WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission said the mobile-phone industry remains competitive and consumers continue to benefit, despite increased consolidation among wireless carriers and questions by a Democratic member of the commission on the methods used to collect data for the report. The FCC said the...
The burgeoning Voice over Internet Protocol industry clipped a hurdle last week as Sprint Nextel Corp. reported that its subsidiary, Sprint Communications Co. L.P., has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against VoIP service providers Vonage Holdings Corp., theglobe.com Inc. and its operating subsidiary Voiceglo...
DSL provider Covad Communications Group Inc. announced it purchased pre-WiMAX carrier Next-Web Inc. for $24.7 million in cash and stock. NextWeb offers wireless broadband services to 3,000 business customers in the San Francisco Bay Area; Los Angeles; Orange County and Santa Barbara, Calif.; and...
Regional wireless operator MetroPCS Communications Inc. attracted $600 million in venture-capital funding from Madison Dearborn Partners L.L.C. and TA Associates as part of a $739 million minority equity investment in the carrier. MetroPCS said it will use a portion of the proceeds to fund...
SEOUL, Korea-SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile services provider, selected LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and Nortel Networks Ltd. to provide equipment to support new high-speed wireless broadband services throughout southern Korea. SK Telecom's commercial launch of UMTS services in Pusan, Korea's second-largest city, and the...
SanDisk Corp. and Sony Corp. introduced the industry's third major removable memory card format specifically designed for space-conscious mobile phones. The companies unveiled their new Memory Stick Micro product, a removable memory card that will go up against the MMCmicro and MicroSD specifications. "The...
Prepaid services are continuing their march up the feature-rich ladder with an increasing number of operators beginning to offer wireless Web browsing services to their noncontract subscribers. Many operators offer basic text messaging or even more advanced access to downloadable content to their prepaid...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission ruled to clear the backlog of antenna-siting applications subject to a nationwide programmatic agreement designed to elicit dialogue among tower owners, mobile-phone carriers, Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations of proposed tower construction covered by the National Historic Preservation...
DALLAS-Nokia Corp. will include software from Quickoffice Inc. in its Series 60 platform for smart phones, a move that will give its Series 60 users the ability to view and manipulate Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. "We are committed to providing users of smart...
The wireless Internet is coming to European users in a big way this week, as two European operators launched high-speed mobile Web services.T-Mobile U.K. aggressively is pursuing wireless Web surfers by expanding its "Web'n'walk" service, which uses Google as a home page instead of...
InterDigital Communications Corp. released its HSDPA coprocessor terminal for mobile phones. The company said the chip offering features low-power usage and a small, flexible design. Philips Semiconductor N.V. purchased the coprocessor.
Initial shipments of Motorola Inc.'s long-anticipated iTunes-capable phone appear somewhat sluggish, according to a recent analyst report from Piper Jaffray. The firm said its recent store checks show that some locations are recording strong sales of the device, but the majority see only weak...
GERMANYBenQ Corp. completed its takeover of Siemens AG's mobile-phone business, and the combined entity began operations Oct. 1. BenQ Mobile comprises 7,000 employees, a 5.2-percent worldwide mobile-phone market share and $6.7 billion in combined revenues last year. Clemens J. Joos, a Siemens' executive who...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-L.M. Ericsson and newly formed SeaMobile signed a three-year contract to bring wireless voice and data communication services to the seas. Ericsson said it will supply a complete wireless network, including hosted core infrastructure, GSM radio equipment, and network monitoring and rollout services.SeaMobile...
CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom-LogicaCMG plc will partner with Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd. for mobile location technology for the Galileo satellite program. LogicaCMG announced its participation in the Galileo project last month. CPS will offer its network-based Matrix location technology for the effort, dubbed "Application of...
ALAMEDA, Calif.-Shares of UTStarcom Inc. tumbled more than 25 percent after the company announced a series of warnings, including a drop in revenues, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a potential writedown of its assets. The company's stock dropped from $7.65 per share...
Municipal-Wi-Fi-mania has landed. By the end of the year, the world will have more than 100,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, according to Informa Telecoms & Media research. And the Asia-Pacific region is not in its usual predominant spot, as North America and Europe are getting...
With little more than a week until wireless carriers begin releasing third-quarter results, industry analysts continue to fine tune their quarterly predictions. Those updated forecasts generally are calling for more robust customer growth than originally anticipated, though most expect total growth from the industry's...
WASHINGTON-The federal judge who a month ago dismissed a class-action lawsuit claiming the nation's top mobile-phone operators violated antitrust laws by tying handset sales to the purchase of wireless service from carriers has agreed to allow a similar lawsuit explicitly alleging industrywide conspiracy to...
WASHINGTON-Communication Technologies Inc. completed a citywide commercial broadband-over-powerline technology deployment in Manassas, Va. BPL technology uses a city's electricity grid and the wiring in homes to provide direct plug-in broadband access through electrical sockets, rather than over phone or cable TV lines. ComTek said...
In a nod to the growing chatter around wireless viruses and hacking, Nokia Corp. announced it would install security software from Symantec Corp. in its Series 60 smart phones, devices that run the Symbian operating system. The move is the industry's latest acknowledgement that...
The mobile TV space continues to heat up, with rumors pegging Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless showing significant interest in the technology. Specifically, a report from Zachary Research predicts Verizon will use Crown Castle International Corp.'s DVB-H mobile TV network starting next year....
WASHINGTON-Sprint Nextel Corp. terminated its contract with Hewlett-Packard Co., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by 724 Solutions Inc. Tuesday. 724 Solutions earlier this week announced HP had cancelled 742 Solutions' subcontract for its access gateway solution deployment with Sprint. 724 Solutions...
SINGAPORE-The GSM Association said it successfully completed six months of interoperability trials in Europe and Asia with Session Initiation Protocol and Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem technologies. Many operators and vendors participated in the trials as basic IMS and SIP compatibility are key success factors...
