BROWSING: Spotlight

SAN DIEGO – Qualcomm Inc. has paid $3 billion to developers using its BREW platform, CEO Paul Jacobs told a crowd of about 3,000 during yesterday's keynote speech at the company's first Uplinq conference. That $3 billion amounts to an average selling price of...

A couple years ago, starting your very own mobile virtual network operations company was a sizzling hot idea and everybody was trying to cash in. But now, two years and a slue of MVNO closings later, the idea has fizzled. With the shut downs...

Carriers are changing their minds about outsourcing pieces of their operations. The decision for carriers to put units of their business in others' hands is beginning to increase in popularity - not at a rapid speed, but it's being considered. Historically, the thought...

The woes besetting Motorola Inc.'s consumer handset division have been the stuff of headlines for the past year. The company has said it remains committed to creating two independently traded businesses that would send the handset division off on its own, while keeping its...

Perhaps no segment in mobile data remains as untapped as wireless e-mail.Research In Motion Ltd. continues to dominate the market for high-powered users, resulting in millions of CrackBerry addicts hunched over their flashy devices who don't mind paying a premium - or charging their...

Femtocells - sounds like a science fiction term for robotic feminine cells - but it's just another buzzword for a new technology and product that promises so much in the future, yet has delivered mostly in practical terms thus far.For the moment, the technology...

In the huge universe of wireless communications comes a world of confusion. It's common knowledge that customers have issues with their phones, service, new programs and devices, you name it. However, the bleak quality of customer service also irritates wireless subscribers. A recent J.D....

Just as FDR targeted radio listeners with his fireside chats and John Kennedy's dashing looks helped sway television viewers during the Richard Nixon debates, Barack Obama is using a cutting-edge media platform to approach voters.The Illinois senator last summer launched a new text messaging...

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Like many other forms of entertainment, watching mobile TV wastes time - at least to some. For the executives running mobile entertainment companies that routinely talk about the medium as such, there's an apparent sense of pride or ease that comes...

Nokia Corp. isn't the only player looking to offer devices that come with music.The Finnish manufacturer raised eyebrows late last year when it teamed with Universal Music Group International to unveil Comes With Music, an ambitious program that will package unlimited full-track downloads for...

America is the proverbial "melting pot," a nation of immigrants and their neighborhoods. With greater than 80% wireless penetration, everyone needs a mobile phone. Add the complexity of the shifting landscape from voice to advanced data services and you have a business proposition for...

The market for broadband services is a large space, one that's driven steady innovation, competition and various levels of service. While wireless carriers clamor to make technology roadmap choices for fourth-generation networks that will offer entirely mobile access, plenty of companies are finding success...

You know that contest where a person stands in a glass booth and tries to grab dollar bills as they fly around? That's sort of like the mobile social networking space. Except there are dozens of players. And nobody knows how much money is...

Competitive pressures are leading American companies to adopt mobility for the obvious reasons: increasing productivity, decreasing costs and distinguishing themselves among their competitors.The top three carriers in the United States - AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. - are attempting to secure...

OK, Mark Twain's "mysterious stranger" was actually Satan's nephew, and we're certainly not deriding the devilish Steve Jobs or his wonderful company - but the theme of unwanted intrusion is apt.That is, if you consider the perspective of incumbent handset vendors and all network...

Considering its 100-year-plus history, Major League Baseball's mobile efforts are pretty cutting-edge. MLB.com offers a host of ways for fans to follow the sport on their phones, from text alerts to radio broadcasts to video highlights, which debut this year. We talked with Dinn...

At the end of the day - the verbal pause du jour - a gathering of thousands of industry people bursting with innovative products, some of them handsets, will undoubtedly kick up a little dust in Las Vegas next week.Whether handset vendors are merely...

If you think you're seeing Bluetooth headset advertisements everywhere, offering a bewildering array of styles and functionality from innumerable companies, you're spot on. The growth of mobile multimedia - driven in part by a shift in emphasis by network operators' pursuit of data-related revenues...

The wireless industry relies on towers like a lifeline. All those wireless calls, messaging exchanges and data downloads and uploads rely on a steadily budding array of transmission towers. Without them, nothing happens.Bearing that in mind, it's no surprise towers are considered one of...

Anyone who has traveled abroad and decided to use their cellphone to call home or check e-mail knows how shocking the total on your subsequent wireless bill can be. Short of owning an unlocked GSM device and carrying multiple SIM cards - each serving...

In roughly 25 years, the wireless and mobile industry has undergone three generations of technological change and stands on the threshold of a fourth. Its success has made it possible for policymakers to imagine a connected world with "communication for all." In short, the...

Here's a hypothetical: What's the distinction between a smartphone, a MID, a PND, and a UMPC?Posing this type of question invites a geek fight. We who follow the smartphone space and remember the personal digital assistant (PDA) know it's a fool's errand to apply...

Mobile network infrastructure spending in North America in 2008 is likely to be down vs. 2007. We expect Wideband-CDMA network investments to accelerate as AT&T Mobility continues to expand its coverage and capacity, and as T-Mobile USA Inc. and Canadian wireless operator Rogers Wireless...

WiMAX is currently seizing and will grow into a multibillion-dollar fixed and portable wireless market, regardless of its fortunes in the mobile cellular market. 802.16e vendors may or may not capture a sizable portion of the mobile market opportunity, but that is hardly the...