Friday mobile shortbread: Headlines in brief

Buy Your iPhone at Walmart
Want an iPhone 4G come June 24th? No problem, just head on down to your local Walmart, the coolest hipster budget supermarket on the block. That’s right, because if you can’t bear the thought of donning a pair of checkered pants and an ironic scarf to stand in line for hours outside your nearest Apple store, or don’t have a Radio Shack or AT&T near you, then Walmart is really your best bet. Keeping it classy iPhone fans!
Semis end week on a stock high
Good news for semiconductors this Friday, with many a chipmaker starting the weekend with a smile after a second day of good stock news.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Chipmaker Marvell Technology Group was up by 1%, while Xilinx gained 1.5% and Texas Instruments was up 0.9%. Only chip behemoth Intel failed to rise to the occasion, remaining flat.
The news has the folks at the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) sounding fairly upbeat, with their reps predicting global semiconductor sales will rise 28% this year over 2009’s paltry efforts. The SIA also believes worldwide chip sales will total $290.5 billion this year, and $308.7 billion in 2011, up from November’s depressing prediction of just $262.3 billion. Meanwhile chip sales for 2012 are projected to reach $317.8 billion.
Chinese-Canadian alliance
Canada’s Public Mobile has teamed up with China’s ZTE on a deal to jointly build a commercial CDMA network in Canada, set to serve around 19 million potential customers across Ontario and Quebec.
ZTE will apparently be helping the Canadians design, build and operate the end-to-end CDMA network which will include wireless, core network, service platforms and IP architecture.
The Chinese firm has apparently committed to blanketing the Candian countryside with more than 1,000 base stations for the new network along with an innovative 5+5MHz-based customized offering for personalized communications systems (PCS) which should provide extended G block frequency band on CDMA system equipment and terminals.
ZTE will also purportedly be supplying Public Mobile with mobile handsets.
HTC Legend tips up in the North Country
Keeping with the Canadian theme, those lucky Canucks and woodchucks will be able to get their icy cold hands on HTC’s Legend today, with Virgin Mobile punting the device – its first ever Android.
Those interested in picking one up should know it will set them back $79.99 on a three-year contract or $350 outright.

Ay Caramba, AT&T down in Puerto Rico and across SouthEast USA
Unconfirmed reports on Friday claimed AT&T data service was down in the SouthEast, with Florida being singled out as having the worst outage, but with blackouts also being reported from Atlanta down to oil slicked Louisiana – as if the state didn’t have enough problems to contend with.
The data darkness has even found its way to Puerto Rico according to reports.
The FCC gets serious about security
Cybersecurity is topping the FCC’s priority list these days with the Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau working overtime to calm public fears after this week’s iPad 3G email breach and public outrage over Google’s Wi-Fi snooping.
The FCC is clearly unimpressed with Google at the moment, with the organization’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Joel Gurin writing in an official blog post, “Google’s behavior also raises important concerns. Whether intentional or not, collecting information sent over WiFi networks clearly infringes on consumer privacy.”
Gurin goes on to ask the public to please read the FCC’s guide to wireless safety – sadly a plea likely to fall on deaf ears.
Sources believe it’s highly likely the FCC will call in the major telecom players, including AT&T, Apple and Google, to forge some kind of cybersecurity strategy for broadband and wireless networks very soon indeed.
iPhone to go T-Mobile?
Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu has publicly claimed he believes T-Mobile will be the next US carrier to receive the blessed iPhone from St. Steve on Mount Cupertino.
The reason Wu believes the coveted phone will come to T-Mobile rather than Verizon is apparently down to the fact T-Mobile uses the same network technology as AT&T while Verizon’s network runs on tech Apple currently does not support.
Another clue could be in the fact the newest iPhone will work on the 2,100-MHz frequency of wireless spectrum, which T-Mobile also uses.
Android chalks up another win, in INQ
Socially aware mobile maker INQ has unceremoniously dumped Qualcomm’s Brew operating system in favor of Google’s popular Android for all its handsets.
The move will add yet another feather to Google’s ever growing hat, which already counts a plethora of devices from the likes of HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG and SonyEricsson. If that’s not incentive enough to Android app developers, we don’t know what is!
Not got a smartphone? You can still Skype says Verizon
The carrier love/hate relationship with Skype continues today, with Verizon announcing it will even be integrating the VoIP service into non-smartphones later this year.
Back in January, Verizon announced it had teamed up with former Pariah of the telco world, Skype, to stick the app on no less than 12 of its smartphone offerings.
Much like on a PC, Skype-to-Skype calls on a mobile are free with a data plan whilst Skype to mobile or landline numbers use voice plan minutes. What doesn’t use voice plan minutes, however, are international Skype calls which are simply charged according to Skype’s very low cost international rates.
Smart move by Verizon to bring the service to non-smartphones.
Sprint said to be mulling data throttling
Overloaded networks and clogged data pipes are enough to make anyone mad, but when it comes to Sprint, the carrier is so mad it’s said to be ready to throttle the bandwidth consumption of those greedy users going way over normal and acceptable usage.
The rumors of throttling are still unconfirmed, but a snapshot which made its way to Engadget recently of Sprint’s The Playbook seems rather indicative of the carrier’s plans.