No wonder people can't agree on a cure for the mobile gaming industry. Some insiders don't even think it's sick.There's no question that the space-which just a couple of years ago was envisioned as the pace-setting genre of mobile content-has failed to live up...
Two wireless deals cleared major hurdles last week, but not before strings were attached by government antitrust and regulatory officials.The Justice Department said AT&T Inc. agreed to sell assets in seven rural markets and forgo rights to the Cellular One brand to win approval...
Just how do you position yourself before Congress, seeing that the influential Democratic senator who is co-sponsoring a wireless consumer protection bill is the same fellow trying to get you out from under privacy lawsuits in connection with the Bush administration's anti-terrorism warrantless wiretap...
As always, something has me a little confused.What is it this time? Well, it's the phone locking issue that has everyone from tech geeks to politicians in a tizzy. (Actually, it seems that only tech geeks and politicians are in an uproar over this...
Quarterly results from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. came as no surprise: Verizon Wireless did well and Sprint Nextel didn't.Although Verizon Wireless was outpaced in net customer additions by AT&T Mobility, the carrier added 1.8 million net retail customers during the third quarter,...
Ticket to ride Siemens IT Solutions and Services said it will soon offer technology that allows bus and train tickets to be purchased via mobile phones. The company conducted a countrywide pilot of the technology in 12 German cities and regions for six months....
Qualcomm Inc.'s new Gobi chip marks the arrival of a technology long-discussed by the San Diego company, according to one analyst.The chip will offer high-speed access to the Internet via both CDMA2000 1x EV-DO and UMTS-based HSPA networks worldwide, plus GPS. The chip will...
HOLLYWOOD, Calif.-The music industry is redefining itself amid significant changes, particularly with regards to the record labels' role in a world where recording artists are able to connect with fans with little technological or marketing know-how."The labels are clearly at an inflection point," John...
When Microsoft Corp.'s CEO Steve Ballmer publicly mentions someone's name as a respected veteran who will run a new company in partnership with his juggernaut, people listen. At CTIA I.T. & Entertainment 2007 in late October, Ballmer told a standing-room-only crowd that Mort Rosenthal...
Shifting business models make for strange bedfellows-and nowhere is that so clear as Google's potential linkup with Verizon Wireless, which is said to be negotiating with the search giant to carry phones equipped with Google's mobile operating system.Consider just the past year: Verizon and...
Online advertising is quickly moving toward cost-per-action models, but in the mobile world it's all about the eyeballs. For now, at least.A recent study by NetElixir and the e-tailing group inc. found that a majority of U.S. online retailers reported up to 40% of...
Just days after the smoke cleared from last week's devastating fires, Los Angeles began bracing for another firestorm-this time from the entertainment industry.The union representing the 12,000 film and TV writers who make the world laugh, cry and sing is going on strike for...
AT&T MOBILITY WILL TELL YOU that writers expounding on the issue of unlocked phones far outnumber consumers actually interested in buying them.Preliminary data shows that, while not literally true, that statement does reflect that a relatively small number of American consumers are researching unlocked...
THE MOBILE-PHONE INDUSTRY'S BUSINESS MODEL continues to come under attack, with challenges to carrier control increasingly playing out in the courts, Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission.National wireless carriers find themselves ensnarled in more than a dozen handset-locking and early-termination-fee cases consolidated in...
Like former Yankee Alex Rodriguez, Tele Atlas N.V. plans to cash in on the free-agent market.The Netherlands-based digital mapping company in July accepted a bid of $2.8 billion from TomTom NV, agreeing to recommend the offer to shareholders. But Tele Atlas last week pounced...
With the wireless sector the most competitive in the telecom industry, it is hard to imagine that company executives can simultaneously beat each other's brains out in the marketplace and work in harmony on issues of common interest. But they do for the most...
AT&T MOBILITY HAS DELAYED its launch of MediaFLO USA Inc.'s broadcast mobile TV service to early 2008. More than eight months after committing to launching the service by the end of the year, and seven months after Verizon Wireless launched the service last March,...
LITIGATION SURROUNDING RULES for auction-bound 700 MHz wireless licenses took an unexpected turn last week.Verizon Wireless filed to withdraw its appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz open-access rule, only to have cellphone industry trade association CTIA immediately fill the void by challenging...
AT&T INC. ROLLED THROUGH the quarter with 2 million net customer additions, and most of them (1.2 million) were coveted retail postpaid customers-up more than 30% from retail postpaid gains during the same quarter of 2006.The nation's largest carrier also managed to cut its...
SAN FRANCISCO-Direct-to-consumer is going directly, well, nowhere.Approaching mobile users directly has long been seen as the path to riches for outfits too small-or too edgy-for placement on carrier decks. But the U.S. market for off-deck mobile content is shackled by inadequate billing systems, onerous...
Organized labor stepped up its criticism of Verizon Communications Inc., accusing the telecom giant in a new report of violating labor laws by interfering with workers' attempts to unionize in its wireless and business units."This report makes crystal clear why Verizon employees-and all hard-working...
The wireless broadband industry is fighting to prevent sharing conditions in unlicensed spectrum, but utilities, railroads and others insist such safeguards are necessary to prevent interference in existing and future unlicensed frequencies.The Federal Communications Commission rejected Cellnet Technology Inc.'s request that a spectrum etiquette-any...
Parent companies of the two largest mobile-phone carriers continue to face an uphill battle to gain congressional immunity from the proliferation of privacy lawsuits in connection with the Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program, begun shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The White House...
Handset art Virgin Mobile USA and LG Electronics announced six specially commissioned handpanted Aloha handsets that will be auctioned off to support youth homeless charities. The project is part of the "National Homeless Youth Awareness Month" in November. Artists Daniel Davidson, Caroline Hwang, Rich...
