PDT

AT&T is having a good quarter. They’re reporting 5.5 million sold, 60 percent of those iPhones, and they hit 10.2 percent growth and 23% more new AT&T iPhone subscribers. It looks like the mass exodus to Verizon’s iPhone 4 didn’t happen.

The majority of AT&Ts phones were iPhones although Android, WinPho7, and Blackberry made up 40% of their sales. Total revenue was up from 1Q10.

10.2 Percent Wireless Revenue Growth, Record Net Adds and Smartphone Sales Highlight AT&T’s First-Quarter Results

Dallas, Texas, April 20, 2011

$0.57 diluted EPS, compared to $0.41 diluted EPS, and $0.58 per diluted share when excluding significant items, in first quarter of 2010
Consolidated revenues of $31.2 billion in the first quarter, up more than $700 million, or 2.3 percent, versus the year-earlier period
10.2 percent growth in wireless revenues, with an 8.6 percent increase in wireless service revenues
Best-ever first-quarter increase in total wireless subscribers, up 2.0 million to reach 97.5 million subscribers in service, with gains in every category
Best-ever first-quarter smartphone sales of more than 5.5 million
iPhone activations increased nearly 1 million year over year to 3.6 million, with 23 percent of subscribers new to AT&T; iPhone subscriber churn unchanged year over year
Best-ever first-quarter connected device net adds of 1.3 million
Branded computing subscribers (includes tablets, aircards and other data-only devices) up 421,000, doubling since the first quarter of 2010 to reach 3.4 million
23.9 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up almost $1 billion versus the year-earlier quarter
Postpaid subscriber ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber) up 2.4 percent to $63.39, the ninth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase
Postpaid churn stable excluding the impacts of the Alltel and Centennial integration
Third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in wireline consumer revenues, driven by AT&T U-verse® services
218,000 net gain in AT&T U-verse TV subscribers to reach 3.2 million in service, with continued high broadband and voice attach rates
26.1 percent growth in wireline consumer IP data revenues, driven by AT&T U-verse expansion
175,000 net gain in wireline broadband connections
Strategic business services revenues continue to increase, up 18.8 percent year over year, the best performance in more than two years

Note: AT&T’s first-quarter earnings conference call will be broadcast live via the Internet at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, April 20, 2011, at www.att.com/investor.relations.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today reported first-quarter results, highlighted by continued robust mobile broadband growth with record first-quarter smartphone sales and a two-fold year-over-year increase in branded computing subscribers.
“We delivered another robust mobile broadband growth quarter for a very solid start to the year,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. “We posted double-digit wireless revenue growth, and we set new first-quarter records in total net adds, connected device net adds and smartphone sales. Growth in tablets and other branded computing subscribers also continues to be strong.
“Mobile broadband networks are driving unprecedented growth and innovation, and AT&T is playing a leading role in bringing these benefits to customers,” Stephenson said. “That’s why our agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA, which we announced in March, is so important. Combined, the two companies’ spectrum and network assets will allow us to simultaneously address spectrum issues created by this increased demand and improve customers’ network experience as volumes continue to grow.”
First-Quarter Financial Results
For the quarter ended March 31, 2011, AT&T’s consolidated revenues totaled $31.2 billion, up more than $700 million, or 2.3 percent, versus the year-earlier quarter, marking the company’s fifth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year revenue increase.
Compared with results for the first quarter of 2010, operating expenses were $25.4 billion versus $24.6 billion; operating income was $5.8 billion, down from $6.0 billion; and AT&T’s operating income margin was 18.6 percent, compared to 19.6 percent.
First-quarter 2011 net income attributable to AT&T totaled $3.4 billion, or $0.57 per diluted share. These results compare with reported net income attributable to AT&T of $2.5 billion, or $0.41 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2010. Excluding 2010 significant items, earnings per share for the first quarter of 2011 was stable with earnings per share of $0.58 per diluted share in the year-ago first quarter.
First-quarter 2011 cash from operating activities totaled $7.7 billion, and capital expenditures totaled $4.2 billion. Free cash flow – cash from operating activities minus capital expenditures – totaled $3.6 billion.
Wireless Operational Highlights
Led by strong performance in mobile broadband in the first quarter, AT&T delivered continued solid growth in its wireless business, including record first-quarter subscriber growth and stable churn.
Highlights included:
Mobile Broadband Drives Solid Subscriber Gains. AT&T posted a net gain in total wireless subscribers of 2.0 million, to reach 97.5 million in service. This included gains in every customer category. First-quarter net adds reflect adoption of smartphones, increases in prepaid subscribers, strength in the reseller channel and a record first quarter for connected devices such as eReaders, security systems, fleet management systems and a host of other products. Retail net adds for the quarter include postpaid net adds of 62,000. Excluding the impacts of the Alltel and Centennial integration migrations, postpaid net adds were approximately 165,000. Prepaid net adds were 85,000. Connected device net adds were 1.3 million, and reseller net adds were 561,000.
Tablet Sales Drive Branded Computing Subscribers. AT&T had a strong quarter with branded computing subscribers, a new growth area for the company that includes tablets, aircards, MiFi devices, tethering plans and other data-only devices. AT&T added 421,000 of these devices to reach 3.4 million, twice as many as a year ago. Most of those new subscribers were tablets with 322,000 added in the quarter. More than 80 percent of those tablets were booked to the prepaid category.
Sequential Churn Stable. Churn levels were relatively stable sequentially. Total churn was 1.36 percent versus 1.30 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and 1.32 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Postpaid churn was 1.18 percent, compared to 1.07 percent in the year-ago first quarter and 1.15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Excluding the impacts of the Alltel and Centennial migrations, postpaid churn was 1.12 percent for the quarter, compared with 1.05 percent in the year-ago quarter and 1.10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Smartphone Sales Remain Strong. AT&T had another strong quarter of smartphone sales. (Smartphones are voice and data devices with an advanced operating system to better manage data and Internet access.) More than 5.5 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter, the third-highest quarter ever and an increase of more than 60 percent year over year. During the quarter, 3.6 million iPhones were activated. Approximately 65 percent of postpaid sales were smartphones.
At the end of the quarter, 46.2 percent of AT&T’s 68.1 million postpaid subscribers had smartphones, up from 34.7 percent a year earlier. The average ARPU for smartphones on AT&T’s network is 1.8 times that of the company’s other devices. More than 80 percent of smartphone subscribers are on FamilyTalk and/or business discount plans. Churn levels for these subscribers are significantly lower than for other postpaid subscribers.
Double-Digit Wireless Revenue Growth. Total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, were up 10.2 percent year over year to $15.3 billion. Wireless service revenues increased 8.6 percent, to $14.0 billion, in the first quarter.
Wireless Data Revenues Lead Growth. Wireless data revenues – driven by messaging, Internet access, access to applications and related services – increased nearly $1 billion, or 23.9 percent, from the year-earlier quarter to $5.1 billion. AT&T postpaid wireless subscribers on monthly data plans increased by 18.7 percent over the past year. Versus the year-earlier quarter, total text messages carried on the AT&T network increased by more than 25 percent to 179.8 billion, and multimedia messages increased by 54.2 percent to 3.7 billion.
Postpaid ARPU Expansion. Driven by strong data growth, postpaid subscriber ARPU increased 2.4 percent versus the year-earlier quarter to $63.39. This marked the ninth consecutive quarter AT&T has posted a year-over-year increase in postpaid ARPU. Excluding the impact of the Alltel merger, postpaid ARPU growth would have been about 3 percent year over year. Postpaid data ARPU reached $23.35, up 16.0 percent versus the year-earlier quarter.
Wireless Margins Reflect Strong Smartphone Sales. First-quarter wireless margins reflected increased operating costs associated with strong smartphone sales, high customer upgrade levels and the Alltel and Centennial merger costs, offset in part by improved operating efficiencies and further revenue growth from the company’s base of high-quality smartphone subscribers. AT&T’s first-quarter wireless operating income margin was 25.8 percent versus 30.0 percent in the year-earlier quarter, and AT&T’s wireless EBITDA service margin was 39.0 percent, compared with 44.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010. Without customer migration costs from the Alltel and Centennial mergers, service margin would have been 40.5 percent. (EBITDA service margin is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, divided by total service revenues.) First-quarter wireless operating expenses totaled $11.4 billion, up 16.8 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, and wireless operating income was $3.9 billion, down 5.3 percent year over year.
Wireline Operational Highlights
AT&T’s first-quarter wireline results were highlighted by continued growth in consumer revenues, sustained growth in revenues from strategic business services and solid cost management.
Highlights included:
Growth in Wireline Consumer Revenues Continues. Driven by strength in IP data services, revenue from residential customers totaled $5.3 billion in the first quarter, up 0.5 percent year over year, the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.
U-verse Drives Consumer Growth. AT&T U-verse TV added 218,000 subscribers to reach 3.2 million in service. In the first quarter, the AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet attach rate continued to run above 90 percent and nearly 60 percent of subscribers took AT&T U-verse Voice. More than three-fourths of AT&T U-verse TV subscribers have a triple- or quad-play option from AT&T. ARPU for U-verse triple-play customers was $168, up 14.3 percent year over year.
AT&T’s U-verse deployment now reaches 28 million living units. Companywide penetration of eligible living units is 15.3 percent, and across areas marketed to for 30 months or more, overall penetration is 23.8 percent. AT&T’s total video subscribers, which combine the company’s U-verse and bundled satellite customers, reached 5.1 million at the end of the quarter, representing 20.6 percent of households served.
Wireline Broadband Growth Remains Strong. Driven by strength in AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet service and standalone broadband, AT&T posted a 175,000 net gain in wireline broadband connections. About two-thirds of consumers have a broadband plan of 3 Mbps or higher.
IP Data Growth Transforms Consumer. Increased AT&T U-verse penetration and a significant number of subscribers on triple- or quad-play options drove 26.1 percent year-over-year growth in IP revenues from residential customers (broadband, U-verse TV and U-verse Voice). IP revenues now represent 46.9 percent of total wireline consumer revenue, up from 37.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
Growth in Revenues Per Household.Wireline revenues per household served increased 6.5 percent versus the year-earlier first quarter and were up 1.4 percent sequentially (average revenue per household is total consumer wireline revenue divided by the average monthly households in service), driven by AT&T U-verse services. This marked AT&T’s 13th consecutive quarter with year-over-year growth in wireline consumer revenues per household.
Consumer Connection Trends. In the first quarter, AT&T posted a decline in total consumer revenue connections due primarily to expected declines in traditional voice access lines, consistent with broader industry trends and somewhat offset by increases in U-verse TV, broadband and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) connections. AT&T U-verse Voice connections increased by 181,000 in the quarter and 716,000 over the past four quarters. Total consumer revenue connections at the end of the first quarter were 43.1 million, compared with 45.0 million at the end of the first quarter of 2010 and 43.4 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2010.
Strongest Growth in Strategic Business Services in More than Two Years. Revenues from new-generation capabilities that lead AT&T’s most advanced business solutions – including Ethernet, VPNs, hosting, IP conferencing and application services – grew 18.8 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, their strongest growth in more than two years, continuing AT&T’s strong trends in this category. Total business revenues were $9.3 billion, a decline of 4.5 percent versus the year-earlier quarter and down 2.0 percent sequentially, reflecting economic weakness in voice and legacy data products and the third-quarter 2010 sale of the company’s Japan assets. When normalized for the Japan sale, total business revenues declined 3.6 percent, about the same rate as normalized results for the fourth quarter of 2010 and improved from the year-ago quarter. Business service revenues, which exclude CPE, declined 4.4 percent year over year and were down slightly sequentially.
Growth in Business IP Revenues. Total business IP data revenues grew 8.5 percent versus the year-earlier first quarter, led by growth in VPN revenues. More than 70 percent of AT&T’s frame customers have made the transition to IP-based solutions, which allow them to easily add managed services such as network security, cloud services and IP conferencing on top of their infrastructures. Total business data revenue growth was 0.3 percent when compared to a year earlier.
Wireline Operating Expenses Down 2.7 Percent Year Over Year. AT&T’s first-quarter wireline operating income margin was 11.5 percent, down slightly compared to 12.0 percent in the year-earlier quarter and 13.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. Improved consumer revenue trends and execution of cost initiatives helped to partially offset declines in voice revenues and storm-related costs in the West. First-quarter total wireline revenues were $15.0 billion, down 3.2 percent versus the year-earlier quarter. First-quarter wireline operating expenses were $13.2 billion, down 2.7 percent versus the first quarter of 2010 and up 0.4 percent sequentially. Wireline operating income totaled $1.7 billion, compared to $1.9 billion in the first quarter of 2010 and $2.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet and voice services. A leader in mobile broadband, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T | DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.
Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT. Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ATT to discover more about our consumer and wireless services or at www.Facebook.com/ATTSmallBiz to discover more about our small business services.
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Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Information set forth in this news release contains financial estimates and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in AT&T’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any obligation to update or revise statements contained in this news release based on new information or otherwise. This news release may contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between the non-GAAP financial measures and the GAAP financial measures are available on the company’s website at www.att.com/investor.relations. Accompanying financial statements follow.
NOTE: EBITDA is defined as earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization. EBITDA differs from Segment Operating Income (loss), as calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), in that it excludes depreciation and amortization. EBITDA does not give effect to cash used for debt service requirements and thus does not reflect available funds for distributions, reinvestment or other discretionary uses. EBITDA is not presented as an alternative measure of operating results or cash flows from operations, as determined in accordance with GAAP. Our calculation of EBITDA, as presented, may differ from similarly titled measures reported by other companies.
NOTE: Free cash flow is defined as cash from operations minus capital expenditures. We believe this metric provides useful information to our investors because management regularly reviews free cash flow as an important indicator of how much cash is generated by normal business operations, including capital expenditures, and makes decisions based on it. Management also views it as a measure of cash available to pay debt and return cash to shareowners.
NOTE: Adjusted Operating Income and Adjusted Operating Income Margin are non-GAAP financial measures calculated by excluding from operating revenues and operating expenses significant items that are non-operational or non-recurring in nature. Management believes that these measures provide relevant and useful information to investors and other users of our financial data in evaluating the effectiveness of our operations and underlying business trends. Adjusted Operating Income and Adjusted Operating Income Margin should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with GAAP. Our calculation of Adjusted Operating Income, as presented, may differ from similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

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