AT&T Heads for Mobile Clouds

10:55 AM -- AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) revealed some new services this morning that show how the operator is using the "cloud" to extend mobile services. (See SPIT Sector Outlook: IBM's Cloudy View.)

AT&T Mobile Share enables videos and photos captured on mobile devices to be shared with social-networking sites and PCs. The content is stored in a Web-based AT&T Locker, and users can access it from their cellphone or PC. The service costs $10 per month for 50 media transfers, or 35 cents per transfer on a pay-per-use basis. The service includes 250MB of storage at no charge. To browse the online media locker from their cellphones, users are charged standard mobile data rates.

The operator also has a new address book feature that synchronizes mobile contact lists to an online address book that can be accessed from a user's mobile handset or PC. (See AT&T Offers More Mobile Messaging.)

AT&T also updated its text messaging services by adding features like "reply all" and introduced some new handsets, which it calls "Quick Messaging Devices." Samsung Corp. and Pantech Co. Ltd. are each providing two new messaging devices for AT&T. (See Samsung Strive, Sunburst Hit AT&T.)

— Michelle Donegan, European Editor, Light Reading Mobile