Mobile and Wireless Industry Reports

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 RCRWirelessNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs …

Crown Castle Inc. said Ben Moreland, the company’s CFO, will become president and CEO of the tower company, effective July 1. John Kelly, Crown Castle’s president and CEO, will remain with the company as executive vice chairman of the board …

The Mobile Marketing Association released its first set of global guidelines, tweaking its instructions for mobile Web advertisers and adding new rules for campaigns centered on mobile messaging and downloadable applications.The Denver-based nonprofit said the new document is designed as …

According to a report from research and banking firm ThinkPanmure, AT&T Mobility plans to sell up to 7 million femtocells from ip.access Ltd., a picocell and femtocell infrastructure vendor based in Cambridge, United Kingdom.According to ThinkPanmure, AT&T signed a contract …

Google Inc. has added image ads to its mobile advertising offerings.The move allows advertisers to deliver made-for-mobile banners on Web sites being accessed by wireless devices. The ads — which, like Google’s text ads, are keyword-targeted — are priced on …

The companies listed below represent the 10 largest national and regional licensed wireless carriers based on subscriber numbers at the end of 2007. AT&T Mobility maintained its position as the industry’s No. 1 carrier, ending last year with just over …

Apple Inc. reported revenue of $7.5 billion and net profit over $1 billion in its second fiscal quarter, with revenue beating expectations. That’s up from revenue of $5.3 billion and net profit of $770 million in the year-ago quarter.The company’s …

Qualcomm Inc. is riding a wave of demand for W-CDMA-enabled handsets, which drove its strong revenue and profits in the fiscal second quarter, the company said today. “Worldwide adoption of 3G, CDMA-based products and services continue to accelerate,” said CEO …

Sprint Nextel Corp.’s wireless resale relationship with three of the nation’s largest cable companies has come to an end. According to media reports, Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Cox Communications Inc. are pulling out of their Pivot-branded effort …

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a fine assessed against Star Wireless L.L.C. for violating the anti-collusion rule in a 2002 auction conducted by the Federal Communications Commission.The FCC originally fined Star Wireless and …

A former executive of now-defunct Frontline Wireless L.L.C. said rules for the national commercial/public-safety license that went unclaimed in the recently completed 700 MHz auction were ambiguous and poorly designed, warning that a rush to re-auction the D Block without …

Plaintiffs’ lawyers have found a new weapon to pursue class-action consumer litigation against the mobile-phone industry: the Fair Credit Reporting Act.Verizon Wireless and Alltel Corp. are facing class-action lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Georgia federal courts, respectively, based on alleged noncompliance …

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications said it lost a point of market share in the first quarter, following a warning it gave last month.The Japanese-Swedish JV reported a year-on-year increase of only 2% in the number of handsets shipped (22.3 million), …

Sprint Nextel Corp. is quietly dropping its Voice Command service in July.The carrier is informing customers via its Web site that it will discontinue the server-based offering, which allows users to dial two buttons then give voice commands to place …

Microsoft Corp. subsidiary TellMe said it added a GPS location feature to its voice portal to give BlackBerry users information about businesses, movies, traffic, weather, maps and driving directions. The “voice in, visual out” way of receiving information is useful …

Sony Corp. of America said it will pay roughly $260 million for Gracenote, a music metadata and technology firm. Gracenote’s database of artists, songs and lyrics is used by online music services such as iTunes, Yahoo Music Jukebox and Winamp; …

The following list includes ratings changes and financial information for wireless companies announced this week by investment-banking and financial-services firms.Carrier–Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its rating on AT&T Inc.‘s commercial paper program, which has been raised to $15 billion …

IWT4 uses mathematical processing and the latest in radio telemetry and signal conditioning to accurately measure forces at the wheel-rail interface

Several major marketers have found themselves stonewalled when it comes to measurable and effective uses for mobile technology, but a National Hockey League team is scoring big with a text-messaging program. Faced with persistently unsold tickets and a bevy of …

There’s a lot of debate these days about what might push mobile television into its next growth spurt, but most seem to agree that offering ad-supported channels can only help.GoldSpot Media, a Silicon Valley start-up, is banking on that strategy …

Tellabs Inc. reported $16.6 million in earnings in the first quarter, down nearly 35% from the $25.5 million it brought in during the year-ago period. The company’s stock was down nearly 17% to $5 per share on the news.Since Tellabs’ …

Sunrise Telecom Inc. introduced a monitoring and analysis platform designed to help operators better manage their mobile data services. Mobile X-Ray correlates information from the network, services, subscribers and devices using the Oracle-based Expert Engine. Basically, as wireless operators grow …

Shares of Texas Instruments Inc. tumbled after the company ratcheted down expectations about the short-term market for high-end phones.The Dallas-based chipmaker reported $3.27 billion in first-quarter revenue, up 3% from the year-ago period, and posted a net income of $662 …

Nokia Corp. bulked up its music offerings, inking a deal with Sony BMG and adding two new handsets to its XpressMusic line.The Finnish company said Sony BMG has joined its Comes With Music offering, a program that packages one year’s …

Nearly lost in all post-mortems following the death of Mowser last week was this little tidbit: 80% of the traffic to the site was mobile users looking for adult content, according to founder Russell Beattie.Think about that. Four out of …