If you thought AT&T Mobile Insurance would bring you peace of mind if your expensive smartphone is ever lost, stolen, or damaged, think again.

The wireless carrier and its partner Asurion have nine pages of sneaky terms and conditions that give the two companies a myriad of reasons to deny insurance claims and leave you with nothing after paying your $6.99 monthly insurance premium.

The Los Angeles Times reports one customer – Marianna Yarovskaya – learned this the hard way when she purchased AT&T’s insurance to cover her new iPhone 5S she bought before taking a trip to Indonesia. Sure enough, her new phone was swiped right out of her hotel room. Yarovskaya’s disappointment only got worse when her insurance claim was denied not once, or twice, but three times.

An Asurion representative explained to Yarovskaya her insurance claim was rejected because she was outside of AT&T’s network when she completed the last steps of her online registration for AT&T’s insurance. It turned out AT&T Insurance is worthless if customers enroll while using a Wi-Fi connection or any other service provider other than AT&T’s wireless data network.

“This is crazy,” Yarovskaya said. “They are saying that if you travel, the insurance becomes worthless.”

A careful review of the nine pages of barely penetrable terms and conditions unearthed the “tricks and traps” Asurion used to walk away from Yarovskaya’s claim.

On page six, AT&T and Asurion insist that “covered property must be actively registered on the service provider’s network on the date of loss and have logged airtime prior to the date of loss.”

To ordinary people, that would suggest that Yarovskaya would be covered as soon as she purchased and activated her new AT&T iPhone and service while in a Los Angeles AT&T store. That act left her “actively registered” as an AT&T customer. Asurion also specifies their insurance coverage territory is “worldwide,” which would indicate insured phones are covered wherever they are lost, stolen, or damaged.

But then there is pesky page eight — the “definitions” page, where Asurion gets to define the meaning of various English words and phrases as it sees fit.

Asurion’s definition of “covered property” is a device “actively registered on the service provider’s network and for which airtime has been logged after enrollment.”

When the Times asked Bettie Colombo, an Asurian spokeswoman, what that meant, she explained phones are not insured until the customer performs some wireless activity on AT&T’s network after signing up for coverage.

Translation: You have to do something on your carrier’s wireless network after coverage begins for coverage to begin.

If you are roaming, traveling overseas, or you use your phone with Wi-Fi and AT&T doesn’t see the device on its network after signing up for insurance, you are not covered. The language is so broad, it could also be interpreted to mean you have to be actively registered on an AT&T cell tower at the time of loss or damage or Asurion could walk away for that reason as well.

An insurance underwriter tells Stop the Cap! the real intent of this clause is to protect Asurion from customers signing up for insurance -after- losing or damaging their phone and then immediately filing an insurance claim. As a protection measure, the insurer wants to confirm it is insuring a working phone actually possessed by the owner before activating coverage. If customers registered for insurance on other devices or networks, AT&T wouldn’t have direct, absolute confirmation the customer is insuring a working phone. But most customers are unaware of this requirement, and if a claim arrives shortly after a customer signs up for coverage, insurance adjusters tend to be extra suspicious.

AT&T is staying out of the insurance dispute and declined to comment, leaving Yarovskaya with a $6.99 premium payment and $650 in replacement costs to buy a new phone.

The Times‘ opinion about the merits of AT&T’s insurance? “Buy it at your own peril.”

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AT&T makes it look easy to sign up for device insurance, but navigating through the claims process and nine pages of terms and conditions leave a lot of room to deny your claim. (2:02)

AT&T is offering T-Mobile customers — and only T-Mobile customers — up to $450 to switch their wireless service to AT&T, but is the switch actually worth it? A close inspection of AT&T’s fine print suggests some customers might want to think twice.

According to AT&T, beginning Jan. 3, under the limited-time offer, T-Mobile customers who switch to AT&T can trade-in their current smartphone for a promotion card of up to $250, which can be used toward AT&T products and services.  Trade-in values will vary based on make, model and age of the smartphone, but many of the latest and most popular smartphones will qualify for a value of $250.  T-Mobile customers can receive an extra $200 credit per line when they transfer their wireless service to AT&T and choose an AT&T Next plan, buy a device at full retail price or activate a device they currently own. The “Next” plan offers customers a chance to upgrade to a new device every year under an installment plan that divides the retail price of the phone over 20 months.

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The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Digits’ explores the open marketing warfare between AT&T and T-Mobile. (3:34)

Although $450 sounds like an outstanding deal, some Wall Street analysts that usually panic when a company seems to be giving away the store, are still sleeping well at night.

“It’s not as great an offer as it appears on the surface,” Michael Hodel, equity analyst at Morningstar tells MarketWatch. “The fine print is critical.”

1. Not every smartphone will qualify for the $250 “promotional card.” Only the latest model smartphones showing no signs of wear and tear are going to earn full value. Customers with older feature or basic phones will not qualify for anything at all. Customers may be able to get just as much selling their old phone themselves.
2. AT&T is not offering a cash rebate. The value of the “promotional card” and the $200 ‘switch from T-Mobile’ bonus can only be spent on AT&T products and services. The promotional card will help defray the cost of buying a new smartphone from AT&T (which may not have the best price) and the $200 bonus will appear as a credit on a future AT&T bill.
3. By accepting the $200 bonus, customers give up any device subsidies, an important distinction if you want an Apple iPhone. AT&T’s device subsidy on this phone is higher than $200.
4. AT&T has tighter credit standards than T-Mobile. Customers with spotty credit may be asked to put down a deposit with AT&T before the company will take your business.

Legere

AT&T argues its offer will benefit T-Mobile customers by giving them access to the larger coverage area of AT&T’s wireless network and more widespread 4G service. But AT&T customers pay higher prices for access to that network. A T-Mobile customer is more likely to be sensitive to the price of the service — one of the strongest marketing points T-Mobile has in its favor. Most customers unhappy with T-Mobile’s less robust coverage tend to cancel service at the end of their contract (or earlier) and switch to either AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

According to an October report from MoffettNathanson Research, a typical T-Mobile family with 3-5 lines on a single account usually save around $50 a month off AT&T’s prices. That represents $600 a year in savings.

T-Mobile’s scrappy and aggressive marketing has had an impact, particularly on AT&T. Just a few years earlier AT&T tried to buyout T-Mobile in a consolidation move rejected by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. After the merger collapsed, incoming T-Mobile CEO John Legere has long forgotten whatever niceties existed between the two companies when they were trying to join forces. Legere has been on the attack against both AT&T and Verizon Wireless all year, and the effort is clearly beginning to pay off as T-Mobile adds customers.

Last year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Legere called AT&T’s network “crap” on stage. So when Legere crashed AT&T’s party at this year’s CES convention, still sporting his pink T-Mobile t-shirt, AT&T’s security guards threw him out.

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CNN calls T-Mobile’s John Legere the most dangerous man in wireless, for exposing “disgusting” AT&T and Verizon’s over 90% gross margin on their wireless services and their consumer unfriendly business practices. (2:41)

Prominent law enforcement, public safety, and emergency response organizations held a press event outside the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday, November 18th at the opening of a Commission workshop on e911 location accuracy.

Up to two-thirds of emergency calls made over a cell phone lack critical information about the caller’s location, prompting an advocacy group to call the current situation a crisis.

“If you use a cell phone, you probably think that a 9-1-1 operator can find you if you call in an emergency. Unfortunately, that assumption could be fatally flawed,” said Jamie Barnett, former Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and director of the Find Me 911 Coalition. “For two-thirds of wireless callers in some counties, the emergency call arrived without accurate information on the caller’s location, putting lives at risk when callers don’t know or can’t share their location. The FCC should take immediate action to ensure that all 9-1-1 callers can be immediately located in a crisis, whether indoors or outside, in a rural or urban setting.”

The wireless industry’s lobbying group says the problem is complicated and overblown, and the nation’s biggest cell phone companies are placing the responsibility for the problem on poorly trained 9-1-1 operators. But while the issue is debated, lives are being lost. It’s a growing problem, says the Coalition, because 70 percent of all calls to 9-1-1 now come from cellphones. High-powered smartphones with the latest technology can support thousands of apps, streaming video, help travelers find their way home, and access data at megabit speeds, but when you are in a car or building, your wireless carrier might not be able to pinpoint your exact location and share it with emergency personnel until it is too late.

Deanna Cook of Rylie, Tex is just one victim who might still be alive today if 9-1-1 operators could have tracked her precise location. Last August, Cook called 9-1-1 from her home but was too badly injured in a domestic violence incident to provide her address. Operators relied on the current system to access her location. It took just a few seconds to find the cell tower Cook was accessing to place the call. Shortly after that, Cook’s street and general location became available in about a block-wide circumference, part of what the industry calls “Phase One” data. But the operator had to wait nine minutes for Cook’s wireless provider to finally pinpoint what they believed to be her exact address, the critical “Phase Two” data that can bring help to the right door.

The call location problem is growing worse in this Pennsylvania county.

The Dallas Morning News discovered while Cook was pleading for her life on 9-1-1 tapes, responding officers didn’t arrive until 50 minutes after the call was placed and then left when no one answered the door, perhaps uncertain about the veracity of the address given to them. Cook’s body was found two days later by relatives. Her ex-husband was eventually arrested and faces murder charges.

It isn’t an isolated incident, Lt. Midge Boyle of the Dallas police told the newspaper.

Dallas’ emergency call center, like many around the country, has seen an increase in the number of calls in which 911 call takers have to spend precious time trying to get the caller’s location, and what operators do receive from cell phone providers isn’t always correct.

“It’s time-consuming,” Boyle said. “In an emergency when minutes count, it’s a challenge.”

In Delaware County, Penn., new data from the Federal Communications Commission shows despite all the wireless network improvements taking place, problems locating callers are actually getting worse.

The Coalition notes the FCC’s data shows an alarming drop in more accurate “Phase Two” data from 75 percent of all wireless calls placed during March 2011 to just 35% in September of this year.

Countywide data released by the FCC found that 489,726 of the wireless calls received since April 2011 lacked accurate “Phase Two” location information, despite FCC regulations requiring accurate location data be provided with all calls.  In most cases, the 9-1-1 call center only received basic “Phase One” data showing the location of the cell tower from which the call originated, information of little use to emergency responders given the large area covered by each tower.

California regulators named names of providers deficient in providing reliable location data in that state:

• AT&T provided Phase Two location data 20 percent of the time;
• Sprint managed to deliver accurate data 21 percent of the time;
• T-Mobile USA only managed to offer correct information 10 percent of the time;
• and Verizon Wireless scored the highest, but only to the extent it delivered Phase Two location data 37 percent of the time in California.

The Coalition wants the FCC to require more advanced and accurate location technology. A whole range of solutions exist that could pinpoint a 9-1-1 caller even within a downtown office building 70 floors high. Among them:

• Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT);
• Observed Time Difference of Arrival (O-TDOA);
• RF Pattern Matching;
• Terrestrial Beacon Transmitters;
• and Uplink Time Difference of Arrival (U-TDOA)

The CTIA – The Wireless Association said it was willing to sit down with public safety organizations to discuss the problem, but little more. Barnett hopes the FCC will act more quickly. The Coalition is hoping public support will help nudge the FCC to give the issue priority attention. The group has set up a webpage to help the public draft letters to members of Congress.

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ABC’s “Good Morning America” talked with Nathan Lee, husband of Denise Amber, who was kidnapped and murdered in 2008. Lee advocates an overhaul of the cell phone network after law enforcement failed to find Denise even after she covertly used her attacker’s cell phone to call 9-1-1 for help. “Denise should be alive today had the Local 9-1-1 system performed to every citizen’s expectation.” (1:59)

An independent cell phone provider in Idaho has found a unique niche to innovate beyond offering traditional cell phone service by launching unlimited 20Mbps home broadband Internet access over its wireless 4G LTE network.

Syringa Wireless of Pocatello has launched a pilot LTE home fixed broadband trial that comes free for the first year if customers agree to buy the necessary equipment — a $300 wireless router. The service promises up to 20Mbps service, which represents a major improvement in communities where broadband speeds consistently rank among the slowest in the nation.

The pilot trial is open to residents in Rexburg, Ammon, Blackfoot, Chubbuck, Pocatello, Rupert, Burley, and Filer — all in Idaho. The company encourages those interested to sign up for the trial before the end of November.

Another innovation from Syringa is the company’s free “Family-Friendly Internet” option for residential, church, and business customers. It filters the Internet to block adult websites and claims not to slow down Internet connections.

Syringa’s fixed wireless broadband puts the company in a stronger position for a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP), because it is able to also market traditional cell phone service for its rural customer base. Syringa still sells unlimited smartphone data plans and has a roaming agreement with a major national carrier for cell phone users traveling outside of Syringa’s home service area.

Many independent cell phone providers are struggling to survive because they are unable to sell the most popular new smartphones until they have been available at larger carriers for several months. A fixed wireless broadband service may diversify Syringa sufficiently to withstand any challenges from larger operators.

Founded in 2006, Syringa Wireless is Idaho’s only fully integrated wireless provider, offering cell phone service including data, text messaging, and shared minutes, with preset and unlimited options. Both local and national plans are available, with and without contract. The company also has custom plans for business users and offers service at local stores in southern and eastern Idaho.

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KPVI in Pocatello talks with Scott Dike, general manager of Syringa Wireless, about the company’s new fixed wireless broadband service for Idaho. (4:44)

Are you getting the mobile broadband speeds your provider advertises for its whiz-bang 4G network? How do you know which carrier really delivers?

The Federal Communications Commission is hoping you can help them find out with a free Android app to be unveiled on Thursday.

The FCC has successfully used volunteer crowdsourcing before to keep wired Internet Service Providers honest through its “TestMyISP” speed measurement project for home broadband connections. When the first results were announced, an embarrassingly bad rating for Cablevision forced the cable company to quickly beef up its broadband infrastructure to match the speeds it promised customers.

Now the FCC’s new chairman Tom Wheeler hopes a similar effort will help the federal agency understand whether the promises wireless carriers make to customers are actually being kept.

With wireless broadband gaining in prominence, the FCC wants to do a better job monitoring a service most Americans use in some form while on-the-go. If providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless are caught dramatically underperforming in coverage and speed, the agency may take that into account as part of its mission of regulatory oversight.

Consumers will also benefit from having an unbiased source that can offer regular analyses on the speed and performance of each carrier — useful information to have before being locked into a two-year contract.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are among the carriers agreeing to take part in the speed test project.

The FCC Speed Test app will initially be available for Android smartphones. There are no details about the release date of an Apple iOS version of the app, but the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Speed Test home page shows links (not yet active) for both versions of the app.