Another Verizon 4G LTE network outage happened yesterday and lasted upwards of 12-14 hours for some. Big Red has finally addressed the downtime this morning by sending out the Tweet that we have posted above, letting customers know that the issues have been resolved and that life should be normal again. While that’s good news, I can’t help but disagree with their “3G operated normally” comment that was also included. And I have to disagree because there were more than a few of us that were left without both 3G and 4G for all of yesterday. 3G-only phones may have continued to hum along on 3G without a hiccup, but those of us with 4G phones could not even connect to 3G during the majority of the outage. There is a time and a place to spin things, this would be a great time to be up front and honest about why we have had 3 major outages in one month on the “most reliable network” in the land.

Via:  Twitter

Time to set up “auto pay” through your Verizon Wireless account. According to our sources, Big Red will start charging you a $2 fee both over the phone and online for your monthly bill transaction unless you have your account set up to pay automatically. I know this news won’t excite most of you, but know that there are still plenty of options to get you out of having to pay this “convenience ” charge. We have all of your options listed below. This new $2 fee will allow Big Red to “continue to support these bill payment options.”  Mmmhmm.  

If you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with 4G LTE on Verizon, you should have a pretty major update available to you any day now. The update is version EL01 and includes TouchWiz for tablets along with a ton of other fixes and improvements. The document above (click to enlarge) will walk you through all of the major changes such as the mini apps tray, quick panel, and social hub widget. If stock Honeycomb was becoming a bore, this should give you some much needed spice.

The update itself is 351MB in size, so be sure you are in a strong LTE area or on WiFi before attempting to download.

More details after the break.  

Ater finding out that the bootloader of the HTC Rezound could be unlocked using HTCDev’s bootloader unlock tool, our initial reaction was to think that this was a mistake and that it would be fixed shortly. Boy was that reaction wrong, and in a good way. HTC has updated their developer site with the following comment:

All HTC Android devices launched after September 2011 are unlockable. The website will be updated accordingly to reflect this in the coming weeks. We continue to work on models launched prior to September 2011, please check back often for the status of older devices.

So not only was it not a mistake for the Rezound to be unlockable, but going forward, every single HTC device will join the party. That’s a big deal, folks. If only we knew what was on the horizon as far as HTC devices go on Verizon. Well, we sort of have an idea:  the Fireball.

But wait, didn’t Motorola blame Verizon for forcing them into locking bootloaders on the RAZR and every other device from them over the last year? Indeed they did. I wonder if we can talk HTC into teaching Motorola how to grow a pair?

Via:  HTCDev

Cheers everyone!

DROID RAZR developers have been in need of a break to really get their ROM and development community kicked off. That time may be here thanks to infamous Moto file leaker daywalker04 over at XDA who just released the 6.11.744 fastboot files.

To my knowledge, these files are similar to what we had in the SBF days of old and should act as a safety blanket of sorts in case you soft brick your RAZR. By flashing these in RSD Lite, you should be able to recover your phone for the time being.

Jump on these now before they disappear into the abyss.

Via:  XDA, DroidRzr

Cheers MistaWolfe!

Verizon announced a surprise expansion of their 4G LTE network into the majority of eastern Washington and Idaho over the holiday weekend. Up until December 22, Spokane was really the only city in the area to enjoy the upgraded speeds, but now you will find coverage all the way from Colville to Coeur d’Alene to Kellogg.

For those not familiar with the northwestern section of the U.S., I’ll just say that as someone from the region, I’m impressed at this expansion. Some of these are incredibly small towns that I would have expected to be last on the list. And for those of you currently living in smaller VZW markets without 4G, these are the signs you have got to enjoy seeing. The goal was to have LTE in every market that had 3G by the end of 2013 – I’d say we are well on our way to that.

Now if only Big Red could figure out how to keep this shiny new network up for more than a week at a time.    

Looks like Best Buy had a feeling that the Motorola DROID 4 was already supposed to have launched this month. According to their newest online Rewards Zone promo, if you upgrade your existing device to say, possibly a DROID 4 on Verizon, you would receive 5000 bonus points which equal up to reward certificates.  Unfortunately, as we all know, the DROID 4 has not been launched yet and Best Buy just made a silly little error.  Not the first, nor the last time that this will happen.

Via:  Best Buy Rewards Zone

Cheers Jonny Ray!