Carrying a Sprint Evo phone used to make you feel special, in a geeky way.

It was the first true 4G wireless phones when it debuted in 2010, showcasing the Clearwire-powered WiMax network.

With a huge screen, sleek black case and powerful processor, the Evo was the baddest phone on the block. As long as the battery held out.

Now Sprint's releasing a more powerful version that I've been testing, the HTC Evo 4G LTE.

You feel special carrying this Evo, too, but for different reasons.

For one thing, it's contraband.

Imports of the new Evo were blocked this month by U.S. Customs, delaying its May 18 launch. The phones are being reviewed to see if they comply with a court ruling in a patent spat between Apple and HTC.

The Evo -- and an HTC One phone for AT&T that's also held up -- are casualties of Steve Jobs' going "thermonuclear" on Google's Android software.

I think the late Mr. Jobs is doing Sprint customers a favor by delaying the Evo's release.

The Evo's biggest selling point is that it uses fast, new 4G LTE network technology. LTE is becoming the new standard for smartphones in the U.S. and soon every major network will offer it.

Sprint plans to have LTE across its network in 2013.

The problem is, Sprint doesn't yet offer LTE coverage anywhere. It's promising coverage by "midyear" in six cities -- Dallas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, San Antonio, Kansas City -- but won't say where it's coming next.

Yet it began selling LTE phones in April.

These phones also work on Sprint's 3G network, which is being upgraded, but there's no comparison to LTE speeds. Current LTE phones also won't work with the LTE capacity-boosting service Clearwire is providing Sprint next year.

This is like selling color TVs limited to black and white content. It's infuriating if you're already used to the newer technology.

I began testing the Evo the day President Obama was in town. Downloads were so slow I wondered if the Secret Service had jammed the network.

I tried watching a high-def YouTube trailer for "The Expendables 2." It was maddeningly slow, so I tried it on the free Wi-Fi at a McDonald's. It still froze and buffered more than a dozen times.

I tried the same video on the bus ride home, over Sprint's 3G network. The sound of gunshots roared out of the Evo's "Beats" audio system so I pressed the volume button, and the phone completely froze.

After a reboot, the video "loading" icon spun for another mile. Finally it began playing as I stepped off the bus, then paused to buffer 25 seconds later.

Network aside, I found the Evo to be a nice phone with an 8 megapixel camera, good call quality and far better battery life than the 2010 Evo.

Despite a massive 4.7-inch display, the $200 Evo feels light and easy to hold.

From the front, the case is plain but handsome. The back has an odd combination of shiny and matte plastic, divided by a red aluminum kickstand. It's not as striking as the original Evo or as svelte as the HTC One series (T-Mobile's One at left).

The first Evo's battery barely made it past lunchtime. I could use the new one lightly for well over a day without recharging. Sprint claims 7.5 hours of talk time, but the battery is "embedded" and can't be replaced by users.

There are many layers of capability in the Evo, which runs the latest "Ice Cream Sandwich" version of Android.

Especially prominent is an assortment of preloaded media apps. This profusion of digital storefronts is a little confusing.

Google's "Play" store and service get a home-screen icon and appear in the corner when you scroll through multiple screens filled with apps. "Play Movies" and "Play Music" also link to Google services. "Music" opens a folder with other music apps and "Watch" launches HTC's video store.

Another app, called "Media Share," is designed to connect the phone to a Wi-Fi network and share media files. I thought it would be cool to rent a movie from HTC and play it back through my home network, but I couldn't connect the phone. This was probably a user error, but it should be easier.

The Evo also has the ballyhooed Google Wallet and NFC capability. Wallet lets you load credit-card info, which is permanently linked to your Google account. Wallet also stores retail-loyalty cards, and Google will use it to send you coupons and offers.

With near-field communications hardware, you can wave the phone near special credit-card readers at some stores to make a payment.

That may appeal to some, but to me the convenience isn't worth giving Google my credit information. It's like giving Cookie Monster keys to the Keebler factory. If Google wants that access, it should provide a free phone and wireless service in return.

Others may also be excited to have a truly next generation phone like the HTC Evo 4G LTE.

It's a fine phone, but users will be paying $80 per month to use it on a last-generation network for a significant part of their two-year contract.

Here are the phone's specs, via HTC:

Network: LTE (Band 25) and CDMA 1xRTT EVDO Rel. 0, EVDO Rev. A
Dimensions: 5.31" (L) x 2.72" (W) x 0.35" (T)
Keyboard/Form Factor: Virtual QWERTY
Weight: 4.73 ounces
Operating System: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with HTC Sense
Display: 4.7-inch 1280x720 HD with IPS technology (In Plane Switching); Capacitive touch screen
Battery: 2000 mAh
Camera: (Main): 8MP color CMOS with auto focus; (Front): 1.3MP color CMOS Front Camera; Back Side-Illuminated (BSI Sensor); HTC ImageChip
Memory: 1GB RAM, 16GB ROM, microSDHC compatible
GPS: GPS/AGPS
Connectivity: Bluetooth 3.0+, 3.5mm Stereo audio jack, Micro USB connector with MHL, NFC, WiFi: IEEE 802.11 A,B,G,N
Processor: 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon Qualcomm MSM8960

Here's a photo taken with the HTC Evo 4G LTE, of the site of Amazon.com's forthcoming office towers:

After a detour through Dallas, Philipp Humm is finally getting to reshape T-Mobile USA.

Humm reinvigorated T-Mobile's German business before parent company Deutsche Telekom sent him to Bellevue in 2010, to rev up America's fourth largest wireless company. But before Humm could make his mark here, Dallas-based AT&T moved to buy his company for $39 billion.

That left T-Mobile in limbo and hemorrhaging subscribers through much of 2011, until the merger collapsed under regulatory scrutiny in December.

Before it was over, T-Mobile took another hit from the new Apple iPhone, which launched in October -- on the networks of T-Mobile's three large competitors.

Once the dust settled, the athletic German sprung into action.

In February he announced a $4 billion upgrade to LTE network technology going online in 2013. In March he consolidated call centers, closing seven of 24 In April, the company began re-branding itself as more aggressive and tech-oriented.

May's initiative -- announced last week -- is a broad restructuring that includes flattening management and cutting slower-growth areas of the businesses. About 900 layoffs resulted, but Humm said 550 positions will be added through the year.

Combined with an effort to build up T-Mobile's business sales, the company should end up with a much larger presence in the Seattle area, Humm said in an interview last week.

Here's an edited version of the conversation.

Q: It has to be tough leading a company through the roller coaster of a failed merger, followed by restructuring. How is morale?

A: I'm very proud about the way, in particular, our management and our employees have taken the news, taken the information and also the feedback we've received, the way we handled it and the way we supported our employees.

Q: What exactly is happening?

A: What we are really doing right now is we are trying to restructure T-Mobile to be ready to invest in different growth areas.

Q: Can you clarify the layoff numbers?

A: There will be about 900 positions which will be eliminated on one side, but at the same time we're creating 550 new positions, which means that we have a net reduction of 350 positions, which I think was often misunderstood.

Q: There are also "business to business" jobs being added?

A: We are creating on top of it another 1,000 jobs, but they will all be in B2B. They will be nationwide and that's a program which will probably take between two and three years to be completed. If you add that into it, we will, at the end of the day be net positive, but we will look very differently.

Q: What areas have less growth potential now?

A: We have looked at different areas where we can improve, for example, our expense or controls or reduce numbers of layers between the chief and the customer so we are more agile as an organization. I don't want to go into specific functions.

Q: Where do you see growth?

A: The business area. We're also investing in different paths of marketing. We simply need new employees with new skills.

Q: What's changed?

A: We have not in the past really focused on the B2B segment per se. That's why we have only a market share of 5 percent in B2B. Obviously, we have different ambitions and want to significantly grow our market share.

Q: For residential customers, will T-Mobile seem different?

A: If you contrast our advertising a year ago with the current advertising, we're really evolving the brand by making our spokeswoman also evolve. We're trying to evolve from "more affordability" to being known for cutting-edge 4G and affordability.

So we want really to make sure that customers start to understand T-Mobile is a very serious tech brand, which has a very strong 4G network, which has a very strong 4G device lineup.

Q: Will affordability continue to be a hallmark of the brand?

A: Yes.

Q: Will there be less affordability -- or price increases?

A: I don't think there is a need for less affordability or changing our price positioning. We have good price positioning now. It's really adding the tech aspect to our brand and really restarting the brand.

Q: Was the restructuring planned before the AT&T deal?

A: Yes and no. Being a challenger in the market, strategically you need to have an organization that is aligned with our strategy. We would have done the restructuring independent of the AT&T merger. Probably the same as we did or a little bit more.

Q: Do you need to sell the iPhone?

A: At the end of the day the iPhone is a good and important smartphone. The question is, do we need to carry it and subsidize it or do we simply open up the network to let people bring the iPhone with them?

We have been quite successful very quietly in really offering unsubsidized rate plans. If you look at our growth ... 45 percent of our growth adds are unsubsidized rate plans. We already shifted the model at T-Mobile quite significantly.

Q: Will you add shared data plans for families, like Verizon is planning?

A: We have a little bit different belief. We have family plans out today which are where, when you add a line, you get a discount or you get tethering included in your main rate plans.

We think that the industry -- that's our opinion -- is probably doing a mistake by trying to copy a very old fashioned voice model for data and now trying to pool data.

Imagine the situation: three people in the house, one of them is a teenager. You have a family rate plan -- say, a rich plan of 5 gigabytes -- and the teenager, girl or boy, watches an HD movie. Your family rate plan is gone. You are at work trying to download data and it suddenly says sorry, game over. You can get for another 10 bucks another half a gigabit or whatever.

I don't think that is a model that really applies to the modern world, and I wouldn't want that to be a rate plan we are putting forward because it will create negative customer perception.

Q: T-Mobile made a commitment to push Windows Phone this year. How is that working out?

A: I think we have a very good relationship with Microsoft, and we discovered that, in particular, for customers who are new to smartphones, they really enjoy the simplicity of the Microsoft [user interface], so they like the design and the ease of it.

Q: Are Windows phones selling as well as you hoped?

A: We are so far quite pleased and I think Microsoft, if you talk to them, [is] quite pleased with T-Mobile.

Q: There have been reports that T-Mobile may merge with a smaller carrier or go public. Will something big happen to your company?

A: We are pretty sizable company; we are profitable and we are on the right path to growth. ... That's really our main point of view, to strengthen our own business and come back to growth.

Beyond that we will always look at opportunities to gain additional scale or additional spectrum or strengthen capital structure in the U.S. market. Those are always things we will be looking into.

Q: Are there too many wireless carriers in the U.S.?

A: Overall we are in the infrastructure business. Infrastructure business always leads to a certain consolidation as a matter of principle. Based on today's model you would expect some sort of consolidation in the years to come.

That being said, if the government throws lots and lots of spectrum into the market, the barriers of entry for new people to come into the market would be lowered and you would have new competition.

Q: Isn't the market saturated, with subscription growth cresting last quarter?

A: We will continue to move customers from nonsmartphone rate plans to rate plans, which is accretive. So data is really the big driver. That's something everybody is doing.

Q: Will T-Mobile's local stature change?

A: The region is a very dynamic region for our industry and associated industries. Just look at Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, all very big and important companies in their respective sectors and working all different forms together. The region itself will continue to be a very vibrant and important region.

Also if you look at our restructuring, the net effect of the restructuring will not lead to a decrease of positions in the Puget Sound area, but actually lead to an increase of positions in the Puget Sound area.

Following up on the stories about the Facebook stake of hedge fund manager and Seattle basketball fan Chris Hansen:

At the $38 offering price for "FB" disclosed today, the stake of Hansen's Valiant Capital is worth $1.38 billion when trading opens Friday.

Not bad for an investment of less than $500 million Valiant made in 2010.

That's up from the $1.27 billion estimate of the stake last week, when I joked about how Facebook's IPO could help Hansen in his quest to develop and arena for an NBA team.

Of course most of the profits on the deal will go to Valiant investors, but it's still a windfall for Seattle's new basketball magnate.

Comcast - the nation's biggest broadband provider - is announcing a big shift in the way it sells the service.

The company's adding tiered pricing for customers that exceed their monthly data allotment, an approach similar to that taken by wireless phone companies as they grapple with huge increases in data traffic.

For now most Comcast customers are unlikely to be affected by the change, although data caps and pricing tiers could become more critical as more high-def video is delivered via broadband.

Comcast is also increasingly delivering "on demand" video via broadband. Most of its video services are still carried by traditional cable, but a shift toward broadband delivery combined with tiered data pricing could change the billing equation in the future.

Although Comcast tried to characterize the shift as removing caps on service - since customers can pay to get more capacity, instead of face cutoff at 250 gigabytes per month - it's moving away from what's basically unlimited service toward a metered approach.

Customers are already used to that kind of pricing on wireless networks and some other broadband networks, said David Cohen, Comcast executive vice president.

"I think the answer is that in any business with a scarce resource - our network is not an unlimited and free resource - appropriate and fair pricing models absolutely should include and can include differential pricing based upon different utilizations of the network," he said, when I asked if this is conditioning Comcast customers for wireless-type billing.

To soften the blow a bit, Comcast is boosting its current 250 gig per month data cap to 300 gigs. Customers that use more than 300 gigs a month will face metered charges, along the lines of $10 for an additional 50 gigs.

Comcast is still tinkering with the final pricing approach and will be testing different options in a a few markets. It may offer a range of data caps with various rate plans, with 300 gigs as the minimum. Or it may use 300 gigs as the standard data cap across the different tiers of service it offers.

Currently Comcast customers' median usage is 8 to 10 gigabytes per month. Only a small percentage hit the 250 gig threshold, but that percentage is increasing, Cohen said.

During this testing phase, the company is dropping enforcement of data caps altogether, so start your downloads.

But don't go too crazy. The company will continue to "contact the very small number of excessive users" to see if their usage is being shared through an unsecured router or spiking because of malware, Cohen said.

Comcast won't raise prices as a result of the higher caps, Cohen said.

"We don't have any current intention to change our pricing," he said.

The pricing changes come after Comcast drew heat for a plan to exclude its Xfinity broadband video service on the Xbox from data caps that applied to competing video services. Comcast draws a distinction between services on the "public Internet" such as Hulu and controlled-access services such as Xfinity which don't count against the data caps.

In its announcement today, Comcast executive Cathy Avgiris said the company is treating other services fairly.

"Importantly, we have consistently treated all video carried over the public Internet the same whether it comes from our sites or anywhere else on the public Internet," she said in the announcement. "XfinityTV.com, nbc.com, Hulu, Netflix or YouTube, and every other Internet video site (whether our site or a third-party site) is treated, and will continue to be treated, exactly the same. That's consistent with FCC rules and consistent with what we have always done and continue to do."

Avigris - executive vice president and general manager of communications and data services - said the pricing changes are a response to the changing market and technology. She called them "more flexible data usage management approaches that benefit consumers and support innovation."

Comcast also reiterated that it started applying data caps in 2008 to ensure the overall quality of service wasn't degraded by abnormally high usage.

The 300 gigabyte per month allotment will apply to its Internet Essentials, Economy and Performance tiers. Additional caps will be provided to higher tiers such as Blast and Extreme. Additional gigs will be available in blocks.

Comcast isn't yet saying where the testing of different options will happen. Here are FAQs the company posted.

A day after announcing that it was cutting 900 jobs in a broad restructuring, T-Mobile USA today is revising the number downward.

The layoff happening now involves 900 job cuts nationally.

But today the company said it is also planning to add 550 new jobs through the rest of 2012, so the net reduction at year-end will be 350 positions.

The Puget Sound region could end up gaining. Most of the layoffs are happening outside the region, but the majority of the 550 new jobs will be created locally, where T-Mobile now employs around 4,800.

The 550 jobs won't be added at once, though. They'll be added over the remainder of the year.

A company statement released today said laid-off employees are being encouraged to apply for open positions "that suit their qualifications."

"T-Mobile previously announced its intent to restructure and optimize operations throughout the company in order to best reposition the company, given today's demanding and rapidly evolving marketplace," it said. "This week we are communicating to our employees the balance of those organizational changes to best position T-Mobile to powerfully compete and return to growth."

The results are in from the survey by Ask.com, about "the most popular wish" of Seattle-area residents.

Ask.com promised to fund the top wish chosen by an online vote, which drew thousands of responses during the promotional campaign that ran May 1 through 15 at SeattleAsks.com.

Seattleites chose "Save the Wading Pools" with 58 percent of the vote, so Ask.com will pay to re-open three Seattle wading pools that were closed as a result of budget cutbacks.

Ask.com is funding Saturday operations at the East Queen Anne, Powell Barnett and Wallingford pools through the summer season that begins the last week of June.

But that's not all. Ask.com decided to go ahead and fund the other priorities as well.

To "Minimize Stadium Traffic," Ask.com will hire a fleet of pedicabs to provide free rides after several Mariners games.

The pedicabs be available starting June 16 and during several games in early July. The pedicbs will be "ready and willing to whisk game-goers to their destination of choice, be that home, or the next bar," Ask.com said in its release. I wonder if that includes homes in Federal Way.

Ask.com is also going to "Ease the Morning Commute" and "brighten up" the morning commute after Memorial Day. It will do this by providing free Caffe Vita coffee -- in take-home travel mugs -- at a handful of park and rides on the morning of Tuesday, May 29. The free coffee will be provided at the Northgate, Tukwila, Burien, South Kirkland, Issaquah-Highlands and Kent-Des Moines park and ride sites.

Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com provides an online question-and-answer search service.

Maybe next time it can ask Seattle about funding a new basketball arena.

Here's an infographic the company prepared, showing the results:

More evidence of the new era for wireless phone companies is coming from Verizon Wireless.

A top Verizon executive said the company is ending its $30 per month unlimited 4G data plan this summer, phasing out an option it had provided to 3G customers since the company moved to tiered pricing last year.

Those customers will have to move to tiered pricing when they move to 4G LTE service.

The change was disclosed by Chief Financial Officer Francis Shammo, whose comments at a J.P. Morgan conference were reported by Fierce Wireless. A recording of his presentation is available here and a webcast is here.

Shammo said the move will make it easier for families and businesses with multiple devices, according to the report.

This tracks with earlier reports of Verizon's plans to offer family data plans this summer.

Shammo also said Verizon plans to start measuring and reporting revenue per account, rather than the traditional metric of average revenue per user.

T-Mobile USA Chief Executive Philipp Humm warned employees a few months ago that more layoffs would happen by the end of May. It's happening right on schedule.

Today, the company is informing employees of "a series of organizational changes," a spokeswoman said.

A net loss of about 900 jobs will result. But even more jobs are likely affected by the changes, which include layoffs and shifts to outsource more work.

(Update: The day after the layoff announcement, the company said hiring planned through the rest of the year will offset some of the cuts.)

These layoffs are a major blow to the largest remaining wireless company in the Seattle area after a series of mergers over the last two decades.

The industry took off after McCaw Cellular established the first national cell network in the 1980s. It was sold to AT&T in 1994, and the cluster spawned other carriers that became T-Mobile.

Even if the layoffs restore T-Mobile's footing, its future remains unclear, especially given the likelihood of further consolidation in the wireless industry.

T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, is looking at combining T-Mobile with MetroPCS or perhaps spinning it off as a public company, according to a Bloomberg report last week. T-Mobile is the nation's fourth-largest carrier and MetroPCS is the fifth.

Reducing costs through layoffs and outsourcing could better position T-Mobile for another merger attempt or improve its balance sheet for presentation to potential investors.

Industry consultant Chetan Sharma expects industry shuffling in the next 18 to 24 months as the carriers adjust to slowing growth of pre-paid subscriptions in a saturated market and challenged economy.

"My theory is the market is desperately asking for consolidation," he said.

If T-Mobile is able to cut its costs and keep its network upgrades on track, "they still have a fairly good shot at being competitive," said Issaquah-based Sharma, who is not consulting for T-Mobile.

It's unclear how many of the affected jobs are at the company's Bellevue headquarters. It employs around 4,800 people in the area. Nationwide the company employs around 36,000.

The state Employment Security Department had not yet received notification of a mass layoff at T-Mobile on Tuesday afternoon. Such notifications are required before 50 or more employees are laid off in a single location.

The layoffs are in addition to the 3,300 call center layoffs announced in March as part of the company's effort to improve profitability after customer declines while the company was in the limbo of AT&T's attempted merger last year.

The new layoffs are affecting "all departments," spokeswoman Michelle Taylerson said via e-mail.

"The restructuring was based on a thorough review of our entire organization, at all levels. The degree and nature of impact varies - but every function was reviewed," she said.

The cuts won't affect technicians in engineering, customer-service representatives in remaining call centers or "front-line" retail employees in T-Mobile-owned stores.

Details of which jobs are being outsourced isn't being provided.

"In developing the new structure, we evaluated every aspect of our business - including which activities would be best reassigned to outside business partners that are experts in their given fields," Taylerson said.

T-Mobile's business picked up last quarter, when it added 187,000 subscribers. That was a sharp reversal from the holiday season when it lost 526,000 customers.

Simultaneously, T-Mobile has been hiring about 1,000 people to pursue more business customers while spending $4 billion on its upgrade to 4G LTE network technology.

But there will still be the net reduction in employees.

"It's not going to be easy," Sharma said, "but they can survive."

The company issued the following statement:

"T-Mobile previously announced its intent to restructure and optimize operations throughout the company in order to best reposition the company, given today's demanding and rapidly evolving marketplace.

This week we are communicating to our employees a series of additional organizational changes to best position T-Mobile to powerfully compete and return to growth.

We are restructuring the organization and optimizing operations so that we can make critical decisions better and faster in response to market and customer demands. Further, by reducing our cost structure and streamlining operations, T-Mobile will be able to invest in areas where we anticipate the strongest return: modernizing our 4G network; aggressively pursuing the B2B segment; and re-launching our brand.

These changes resulted in a restructuring of key functions and departments across the company including the elimination of some positions and the outsourcing of others. While difficult choices had to be made, restructuring our organization will help us better respond to market and customer demands and bring opportunity for continued career development and growth for many of our employees. We appreciate the contributions of our affected colleagues and will provide them with assistance and support during this transition."