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Google Fi turns 6 and gets a new unlimited plan
Google Fi, Google’s cell network, is turning six today and to celebrate, the team is launching a new pricing plan, dubbed “Simply Unlimited” starting at $60 per month for a single line (down to $30 per line for three lines or more). The new plan features unlimited calls and texts in the U.S., plus unlimited data and texting in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Image Credits: Google
You may recall that Fi’s original promise was a single, affordable pay-as-you-go plan where you would pay a fixed price per month for the basic call and texting service and then pay an extra $10 per GB of data you used per billing cycle, capped at $80 per month. In 2019, Google then turned this into what is essentially an unlimited plan, dubbed Fi Unlimited, starting at $70 per month for a single line, with discounts for additional lines.
The new “Simply Unlimited” plan is a pared-down version of the original Unlimited plan, which is now called the Unlimited Plus plan (yeah, that’s a lot of names). Now, that plan has still a lot of extra features that power users aren’t likely willing to give up for a slightly lower price. In addition to everything in the new Simply Unlimited plan, this plan still features free international calls to more than 50 countries and international data in more than 200 destinations, plus full-speed hotspot tethering and 100 GB of Google One cloud storage.
The Flexible plan is also still an option, with its base fee of $20 per month for texting and calling for a single line (down to $17 per month for three lines) and $10 per GB of data, no matter whether you use if abroad or at home — or for hotspot tethering. Google says that’s the plan to choose if you’re mostly on WiFi — as most of us are right now.
Basically, if you’re not planning to use your phone outside of North America, the new Simply Unlimited plan looks like a good deal that, depending on your use case, compares favorably with similarly priced plans from other carriers — especially if international data is important to you.
Image Credits: Google
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Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it intends to use the considerable pile of cash to help it expand globally and accelerate product development.
In July of last year, Skydio announced its $100 million Series C financing, and also debuted the X2, its first dedicated enterprise drone. The company also launched a suite of software for commercial and enterprise customers, its first departure from the consumer drone market where it had been focused prior to that raise since its founding in 2014.
Skydio’s debut drone, the R1, received a lot of accolades and praise for its autonomous capabilities. Unlike other consumer drones at the time, including from recreational drone maker DJI, the R1 could track a target and film them while avoiding obstacles without any human intervention required. Skydio then released the Skydio 2 in 2019, its second drone, cutting off more than half the price while improving on it its autonomous tracking and video capabilities.
Late last year, Skydio brought on additional senior talent to help it address enterprise and government customers, including a software development lead who had experience at Tesla and 3D printing company Carbon. Skydio also hired two Samsara executives at the same time to work on product and engineering. Samsara provides a platform for managing cloud-based fleet operations for large enterprises.
The applications of Skydio’s technology for commercial, public sector and enterprise organizations are many and varied. Already, the company works with public utilities, fire departments, construction firms and more to do work including remote inspection, emergency response, urban planning and more. Skydio’s U.S. pedigree also puts it in prime position to capitalize on the growing interest in applications from the defense sector.
a16z previously led Skydio’s Series A round. Other investors who participated in this Series D include Lines Capital, Next47, IVP and UP.Partners.
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Drone-focused construction startup TraceAir raises $3.5M
Bay Area-based construction startup TraceAir today announced a $3.5 million Series A. Led by London-based XTX Ventures, this round brings the company’s total funding up to $7 million. The raise includes existing investor Metropolis VC, along with new additions Liquid 2 Ventures, GEM Capital, GPS Ventures and Andrew Filev.
We first noted the company back in 2016, when it pitched a method for using drones to spot construction errors before they become too expense. It’s a pretty massive field that various technology companies are attempting to solve through a variety of different means, ranging from quadrupedal robots to site-scanning hard hats.
Last February, TraceAir announced a new drone management tool. “Haul Router provides the best mathematically objective hauls for each given drone scan,” the company noted at the time. “Any employee can use the tool to design a haul road and export the results to feed into grading equipment.”
The pandemic has thrown the construction industry for a loop (along with countless others). But unlike other sectors, demand still remains high in many places. TraceAir is hoping its solution will prove beneficial as many outfits seek a way to continue the process in spite of uncertainty.
“The Covid-19 pandemic created new challenges for the U.S. and worldwide construction industries, resulting in delayed projects and growing unemployment rates,” CEO Dmitry Korolev said in a release tied to the news. “Our platform allows industry leaders to manage projects more efficiently and collaborate with their teams remotely, minimizing the need for a physical presence on-site.”
TraceAir says the additional funding will go toward its sales and marketing, along with future product developments, including an unnamed product set for release this quarter.
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Original Content podcast: ‘Wireless’ shows off Quibi’s Turnstyle technology
“Wireless” is probably the best showcase so far for Quibi’s Turnstyle technology.
That’s the technology that allows the streaming video app to switch seamlessly between landscape and portrait mode depending on the orientation of your phone. With other Quibi shows, you’re essentially getting two views of the same footage — but with “Wireless” (which is executive produced by Steven Soderbergh), you’re switching between traditional cinematic footage (in landscape) and a view of the protagonist’s phone (in portrait).
In this bonus episode of the Original Content podcast, director Zach Wechter told me that he and his co-writer Jack Seidman wrote the initial script — about a college student played by Tye Sheridan who gets trapped in the snow after a car crash, with only his iPhone to save him — before they decided on the phone-centric format. But when they heard about Turnstyle, “It just felt like a match made in heaven that would allow us to facilitate this idea.”
I wondered whether that required going back and adding a bunch of phone interactions to the story, but said Wechter said, “It was quite the opposite. One thing we found in testing was when the phone plot moved really fast, it would be hard, because there are these two perspectives happening at once.”
So that actually meant “reducing some fo the intriacy of the plot happening on the phone” to ensure that viewers didn’t get lost.
And if you’re wondering which mode to focus on as you watch, Wechter has some simple advice: “Go with your gut.” He said he had a “roadmap” for when he was hoping to nudge viewers to turn their phones — like when there’s a notification sound or Sheridan focuses on his phone — “but I think the most important part of the experience is that we’re not indicating when our viewers turn, that it becomes this sort of passive-but-active viewing experience.”
Wechter described making the show — essentially a feature length film divided into episodes of 10 minutes or less — as shooting “two films that had to dance together” in just 19 days. And he made things even more challenging by insisting that all the phone/FaceTime calls and even the text messages be filmed live, rather than just recording both ends separately.
“When I think about directing and my job, really the most fundamental part of it to me is making the actorss comfortable, and I think that having a scene partner is paramount,” he said. “It was a long conversation about why we couldn’t just have them act off of a recording and shoot it separately — because it took a lot of logistical effort and resources to do it — but it really makes the scenes feel very alive and realistic.”
You can listen to the full interview in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
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Nebraska and Iowa win advanced wireless testbed grants for rural broadband
Everyone wants more bandwidth from the skies, but it takes a lot of testing to turn laboratory research projects into real-world performant infrastructure. A number of new technologies, sometimes placed under the banner of “5G” and sometimes not, is embarking on that transition and being deployed in real-world scenarios.
Those research trials are crucial for productizing these technologies, and ultimately, delivering consumers better wireless broadband options.
We’ve talked a bit about one of those testbeds called COSMOS up in northern Manhattan near Columbia University, which is pioneering 5G technologies within a dense urban environment. The same National Science Foundation-funded research group that financed that project, the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research program (PAWR), has now selected two finalists for its fourth location, which has a specific focus on rural infrastructure.
Research teams in Ames, Iowa affiliated with Iowa State University, and Lincoln, Nebraska affiliated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, each won $300,000 grants to accelerate their planning for the testbeds. Those teams will use the grants to optimize their proposals, with one expected to receive the final full grant next year.
The goal for this latest testbed is to find next-generation wireless technology stacks that can deliver cheaper and better bandwidth to rural America, areas of the country that are not well-served by traditional cable and fiber networks nor current wireless cell tower coverage.
Whoever wins will join the existing three wireless testbeds in New York City, Salt Lake City and the Research Triangle in North Carolina.
PAWR itself is a joint public-private initiative with $100 million in funding to accelerate America’s frontier wireless innovation. It’s co-led by US Ignite, an NSF-run initiative to bring smart city ideas to fruition, and Northeastern University.
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Autonomous aviation startup Xwing raises $10M to scale its software for pilotless flights
Autonomous aviation startup Xwing locked in a $10 million funding round before COVID-19 hit. Now the San Francisco-based startup is using the capital to hire talent and scale the development of its software stack as it aims for commercial operations later this year — pending FAA approvals.
The company announced Wednesday its Series A funding round, which was led by R7 Partners, with participation from early-stage VC Alven, Eniac Ventures and Thales Corporate Ventures. Xwing has already hired several key executives with that fresh injection of capital, including Terrafugia’s former co-founder and COO Anna Dietrich, and Ed Lim, a Lockheed Martin and Aurora Flight Sciences veteran who more recently led guidance navigation and control for Uber’s autonomous car division as well as Zipline’s AV delivery drone.
Xwing is different from some of the other autonomous aviation startups that have popped up in recent years. The startup isn’t building autonomous helicopters and planes. Instead, it’s focused on the software stack that will enable pilotless flight of small passenger aircraft.
Xwing is also aircraft agnostic. The company’s engineers are focused on the key functions of autonomous flight, such as sensing, reasoning and control. The software stack, which is designed to work across different kinds of aircraft, is integrated into existing aerospace systems. That strategy of retrofitting existing aircraft will speed up deployment, while maintaining safety and keeping costs in check, according to founder and CEO Marc Piette. It also is a straighter path toward regulatory approval.
“It’s more effective for us to not constrain ourselves to a given vehicle and to develop technology that is considered more of an enabler— from a marketing perspective — than going full stack, Piette said when asked if Xwing would ever try to build an autonomous aircraft from the ground up.
Since Xwing’s last funding round — $4 million in summer 2018 — the company has been developing its tech and working with the FAA to receive flight certification for pilotless aircraft. Once approved, the company will seek to commercialize pilotless flights.
The startup hasn’t named any commercial partners yet. And Piette hasn’t provided details about its commercial strategy either, although he said to expect more announcements this year.
Xwing is already working with Bell for NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS in the NAS) program, an initiative meant to mature the key remaining technologies that are needed to integrate unmanned aircraft in U.S. airspace. The program plans to hold demonstration flights this summer.
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A list of MWC coronavirus cancellations so far: Facebook, AT&T, Sprint, Intel now also staying away
Yet more big names are being added to the list of companies that are staying away from the world’s biggest mobile tradeshow, Mobile World Congress (MWC), with Facebook and Intel among the latest to cancel their attendance. Due to take place in Barcelona just under two weeks’ time, on February 24-27, the event has been hampered by the ongoing situation with the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“Out of an abundance of caution, Facebook employees won’t be attending this year’s Mobile World Congress due to the evolving public health risks related to coronavirus,” said a spokesperson for Facebook, in a message worded not unlike a number of others that have been put out by others choosing not to attend. “We will continue to collaborate with the GSMA and our partners and thank them for their efforts.”
Spanish publication El Pais is also reporting that the GSMA, the body that organizes the event, is due to meet on Friday and consider its next steps, which could include suspending the event. It also notes that major carriers Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are also considering options, although nothing has been confirmed yet. Orange has told us it still intends to participate.
We have reached out to the GSMA and it has declined to comment on the El Pais report. “We don’t comment on internal meetings,” the spokesperson said. (The GSMA would be meeting regularly regardless in the lead-up to the event.)
The annual international telco industry event typically attracts more than 100,000 delegates from around 200 countries across the conference’s four days — with every major telco and tech giant exhibiting (with the exception of Apple which prefers its own events).
But with international concern now focused on the novel coronavirus outbreak — which was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization late last month and as of today has infected over 40,000 people with more than 1,000 deaths — a growing number of companies have announced they are pulling out of attending.
Others, such as Telenor, TCL and ZTE, have cancelled press events or said they will scale back their presence though are still planning to attend. Today Chinese phone maker Xiaomi also confirmed it will attend — tweeting a statement detailing the precautions it’s taking.
Having carriers pulling out of the event is a huge deal, since they are the key “buyers” at the trade show and at the heart of the organization, the GSMA, that is behind it. And while big tech companies like Facebook are a newer, but now very regular, presence the event — which underscores how MWC has changed over the years, and how the mobile industry is trying to evolve with the times, where “tech” and “telco” are no longer distinct entities — they are nonetheless leaving a large hole in the makeup of the show by not being there.
The GSMA has announced a series of restrictions intended to reduce the risk of the coronavirus infections at the conference, including a ban on travellers coming from the province in China where the virus was first identified. It has also said it will implement temperature screening of attendees; require conference-goers self-certify they have not come into contact with an infected person; and is suggesting delegates adopt a ‘no hand shake’ policy in a bid to limit contact.
There is a lot riding on MWC going ahead. The El Pais report notes that MWC generates some 14,000 temporary jobs and generates €492 million (nearly $540 million) for the city. Per the GSMA site, more than 2,400 companies are exhibiting at MWC this year. Yesterday, a spokesperson told TechCrunch that MWC had 2,800 companies signed up to exhibit, but it’s not sharing how many are still going to be there.
See below for a list of companies that have cancelled their attendance at the conference — we’ll update with any additions as we get them.
Organizations that have cancelled their attendance at MWC 2020
ARCEP, France’s FCC (confirmed via email)
AT&T (confirmed via email)
F5 Networks (confirmed via email)
Facebook (confirmed via email)
Gigaset (confirmed via email)
KMW Communications (confirmed via email)
Radwin (confirmed via email)
Rakuten (confirmed via email)
Sprint (confirmed via email)
Viber (confirmed via email)
This article was updated with a correction to remove ‘Rakuten’ from the list of cancellations after an earlier spokesperson provided us with incorrect information. And in a further update, the CEO of Viber, owned by Rakuten, also said the messaging app would be attending after all:
“As of today Viber will have a presence at MWC, including me,” said Djamel Agaoua. “Like all companies, we are evaluating the risk to our employees and if our position changes we will keep you updated. Sorry about the confusion.”
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Sony to pull out of MWC over coronavirus outbreak
Japanese electronics firm Sony is the latest phone maker to announce it’s withdrawing from the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tradeshow, citing concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.
“As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain,” Sony wrote in a press release.
MWC is due to take place in Barcelona between February 24-27.
Sony said it will now run a press conference planned for the event via its official Xperia YouTube channel at the scheduled time of 8:30 AM (CET) on February 24.
“Sony would like to thank everyone for their understanding and ongoing support during these challenging times,” it added.
In recent days, a number of companies have announced they’re pulling out or scaling back their presence at the conference as a result of concerns about the spread of the virus, including Amazon, Ericsson, LG, NVIDIA and ZTE.
The World Health Organization dubbed the emergence and spread of the novel coronavirus a global emergency late last month.
At the time of writing, the majority of infections and deaths from the virus remain in China, where the virus was first identified in the town of Wuhan in the Hubei province.
Several Chinese tech companies, including ZTE and Xiaomi, have said they will make changes to their participation in MWC related to coronavirus concerns, such as placing limits on staff travelling from China or requiring they self isolate in the period before attending.
Yesterday the organizers of MWC, the GSMA, also announced stringent rules to try to safeguard attendees, including a ban on travellers from Hubei and a requirement that all travellers who have been in China must be able to prove they have been outside the country 14 days prior to the event.
Attendees will also be required to self-certify they have not been in contact with anyone affected, the GSMA said. Temperature screening will also be implemented at the event.
Last year the annual mobile tech conference drew almost 110,000 attendees from 198 countries.
“While further planning is underway, we will continue to monitor the situation and will adapt our plans according to developments and advice we receive. We are contending with a constantly evolving situation, that will require fast adaptability,” the GSMA also said.
Attendance at MWC has regularly broken 100,000 in recent years, but 2020’s conference seems likely to mark a break with business as usual as companies face pressure to rethink their travel priorities.
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AT&T’s CEO of Communications, John Donovan, to retire in October
John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, announced today his plans to retire effective October 1, 2019. Donovan has for the past two years led AT&T’s largest business unit, which services 100 million mobile, broadband and pay-TV customers in the U.S., as well as millions of business customers, including nearly all the Fortune 1000.
The news comes amid several big changes in that business unit itself, and more in the broader telecom industry.
For starters, AT&T had just rebranded its over-the-top streaming service DIRECTV NOW to AT&T TV NOW, and just last week rolled out a brand-new TV service, AT&T TV, in 10 test markets.
While DIRECTV NOW (aka AT&T TV NOW) is meant to compete with other over-the-top streaming services like Dish’s Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV and others, the new AT&T TV is a more conventional — though still “over-the-top” — option that can work with any broadband connection.
However, it locks in customers to two-year contracts, requires a set-top box and has packages that range from $60-$80 per month, much like a traditional TV subscription.
Elsewhere at AT&T, its WarnerMedia division is working a streaming service of its own, HBO Max, which is meant to battle more directly with premium offerings, like Disney+ or Apple TV+, for example. AT&T also operates a low-cost streaming service, Watch TV.
And the company continues to offer pay-TV offerings like DIRECTV (satellite service) and U-verse (cable).
It seems AT&T is due to consolidate these efforts at some point, and Donovan’s departure could signal some changes on that front, perhaps. Plus, as The WSJ reported, Donovan and WarnerMedia head John Stankey had a strained relationship at times. That could because HBO Max will end up competing with other AT&T offerings and services, the report suggested.
In addition to its various streaming ambitions, AT&T is also starting to roll out 5G, a move Donovan spearheaded. The company is also preparing for competition from new players, including what arises from a T-Mobile/Sprint merger, and from Dish’s plans to enter the wireless market.
Donovan had been CEO of AT&T Communications for two years, after having joined the company as CTO in 2008. Prior to his CEO role starting in July 2017, he had been promoted to AT&T’s chief strategy officer and group president — AT&T Technology and Operations.
He previously worked at Verisign, Deloitte Consulting and InCode Telecom Group.
Donovan, 58, was nearing the company’s retirement age of 60, but his departure was still unexpected, The WSJ also said.
“It’s been my honor to lead AT&T Communications during a period of unprecedented innovation and investment in new technology that is revolutionizing how people connect with their worlds,” said John Donovan, in a statement. “All that we’ve accomplished is a credit to the talented women and men of AT&T, and their passion for serving our customers. I’m looking forward to the future – spending more time with my family and watching with pride as the AT&T team continues to set the pace for the industry.”
“JD is a terrific leader and a tech visionary who helped drive AT&T’s leadership in connecting customers, from our 5G, fiber and FirstNet buildouts, to new products and platforms, to setting the global standard for software-defined networks,” added Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman and CEO. “He led the way in encouraging his team to continuously innovate and develop their skill sets for the future. We greatly appreciate his many contributions to our company’s success and his untiring dedication to serving customers and making our communities better. JD is a good friend, and I wish him and his family all the best in the years ahead.”
Disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon by way of Verizon Media Services. This does not influence our reporting.
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Trump calls for 6G cellular technology, because why the heck not?
We’ve been covering the battle for 5G between the U.S. and China for some time. The White House has made 5G technology a national security priority, and industry leaders have followed up that charge with additional investment in the fledgling technology.
What 5G exactly is though remains mostly a mystery. Is it new bandwidth? Edge computing? Decentralized cloud processing technology? Autonomous vehicles? Something else? I get pitched a dozen stories a day about the “5G revolution” and no one can tell me exactly what’s in it for me other than long presentations in hotel ballrooms about bandwidth (ironically, often without any cell reception).
So imagine my surprise this morning when Trump tweeted that U.S. companies need to work harder and faster on building out the tech behind 5G, but also in the process called for …. 6G technology.
I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on………
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2019
I want to just say that no, 6G isn’t a thing. I have only received one PR pitch for 6G in the last few months, which said: “Waveguide over copper runs at millimeter frequencies(about30 GHz to 1 THz) and is synergistic with 5G/6G wireless. A type of vectoring is applied to effective separate the many modes that can propagate within a telephone cable.” No, not a thing.
But it could be a thing. Maybe the government is secretly pioneering the next generation of the next generation of telecom technology. Or maybe, just maybe, our president, branding expert that he is, realized that if you are going to sell 5G, you might as well inflate the number to 6G and really get people’s taste buds salivating.
No comment from cleaning supplies company Seventh Generation, but if I were them, I’d be getting worried.
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