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Mobile Minute: Facebook is following up on its decision to pay $19 billion for WhatsApp with a plan to sunset its own messaging feature. The social media giant is telling users that soon when they try to send a message …

ZTE is signaling a shift in strategy that could be good news for its competitors. The Chinese maker of network infrastructure and smartphones said today that it has boosted profits by turning down low-margin contracts. ZTE was referring to infrastructure …

Long Term Evolution is indeed turning out to be a technology with a long lifespan, and the telecom industry is only in the early stages of mining the benefits of LTE — but there are hefty challenges that must still …

The Colombian regulator needs more power to increase competition in the telecommunications sector,  according to a new report from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). The report does recognize that Colombia has done a lot to strengthen the rules governing …

A new report from the Urban Land Institute and EY says that telecommunications infrastructure is one of the top factors that influence decisions on real estate investment and development around the world. The Infrastructure 2014 report was released this week at …

Swimming in a sea of SDN, NFV, PCC, PCRF, PCEF, EPC, DPI virtual alphabet soup? You are not alone. RCR Wireless News attempts to make sense of it all as we explore the evolution of policy control and the implications …

Mobile Minute: The jury in the latest Apple/Samsung patent lawsuit has heard from an economist who says Samsung should pay Apple $2.2 billion for infringing the iPhone maker’s patents. That economist was of course hired by Apple to testify. He …

The fifth-largest carrier in the U.S. is expanding its LTE reach with plans to add more than 1,200 new sites this year in partnership with King Street Wireless. In addition, U.S. Cellular says it will expand its existing LTE service, …

Gogo Inc. said today that it will begin rolling out Wi-Fi service on Air Canada’s entire North American fleet next month. The airline already has two Wi-Fi equipped aircraft, Airbus 319 models, which are operating in Canada and the U.S. …

Informa plc is merging its Ovum and Informa Telecoms and Media units into a single company. Steve Hotham, currently a managing director at Ovum, will become the CEO of the combined company, which will operate under the Ovum name. Both …

After losing its bid to buy SFR, Bouygues Telecom might just be bought itself. According to the French newspaper Le Parisien, the number three carrier in France is in talks over a potential sale to Iliad, the owner of Free, …

AT&T has expanded its contract with Transit Wireless to bring wireless voice and data coverage to more New York City subway stations. The two companies have already worked together on coverage in six stations from an initial build in Chelsea …

Editor’s Note: The RCR Wireless News Time Machine is a way to take advantage of our extensive history in covering the wireless space to fire up the DeLorean and take a trip back in time to re-visit some of the …

Mobile Minute: Google has reportedly talked with both Verizon and Sprint about reselling their wireless service under its own brand. The so-called MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) model is similar to that used by Virgin Mobile and Ntelos. Google is …

The world’s largest smartphone maker continues to feel the squeeze as Apple keeps the pressure on the high end, and Chinese competitors push from the low end. The Korean giant says it expects to report operating profit of $8 billion …

EXFO Inc. has purchased the assets of privately-held software company ByteSphere LLC, which focuses on global IT management and network monitoring. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to EXFO, ByteSphere’s portfolio includes “advanced patented techniques for infrastructure performance …

Radisys Corp. and Broadcom have worked together on an integrated software and chip solution FDD and TDD-LTE small cells, and the technology will be tested in China in the first half of this year. Radisys’ Trillium TotaleNodeB 2.0. small cell software …

In mobile chip news this week, Qualcomm has unveiled its newest Snapdragon chipset, Broadcom has teamed up with Amazon, and Freescale has agreed to buy Mindspeed’s ARM processor business. Qualcomm has made good on its promise to challenge Apple’s 64-bit …

Policy news: The FCC makes a ruling that could affect LTE backhaul.

Microsoft has selected testing company Ixia as its official testing house for ensuring that mobile devices meet quality expectations when running the software company’s Lync application. Microsoft Lync is a unified communications platform, which is increasingly being used on mobile devices due …

Device news: Nokia, T-Mobile expand offerings, smartphone kill switch savings and plans for iPhone 6 screen production. 

Mobile Minute: U.S. Cellular is the latest carrier to offer its customers contract-free pricing, as well as incentives to abandon their current contracts. The Chicago-based carrier is offering unlimited talk, text and data for $40 a month. For $50 a …

Freescale has agreed to purchase Mindspeed’s communications processor unit for an undisclosed amount. Mindspeed was acquired by MACOM last year, and at the time the RF and microwave specialist said that it would try to sell Mindspeed’s Comcerto communications processor …

–Mobile Experts expects that the small cell market will reach $10 billion in 2018. Joe Madden, principal analyst at the firm, said that the deployment of 200,000 small cells in Asia “has validated the accuracy of our forecasting over the …

Verizon Wireless will pay $210 million to acquire spectrum licenses and related assets from Cincinnati Bell. The nation’s largest wireless carrier will assign the licenses to Grain Management, a private equity firm that invests in wireless infrastructure. Verizon will then …