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 more interesting headlines from this week in history. Enjoy the ride!
Amp’d counters critics with numbers: MVNO expects 150,000 customers by year end
Amp’d Mobile Inc. is “fast approaching” 50,000 subscribers and is on track to have a customer base of between 100,000 to 150,000 customers by Christmas, according to Peter Adderton, chief executive officer and founder of the mobile virtual network operator. Adderton told RCR Wireless News that Amp’d brought in 15,000 new subscribers last month and is “on track to do 25,000 this month,” to have a total of about 50,000 customers by the end of September. Adderton said the customer additions are predominately postpaid, and that less than 10 percent of Amp’d’s customer base is on its recently launched prepaid plans. … Read More
Mobile maps on the map
Vodafone Germany launched a downloadable Java-based mapping application that features hi-resolution aerial photos and a searchable database of more than 4,000 German points of interest. Like Google Earth and other mapping applications for computers, Mobile Earth allows users to access satellite images of specific addresses and view a map of recommended routes for driving directions. The application, which was developed by LocatioNet Systems Ltd. and uses content from TeleAtlas, is available via download from the Vodafone Live portal. … Read More
As AWS auction winds down, DE lawsuit winds up
Council Tree Communications Inc. and others last week asked the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn results of the advanced wireless services auction, arguing new rules designed to prevent national mobile-phone carriers and others from exploiting bidding benefits for small businesses were haphazardly crafted and violated a congressional mandate to create new wireless opportunities for diverse entrants as evidenced by the poor showing of designated-entities in ongoing bidding dominated by top wireless and cable TV companies. … Read More
Alcatel/Lucent combo receives shareholder approval
The infrastructure industry’s merger of the season looks to be a done deal, as Lucent Technologies Inc. and Alcatel Inc. announced that their shareholders approved Alcatel’s $10.7 billion proposal to acquire Lucent in the midst of fierce global competition for wireless infrastructure market share. Lucent said its shareowners “overwhelmingly” voted in favor of the deal and said details of the vote will be available in an upcoming filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. … Read More
Verizon Wireless pitches plan to build public-safety network using 700 MHz band
Verizon Wireless is pitching a plan to build a nationwide broadband public-safety network in the 700 MHz band, according to sources familiar with the plan. The spectrum has already been allocated to public safety as part of the transition to digital TV. The Verizon Wireless plan envisions using 12 of the 24 megahertz set aside for public safety to build a nationwide public-safety broadband network. Verizon Wireless would augment its existing infrastructure as necessary to give public-safety the coverage it needs and then would extract rent from public-safety agencies across the country to use that infrastructure. The spectrum, however, would not be shared with Verizon Wireless’ commercial customers. … Read More
Wi-Fi Alliance to pre-certify .11n product
In a break from its tradition of certifying products only after a standard has been approved, the Wi-Fi Alliance says it plans to “pre-certify” the interoperability of pre-802.11n products beginning in the first half of 2007, before the IEEE ratifies the standard, which is expected to happen sometime in 2008. Karen Hanley, senior marketing director at the Wi-Fi Alliance, explained that many of the alliance’s members are already shipping pre-802.11n products, and pressure has been building for the Wi-Fi Alliance to test and pre-certify products based on the draft specification, or the baseline fundamentals of 802.11n technology. … Read More
Alcatel snaps up Nortel’s UMTS biz for $320M
Alcatel Inc. cut a deal with Nortel Networks Ltd. to buy the Canadian supplier’s UMTS radio access business for $320 million. Alcatel says the purchase will strengthen its UMTS market position as well as its research-and-development capabilities, namely in HSxPA and next-generation Long-Term Evolution. “We are clearly poised to become a strong No. 3 in UMTS and HSxPA,” said Marc Rouanne, president of Alcatel’s mobile communications activities. “Combined with our strong GSM/EDGE position, our early leadership in WiMAX and our strong commitment to LTE, this acquisition will add further momentum to Alcatel’s broadband wireless access strategy.” … Read More
Star Wars: MSS players exert force amid renewed interest from public safety, DBS
The unsuccessful proxy fight lodged by Highland Capital Management L.P. against Motient Corp. has given way to another nasty skirmish over proposed ownership changes in mobile satellite assets whose value may have been a factor in the exit of a high-rolling satellite TV bidding team in the advanced wireless services auction and whose future communications capabilities have attracted the attention of national law enforcement and homeland-security officials. Mobile satellite service spectrum has suddenly become somewhat of an X factor in a telecom sector where fierce competition for consumer dollars has top companies building business models based on a quadruple-play package of phone, wireless, TV and broadband offerings. Not so long ago, the MSS industry was on life support, with the high-cost of service and bulky handsets attractive to the military and other niche users, but otherwise a huge turn-off to the mass market largely served by the four national mobile-phone carriers. … Read More
A tale of two cities: Public safety in NYC and D.C five years after Sept. 11
Five years ago no one used the term homeland security. Five years ago, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 had yet to happen. Five years ago, Katrina was just a girl’s name-not a deadly hurricane. Today, all that has changed. Five years after the 9/11 attacks and one year after Katrina, several companies have built business models on the term homeland security, often tying communications-public-safety interoperability and emergency alerts-to homeland security. … Read More
Messy moves: Relocation, re-banding efforts often complex
Government spectrum managers are being challenged like no time before in efforts to clear the way for next-generation mobile phone and wireless broadband services-as well as rectify serious interference problems-through messy licensee relocation and frequency re-banding processes. Indeed, relocation and re-banding glitches have tended to pit top Federal Communications Commission wireless policy initiatives against one another and create new competitive and economic issues that otherwise do not exist in the marketplace. … Read More
