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Apple unveiled iPhone Handoff, a feature letting a user designate a main and a secondary iPhone that share the same phone number, with calls and Find My following whichever device is unlocked. T-Mobile is the first US carrier to support it, charging an extra $5 a month, Verizon plans to add support by year-end, and AT&T currently has no plans to offer it.
SpaceX announced an agreement to acquire a nationwide spectrum portfolio from Grain Management, covering up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, to expand Starlink into mobile service. Verizon shares fell about 7%, heading for their worst day since 2002, while T-Mobile dropped 12% and AT&T fell roughly 10%; SpaceX stock rose about 1%. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the deal is part of over $100 billion in spectrum expected to enter the market over the next two years.
Cybersecurity analysts caution that as businesses grant AI agents authority to interact with payment and vendor systems, attackers can target those agents directly through prompt injection rather than tricking human employees. Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report found third parties were involved in 48% of breaches, up 60% year over year, while the FBI's IC3 recorded about $3 billion in BEC losses in 2025.
A CNET writer asked Meta's AI agent, Muse, to help confirm she was the registered owner of her Visible phone number after repeatedly receiving calls and texts meant for a previous owner named Andrew. The assistant was unable to complete the task, running into roadblocks at every step while trying to navigate Visible's chatbot-only customer service system.
AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have formalized a joint venture, first announced in May, that will use satellites to supplement their ground networks in areas lacking mobile coverage. The venture will be overseen by a board with representatives from each carrier and has named Paul Roth as interim CEO. No launch timeline was given for when satellite connectivity will actually reach underserved areas.
Visible is giving new customers who port their number from another carrier $5 off Visible Plus or Visible Plus Pro for 60 months, using promo code 5OFF5. That brings Visible Plus to $30/month and Visible Plus Pro to $40/month, with total savings of up to $300. The offer applies only to monthly plans and runs through October 29, 2026.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have signed a formal joint venture agreement, converting the preliminary deal they announced in May into an active partnership focused on eliminating mobile coverage gaps across the US. The venture will pool spectrum resources and pursue shared technical standards, particularly around direct-to-device satellite connectivity, while each carrier continues operating independently. Wireless industry veteran Paul Roth has been named interim CEO as the venture searches for a permanent leader and board representatives from each company oversee the project.
CNET's People's Picks survey found readers rated Mint Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator, as their most satisfying carrier with an average score of 4.68 out of 5, outranking the three major network carriers. CNET senior editor Jeff Carlson attributed part of Mint's high marks to its marketing, including actor Ryan Reynolds' past involvement, alongside its affordable pricing plans starting at $15 a month.
Cameron John Wagenius, a former U.S. Army soldier known online as 'kiberphant0m,' was sentenced to 70 months in prison after pleading guilty to hacking and extorting at least 10 technology and telecommunications companies, including AT&T and Verizon, between April 2023 and December 2024. He was also ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution for stealing customer records and threatening to leak or sell the data unless victims paid ransoms.
Cameron John Wagenius, a 22-year-old Army soldier who used the alias 'Kiberphant0m,' was sentenced to nearly seven years in federal prison and ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution. He had pleaded guilty to hacking into telecom companies via exposed Snowflake cloud credentials, stealing call and text metadata from more than 100 million AT&T customers and Verizon's Push-to-Talk business, then extorting the firms not to leak the data.
Verizon has made the Razr Fold (2026), Razr Plus (2026), and the Swarovski edition Razr (2026) available nationwide, months after Motorola launched these devices. The carrier is also bundling the Moto Watch Ultra for free via bill credits when customers buy a Motorola phone or trade in an existing device, provided they add a new watch line. Notably, Verizon's prices for the Razr Fold and Swarovski Razr are higher than the unlocked versions sold directly by Motorola.
A poster on Hacker News describes over a year of calls that never register on their iPhone as missed calls, occurring across carriers, locations, wifi calling settings, and contact types. Switching from Verizon to T-Mobile did not resolve the issue, and troubleshooting steps like resetting network settings had no lasting effect. The poster speculates that carriers may be deprioritizing voice call reliability as fewer subscribers depend on traditional calling.