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Washington Post latest news outlet to go mobile

ARLINGTON, Va.—The Washington Post Co. is the latest old-school news company to go mobile, unveiling wireless Internet sites for three of its high-profile products. The company launched wireless versions of its online offerings from The Washington Post newspaper, Newsweek magazine and Slate, a daily...

Titan reworks wireless efforts

DALLAS—Titan Global Holdings Inc. said its board of directors has approved the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary to operate the wireless portions of its Bravo Cellular and Oblio Telecom Inc. units. The new subsidiary will operate under the Titan Wireless Communications Inc. name,...

Motorola makes $4 billion bet on enterprise efforts

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—The Inc. is laying down the ink—and nearly $4 billion in cash—to bulk up for the enterprise. Motorola Inc. and Symbol Technologies announced that the former would buy the latter for nearly $4 billion, a move deepening Motorola’s position in enterprise mobility and...

American Tower to restate earnings

BOSTON—Shares of American Tower Corp. slid after the tower vendor said it will have to restate earnings due to inconsistencies regarding past stock-option grants. The company plans to file an amended annual report for 2005 that will "reflect the restatement of its consolidated financial...

PayPal’s ‘Text 2 Buy’ up and running in the U.K.

LONDON—PayPal Inc. expanded its "Text 2 Buy" program with an offering that allows users in the United Kingdom to purchase magazine subscriptions and consumer electronics over their phones. Dutch software developer Mowave Inc. is powering the service, which offers a range of goods advertised...

Study: W-CDMA to garner lion’s share of worldwide carrier capex

LONDON—By 2012, W-CDMA technology will rake in the highest capital-expenditure investment by mobile operators—more than $150 billion—according to a new report from ABI Research. Mobile operators’ attitudes towards capex have changed over the past two or three years," said mobile wireless research analyst Shailendra...

News Corp. plunks down $188M on Jamba to expand off-deck plans

VeriSign Inc. finally jettisoned the bulk of its direct-to-consumer mobile content business, selling a 51-percent stake in its Jamba subsidiary to News Corp. for $188 million. The companies announced plans to form a mobile entertainment joint venture, with Fox Mobile Entertainment retaining the Jamster...

Dashed expectations

During the long flight from Los Angeles back to Denver, I realized that the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show turned out completely different than I had expected.When I first arrived in Los Angeles last Tuesday, I had fully expected a press release from...

Hedgehogging

Here's what got the edit staff fired up this week: Did you see RCR Reporter Colin Gibbs' story about Sprint Nextel selling ad space on its mobile Web service? Like it promised, Sprint Nextel is transforming itself from a wireless carrier and into a...

Carriers highlight enterprise advantages of 3G upgrades

LOS ANGELES--Wireless carriers toasted their high-speed mobile broadband networks with a number of 3G-related announcements during last week's CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment event. Verizon Wireless declared that it chose Motorola Inc. to upgrade its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision 0 network with Revision A...

Carriers remain cautious on impact of mobile TV

LOS ANGELES--Skepticism about the potential of mobile television is rampant within the wireless industry, according to a recent survey of executives conducted by Mercer Management Consulting. However, a panel of executives during a breakout session at last week's CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show...

RealNetworks ponies up $350M for WiderThan

RealNetworks Inc. is buying itself a bigger space on the wireless entertainment playground with a $350 million acquisition of South Korean-based developer WiderThan Co. Ltd. The Seattle-based digital media company said it will spend $17.05 per share to acquire WiderThan, which provides ringback tones,...

Enterprise spending on I.T. rising

LOS ANGELES--Money is flowing again and major corporations often respond to sales pitches when choosing mobile technologies--great news for the wireless industry, according to speakers during the opening keynote at last week's CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show. Corporate spending on information technology tends...

Vendors still finding their legs

Most of the new generation of mobile virtual network operators are less than six months into their operations, but that hasn't prevented a recent spate of speculation and rumors about how well they are doing. Analysts have generally predicted that there will be some...

Lucent picks up Mobilitec, moves forward on Alcatel merger

Lucent Technologies Inc. announced it agreed to acquire Mobilitec, a privately held provider of content management software for wireless service providers. Lucent said Mobilitec's solutions will strengthen its voice, video, data and multimedia applications platforms, thus enabling more service offerings for mobile and broadband...

Mindmatics to mind Boost’s loyalty program

LOS ANGELES--MindMatics said it has been chosen by Boost Mobile to enable Boost's VIP loyalty program. MindMatics said its solution will allow Boost to capture information about its customers and then provide tailored services and products, special promotions and updates based on the information...

Announce Mobile picks Air2Web gateway for real-estate application

LOS ANGELES--Mobile messaging applications provider Air2Web said wireless marketing solutions provider Announce Mobile has chosen Air2Web's Content Gateway to power two of its mobile marketing initiatives. One initiative is HomeCell, a service that gives real-estate agents and individual sellers the ability to provide property...

Telescope, mBlox team on TV voting efforts

LOS ANGELES--Telescope Inc. and mBlox said they have formed a partnership to offer interactive "participation TV" services to broadcasters and production companies. Telescope provides mobile and interactive TV solutions and operates a large phone voting system. mBlox is a mobile transaction network. Together the...

Palm launches developer resource

LOS ANGELES--Palm Inc. said it launched its Palm Developer Network, which provides resources to hardware and software developers building products based on Palm OS and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile Pocket PC. The program, which replaces Palm's existing developer program PluggedIn, provides technical, business and...

Ingram Micro to distribute Verizon Wireless products

BASKING RIDGE, N.J.--Technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc. announced it will begin reselling services from Verizon Wireless, including the carrier's VZOffice voice and data products and services. "We are very pleased that Ingram Micro will offer Verizon Wireless' products and services, including our high-speed BroadbandAccess...

Law firm intends to be tower-industry friendly

Sure, it's fun to crack jokes about snazzy-suit-wearing lawyers, but the reality is that eventually everyone comes to appreciate a competent attorney, and the wireless industry is no different. Hence, Edward Donohue, Catherine Blue and Thomas Carroll formed Donohue & Blue plc, a law...

FCC outlines timeline for use of white space in TV bands

WASHINGTON--The Federal Communications Commission hopes to adopt rules next month to start it down a path that will allow unlicensed devices to operate in vacant TV spectrum following the completion of the transition to digital TV in 2009. The full commission expects to vote...

IPWireless technology chosen for NYC public-safety network

New York City handed Northrop Grumman a five-year, $500 million contract to build and maintain a wireless broadband public-safety network designed to add high-speed data and video capabilities to the city's first responders and transportation personnel. The network will be built with San Bruno,...

Starwave licenses Beyonce, ‘Scarface’ for cell phones

LOS ANGELES--Starwave Mobile announced new licensing deals and a move to sell content directly to consumers. Starwave Mobile gained licensing rights from Beyonce Inc. and Sony BMG to develop and publish a mobile game around the singer. Expected to launch in 2007, Starwave Mobile...