BROWSING: Google

It's possible Verizon Wireless has done as much for the open access/net neutrality campaign as the liberal MoveOn.org Petraeus ad did for struggling Republicans.Verizon Wireless' decision first to block text messages from pro-abortion group NARAL and then to promptly reverse itself after the incident...

A quick stroll of the show floor reveals all sorts of flashy gadgetry and eye-popping mobile applications. But the executives behind Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Xohm would rather talk about the ecosystem than about megabits per second.WiMAX is a substantial technological step forward for the...

Don Stroberg, VP of sales for Sprint Nextel Corp.'s new Xohm Business unit, sat down with RCR Wireless News to talk about how the company's WiMAX plans are shaping up. Q: How does WiMAX fit into Sprint Nextel's overall strategy? A: Generally speaking, this...

The upcoming auction of 700 MHz could give birth to an unprecedented infrastructure that could serve countless rural consumers as it provides a crucial boost to the nation's public-safety industry.Or it could be a debacle.The winner of the highly prized chunk of spectrum will...

THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY INCREASINGLY FINDS ITSELF on the defensive on policy fronts across the board, a situation with the potential to disrupt the deregulatory framework and the fundamental business model prevalent during the sector's phenomenal success the past three decades.A confluence of forces appears...

Like Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman," the mobile advertising space is just gettin' warmed up. And so is the sniping.Nokia Corp. cranked up the already-deafening buzz last week, agreeing to acquire Boston-based mobile marketing firm Enpocket for an undisclosed sum. One of...

All that cash being poured into voice-activated search is beginning to look like a good bet.A recent study from Usable Products Co. indicates speechrecognition technology finally may have become user-friendly. The New York-based market research firm tested four mobile search offerings-three text-based services and...

Welcome to our Friday feature, Week in Review. Every Friday, RCR Wireless News runs through the major events of the past week, outlining what happened and speculating on what to look for in the coming weeks, months and years. Check below for news about...

Google Inc. brought AdSense to mobile, allowing publishers with mobile-friendly Web sites to accept ads on their Web pages.AdSense places links on relevant Web pages, paying owners of the sites every time a user clicks on the link. A news site could include ads...

So this is what they mean when they talk about "the mobile search wars."Google last week in a long-awaited move took its AdWords mobile, placing paid links on search results accessed by wireless devices. The Internet behemoth told its hundreds of thousands of AdWords...

Broadcasters-having invested hundreds of millions of dollars transitioning to digital technology and now bracing for a government ruling on whether to allow Wi-Fi service in unoccupied television guardbands known as white spaces-turned up the volume of its opposition by launching an inside-the-Beltway advertising blitz...

San Francisco has formally walked away from a deal to build a Wi-Fi network throughout the city. The effort was already largely considered dead late last month when EarthLink Inc. rescinded its proposal-which included a teaming with Google Inc.-to cover the estimated $14 million...

In-Stat last week touted a new study with the observation that "Competition in mobile video could threaten mobile operators."Duh.But the fact that In-Stat's conclusion is self-evident doesn't minimize the risk mobile network operators increasingly face in the broader digital entertainment arena. Carriers are on...

Editor's Note: Welcome to our Monday feature, Analyst Angle. We've collected a group of the industry's leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Current Analysis' Avi Greengart, iGR's Iain...

LAS VEGAS-Less than two months into a broadcast mobile TV service trial, HiWire L.L.C. has wrapped the first phase of its study and is now preparing to increase its scope by 800% before month's end.T-Mobile USA Inc., which has signed on with the Aloha...

Despite the Federal Communications Commission's publicly stated desire to avoid anti-competitive behavior in the 700 MHz auction and its embrace of blind bidding as a safeguard against such activity, there are growing concerns that the combination of hefty reserve prices on key spectrum blocks,...

In a typical reaction, analyst Iain Gillott of iGR good-naturedly called last week's price cut on Apple Inc.'s iPhone the "iShaft."Of course, that was before Apple quickly offered its fanboys a $100 credit to assuage the latter's sense of betrayal.Legions had purchased the device...

Carriers in the United Kingdom are hoping to get users to PayForIt with their phones.The operators launched a standardized payment scheme designed to provide a consistent user interface regardless of carrier for mobile transactions of roughly $20 or less. Users are identified via the...

Google Inc. is hoping to patent a text-based system for mobile payments.The Internet giant filed an application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to patent "a computer-implemented method of effectuating a payment" that is initiated when a mobile shopper sends a text message...

MUNICIPAL WI-FI TOOK SOME MAJOR HITS last week. Once considered by many cities and towns to be the roadmap to offer high-speed Internet access for all, wide-spread use of the unlicensed technology is now less certain. In a week that saw Google Inc. boasting...

These appear to be dark days for municipal Wi-Fi. The oncepromising way to bring wireless broadband to the masses has hit that hard wall separating hype from reality.Chicago just added itself to a growing list of cities with second thoughts about deploying a publicly...

What a tome: 312 pages, including appendices. Why, already the number of printed copies of the Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz decision would keep Dunder-Mifflin afloat a little longer.But what would you expect? The Martin FCC-eagerly egged on by Cyren Call, Frontline Wireless, Google...

Who says you can't buy influence? Or at least attempt to.During the first six months of this year, the communications-electronics sector spent big money attempting to curry favor from elected officials on topics ranging from trade disputes to the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction.According...

Google Inc. offered a glimpse into the operations of its free, municipal Wi-Fi effort, which the company launched earlier this year in its home base of Mountain View, Calif. Google reported that the network now covers 12 square miles and counts 15,000 unique users...