AT&T smartens up cheaper phones

AT&T will unveil today a suite of mostly Web-based services that it says will make it possible for consumers to use inexpensive new cellphones to handle tasks mostly associated with higher-price smartphones.

The suite includes an address book that will store information remotely. There's a messaging service that enables users to reply to a single person or as many as 10 contacts. AT&T also will make it easy for subscribers to transfer photos and videos from their phones to a home PC, other people's phones and social-networking sites such as Facebook. The changes are part of "a slow, subtle, but tectonic shift (in wireless phones) that AT&T is driving," says analyst John Jackson of market research firm CCS Insight. "It's an experiment in creating stickiness and brand loyalty around AT&T instead of iPhone or Google. It's questionable whether it's a viable long-term strategy. But it's an appropriate thing for AT&T to try." The company hopes to drive a new category of phone that it calls the Quick Messaging Device.