The following list includes venture capital and other investments into wireless companies announced during the past week. The value of the investment is included when available.--Ambient: Vicis Capital Master Fund invested $3 million into Newmont, Mass.-based Ambient Corp. The financing deal called for Ambient...
Most stick to expansion blueprints despite rough conditionsLOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Can big-box retailers keep growing briskly, given the current downturn in the economy? For the most part, yes, but it depends on what's inside the box.
Apple has released the fourth beta version of the iPhone software development kit, which includes OpenGL ES support in the smartphone simulator. OpenGL ES is a royalty-free, cross-platform application-programming interface for 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems, such as those found in smartphones.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: NextWave Wireless Inc. said today it's exploring the sale of its U.S. spectrum holdings.The company made its mark on wireless in the mid-90s by being the top bidder for extensive 1.9 GHz spectrum covering most of...
Motorola Inc. continued to lose traction in the handset market as first-quarter revenue was down nearly 40%, its operating losses nearly doubled and handset shipments were down drastically over the year-ago quarter.Wall Street hammered the company's stock, sending it down nearly 5% today to...
When it comes to wireless plans, it's all about the buffet, J.D. Power and Associates concluded in its semi-annual survey of wireless customers' level of satisfaction with contracts.The firm, which recently gave a nod to regional carriers in its latest survey on call quality,...
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 us the wrong way....
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 of directors. Kelly has...
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 a blueprint and builds...
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 with the firm for...
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 a cost-per-click basis and...
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 70 million subscribers. The...
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 iPhone sales for the...
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 Paul Jacobs, in a...
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 with the nation's 3rd...
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 Northeast Communications of Wisconsin...
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 making fundamental changes would...
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 with the law.Under 2003...
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), despite what one analyst...
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 calls. The service, which...
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 to people who are...
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 Emeryville, Calif.-based company...
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 from $12 billion. --Morgan...
