The Federal Communications Commission boasts that its new wireless emergency-alert proposal will help fulfill its statutory charter to promote the safety of life and property, but the agency's head conceded to lawmakers there's no assurance that warnings of terrorist threats or natural disasters will...
The 700 MHz auction - spectrum the wireless industry has coveted for more than 10 years - is set to start this month.At times it didn't seem like the wireless industry was ever going to get its hands on this valuable resource because the...
Motorola Inc. unveiled a standalone broadcast mobile television device that it hopes will appeal to TV fans who want to go mobile. The device is the first of its kind from Motorola -- housing a DVB-H chipset that includes no cellular connectivity.The device will...
Television just isn't the same these days. The writers' strike in Hollywood, now in its ninth week, has given millions another reason to turn off the tube. Unless reruns and reality TV are your thing, the TV set has essentially become a content wasteland...
Below are RCR Wireless News' 10 biggest stories of the year. These are the stories that rocked the industry in 2007, and set the groundwork for the future of wireless.
1. iCANDY
iPhone looks tempting, but users have to wait until June to see if it...
The debate whether to unleash a potentially huge amount of vacant broadcast spectrum-called white spaces-for Wi-Fi and other low-power wireless applications has reached a critical juncture, with federal regulators set to conduct another round of testing on a new group of devices to see...
Alcatel-Lucent has partnered with mobile operator 3 Italia and Italian public broadcaster RAI for a mobile TV trial based on the DVB-SH standard. The technology, which is an evolution of DVB-H, uses satellites to broadcast directly to mobile devices and integrates hybrid satellite and...
First comes the technology, then come the devices. Just eight months after Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld Technology was announced to enable local broadcasters to deliver digital signals to portable TV screens, Kenwood USA Corp. has harnessed the technology to design a mobile TV receiver for over-the-air broadcasts...
Sprint Nextel Corp. and broadcast groups told federal regulators that 2 GHz relocation challenges associated with the 800 MHz rebanding effort can be resolved five months sooner than expected.The Federal Communications Commission last month directed stakeholders-including Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA Inc., broadcasters and mobile...
Wireless carriers and mobile marketers are very much in the dark about how to approach consumers on their phones, but Facebook's Beacon has helped light the way. The way not to go, that is.The oh-so-cool social-networking site managed to enrage thousand of its members...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile content industry to give their insights into the marketplace. In the coming weeks look...
Google Inc. apparently got so fed up waiting for more GPS-enabled devices to hit the market that it has taken matters into its own hands. Google Maps for Mobile users can now have their location automatically set, with or without GPS.The search behemoth added...
The United States teamed with neighboring countries to get the 700 MHz band identified for wireless broadband services in the Americas and major markets in Asia at the close of the World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva, effectively setting the foundation for a global...
Mobile video phone sales will nearly double by 2010, from $58 billion in 2006 to $125 billion in 2010, according to market research firm Infonetics Research.Mobile video subscribers will also grow from just a few million in 2006 to 58.6 million in 2010, said...
Just days after the smoke cleared from last week's devastating fires, Los Angeles began bracing for another firestorm-this time from the entertainment industry.The union representing the 12,000 film and TV writers who make the world laugh, cry and sing is going on strike for...
NBC Universal has consolidated all of its interactive TV and participation media campaigns under one roof: SinglePoint. The mobile marketing company has been ramping up to takeover all NBC property campaigns for more than four months now and waited until it was driving all...
Editor's Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry. --NBC...
AT&T MOBILITY HAS DELAYED its launch of MediaFLO USA Inc.'s broadcast mobile TV service to early 2008. More than eight months after committing to launching the service by the end of the year, and seven months after Verizon Wireless launched the service last March,...
AT&T Mobility has delayed its launch of MediaFLO USA Inc.'s broadcast mobile TV service to early 2008. More than eight months after committing to launching the service by the end of the year, and seven months after Verizon Wireless launched the service last March,...
A party of five representing TV and cable networks and a diverse sampling of distribution providers failed to collectively define mobile television as it exists today or where it is going. All agreed that more needs to be done to inform large swaths of...
Consider WiMAX a bit schizophrenic. The technology is taking two divergent paths as different countries and different companies explore how best to put it to use in their respective markets.Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, board member and VP of marketing for the WiMAX Forum, has described...
With ringtone revenues in decline and full-track downloads struggling to find an audience, carriers and third-party vendors are working furiously to breathe life into a withering mobile music industry.Ringtones for years have been the most popular type of content on (or off) carrier decks,...
In the past, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has managed now and then to wrestle away the spotlight (albeit temporarily) on major telecom-tech issues of the day from the Federal Communications Commission. NTIA, a Commerce Department unit that serves as the principal adviser...
AT&T Mobility's data traffic is "growing like crazy," according to Mark Collins, the carrier's VP of consumer data. But whether users will actually pay for this stuff is still far from clear.Collins touted AT&T's "quite staggering" growth in messaging, and continued to hammer away...
