The following list includes ratings changes and financial information for wireless companies announced this week by investment-banking and financial-services firms.Handset and infrastructure vendors CIBC World Markets lowered its price target on Motorola Inc. to $26 from $28 based on concerns about ASPs and...
RadioShack announced it will sell Sprint Nextel Corp.'s youth-focused brand Boost Mobile through 672 retail stores. RadioShack joins Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy in selling the iDEN-based offering."We are extremely pleased to partner with Boost Mobile, and are excited about giving wireless users this...
Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Nokia Corp, Citigroup and MasterCard Worldwide have teamed up on a trial of Near Field Communication technology.The companies are testing mobile phones with MasterCard's PayPass contactless payment capability in New York City. The trial is expected to last between three and...
Sprint Nextel Corp. launched a new service that extends private branch exchange functionality to mobile phones.Sprint Wireless Integration offers features including a phone number that simultaneously rings a desk phone and mobile phone, a converged voicemail box, intra-company dialing from mobile phones, mobile call...
Shares of Glenayre Technologies Inc. climbed after the company said it will sell its messaging business for $25 million in cash to IP Unity.The move follows September's announcement by Glenayre that it was looking to separate its telecom and entertainment businesses. The company hopes...
Cingular Wireless L.L.C., the nation's largest wireless carrier, plans to raise the price of sending and receiving text messages from 10 cents to 15 cents per message. The move comes shortly after rival Sprint Nextel Corp. also raised the price for its text messaging...
Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG said their network equipment joint venture will be delayed due to an ongoing investigation into irregularities at Siemens' telecom unit involved in the JV. The companies also said the deal will be subject to "the results and consequences" of...
Financiers continue to flood the white-hot-and increasingly litigious-mobile e-mail space. Specifically, white-label wireless e-mail provider Seven Networks Inc. snared $42 million in an oversubscribed round of funding. The company said undisclosed new investors joined existing backers, which include Amadeus Capital Partners Ltd., Greyloack, Ignition...
Like a runway model sporting the latest fashions, mobile handsets have gone thin with a vengeance. That's hardly earth-shaking news, but new data reflects the industry's headlong embrace of thin. And practical constraints pose some limits to this squeeze play.Those limits-seemingly acknowledged by some...
With a new leader in place, Crown Castle International Corp.'s mobile TV subsidiary Modeo L.L.C. says with confidence that its upcoming New York City trial will attract partners, enabling the company to carry out further launches of its streaming, multicast services.Modeo's vice president of...
The future of the "anywhere Internet" will likely involve a variety of networks and devices, analysts said during a teleconference this week-and if wireless operators want to get in on the innovation, they're going to have to open up the full Internet to customers...
New Wave Mobile Inc. snared a $500,000 investment to fund the launch of a platform the company said will support wireless sales of lottery tickets.New Wave said it expects its acquisition of WagerPhone, a mobile gaming technology company, to close next week. Hurricane Capital...
Italian teens are leading their U.S. and Western European counterparts in consuming user-generated content and social networking applications, according to new figures from M:Metrics.The market research firm found that 70 percent of 13- to 17-year-old Italian wireless consumers used their phones in October to...
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 RCR Wireless News to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong...
Leap Wireless International Inc. said it completed its acquisition of 13 10-MHz licenses from Urban Comm-North Carolina Inc.The cash deal is worth $31.8 million.The licenses include markets in North Carolina and South Carolina and cover more than 4.9 million potential customers.Leap already offers service...
Alltel Corp. said it will sell four markets in rural Southern Minnesota to Rural Cellular Corp.Terms of the deal were not released.Alltel had to divest the markets as part of its purchase of Midwest Wireless. The transaction includes licenses, retail stores, employees, about 38,000...
WASHINGTON-The mobile phone industry plans to take the line-item billing controversy to the U.S. Supreme Court.Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay a final order reversing the Federal Communications Commission's decision to pre-empt state...
WASHINGTON-Key House Democrats said Federal Communications Commission General Counsel Samuel Feder made a weak legal case for authorizing Commissioner Robert McDowell to participate in AT&T Inc.'s hung-up $79 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. Meanwhile, a top global equipment supplier warned further delay in approving...
SAN FRANCISCO-Hip-hop continues to rule the ringtone market, according to new charts from two top content providers.Mobile entertainment publisher Moderati said rapper Lil Jon's "Snap Yo Fingers" has been its top-selling independent-label ringtone over the past year, and fellow hip-hop artists Ying Yang Twins...
NEW YORK-CTIA unveiled a version of its Web site designed for mobile phones. The site was built by mobile content company Lift Mobile."Lift Mobile's service is helping us meet the growing demand for accessing information on wireless devices," said CTIA President and CEO Steve...
SAN MATEO, Calif.-Digital Chocolate Inc. scored a high-profile franchise, inking a deal to produce a mobile game based on the hit HBO series "The Sopranos."The publisher said it will offer a Sopranos-branded game that will place gamers in the front office of the fictional...
WASHINGTON-Industry veteran Dale Hatfield was named chairman of a federally-chartered panel assisting the Bush administration on spectrum reform."Dale Hatfield's expertise, seasoned judgment and unquestioned integrity make him the obvious choice to chair this important committee," said John Kneuer, head of the Commerce Department's National...
Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. tapped JumpTap Inc. to power a mobile-specific search engine for users looking for wireless content.The mobile virtual network operator said JumpTap will provide an advertising-supported search offering designed to deliver ringtones, games, wallpapers and other mobile content. The service will...
NEW YORK-Scanbuy Inc., which provides a barcode scanning service, announced it garnered new financing and scored a new chief executive officer.The company completed a $9 million, second round of financing led by Longworth Venture Partners, Masthead Venture Partners and Hudson Venture Partners. Scanbuy said...
