Wrestling franchise Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling signed an exclusive mobile content deal with New Motion Inc., an agreement that includes multimedia integration with Spike TV's TNA iMPACT pay-per-view and live events.The deal includes exclusive North American rights for New Motion to develop and...
Mobifusion, a developer, publisher and distributor of mobile applications, has expanded its reach into reference content for mobile devices and smartphones with its now completed acquisition of Town Compass. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Mobifusion has now combined all of Town Compass' mobile...
ST. LOUIS-Alltel Corp. announced extended its content-billing deal with Amdocs Inc.Terms of the multi-year contract were not disclosed. Amdocs' Qpass Digital Commerce platform allows Alltel subscribers to browse and purchase content such as ringtones, messaging and games. Amdocs purchased Qpass last year for $250...
T-Mobile USA Inc. offered data this week purporting to demonstrate the consumer appeal of the Research In Motion Ltd. BlackBerry Pearl. The tidbits suggest that the Pearl-designed to appeal to consumers, yet equipped for enterprise use through IT-based controls over its features-is luring consumers...
Editor's Note: Welcome 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 Strategy Analytics' Chris Ambrosio, Ovum's Roger Entner...
Verizon Wireless plans to join its compatriots in raising the price of per-message texting, bumping the rate for sending and receiving messages from 10 cents apiece to 15 cents for postpaid subscribers.Sprint Nextel Corp. made similar changes to its messaging rates last year, followed...
Amp'd Mobile Inc. continues to tout its success in the mobile virtual network operator space, gaining more than 70,000 customers in the fourth quarter to end 2006 with more than 100,000 customers. The company is one of the few MVNOs to release details of...
As a self-proclaimed impartial observer of the wireless industry-I criticize all companies equally-I have to say I have been getting little pleasure out of Sprint Nextel's ongoing struggles to integrate the former Nextel Communication's rogue customers and network technology into its more mainstream CDMA...
And Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin thought he had only Democrats like House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) to worry about. Last week, it was Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) who gave the GOP-led FCC an earful at a time when the...
What did the RCR Wireless News staff spend the week hedgehogging about? The iPhone, MediaFLO TV and TVs in general Evidently the only thing that can distract intrepid RCR Wireless News journalists from the latest and greatest cellphones are 108-inch LCD TVs. Both Mike...
Internet behemoths and pure-play startups are hastily inking deals and positioning themselves for a long, hard slog on the mobile search battlefield.Yahoo Inc. continued its aggressive move into wireless last week, using the Consumer Electronics Show to tout a host of new partnerships for...
Full-track, over-the-air downloads have yet to gain any serious traction, and ringtones are so 2006. But when it comes to mobile music applications, U.S. carriers increasingly are looking to ringback tones to boost data revenues.Ringback tones-music clips that a caller hears instead of a...
Mobile virtual network operator XE Mobile has worked out a distribution deal with Office Depot stores, aiming to land college-age customers as they shop for school supplies. The company also said it is introducing the first-ever Sony Ericsson Walkman phone for the pay-as-you-go market....
Sprint Nextel service to track school busesA Global Positioning System service offered by Sprint Nextel Corp. will allow school districts to track the locations of their school bus fleets. The service will also show administrators which pupils are aboard the buses and the stops...
Inmarsat Global Ltd. is fighting a request by New ICO Satellite Services G.P. for another deadline extension on its planned launch of a 2 GHz mobile satellite service spacecraft."Inmarsat fully supports the development and deployment of innovative new technologies, as demonstrated by the many...
Warner Music Group struck its second mobile deal in as many days, announcing an agreement to distribute videos through MobiTV Inc. The music company said it will offer made-for-mobile videos including artist-created clips from Linkin Park and other Warner acts. The videos will be...
There used to be essentially two types of places to buy wireless: directly from the carrier store, or through an indirect retailer. But as online sales become an increasingly important part of the overall buying experience for customers, what was once a two-way tug-of-war...
The Federal Communications Commission rejected the mobile-phone industry's petition for regulatory relief from an already one-year-old deadline for meeting enhanced 911 handset-based location requirements, sending non-compliance cases of Sprint Nextel Corp. and other carriers to the agency's enforcement bureau for possible fines.The FCC said...
Lawmakers staked claim to pet telecom issues, with bipartisan support emerging out of the gate for legislation forcing the Federal Communications Commission to exploit vacant broadcast guard-band spectrum for unlicensed wireless services, including Wi-Fi. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Sununu (R-N.H.), both members...
It's easy to see the carriers' logic in dropping the online price of handsets in the holiday season: fire sales attract consumers in droves. Mentioning "free" to an American consumer is like waving a red cape at a snorting bull. At other...
Editor's Note: In this new monthly feature, RCR Wireless News will talk to retail managers across the country to get a first-hand view of what's hot in wireless. Sprint Nextel Store No. 72 is in a bustling complex of restaurants, shops and a movie...
Shiny gadgets, big and small, drive the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In that sense, the show levels the playing field for a few halcyon days in early January in the desert. Mobile handset vendors, for instance, present their wares amid fierce competition...
The nascent mobile TV market received a jolt last week as Verizon Wireless released more details of its forthcoming Vcast Mobile TV service, while potential competitor Modeo L.L.C. launched a trial of its service in New York City. Of course, those announcements were nearly...
Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to target the growing prepaid/sub-prime wireless market by launching an unlimited local calling service through its Boost Mobile L.L.C. sub-brand, CEO Gary Forsee told analysts at a conference hosted by Citigroup. Although Boost has run on iDEN historically, the local...
