Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
Verizon Wireless has slowly begun to roll out voice over LTE services, announcing this week its Advanced Calling 1.0 offering. The service comes just days ahead of the launch of Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices, both of which are the first from...
If the past couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that recently installed Sprint CEO Marcello Claure is not afraid of change. And, considering a speech he gave at an investor conference this week, it seems that we should continue to expect such...
LAS VEGAS — Cricket Wireless has been busy since relaunching the brand earlier this year under the scope of new parent company AT&T Mobility. At this week's CTIA event, the carrier announced a number of new initiatives, including a new distribution partnership, its first...
LAS VEGAS — Now that LTE deployments have become nearly ubiquitous among the nation’s larger operators, the next challenge for operators is how to drive more revenues from those deployments. Having spent billions of dollars in acquiring the necessary wireless spectrum and costs associated with...
In announcing its latest iPhone iterations, Apple has yet again shown its unique influence over the competitive landscape for wireless carriers.
Apple said the iPhone 6 (4.7-inch screen) and 6 Plus (5.5-inch screen) would be available beginning Sept. 19, and supported by all carriers that...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
Apple’s latest products announcement occurs just as CTIA kicks off. The timing couldn’t be better. Samsung reminded the world at...
LAS VEGAS — Like the pair of telecom policy veterans that they are, Competitive Carriers Association CEO and President Steve Berry and current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler had a good-natured debate during a “fireside” chat that included a good amount of insider...
Support continues to roll in for the mobile telecommunications industry’s move toward virtualization, with the latest coming from Radisys. The company said it will begin offering support for Intel’s fourth-generation Core processor technology across its x86 product portfolio to meet growing processor demands from...
Despite significant regulatory and economic challenges in Africa, several carriers are pushing ahead with LTE deployments and finding ways to reach customers eager for the high-speed mobile technology.
In Africa, only 26 operators have commercially launched LTE in just 12 of Africa's 54 countries. The...
Sprint’s LTE roaming initiative continues to gather steam as the carrier today announced new agreements with 15 rural and regional carriers as part of its Rural Roaming Preferred Provider program. The deals provide Sprint with access to LTE coverage in rural areas outside of...
As wireless carriers increasingly move their network operations toward an all-IP model, the need to ensure service quality has evolved. In place of a circuit-switch world where “drops and blocks” were the currency of network quality, the deployment of LTE has ushered in new...
Kris Rinne, SVP of network technology at AT&T Labs, is reportedly set to retire at the end of November, and will be replaced by Tom Keathley, who was recently appointed SVP of network and product planning. The news was first reported by Fierce Wireless and...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
Dark fiber — the dirty word of early-2000s telecom — is back en vogue in...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
Successful monetization of the machine-to-machine market will take more than just connected devices working in harmony. It will require carriers...
Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control...
Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control...
Verizon Wireless is set to launch its voice over LTE service in the coming weeks, according to multiple reports. The offering will take advantage of the carrier’s IP-based data network to transmit both voice calls and video calls.
The carrier showed off the service to...
In last week’s note on capital spending, there was a slight to the table shown due to a spreadsheet error. This change raised the capex/average retail customer for T-Mobile US in earliest quarters shown. Apologies for the change – story stays the same. A...
T-Mobile US offers $5, 2 GB premium
T-Mobile US continued to add fuel to the ongoing pricing war among domestic wireless operators, announcing updates to its Simple Starter plan.
The carrier said the offering will now include the option to increase capped data from 500 megabytes...
European carriers seem to be emphasizing the “Long” in "Long Term Evolution" technology. While the region is home to some of the world's biggest economies, it continues to trail other developed markets in adopting LTE-based high-speed mobile technology, often referred to as 4G.
In South...
Will Sprint and T-Mobile US invest enough to have a minimally viable network (MVN?)
Several newcomers to my columns have pointedly asked me over the past week “What’s your angle? Why are you out to get ?” There is a thin line drawn at times between...
With voice-over-LTE networks slowly coming to market, focus is now turning to just how those networks perform compared with legacy circuit switched-based voice offerings. And, according to a new report, it appears that the performance benefit is clearly in the lap of VoLTE services.
In...
Spirent Communications studied more than 47,000 calls and 170,000 data tests on iPhone 5C devices across wireless operators in the United Kingdom and found that the main differences among operators came down to data speeds, while all operators performed well in call and file upload/download completions.
The...
