Nokia has almost completed its purchase of Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T is set to abandon contracts altogether, and Samsung has filed a patent for a foldable phone.
1. Nokia said its takeover of Alcatel-Lucent is almost complete. Most of the outstanding shares of Alcatel-Lucent have now been purchased by Nokia, and today Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said the two companies will offer a combined portfolio by Jan. 14. Nokia paid roughly $17 billion for Alcatel-Lucent, using its own stock as currency.
Nokia said it will reopen its offer in an effort to acquire the Alcatel-Lucent shares that have not yet been tendered. After the offer is completed, Nokia intends to delist Alcatel-Lucent’s shares from the New York Stock Exchange.
2. AT&T Mobility is abandoning two-year contracts as of Jan. 8. According to internal documents obtained by Engadget, the carrier will no longer allow customers with contracts to upgrade their phones by signing new contracts and receiving a subsidized price on a smartphone or feature phone. Starting Friday, consumers who want to buy a mobile phone from AT&T Mobility will need to pay for the phone monthly through the carrier’s Next plan or pay the full price upfront.
All four nationwide carriers have been moving away from two-year contracts and subsidized pricing. T-Mobile US led the way by abandoning contracts altogether. Sprint said it planned to phase out contracts and Verizon Wireless stopped offering two-year contracts, although customers who have contracts can still renew and get subsidized devices.
3. Samsung filed a patent for a foldable smartphone with a built-in projector. The patent filing includes two drawings of two different prototype phones, one thicker than the other. Both include a hinged display that folds in the middle.
4. Ericsson and Volvo are teaming up to create self-driving connected cars. Volvo said it will leverage Ericsson’s high-bandwidth network capabilities to connect autonomous cars that can plan routes based not only on traffic patterns, but also on how long the “driver” wants to spend watching media during the drive. The car will then stream the selected media while it completes the journey.
5. Sonus said 97% of the addressable mobile device market will be supported by its latest WebRTC solution. The latest release supports Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems and runs in Amazon and Google public cloud environments. WebRTC is an open source project designed to provide developers with APIs to create real-time communications tools for Web browsers and mobile applications.
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