Mobile Phones

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California, United States—Disney content is moving onto European mobile phones for the first time through a deal between T-Mobile International’s mobile online services provider T-Motion and Walt Disney Internet. The deal is the latest in a string of …

HELSINKI, Finland—Denmark’s TDC has blamed “technical problems” for its decision to delay the launch of its third-generation (3G) mobile-phone network in Switzerland. The launch, which had originally been scheduled to take place in 2002, will be postponed until 2003 “at …

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Disney content is moving onto European mobile phones for the first time through a deal between T-Mobile International mobile online services provider T-Motion and Walt Disney Internet Group. The deal is the latest in a string of content …

WASHINGTON—Verizon Wireless today said it hopes to reach a deal soon with the Bush administration that would ensure mobile phone calls involving national security and rescue personnel during national emergencies are processed first. “We are currently in discussions with the …

HELSINKI, Finland—ICE International, a technology development company based in Bergen, Norway, has confirmed plans to enter the international marketplace with new technology that will automatically “turn off” unwanted mobile telephones in use at a range of cell-phone prohibited zones, such …

TOKYO—Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. announced its cell phone unit will close a Great Britain-based plant in an effort to further reduce costs by moving production to China and Eastern Europe. The Thatcham plant employs about 350 people and its closure …

TOKYO-Wireless local area network (WLAN) service targeting the retail and travel industries is set to expand quickly in Japan. Some market watchers said that once the WLAN business takes off, it might be a rival for cellular phone service and …

NEW DELHI, India-The Thai cellular market witnessed rapid growth and intense competition during 2001. Subscriber numbers reached a landmark, crossing fixed-line subscriber numbers much earlier than expected. Tariffs are decreasing, and value-added services are generating huge revenues for operators. Next-generation …

Qualcomm has been looking for a European opening for its CDMA technology for some time. But so far, the technology has been effectively shut out in the region, other than a few CDMA fixed-wireless networks, mainly in Russia and other …

TORONTO-As the handset manufacturing business gets tougher because of declining demand, more phone makers are looking at joint ventures as their economic salvation and perhaps their best strategy to catch number-one handset supplier Nokia. In October, after much fanfare, Ericsson …

LONDON-The introduction of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) in Sweden and NTT DoCoMo’s launch of third-generation (3G) services has set the scene for a new approach to mobile devices, both by operators and end users. The market for mobile devices …

A new study by marketing research firm BWCS claimed that more than 90 percent of U.K. business travelers with laptops are interested in using wireless local area network (WLAN) services at airports, while 40 percent of those surveyed said they …

WOODBURY, New York—Taiwan Cellular Corporation (TCC) selected Comverse to provide its Intelligent Short Messaging Service Center to Taiwan Cellular’s 6.4 million subscribers. “Our agreement with TCC underscores the expansion of Comverse’s enhanced services market success in the Asia-Pacific region, including …

PARIS—Telfort and Postbank in Norway have selected SchlumbergerSema’s Subscriber Wireless Application Protocol Identify Module (SWIM) card to provide public key infrastructure for their m-banking service. The service, which launched earlier this year, has more than 500,000 users. The Simera e-motion …

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—Motorola Inc. has licensed it iTAP intelligent keypad text entry technology to Acer Communications and Multimedia Inc. Acer said it will use iTAP technology, which it licensed for three years, in the mobile phones it develops for mobile handset …

WOODBURY, N.Y.—Taiwan Cellular Corp. selected Comverse, a unit of Comverse Technology Inc., to provide its Intelligent Short Messaging Service Center to Taiwan Cellular’s 6.4 million subscribers. “Our agreement with TCC underscores the expansion of Comverse’s enhanced services market success in …

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission said it received more than 3,000 complaints from wireless users the past three months, the second highest total of all telecom sectors regulated by the agency. The data, included in the first of what will be …

NEW YORK—Zingy.com, a web portal that allows Nokia mobile phone users to personalize their phones and communicate through text messaging, has officially launched. “Wireless phones aren’t just tech toys anymore,” explained Fabrice Grinda, Zingy’s founder. “They’re a lifestyle accessory, an …

The wireless data industry started as a dream and a nationwide network almost 30 years ago. As the years slowly passed and people began to recognize the value of mobile data, more and more trucking managers jumped on board to …

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, United States-AT&T Wireless announced an agreement with Google to provide subscribers with Internet-ready mobile phones direct access to Google’s search engine. The Google service, available to AT&T Digital PocketNet Service Premium Plan customers, automatically converts HTML Web …

BEIJING-The U.S. subsidiary of China’s largest electric meter producer, the Holley Group based in the eastern province of Zhejiang, has acquired the design operations for CDMA mobile phones from Philips Semiconductors, a division of Holland’s Philips Electronics. Holley Communications USA …

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, United States-A broad spectrum of technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Comverse, Intel, Microsoft, Philips Speech Processing and SpeechWorks International, agreed to form a forum to develop a platform-free standard for multimodal and telephony-enabled access to information, applications …

NEW YORK—The Bluetooth Special Interest Group Inc.’s Car Working Group released a definition for how Bluetooth wireless technology will enable hands-free use of mobile phones in automobiles as part of its Hands-Free Profile, which are expected to be adopted by …

HELSINKI, Finland—Vattenfall and Swedish power sector ally Birka Energi have reached a preliminary agreement to use their combined electricity systems as springboards to build new stations for third-generation (3G) networks, offering masts and antennae, as well as maintenance and electric …

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—According to research firm Credit Suisse First Boston and other published reports, personal digital assistant maker Handspring Inc. on Monday will unveil its highly anticipated integrated wireless device. The device will combine PDA organizer functions with mobile phone …