Amid intensified airport security, U.S. passports outfitted with RFID technology rolled off the government's presses as the U.S. State Department began issuing electronic passports to the public. The State Department said e-passports are being produced at its Colorado Passport Agency in Denver and will...
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Infineon Technologies AG secured a multimillion-dollar order to supply the U.S. government with its RFID chips for electronic passports. The company touts its RFID chips as being designed to "facilitate international travel by allowing automatic identity verification, faster immigration inspections and greater...
FORT WORTH, Texas—The front-office shuffle continued at RadioShack Corp. as President and Chief Operating Officer Claire Babrowski said she will step down at the end of the month. Babrowski joined the company last summer and was named interim CEO in February after dubious resume...
BOSTON-Shares of Boston Communications Group Inc. tumbled after the company said it will be unable to file its quarterly report pending an internal review of its practices regarding stock-option grants. The developer of prepaid telecommunications software launched the review in response to broadening federal...
Why is everybody in wireless chasing the youth demographic? To steal a line from bank robber Eddie Sutton, that's where the money is. Today's average 10-year-old will spend nearly $30,000 on wireless services over the course of his lifetime, according to new figures from...
BOSTON-Shares of Boston Communications Group Inc. continued to slide after the company received a letter from Nasdaq indicating it was not in compliance with Nasdaq's requirements for continued listing.BCGI, which develops billing software for mobile network operators, said it had anticipated the letter due...
If, at first blush, associating the Sony Ericsson brand with prepaid handset offerings at Cingular Wireless L.L.C. seems like a mismatch, look at it this way: the link simply illustrates a number of ways in which carriers and handset vendors do business, though-shocking!-explanations from...
TORONTO-Pantech Group continued its march to establish a global brand identity by launching its first Pantech-branded handset-the PN-3200 for young consumers-in Canada. The handset is available through Telus Mobility, Canada's second-largest CDMA operator, for $100 with a two-year contract. As an original design manufacturer,...
SANTA MONICA, Calif.-Boingo Wireless Inc., a wholesale network aggregator and operator of Wi-Fi networks, raised $65 million in Series C funding from new and existing investors. Boingo said the funds will provide long-term capital and underwrite its acquisition of Concourse Communications Group L.L.C., operator...
Controversial competing technologies. A spectrum auction that brings in billions of dollars. Am I flashing back to 1995?No, but a few noteworthy announcements in recent weeks are reminiscent of spectrum auctions and subsequent buildouts for second- and third-generation services. If history repeats itself, look...
The woman who steered Philadelphia's municipal Wi-Fi project through city politics and battles with incumbent telcos is leaving her post as the city's communications information officer next month to lead Georgia-based technology consulting firm Civitium's international practice as a senior partner. Neff was hand-picked...
WASHINGTON-A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that could have potentially stalled the auction of 700 MHz spectrum, scheduled for 2008. A lawsuit by Public Citizen, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argued that the recently passed Deficit Reduction...
Sprint Nextel Corp. tweaked its Fair & Flexible price plans, leaving the dollar amounts the same on the basic voice plans but changing the number of minutes for three of its mid-range plans and increasing the cost of overage minutes. The changes basically eliminate...
WASHINGTON-A group of federal and state regulators plan to re-examine the use of reverse auctions to determine which companies score universal-service funds to support telecommunications in high-cost rural areas. The Federal-State Join Board on Universal Service is seeking comment on "the use of reverse...
SAN FRANCISCO-European carrier Orange plc said it approved the Access Linux Platform to run on its network, potentially giving much-needed support to Japanese firm Access Co. Ltd., which has sought operator partners for its new mobile-phone operating system. The companies made their announcement in...
SAN FRANCISCO-More than 34.6 million people used mobile Internet services in June, according to market research firm Telephia. E-mail and weather information sites proved the most popular among mobile Internet users, followed by sports Web sites, search sites and city directory and map sites....
SHERMAN OAKS, Calif.-FaithMobile will team with Crisp Wireless to deliver faith-based content to wireless users beginning next month. A subsidiary of Good News Holdings, FaithMobile said it will offer a subscription-based service hawking ringtones, images and video clips from content providers including Promise Keepers,...
TEMPE, Ariz.-Motorola Inc. said it has teamed up with Taldia Inc. to bring news programming to its iRadio digital music network. The deal calls for Taldia professionals to read current news, business and lifestyle stories for the iRadio network. The companies said the new...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The battle for the large regional licenses in the advanced wireless services spectrum auction appears to be largely settled at this point, with Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. the big winners. Click here for the latest headlines from the AWS auction. Click...
SAN DIEGO—Qualcomm Inc. will spend $18 million to acquire Qualphone Inc., a provider of IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) software for mobile devices and interoperability testing services. Qualcomm said the acquisition, expected to close this month, will help it accelerate the delivery of multimedia-capable, 3G...
DUBLIN, Ireland— The company behind the .mobi movement plans to auction off thousands of domain names for Web sites dedicated for wireless use. Top Level Domain Ltd. (also known as mTLD and DotMobi) released a 149-page document of "premium" names covering everything from types...
The following list details this week's infrastructure awards for the cellular, Wi-Fi and WiMAX industries. The contracts are broken down by transmission technology, country and vendor. The value of the contract is included when available. Click here for additional infrastructure awards from RCR Wireless...
BOSTON—Shares of Boston Communications Group Inc. continued to slide after the company received a letter from Nasdaq indicating it was not in compliance with Nasdaq’s requirements for continued listing. BCGI, which develops billing software for mobile network operators, said it had anticipated the letter...
WASHINGTON—A federal judge in Detroit Thursday issued a ruling to halt the National Security Agency’s warrantless-wiretapping program. However, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said the American Civil Liberties Union could not sue to stop a separate program—the data mining of telecommunications records—because to do so...
