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Making live music mobile

Concerts are nothing new on mobile. Sprint Nextel Corp. aired the first concert on mobile in 2005 with a huge marketing push behind a Bon Jovi concert that year. Others have followed since then.Verizon Wireless gets the nod for being the first carrier to...

Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless gear up for summer PTT battle: Push to talk set for a renaissance

The once hotly contested push-to-talk market appears set for a competitive resurgence as the nation's two largest CDMA carriers are rolling out new PTT initiatives that should prove more compelling to consumers addicted to "the button" than previous efforts. Sprint Nextel Corp., which is king...

Innovation must be institutionalized to drive content adoption

ATLANTA - Innovation has to become institutionalized if wireless content is going to be successful, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega last week told attendees at the GSM Association's first last Mobile Innovation Marketplace - Americas event in Atlanta. "Just having it pop...

816M mobile banking customers by 2011

Consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones to access banking services and products, and about 816 million consumers are expected to do so by 2011, according to a new study from Juniper Research.The reported noted financial institutions are beginning to offer a wider variety...

MIM to cut into SMS, e-mail usage

Mobile instant messaging will eventually cannibalize SMS and computer-based e-mail, according to a survey from TNS Technology.The survey of 17,000 respondents in 30 countries found that once users adopt MIM, it becomes their primary non-voice method of interacting with others. Of those who already...

ABI: 289M devices shipped in Q1

The mobile device market is expected to show shipments of 289 million units during the first quarter of 2008, according to a new study from ABI Research."Operators and distributors continued to top up their inventories in after a particularly strong ," said Jake...

Executive Interview: Sheldon Safir

The woes besetting Motorola Inc.'s consumer handset division have been the stuff of headlines for the past year. The company has said it remains committed to creating two independently traded businesses that would send the handset division off on its own, while keeping its...

Third time’s a charm: VZW to acquire Alltel

Verizon Wireless's purchase of Alltel Communication L.L.C. is leaving many gasping for breath. The $28.1 billion purchase of the nation's fifth-largest U.S. mobile operator seems to make sense for Verizon Wireless, both strategically and financially. However, for the private-equity investors who purchased Alltel less...

Game over?

Smaller entrepreneurial wireless developers could lose a friend with Verizon Wireless' acquisition of Alltel Communications L.L.C. Alltel supports a number of cool applications on its deck. Celltop, which allows you to customize your user interface with widgets; Ontela, which offers a service that automatically...

Hedgehogging: hedge*hog*ging v. Interrupting conversations in an office environment by poking your head over the top of the cube.

Chip provider, and thorn in Qualcomm's side, Broadcom saw its co-founder Henry Nicholas III indicted last week on fraud, conspiracy and . wait for it . drug charges. While the fraud and conspiracy charges are bad news for the company and investors, the drug...

Etc.

Disaster reliefVerizon Wireless launched a program designed to make it easy for its customers to donate to disaster relief efforts targeted at China and Myanmar. The program allows postpaid customers to send a text message to the shortcode 4SAVE with the key word "quake"...

Analyst: enterprise should seize 3G advantages

One key message to enterprises that mobilize their work force, according to analyst Iain Gillott at iGR:"If you think networks are fast today, there's more coming - what are you going to do with it?"The challenge to make use of higher network speeds and...

Rave looks to expand school safety service

Rave Wireless is upgrading its Rave Guardian program, a two-way safety solution that puts scared students in touch with the right people.Rave, which started operations in 2005, offers a service that makes campus police aware of students' locations via their mobile phones. But...

Faux finish

We reported on the seizure of nearly 20,000 mobile phones deemed to be outright counterfeits by federal officials. In the suspected bogus category, there also were 2,000 headsets, 462 boxes of accessories and a wad of cash totaling $210,990. Many of the big names...

Backup power ruling remains in limbo: Questions linger over court jurisdiction

A dispute has erupted over whether a federal appeals court should delay ruling on the wireless industry's challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's backup power rule until Bush administration budget officials complete their review of controversial guidelines designed to respond to communications failures from...

Suddenly, a spotlight on MIDs: Consumers still don’t get it, but devices due this year

Overnight, it seems, mobile Internet devices, or MIDs, are the topic du jour.But like many overnight sensations, the MID category is constructed of a fragile combination of long-term toil in the lab and a giddy if ephemeral sense of demand that has a long...

Increased text usage has carriers battling spammers: On guard against spam

TEXTING. IF YOU HAD ASKED AMERICANS WHAT THAT WORD MEANT 15 years ago, most would have been short for words. Now the definition of texting, even though still not listed in some dictionaries, is embedded in our brains and the words are piling up....

ETFs playing out in high-stakes battles in court, Congress

High-stakes battles over early termination fees are playing out in official Washington and California at a time when carriers face pressure to make good on commitments to open their networks and embrace consumer-friendly practices, a confluence of forces that appears to be chipping away...

Carriers prepared for iPhone 2.0

Last year around this time Apple Inc.'s iPhone had yet to be unleashed on the public. AT&T Mobility, which was set to be the exclusive carrier for the device, was cautiously optimistic that the iPhone would be a home run for the carrier, while...

Nokia touts concepts, not tech at S60 summit: OS centers on reach, innovation and user experience

BARCELONA, Spain - Nokia Corp. used its S60 Summit '08 to tout the reach of its smartphone platform, woo low-profile developers and - like just about everybody else in mobile - crow about its openness.The show opened with a flashy video that demonstrated Series...

Warner Bros. execs want video part of data package

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. - A pair of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group executives didn't paint such a rosy picture for mobile in a keynote here at the MEFCON conference.Thomas Gewecke, president of the division, said the digital video market is about a $2...

Sarin to bow out of Vodafone: Carrier’s stake in VZW may be reconsidered

Vodafone Group plc will say goodbye to its fearless leader. After five years as CEO, Arun Sarin announced last week that he is retiring as head of one of the wireless industry's largest operators, and minority-interest holder in Verizon Wireless, at the end of...

HighSpeed Dating short on time, long on fun

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. - The writing team of Terry Rossio and Jocelyn Stamat wasn't allowed to write during the 100-day-long writer's strike that ended last February, but they were able to think and imagine - and that's exactly what they did.Enter "HighSpeed Dating,"...

Etc.

Maybe John McCain should take up singingMore than 78 million text messages were sent to vote for the winner of this year's American Idol show, shattering the previous record of 64.5 million, according to AT&T. The carrier has been providing text-message voting since season...