Editor’s Note: The RCR Wireless News Time Machine is a way to take advantage of our extensive history in covering the wireless space to fire up the DeLorean and take a trip back in time to re-visit some of the more interesting headlines from this week in history. Enjoy the ride!
Carriers struggle to protect privacy while helping law enforcement
News stories late last week highlighted the tightrope wireless carriers must walk as they try to help law enforcement and protect their customers’ privacy at the same time. On one hand, Sprint Nextel Corp. found itself defending its privacy-protection policies when it did not readily give the location of phone in a stolen vehicle that had a kidnapped child inside. On the other hand, the wireless industry was condemned on the CBS Evening News Thursday for making customer call records available to online data brokers-something the industry adamantly denies. … Read More
Apple ‘Mobile Me’ trademark attempts fuel wireless rumors
Apple Computer Inc. fueled speculation about its intentions in wireless this week as the company’s efforts to trademark the phrase “Mobile Me” came to light. Apple last week filed a series of applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office laying claim to “Mobile Me” to cover a variety of offerings including “telecommunication services for the dissemination of information by mobile telephone, namely the transmission of data to mobile telephones.” … Read More
Portals digging deeper into wireless
Wireless is getting Googled. And, well, Yahoo’d. The Internet giants have made numerous headlines in recent weeks as they rush to become the premier destination on the wireless Web. And they’re doing it in very different ways. Google Inc. fired the year’s opening salvo earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, announcing a deal to place a Google-branded button on handsets from Motorola Inc. for one-touch access to the mobile Internet. Motorola declined to say which phones would sport the key, but said the first handsets under the agreement are expected to ship this quarter. … Read More
Tower activity up with new funding and new player
Investors gave tower companies a thumbs up last week as plans for augmenting or expanding their facilities were greeted with a slew of new financing options. SBA Communications Corp., the nation’s fifth-largest tower company, said it obtained a new $160 million credit facility. SBA noted that the new facility replaces its prior facility, which became the mortgage loan underlying its recent $405 million mortgage-backed securities issuance. SBA said the new facility is set to mature Dec. 21, 2007, and provides more flexibility than the old one. The $160 million facility consists of a revolving loan that can be borrowed, repaid and redrawn. … Read More
‘Check this out’: Mobile game-makers try viral marketing to increase numbers
As marketing challenges and content-delivery issues continue to shackle the wireless content arena, game-makers are hoping to entice their own customers to act as sales associates. The number of U.S. mobile users who download games has actually fallen in recent months, according to figures from industry research firm MMetrics, from 6.2 million downloads last August to 5.6 million downloads last November, the last month for which statistics are available. Gamers, it seems, are tiring of drilling down through layer after layer on the carrier’s deck, often to be disappointed in what they end up downloading. … Read More
Sprint Nextel drops Convergys, moves to Amdocs for billing and customer care
Sprint Nextel Corp. said it plans to phase out its billing relationship with Convergys Corp. and has signed a preliminary agreement with Amdocs Ltd. for a single billing and customer care platform to serve all of its wireless subscribers. Plans call for Sprint Nextel to migrate subscribers off its legacy Precedent 2000 system this year and next year. Conversion to the Amdocs system is expected to begin once a definitive service agreement between Sprint Nextel and Amdocs is reached. The proposed agreement with Amdocs would cover eight years. … Read More
Handset sales to slow
The blazing-hot mobile-phone market is finally due for a cool down, and the only companies able to weather the difficulties will be those that have substantial businesses already. As the world’s phone makers coast into the first quarter, many will have to take stock of their surroundings. Analysts expect most of the top handset makers to report glowing fourth-quarter results-flush with revenues from the holiday buying rush-but predict phone sales will contract as the market matures. … Read More
IMS: It’s all that, but adoption will be restrained for some time
The very mention of Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem puts a whir in many propeller hats. The whirring is justified to a certain degree, but wireless carriers have approached investment in IMS technology with much caution. To understand their position, it’s essential to first understand just what all the IMS noise is about. The technology promises to merge the Internet with the cellular world. It uses cellular technologies to provide mobile access and Internet technologies to deliver desirable services. It’s defined as a standardized architecture for telecom operators that want to provide mobile and fixed multimedia services. … Read More
What to watch Industry dabbles in number of formats to try to entice mobile TV viewers
Crown Castle International Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. are placing huge bets on mobile TV, spending a combined $1.3 billion to build networks dedicated almost entirely to one-way wireless video. Traditional TV networks and film studios are hastily establishing divisions to produce content for “the third screen,” and carriers around the world are inking deals to push all kinds of video content to subscribers. Competing platforms are in various stages of tests in nearly a dozen countries. … Read More
Verizon WMA choice meets some criticism
Verizon Wireless made headlines at the Consumer Electronics Show when it unveiled a new full-track mobile music download service. But the carrier was busy last week defending the offering’s lack of support for MP3s. Vcast Music offers tunes that can be downloaded to a Microsoft Corp. Windows-based computer as well as directly to a handset, and includes a “side loading” feature that allows users to move songs from pre-existing PC libraries to the phone using a USB cable. The service uses Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, which automatically transcodes MP3s into Microsoft’s WMA format as they are transferred to the handset, without creating duplicate files on the PC. … Read More
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