Amid intensified airport security, U.S. passports outfitted with RFID technology rolled off the government's presses as the U.S. State Department began issuing electronic passports to the public. The State Department said e-passports are being produced at its Colorado Passport Agency in Denver and will...
SAN JOSE, Calif.—Infineon Technologies AG secured a multimillion-dollar order to supply the U.S. government with its RFID chips for electronic passports. The company touts its RFID chips as being designed to "facilitate international travel by allowing automatic identity verification, faster immigration inspections and greater...
Look out, Texas Instruments Inc. and Infineon Technologies AG. Your closest competitor in EDGE baseband chips and W-CDMA RF transceivers, respectively-Philips Semiconductor-has a new, ambitious owner anxious to position its acquisition to eat your lunch. Or at least grow Philips Semiconductor by feeding on...
The Symbian operating system, championed by Nokia Corp. in its smart phones, currently has a majority of OS market share, a state of affairs likely to continue for the foreseeable future, according to projections from market research firm IDC. This is likely despite the...
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.—Forget the car charger. Sprint Nextel Corp. is the first to market with a portable charger from Energizer, the Energi To Go, which can charge a cell phone using AA batteries. RCR Wireless News first reported on the recharging device in June,...
WASHINGTON-Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), co-chairman of the Congressional Wireless Caucus, led a group of lawmakers last week in writing a letter urging the Federal Communications Commission to declare that states have no jurisdiction over early-termination fees. "In our view, there is no question that...
WASHINGTON—Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), co-chairman of the Congressional Wireless Caucus, is asking lawmakers to join him in writing a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the FCC to declare that states have no jurisdiction over early-termination fees. "In our view, there is no...
Qualcomm Inc. is faring well based on fiscal third-quarter results, albeit with a cautious outlook for its fiscal fourth quarter, reflecting the wireless industry's robustness. In contrast, Intel Corp.—the world's largest chip maker, based on its position in the personal computer market—posted disappointing results,...
While the world watches Intel Corp. try to position itself at the top of the WiMAX market for laptop chips, French chipmaker Sequans Communications quietly announced that its low-power-consuming WiMAX chip for handsets and WiMAX infrastructure products is being sampled by top manufacturers. During...
SAN DIEGO—Qualcomm Inc. reported third-quarter results of $1.95 billion in revenue and $643 million in net income, increases of 44 percent and 15 percent, respectively, from the year-ago quarter. The chip vendor attributed earnings to sales of its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO and W-CDMA chipsets....
SARASOTA, Fla.—Mobile Voice over Internet Protocol developer xG Technology L.L.C. said it is launching a nationwide deployment program of xMax, the company’s new mobile VoIP service. The company said it’s accepting applications from dealers and will award exclusive territories to regional carriers for rollouts...
Given all the recent WiMAX announcements, it seems that the communications infrastructure community has convinced the rest of the world to invest in WiMAX technology, whether for fixed or mobile networks. In Seoul, South Korea's top two carriers, SK Telecom Co. Ltd. and KT...
SEOUL, South Korea—Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world’s third-largest mobile handset vendor, said revenue from mobile-phone sales fell 4.5 percent to $4.2 billion from the year-ago quarter on shipments of 26.3 million units, missing analysts’ reduced expectations for the company. The company blamed erosion...
Hello! And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
While the standards-setting process for WiMAX technology seems to move forward at a snail's pace, the business machinations around mobile WiMAX are developing faster than a speeding bullet, so to speak.Indeed, Intel Corp.'s recent moves to exit the wireless handset chip business and immediately...
The combined $900 million investment in Clearwire Corp. from Intel Capital and Motorola Ventures establishes that 802.16e technology will be a force in mobile wireless broadband service. Under the investment deal announced last week, Intel plans to invest $600 million into Craig McCaw's Clearwire...
SAN DIEGO—Much ado about nothing, so far. That sums up Qualcomm Inc.’s press release, issued today, crowing that the United States International Trade Commission had initiated an investigation of Nokia Corp. on Qualcomm’s June 9 complaint that the Finnish vendor is violating Qualcomm’s W-CDMA...
Now that the dust has settled on news that Marvell Technology Group Ltd. will purchase Intel Corp.'s communications and application processor businesses for $600 million, many observers would love to know how Marvell plans to garner growth-never mind a simple return-on-investment-from the transaction. Sehat...
The dissolution of the Nokia Corp./Sanyo Electronics Co. Ltd. CDMA joint venture may leave a void in the United States for CDMA handsets, estimated by analysts at about 7 million units per year, despite Nokia assurances that its alternative strategy for the prized U.S....
Diversification, anyone will tell you, is a smart move. Excelling in one area is no guarantee against a changing market. Common sense dictates that you hedge your bets. But even the most successful companies have stumbled by straying too far from core competencies that...
There was no parade. Not even a press release to accompany Intel Corp.'s unveiling of its new Rosedale 2 WiMAX chip for both fixed and mobile broadband access during the Wireless Communications Expo forum event held last week in Washington, D.C. Intel's spokeswoman, Amy...
GREENSBORO, N.C.—Those pesky, detail-oriented analysts and emotional stock traders sent ripples through the market yesterday and today as news circulated that RF Micro Devices Inc.’s two largest customers—Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc., which happen to be the two largest handset vendors in the world—may...
ESPOO, Finland—What a difference four months can make, especially in the hyper-competitive pursuit of global domination in a burgeoning business. Nokia Corp. and Sanyo Electronics Co. Ltd. announced they will not proceed with the joint venture for CDMA phones they announced in February. In...
Television has been called the "75-year-old killer application" and, indeed, one of the hurdles to-and possibly a shaper of-the mobile television experience is the recent trend toward giant, flat-screen TVs with surround sound in the home. Accustomed to zoning out in front of a...
