February 2009

When it comes to losing your cell phone in the sea, you expect it to be buried there. You certain don’t expect it to turn up a week later inside a fish. And you most definitely don’t expect it to …

Call it the Apple App Store effect, says the ABI Research study on mobile storefronts. Despite having one of the smallest catalogs of all the development platforms — now around 15,000 app titles compared to 85,000 each for Palm and …

A nascent industry involving the likes of Google and Nokia is pinpointing the movements and behaviors of millions of cell-phone users

Verizon Wireless will begin selling the Versa by LG Electronics Co. for $200 with rebate and two-year contract on March 1.A multimedia handset with touchscreen and virtual QWERTY keypad that docks into a detachable base with an actual QWERTY keypad …

Nokia Corp. said today it would offer its mid-tier, touchscreen smartphone – the 5800 XpressMusic – in the United States for $400, with no carrier support. The news undercut Nokia’s public statements that it has approached the U.S. market with …

Yahoo Inc. tapped David Ko to replace outgoing mobile chief Marco Boerries.A nine-year Yahoo executive, Ko most recently led Yahoo’s business operations globally and previously served as managing director for the company’s mobile business in the Asia/Pacific region. He replaces …

A class-action lawsuit with potentially far-reaching legal, policy and business implications has been lodged against AT&T Mobility and RadioShack Corp. over a novel 3G netbook data plan.The litigation, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, …

Nuance Communications Inc. said it will spend $35 million to acquire Zi Corp., ending a long-lasting – and contentious – courtship.The developer of speech-recognition technology last summer was rebuffed by Zi after offering an unsolicited $40 million bid for the …

Fourth-quarter numbers from T-Mobile USA Inc. showed that the industry’s No. 3 and No. 4 players (Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA, respectively) were no match for their larger rivals during the all-important holiday shopping season.T-Mobile USA previously announced a …

<![CDATA[Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly 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.Is mobile advertising broken? Or is it just early days?The jury …

On one level, Alltel Communications L.L.C. ceased to exist after Verizon Wireless closed its $28 billion acquisition of the Little Rock, Ark., company in early January. Indeed, attention promptly turned to how some Alltel wireless assets would be integrated into …

Leap Wireless International Inc.’s growth is going according to plan, but the carrier is paying for it, literally. In its fourth-quarter results, Leap reported operating income of $3.8 million, a fraction of the $17.9 million the carrier posted for fourth …

Machine-to-machine technology represents one of a small number of bright spots in the global economic slowdown.According to a new study from market research and consulting company Harbor Research, M2M device shipments are expected to reach 430 million units by 2013 …

From boarding passes to checking in luggage, airlines are testing wireless technology in efforts to speed travelers through to their destinations.Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines are all offering mobile ticketing programs at some airports. And United Airlines …

Jaguar and Land Rover have committed to mobile buys worth a collective $1.6 million for 2009, according to AdMob, the ad network that has been tapped to run the automakers’ mobile campaigns. The luxury auto brands will split the budget …

Verizon Wireless customers can once again directly access services from mobile content retailer Myxer. The nation’s No. 1 wireless provider pulled its support of Myxer last summer, claiming the service was distributing porn and had failed to get proper licenses …

President Obama called for spectrum license fees in a record $3.9 trillion budget, released today, reviving a proposal that has failed to move in the past. But with the new Democratic administration intending to halve the projected $1.7 trillion budget …

The wireless industry’s No. 5 carrier U.S. Cellular Corp. added 20,000 customers during the fourth quarter of 2008, which was less than half the 44,000 subscribers the carrier managed to add the previous year, though an improvement over the 18,000 …

Vodafone Group plc, Europe’s largest network operator, and Microsoft Corp. have teamed up to offer the operator’s enterprise customers a unified communications and collaboration solution for mobile and fixed data.Vodafone will initially offer the combined solution in Germany and Spain …

MetroPCS Communications Inc. said it added a company record 520,000 net customers during the fourth quarter of 2008, and ended the year with 5.4 million customers on its network. MetroPCS’ Chairman, CEO and President Roger Linquist attributed the strong growth …

It is a new era for the Federal Emergency Management Administration as it streamlines communications for emergencies and its day-to-day operations.The federal agency, which was widely criticized for its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008, …

Canadians who use Twitter are fuming at Bell Canada for bringing the messaging service to mobile phones, but attaching a steep price tag to it.

Hello!And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us …

But just how effective is search? New research from Penn State University suggests that people click on both paid and organic search links much less frequently than most marketers think: searchers only clicked on paid search ads–even when they were …

Always-online Internet junkies might seem to be the most likely users to lead the charge in adopting the mobile Web, but a recent ComScore study has found that assumption is not necessarily the case. How often you are connected to …