WASHINGTON—Online wireless retailer InPhonic Inc. unveiled a business unit targeting small business users. The company launched Wirefly.biz, an Internet storefront hawking products and rate plans designed for home office workers and small businesses. The site carries offerings from Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Sprint Nextel Corp.,...
LONDON—I-play removed the word "acting" from David Gosen’s title, installing the 2-year employee as the company’s new chief executive officer. Gosen, who started with I-play in 2004 as chief operating officer, had been acting CEO since Brian Greasley stepped down last October. Gosen’s resume...
WATERLOO, Ontario-Research In Motion Ltd. announced it purchased Ascendent Systems, which sells products that extend desk phone connectivity to wireless handsets in a campus environment. RIM said the purchase would complement its current enterprise offerings. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.Ascendent will become...
DENVER-Although monitoring and control-enhancing technology hasn't garnered many headlines in the past, ZigBee-enabled products are likely to burst into prime-time later this year with both consumer and commercial applications, predicted Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, during last week's IEEE standards meeting in...
What a long, strange trip it's been.Almost two years ago, I renewed my cell-phone contract with what was then AT&T Wireless Services Inc. I was happy to do so-in fact, that was when my wife and I "cut the cord" and got rid of...
Nortel Networks Ltd. plans to restate its financial results-again-as well as push back filing its 2005 annual report to the end of April. The bookkeeping-challenged Canadian equipment vendor also reported preliminary fourth-quarter results, posting a stunning $2.2 billion net loss from $2.9 billion in...
HANNOVER, Germany-Opera Software ASA scored a major win, inking a deal to pre-load its Java-based mobile browser on T-Mobile International phones in Europe. The deal calls for a custom, branded version of Opera Mini with "T-Mobile's look and feel" to be embedded on three...
PALO ALTO, Calif.-M-commerce software developer Obopay said it has snared $10 million in Series A venture funding. Obopay, which was founded last year, plans to offer a mobile payment service in coming months that would allow users to make purchases and manage funds from...
WASHINGTON-A federal court in Colorado told state regulators there that they cannot require Alltel Corp. to file rate statements and agree to certain service-quality standards in order to receive eligible telecommunications carrier status-a necessary designation to receive universal-service subsidies. "The Colorado Public Utilities Commission...
WASHINGTON-Evoking visions of the Battle of Yorktown, Robert McDowell appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday hoping to be confirmed as a member of the Federal Communications Commission. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he hopes to pass the...
Congratulations. You've just been awarded $612.5 million. But if you're NTP Inc., you're probably not headed to Disneyland. Instead, the company likely is going back to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to defend its claims-patents that some call worthless but that just reaped...
WASHINGTON-As part of the Federal Communications Commission's plan to solve the public-safety interference problem in the 800 MHz band, Sprint Nextel Corp. was given 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band. However, before the carrier can use the spectrum it must first...
HANNOVER, Germany-BenQ Mobile appeared to be fulfilling its promise of creating intriguing handsets in a nimble timeframe, as it presented six new multimedia phones at last week's CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany. The new phones bring BenQ's total number of new handset models...
WASHINGTON-Allocating spectrum for unlicensed uses would help rural America achieve full broadband deployment, Microsoft Corp.'s chief technology officer told lawmakers. Microsoft's CTO Craig Mundie endorsed bills that would make TV white space spectrum available to unlicensed users. "Unlicensed spectrum should be part of the...
LOS ANGELES-Bunim-Murray Productions, which is often credited with starting the reality TV phenomenon with the MTV hit "The Real World" more than a decade ago, launched a spinoff focused on new media initiatives, including mobile and Internet. The spinoff, called M Theory Entertainment, will...
News that AT&T Inc. would acquire BellSouth Corp. quickly sent ripples of rampant speculation through the industry, as observers tried to calculate the implications of the deal. Immediate reactions focused on the response from Verizon Communications Inc. and whether it would seek to bolster...
As far as Sprint Nextel Corp. officials are concerned, the future is mobility, new models and new math. Sprint Nextel Chief Executive Officer Gary Forsee argued at the company's annual analyst conference that his company's partnership with cable companies and its relationships with multiple...
MONTREAL-Canadian telecom companies Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. and Aliant Inc. announced that they are combining their operations to form what they say is one of the largest regional telecommunications service providers in North America. As part of the deal, BCE will receive Aliant's wireless...
WASHINGTON-While consumer advocates, organized labor, industry analysts and lawmakers gave mixed reviews to AT&T Inc.'s proposed $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp.-co-owners of Cingular Wireless L.L.C.-most signs point to the Federal Communications Commission as the major battlefield for hashing out the blockbuster deal and...
WASHINGTON-House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) last week unveiled a bill that would require majority U.S. ownership of critical infrastructure deemed essential to national security and a five-year divestiture of foreign-owned infrastructure, legislation with potential implications for German subsidiary T-Mobile USA Inc.,...
Cingular Wireless L.L.C. joined the mobile TV bandwagon last week, launching a carrier-branded streaming video service featuring short clips from 18 channels. But whether consumers really want to watch TV on their phones-and how much they'll pay for it-remains anybody's guess.Content providers for Cingular...
ALVISO, Calif.-TiVo Inc. took another small step toward wireless, inking a deal to allow Verizon Wireless subscribers to use their wireless phone as a TiVo remote control. The companies unveiled a downloadable BREW application that can be used to program TiVo's digital video recording...
Analysts continue to predict big things for mobile gaming. But for now, at least, would-be gamers are staying away in droves. Consumption of mobile games in the United States has stagnated during the last six months, according to figures released last week from M:Metrics....
COPPELL, Texas-SmartVideo Technologies said it signed a distribution agreement with CellStar Corp. covering the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. SmartVideo offers video services for cellular phones, including live broadcasting, on-demand and download-and-play TV content.Terms of the pact call for CellStar to distribute...
