AOL will join the crowded mobile browser playing field this week, unveiling a service that automatically adapts Web pages for mobile-phone use. The Internet service provider introduced technology from InfoGin Ltd. that transcodes Web sites, optimizing content for the small screens of wireless handsets....
Handmark Inc. is hoping to raise its profile by giving away service. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company mobile media company this week will begin offering free content in an effort to raise consumer awareness of its Pocket Express offering. Users with smart phones from...
ANDOVER, Mass.-Mobile music company Groove Mobile announced it closed $8.5 million in new venture funding. Egan-Managed Capital led the round, while Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners and Star Ventures also participated. Groove has so far raised more than $20 million in funding. "Groove...
The squeeze is on, the stakes are high and the options few. Second-tier handset makers-their exact numbers globally are unclear, but there may be more than 100 players-are scrambling to survive, let alone thrive, as the top six vendors increased their market share last...
Powerwave Technologies Inc. said it deployed a multitechnology, multicarrier wireless coverage system for the Chicago Transit Authority. In cooperation with Aldrige Electric, Powerwave installed its fiber-based indoor distributed antenna system along 11.4 miles of subway tunnels. The system enhances the CTA's existing two-way radio...
As Alcatel Corp.'s board of directors met last Thursday to review its "merger of equals" with long-time rival telecom equipment vendor Lucent Technologies Inc., analysts were pounding out reports and talking up a storm, delving into the merger's many angles. The Yankee Group said...
British wireless subscribers can send and receive text messages at bargain-basement rates thanks to an IP-based messaging service released last week. But-unlike Voice over IP-analysts say the new offering poses little threat to mobile operators in the United States. Hotxt, which describes its service...
SCHAUMBURG, Ill.-The Moto Q, Motorola Inc.'s flagship smart phone, will be available in April, missing by a hair the company's initial forecast for a first-quarter release. A Motorola spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on the timing of the Q's release.The device was...
SCHAUMBURG, Ill.-In a move that could help it retain a core piece of business, Motorola Inc. is developing handsets for Sprint Nextel Corp. designed to work on both the carriers iDEN network that Motorola created for Nextel Communications Inc. in the 1990s as well...
All signs point to the Walt Disney Co. gearing up to jump into the wireless space soon. The company's mobile virtual network operator's Disney Mobile Web site has been stepping up efforts to lure would-be subscribers to the service, as well as offering hints...
Bango is powering three new mobile content portals for properties of publishing giant Hearst Publications. The U.K.-based provider of direct-to-consumer content launched mobile sites for Cosmopolitan, CosmoGirl and Seventeen, hawking ringtones, wallpapers and horoscopes for the publications. Users can access the catalogs by sending...
Network business intelligence and operating support systems solutions provider ACE*Comm Corp. unveiled its Enterprise Patrol application that the company said allows enterprise communications managers to control company-owned mobile phone usage. ACE*Comm noted the solution allows for individual or group credits, time of day, the...
Wireless operators largely are expected to maintain their market share in the first quarter, which is typically a weaker quarter than the holiday-fueled fourth quarter. However, the seasonality of the wireless sales cycle is expected to be flattening, with less variation among the four...
XG Technology L.L.C. said its first consumer product, a Voice over Internet Protocol handset, will be available by the end of this year and that the device will work with low-cost xMAX-enabled base stations. The handsets are expected to be dual-mode, equipped with both...
BOULDER, Colo.-The Mobile Marketing Association has created a committee to address the operational and technical guidelines surrounding wireless video. The committee, which is open to all MMA members, seeks to establish best practices for marketing through wireless video and create guidelines for measuring the...
MENLO PARK, Calif.-LimeLife Inc. snared $10 million in Series B financing, the women's mobile content publisher said. U.S. Venture Partners led the round; other investors include Rustic Canyon Partners, i-Hatch Ventures and Monitor Ventures. LimeLife publishes casual games targeted at women; other planned offerings...
OYSTER BAY, N.Y.-Operators struggling with decreasing profits from basic services may want to look to mobile music, according to two new studies. The worldwide market for full-track mobile music downloads increased 2,000 percent from 2004 to last year, according to new figures from ABI...
ATLANTA-Being fashionably late to a party can cut two ways-it gets you noticed, but the assembled crowd inevitably registers a thumbs up or down on your appearance. So Nokia Corp., Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and market watchers will observe with keen interest how Nokia's 9300...
WASHINGTON-Wireless industry veterans with access to significant financial and political resources soon intend to ask policymakers to scrap plans to auction a large swath of 700 MHz spectrum being surrendered by TV broadcasters and instead use 30 megahertz for a fourth-generation nationwide public-safety network...
WASHINGTON-Experts said a merger between French telecom giant Alcatel SA and U.S.-based Lucent Technologies Inc. likely would undergo intense scrutiny over national security implications, possibly delaying but not necessarily dooming a blockbuster vendor deal that could become a major test case for congressional-driven reforms...
WASHINGTON-With each significant manmade or natural disaster, the problem of public-safety communications networks not being able to interact with each other is underscored. Indeed, even as the public-safety community was fighting to gain access to 24 megahertz of spectrum it had been promised, the...
In the wireless universe, one outstanding fact about India trumps its ancient history, heterogeneous society and complex political and economic mix: With more than 1 billion people, India is the second-most-populous country in the world, and with rising prosperity, its citizens are buying wireless...
BOGOTA, Colombia-A national survey of Colombian wireless users found Nokia Corp. dominating the South American country's mobile handset market, which despite its modest size-at 43 million in population, the world's 30th largest country-provides a glance at a rapidly growing emerging market and battleground for...
WASHINGTON-The Senate Commerce Committee last week passed the Protecting Consumer Phone Records Act of 2006, but only after adding an amendment that the chairman of the committee believes will doom the bill to failure. By voice vote, the Senate Commerce Committee amended the bill...
