Mobile News – RCR Wireless News

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Alltel Corp. completed the spinoff and merger of its wireline business, and now is officially a pure wireless player in the telecom industry. Alltel announced in December that it would spin off its landline business and merge it …

STANFORD, Calif.—Number portability has translated into lower wireless costs for consumers due to increased competition, according to research done at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Since the Federal Communications Commission mandated wireless local number portability in late 2004, average …

WASHINGTON—An influential House Democrat said policy-makers should consider requiring wireless carriers and other communications service providers to participate in any overhaul of a Cold War-era emergency alert system. At a hearing last Thursday, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), ranking member of …

FORT WORTH, Texas—A slight increase in wireless sales wasn’t enough to offset lagging overall sales and an expensive turnaround program for RadioShack Corp. during the second quarter. The electronics retailer said wireless sales were up 2 percent during the period …

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 …

When discussing the disappointing results for the second quarter by South Korean vendors Samsung Electronics Co. or LG Electronics Co. Ltd., one has to begin by noting the robust performances by Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp., which together account for …

Boston Communications Group Inc. settled its long-running dispute with Freedom Wireless Inc., agreeing to pay $55.3 million to the patent-holding firm. BCGI suffered a potentially fatal blow last year when a Massachusetts U.S. District Court ruled the company had infringed …

RESTON, Va.—Wireless Matrix Corp. stepped into the breach to purchase the intellectual property and customer contracts of bankrupt MobileAria for about $11 million, a day after @Road Inc. announced it would terminate its week-old agreement to make the same purchase. …

Consolidation in the mobile content space remains white-hot, with Motricity Inc. the most recent player to tap the booming off-deck market with the acquisition of GoldPocket Wireless Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Motricity has gained substantial traction …

WASHINGTON—Internal controversy over the Bush administration’s plan to protect wireless telecom networks and other critical infrastructure against terrorist threats and natural disasters broke open last week after a top Department of Homeland Security official and the agency’s Office of Inspector …

Without divulging financial details, Nortel Networks Ltd. bagged what is likely a hefty contract to supply Verizon Wireless with CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A network technology beginning in the third quarter. Albert Lin, telecom analyst at American Technology Research, estimated …

WASHINGTON—Wireless carriers that plan to use traffic studies to determine their universal-service contributions must maintain all of the necessary data in case the Federal Communications Commission decides to audit the results. The text of the traffic studies rules is pretty …

Amdocs Ltd. continued its spending spree last week, agreeing to shell out $375 million to acquire operations support provider Cramer Systems Group Ltd. Cramer, a privately held, London-based outfit, produces network resource management software for mobile and fixed-line telecommunications companies. …

REDMOND, Wash.—Microsoft Corp.’s Mobile and Embedded Devices division achieved profitability for the first time, the company announced. The division houses the company’s smart-phone efforts. Microsoft’s division logged an operating income of $2 million for the year, a turnaround from a …

STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Shares of L.M. Ericsson dipped after the infrastructure provider posted a slight decline in second-quarter net profit due to its recent acquisition of Marconi Corp. Ericsson said its profit fell 2 percent to $778 million as revenue rose 15 …

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Yahoo Inc. took yet another step onto the wireless playground, inking a deal to preload its Go for Mobile service on “tens of millions” of handsets from Motorola Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The application, which …

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 …

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.—As multimedia-enabled handsets flood the market, so are external memory options, according to a new report from The NPD Group. The number of handsets equipped with removable media slots increased more than 250 percent to 2 million phones …

WASHINGTON—The Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police is urging Congress to lean on the Federal Communications Commission to put the 700 MHz Cyren Call Communications Corp. proposal out for comment. “It’s alarming that the average American household has access to …

WASHINGTON—Instead of giving subsidies to rural telephone companies, the government could save $1 billion a year by giving away free wireless and satellite phones to Americans who do not have access to landline telephony, according to a study released by …

SEATTLE—Starbucks Coffee Co. is the latest mega-brand to go mobile, launching a scavenger-hunt promotional campaign for wireless users. The coffee giant launched a Web site, starbuckssummer.com, that allows customers to send a message to a short code and receive three …

NEW YORK—Spending on wireless equipment is in a bit of a slump, according to Bear Stearns & Co. Inc.’s U.S. telecom capex preview. The firm said Cingular Wireless L.L.C., the nation’s largest carrier, is spending money on third-generation equipment, but …

Although much attention has been focused on the network transitions and upgrades of national carriers, many regional operators around the country also are deciding how to implement new technologies and whether to spend money to upgrade infrastructure. Those technology decisions …

EMERYVILLE, Calif.-MobiTV Inc. said it snared a whopping $70 million in a Series C financing round led by Oak Investment Partners. The three-year-old wireless video provider said it will use the capital to expand its offerings internationally and across platforms. …

Business forecasts are integral to industry, wireless or otherwise. Vendors crunch them, analysts parse them, investors fret over them, bloggers disparage them and reporters write about them. Early in the year, forecasts typically are up, down or mixed. And by …