SINGAPORE: Technology solutions company, ATT Systems (Singapore), has been slapped with a hefty penalty of more than S$745,000 and a S$40,000 fine for evading taxes.

The firm, which develops electronic systems, was convicted on Friday of tax evasion for Years of Assessment 2006 and 2007.

ATT Systems had prepared and maintained false invoices amounting to more than S$735,000 for 2006, and S$206,000 for 2007.

This meant it should have paid another S$186,000 in taxes.

The firm was ordered to pay a fine of S$40,000 and penalty of S$745,391 – four times the amount of tax evaded.

Six other charges were taken into consideration.

The Comptroller of Income Tax compounded the tax offences of two directors of ATT Systems, Mr Tan Ann Jee and Mr Teo Chin Tiong, for offences committed between 1999 and 2002 and from 2004 to 2007.

They have to pay penalties.

Mr Tan has to pay S$713,898 while Mr Teo has to pay S$311,501.

The penalty and composition to be paid by ATT Systems and the two directors amounted to S$1.79 million.

- CNA/cc

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Article source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1202046/1/.html

For now, Verizon Wireless customers who move to the company’s highest-speed fourth generation (4G) network from its older network can still use the company’s unlimited wireless data plan for a flat monthly fee.

But that will change after Verizon Wireless launches a new shared data plan offering this summer, according to Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo.

“As they start to migrate they’ll have to come off unlimited and go to the shared data plan,” said Shammo who told analysts that he expects the shared plans would boost revenue for Verizon Wireless over time.

Under the new plan, customers will be able to share a monthly data allowance among different devices, unlike current offerings, where they have to sign up for a separate data plan for every device connected to the wireless operator’s network.

But because their data use will be metered under the new plans, customers monthly fees will increase as they increase their usage.

Shammo said he also expects the new offering to encourage customers to connect more of their devices to its network. As a result, he expects them to have to sign up for higher-tier data services that come with higher fees.

“We’re fairly confident we’ll start to see people uptick in the tiers, which is where we’ll see the revenue accretion.” Shammo said in a webcast of an investor conference.

The company declined to comment on when exactly it expects the policy changes to take place.

Once the shared plans are available, Shammo said he would change how he reports wireless revenue. Instead of reporting average revenue per user, Shammo said the company would start reporting average revenue per account.

One area where carriers like Verizon have been missing out is tablet computers as consumers have been hesitant to pay the extra cost of connecting their tablet to the cellular network. But Shammo said this may change with shared data plans.

Another sticking point is that operators like Verizon do not subsidize tablet computers. Shammo said this would not change any time soon.

“We’re holding pretty strong with the model of no subsidies on these devices,” the executive said.

The high price of devices such as the Apple Inc iPhone have hurt operator margins as Verizon and its rivals pay hefty subsidies for the device so it can offer the phones at a discount to customers who sign a two-year contract.

But Shammo said he is looking closely at moves by European operators to back off on subsidizing smartphones.

“I think the industry is going to look hard at these types of models going forward,” he said.

Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Bernard Orr)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Article source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47452523/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/t/verizon-wireless-scrap-unlimited-plans-g-users/

The communications company said it has been “evaluating its data pricing structure for some time,” in an official statement posted on its website Thursday.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said users with unlimited data would have to sacrifice their plans before upgrading to the company’s 4G network, which upset many customers on the Web on Wednesday.

“A lot of our 3G base is unlimited. As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan,” Shammo said Wednesday at the the JPMorgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference. “And that is beneficial for us for many reasons, obviously.”

In its statement, Verizon did not reiterate Shammo’s statements, but it also did not definitely say that existing unlimited-data plans could go away.

“We will share specific details of the plans and any related policy changes well in advance of their introduction, so customers will have time to evaluate their choices and make the best decisions for their wireless service,” the statement read.

Verizon became the second network to discontinue unlimited data plans last summer, following in ATT’s footsteps. T-Mobile has unlimited data but slows down users after 2 GBs of usage, making Sprint the only network with true unlimited data plans.

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Article source: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-verizon-unlimited-data-20120517,0,183977.story

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(John Spink, jspink@ajc.com)

(Updated 3:31 p.m.)

Verizon scrambled this week to clarify a top official’s suggestion that a new data plan option would lead to phasing out unlimited data plans that were grandfathered in 2010.

Sometime this year, Verizon will allow customers to add multiple smartphones and tablets to a “shared data plan,” and on an LTE network that allows faster video streaming and media downloads.

Verizon expects the combination of  shared plan and  faster network will lure customers into committing to more expensive data packages.

There were reports that Verizon would be dropping the unlimited plans when the shared data plans make their debut based on comments by Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo.

At an investor conference this week, Shammo was quoted as saying,“A lot of our 3G base is unlimited. As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan.”

Instead, Verizon customers who currently have a grandfathered $30-a-month unlimited data plan but want to upgrade to a shared plan will be able to do so without losing the unlimited feature – if you pay full price for upgraded devices, like the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx.

If you buy a device at a discount when renewing your two-year contract, however, you’ll lose the unlimited feature.

As PC World surmises:

Truth be told … chances are most of you will end up surrendering your unlimited plans the next time you pick up a new Verizon smartphone. Unless you have at least $400 handy to spend on a new phone, that is.

ATT, which also grandfathered in unlimited data plans, also is expected to introduce a shared plan sometime this year.

Article source: http://blogs.ajc.com/business-beat/2012/05/18/verizon-dont-worry-about-unlimited-plans/?cxntfid=blogs_business_beat

Now the question is – what is click fraud and who is performing such kind of malicious activities? Well, the answer is – click fraud is an online marketing scam, where malicious programmers, your competitors or advertisement publishers generate fake clicks on your advertisement and for that you’ve to pay lots of money to publishers.

Due to global economic improvements, online marketers spend lots of money on their advertisement purpose. A recent report says – $29 billion already spend for the online advertisement purpose in the United States in the year 2010. Now the scenario is – the amount is growing nearly 50% of the entire amount for PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertisements.

Being a small business owner, you’ve launched your website and start advertisements with PPC advertisement. However, you’ve launched the PPC campaign for your website, and surprisingly, the cost of your PPC advertisement increasing magically? What you can do next?

Usually, the contextual advertisement networks like – Google AdWords and Yahoo! Also have their internal click fraud detection system to protect their customers, but they also keep 2% of the total CTR as a fraud click! But if you have high competition keyword and spend lots of money on it, then 2% really make sense! You must prevent them and save your hard earned money!Every contextual advertisement network like Google AdWords and Yahoo have their own click fraud detection system, still its take place. Surprisingly, the advertisement publishers like – Google AdWords also count 2% of fraud click on their CRT ratio! What happen if you’re going to promote your business with high competition keyword with high payout? 2% really make sense at that point! That is why, it is very much important that, you must take the countermeasures.

Eventually, being a small business owner, it is your duty to know the basics of click fraud are related countermeasures to protect your business from competitors and malicious programmers and publishers. Hopefully, the best way to shape up the entire process is – analyze your current CTR and then compare the conversion with it. The next step is to identify the fraudulent location and restrict them to do so.

If you’re a beginner, then you must take help from SEO professionals, they will guide you to protect your advertisement funds, the best way to start the process is – hire an SEO professional or an SEO firm who can take care of it. They analyze the CTR and conversion ration and identify the malicious locations and block them.First of all, if you’re a beginner, then you must control the damage quickly. The first step of your damage control is – Hire an SEO professional or an SEO firm to identify the problem areas and protect your campaign from them. Usually, they analyze the CTR (Click Through Rates) and the conversion ration and identify the problem areas – from where the fake click generates.

Finally, if you’re an experienced Webmaster, then Click fraud you can take help from several online marketing analysis tools to prevent click spamming. There are several online tools available over the Internet. But remember, they aren’t free and those services are paid service; that means you’ve to pay monthly subscription fees or a single time fee to use their services.

ATT, U.S. Cellular, Cox
Communications, Peoples Telephone Cooperative, T-Mobile USA and Cricket
Communications all filed various applications with the FCC on Tuesday to sell
or exchange spectrum licenses.  

ATT is buying eight 700 MHz lower B
block licenses off Cox in areas of Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and
Virginia.  

ATT is also buying four lower 700
MHz C block licenses in Arkansas and Texas from Peoples Telephone Cooperative,
which launched LTE in Texas in February through a partnership with the
NetAmerica Alliance.  

If the FCC approves the sale, the two
deals would give ATT up to 55 MHz of spectrum below 1 GHz in several
markets covered by the transaction.  

The documents posted by the FCC did not
specify what the licenses would be used for, but ATT will presumably put
them to use in its LTE network, which uses lower B block and lower C block
spectrum in the 700 MHz band.  

U.S. Cellular is buying four lower 700
MHz B block licenses from Cox spanning, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and
Oklahoma. The licenses could improve the regional operator’s constrained
spectrum position for its LTE network, giving it an estimated total of 61 MHz
of spectrum below 1 GHz in 29 counties, and 49 MHz below 1 GHz in an additional
25 counties. 

Cox, which has long abandoned plans for
its own wireless service, sold its AWS spectrum to Verizon Wireless last year.
The transaction is still being reviewed by the FCC.

T-Mobile is swapping PCS and AWS
spectrum with Cricket and Savary Island. Post-transaction, T-Mobile would hold
80 MHz of spectrum across 55 of the markets covered by the sale and Cricket
would hold up to 35 MHz in 18 markets covered by the sale.

The licenses could augment T-Mobile’s
LTE network, which is being deployed in the AWS band.  

The FCC is giving opponents to the four
transactions until May 29 to file petitions to deny. Responses to those petitions
must be filed by June 8, with the final round of comments due June 15. 

Article source: http://wirelessweek.com/News/2012/05/carriers-ATT-TMo-Among-New-Spectrum-Swaps

SINGAPORE: Technology solutions company, ATT Systems (Singapore), has been slapped with a hefty penalty of more than S$745,000 and a S$40,000 fine for evading taxes.

The firm, which develops electronic systems, was convicted on Friday of tax evasion for Years of Assessment 2006 and 2007.

ATT Systems had prepared and maintained false invoices amounting to more than S$735,000 for 2006, and S$206,000 for 2007.

This meant it should have paid another S$186,000 in taxes.

The firm was ordered to pay a fine of S$40,000 and penalty of S$745,391 – four times the amount of tax evaded.

Six other charges were taken into consideration.

The Comptroller of Income Tax compounded the tax offences of two directors of ATT Systems, Mr Tan Ann Jee and Mr Teo Chin Tiong, for offences committed between 1999 and 2002 and from 2004 to 2007.

They have to pay penalties.

Mr Tan has to pay S$713,898 while Mr Teo has to pay S$311,501.

The penalty and composition to be paid by ATT Systems and the two directors amounted to S$1.79 million.

- CNA/cc

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Article source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1202046/1/.html

“This is going after some FiOS customers, but this is really meant for the launch across the United States to the Redbox population and their 30 million customers,” said Verizon chief financial officer Fran Shammo Thursday morning, speaking in Boston at the 40th annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference.

Also read: A new ‘stream team’: Verizon and Redbox take on Netflix

Shammo said Verizon’s impetus for the joint venture was not so much to transition video content licensed for the fiber-optic-fueled FiOS’ roughly 4.4 million subscribers, a la TV Everywhere, “but to expand our capability outside FiOS’ footprint.”

As for the Redbox footprint, it’s actually much bigger than 30 million. With Coinstar conducting a separate financially oriented event Thursday, “analyst’s day,” its Redbox unit tallied nearly 39 million customers at the end of the first quarter.

It’s about to take over the 10,000 Blockbuster Express kiosk locations it acquired in February. And the company has plans to expand into Cananda, the third biggest disc-rental market in the world.

As for the streaming venture, Shammo said it will showcase Verizon’s new proprietary digital distribution platform, Verizon digital Media Services (VDSM), which he believes has advantages over the content delivery networks utilized by Netflix and Hulu.

“Utilizing that backbone, we’re able to deliver content at a much cheaper rate than people out there today,” Shammo said.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Article source: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/gigaom/articles/2012_05_17_verizons_redbox_service_more_netflix_than_tv_everywhere.html

RELATED: ATT ups “unlimited” 3G throttling cap to 3GB

MORE ON DATA CAPS: Comcast to ditch flat 250GB data cap for tiered service approach

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo this week announced that it would not be grandfathering customers with unlimited data contracts into its new LTE services and would instead be pushing users to utilize shared data plans that would give them capped access to Verizon’s LTE network on multiple devices.

Shortly after Shammo described Verizon’s plans, Sprint posted a short notice on its community page touting the fact that it’s currently the only major U.S. wireless carrier to offer unlimited data for smartphones. It also pointed out the monthly uncertainty that tiered data plans can create since users can be slapped with overage fees if they go over their monthly allowance.

“Why would you want to risk a surprise on your monthly bill from data overage charges like you might get with tiered data plans from ATT or Verizon?” the company asked. “And do you really want to risk limiting your data usage to avoid throttling, like you might with ATT, Verizon or T-Mobile?”

Sprint has long struggled to play catch-up with ATT and Verizon after a going through a brutal period between 2007 and 2010 when it lost more than 5 million wireless subscribers. The carrier has also taken heavy losses for its initial subsidies of Apple‘s iPhone, which the carrier projects won’t net the company a profit until 2015. But with so much attention being paid to Verizon and ATT’s data caps in recent weeks, could Sprint’s unlimited data options finally give the carrier a much-needed boost?

Gartner analyst Hughes De La Vergne, for one, is skeptical that Sprint’s strategy will provide much more than a limited jolt since most wireless subscribers don’t use enough data to exceed the caps set out by the rival carriers. He does think that we could see a small exodus of heavy data consumers to Sprint, although he warns that these heavy users could wind up being more trouble for the carrier than they’re worth.

“In the longer term they need to be careful about watching their capacity issues,” he says. “But this gives them a short-term strategy where they can offer unlimited data plans to cover up for other weaknesses.”

One such weakness is the fact that Sprint still doesn’t have its LTE network up and running, despite the fact that it has started to sell LTE phones. This means that many users who buy a new Evo 4G LTE, for instance, will be at least initially stuck on Sprint’s 3G EV-DO Rev. A network, which could potentially disappoint heavy data users used to faster speeds on rivals’ HSPA+ and LTE networks. Users could still buy a WiMAX-based handset to get a faster data connection from Sprint, but it’s unknown how desirable those handsets will be since Sprint has announced that it will be shifting its focus away from WiMAX to concentrate on deploying LTE.

Even so, having unlimited data plans is something that Sprint can hang its hat on. And if Verizon and ATT customers find themselves unhappy with the shared plans their carriers are trying out this year, you can expect Sprint to talk about it a whole lot more.

Brad Reed covers both Google and the wireless industry for Network World. Be sure to check out his blog, Google Reed-er, and follow him on Twitter at @bwreednww.

Read more about anti-malware in Network World’s Anti-malware section.

Article source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227265/With_Verizon_s_data_caps_Sprint_touts_unlimited_option?source=rss_latest_content

The No. 1 U.S. mobile provider said it will eliminate unlimited data plans for all customers who upgrade their cellphone at a discounted rate, potentially driving more business to its smaller rival Sprint Nextel .

Only customers who pay full price for their cellphones will be able to keep unlimited data service plans for a flat monthly fee of $30 a month.

Spokeswoman Brenda Raney explained the new policy a day after a top company told an investor conference that customers moving to Verizon’s high-speed network would have to give up their unlimited data plans.

To convince customers to sign a 2-year contract, Verizon typically shoulders some of the cost of their smartphone in the form of a subsidy it pays to the handset vendor. Today customers who want to keep their unlimited data plan can still get the handset discount.

But when the company kicks off a new shared data plan this summer, any customers upgrading to a discounted handset will have to change from an unlimited plan to a shared data plan whose fees increase with data usage.

This will affect customers on both Verizon’s older third generation network and those on its fastest fourth generation service, according to Raney.

Customers will be able to keep their unlimited plan as long as they stick with the same smartphone. But when that phone gets too old, the only customers who will be able to keep their unlimited plan are those who pay the full retail handset price.

This would mean a price increase of several hundreds of dollars for high end smartphones.

For example, the full price of the cheapest Apple Inc iPhone 4G is $650, compared with the $200 price for customers who take the discount. The full price for the Motorola Mobility Droid 4 phone is $550 versus $200 for customers who take the discount.

The shared data plans will allow customers to sign up for a single plan covering more than one gadget, including smartphones and tablet computers.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Vodafone Group Plc , has declined to provide any additional details about its shared data plans.

Under today’s pricing Verizon Wireless customers without unlimited plans pay $30 a month for 2 gigabytes of data, $50 for 5 gigabytes and $80 for 10 gigabytes. If they use more than their allowance they are charged at higher rate.

Smaller rival ATT Inc said it also wants to offer a shared data plan. No. 3 U.S. mobile provider Sprint still offers unlimited data plans.

Analysts have said that wireless operators needed to introduce shared plans if they are to convince consumers to connect devices like tablets to the cellular network.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Richard Chang)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Article source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47468708