WASHINGTON—The House Commerce Committee released a draft of its communications bill, a somewhat limited piece of legislation that focuses on franchising efforts, but does not address some key areas of telecom reform. The measure does not address universal service or federal pre-emption of wireless...
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...
SEATTLE–Hearst Magazines is going both on- and off-deck to offer ringtones, images, daily horoscopes and editorial content from Cosmopolitan, Seventeen and CosmoGirl to wireless users. Hearst is teaming with Volantis to targeting 12- to 34-year-old females with its offerings, which will be available through...
BOGOTA, Colombia—A national survey of Colombian wireless users finds Nokia Corp. dominating the Latin 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...
NEW YORK—Mobile virtual network operator Cool Mobile has run into trouble, with Motorola Inc. ending its relationship with the MVNO less than two weeks after Cool announced plans to use the equipment manufacturer’s devices and services. Cool soft-launched in December and recently began touting...
Just when municipal Wi-Fi projects are gaining support from incumbent telcos, the battle between the City of New Orleans and BellSouth Corp. slaps the conflict back onto center stage. New Orleans' Chief Technical Officer Greg Meffert asserts that BellSouth, through telecom lobbyists, is pushing...
LAS VEGAS-Wireless issues played second fiddle to convergence and net neutrality at last week's United States Telecom Association's first TelecomNext conference in Las Vegas, though a handful of executives touched on expanding wireless services during keynote addresses. Despite lacking the name cache of more...
READING, U.K.-Britons use mobile phones to keep up with the news, while the Chinese want to know the weather report. According to a recent poll, 70 percent of Britons download news bulletins and updates, while 76 percent of Chinese view weather forecasts on their...
Last week's TelecomNext event in Las Vegas was painful at times.Not because the event was poorly run or because of the beating I took at the tables. No, the painful part was watching wireline executives use a bevy of acronyms and catch phrases in...
BELLEVUE, Wash.-T-Mobile USA Inc. has upped the ante in a pricing duel with Cingular Wireless L.L.C. by adding a $40 service plan with 1,500 anytime minutes. The Get More 1500 plan was available during the holiday season and has been resurrected in response to...
WASHINGTON-The telecom industry gathered last week in Las Vegas for a convention sponsored by the United States Telecommunications Association. Next week, many of the same people will visit Sin City again to attend CTIA's annual gathering. Against the backdrop of major telecom carriers consolidating...
MONTEREY, Calif.-AirPlay Networks Inc. announced plans to launch a series of mobile games based on live TV broadcasts. The San Francisco startup said it will allow subscribers to predict plays during sporting events, compete against contestants in game shows, and pick winners and losers...
CAMBRIDGE, England-Mini-base station developer Ip.access Ltd. picked up $8.5 million in funds to develop in-building third-generation access points for homes and small businesses. Scottish Equity Partners led the round, joined by Intel Capital and Rothschild Gestion. The company said it has successfully produced and...
PALO ALTO, Calif.-ScanR Inc. launched a service enabling mobile-phone users to take pictures of whiteboards and documents, e-mail them to the company for processing, then direct the results to an e-mail address or fax number in PDF format. With the scanning, copying and faxing...
Merger talks between Alcatel Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. could put the entire infrastructure industry in play as consolidation among telecom carriers trickles down to their suppliers. Indeed, Merrill Lynch analysts said L.M. Ericsson, Siemens AG and Motorola Inc. are likely to acquire smaller...
WASHINGTON-Cellular companies and disability advocates appear to have reached a compromise over proposed changes to a revised standard for mobile-phone hearing-aid compatibility, resolving a dispute that escalated in recent weeks and threatened the prospect of carriers and manufacturers meeting the next Federal Communications Commission...
BEIJING-Motorola Inc. announced it opened another research and development center in China, this one in the Binjiang District of Hangzhou's Hi-tech Industry Development Zone. The center will focus on developing equipment products for China's operators. Motorola said the new center will increase the number...
Do Europeans like chocolate as much as South Koreans? What about Americans? If we're talking food, the question is crazy. But because we're talking about LG Electronics Co. Ltd.'s new Chocolate mobile phone, which has done well since its release in South Korea in...
MIAMI-Brightstar Logistics Pty Ltd. said it signed a three-year agreement with Australian carrier Telstra to manage its handset supply chain. The deal calls for Brightstar to manage the carrier's retail fulfillment operation and launch inventory management tools to help Telstra lower costs. Brightstar said...
CHICAGO-Cingular Wireless L.L.C. is using PCTel Inc.'s Roaming Client software as part of the carrier's BroadbandConnect service, according to PCTel. Cingular launched its BroadbandConnect UMTS/HSDPA network late last year in 16 markets. PCTel said it is providing a custom version of the platform for...
WASHINGTON-Cellular companies and disability advocates are at odds over industryproposed changes to a revised standard for mobile-phone hearing-aid compatibility, a dispute that has escalated in recent weeks and whose resolution could help determine whether carriers and manufacturers meet the next Federal Communications Commission compliance...
Motricity Corp. is building on its relationship with Alltel Corp., inking a deal to deliver content and wireless Internet service to the operator's subscribers regardless of device. The agreement, which will be announced this week, expands on Motricity's pact to supply wireless Web service...
Sling Media Inc. launched a software package allowing wireless subscribers to view TV broadcasts on Windows Mobile devices. The developer announced a beta version of the much-awaited offering, which sends video from a cable box through an Ethernet cable to a handset running Windows...
Money continued to pour into the mobile marketing space last week as VeriSign Inc. inked an agreement to shell out $250 million in cash for wireless messaging and content services provider m-Qube Inc. M-Qube powers mobile storefronts and marketing campaigns for media companies and...
