Starting Thursday Cingular Wireless will send text messages to all of its 46 million customers, giving them a chance to make $1 or $2 donations to the Asian tsunami disaster relief effort, charges that will appear on their monthly bills.Cingular's offering mirrors that of...
TOKYO-Hitachi claimed to have won a bigger CDMA2000 1x EV-DO infrastructure order from Japanese wireless carrier KDDI Corp. than rival firm Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, which Tuesday said it won an $800 million contract, international press reports said. The Japanese telecom supplier said it...
ISTANBUL, Turkey-Following a similar announcement from its rival Tuesday, Motorola Inc. Wednesday announced a contract to deliver Push to Talk over Cellular equipment to Turkcell, Turkey's leading GSM operator. Motorola said Turkcell's PoC service is available to subscribers using its V400p handsets. "We predict...
SHANGHAI, China-E-commerce company SmartPay Jieyin Ltd. announced Wednesday that it will acquire Intrinsic Technology Ltd., a mobile software developer that provides billing and service management solutions to Chinese wireless carriers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.SmartPay, which plans to launch direct-to-consumer and peer-to-peer...
AALBORG, Denmark-Mobile data services and content company End2End has acquired Danish mobile virtual network operator MIGway A/S, the companies announced Wednesday.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.MIGway owns and operates a short message service center that provides interactive messaging services to customers across Europe...
ESPOO, Finland-Turkcell, a GSM operator in Turkey, has begun offering its business customers commercial push-to-talk service using Nokia's Push to Talk over Cellular equipment. Nokia said the deployment follows successful trials of the technology over recent months.Nokia added that it has more than 30...
SEOUL, South Korea-Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has won an $800 million contract for CDMA2000 EV-DO equipment with Japanese carrier KDDI Corp., according to international press reports.The firm will supply equipment, along with installation and technology support beginning in March 2006, the reports said.
WASHINGTON-Online wireless service and device retailer InPhonic Inc. reported a two-year agreement to provide subscriber management systems in support of AT&T Corp.'s launch of wireless voice and data services to enterprise customers. AT&T's wireless service, which is expected to launch later this year and...
Voice over Internet Protocol phone carrier Vonage announced several new devices to support its service, including a portable Wi-Fi phone from wireless handset and infrastructure provider UTStarcom Inc.Vonage sells software that allows computer users to place telephone calls over the Internet. The company said...
SAN DIEGO-Novatel Wireless Inc. released its newest W-CDMA laptop computer card, which the company said will work on the 2100 MHz band in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, as well as on GPRS and GSM networks on the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz...
Regional wireless operator MetroPCS Inc. said it has expanded its northern California service area south from Stockton through Modesto and Merced. The carrier also offers its flat-rate, unlimited calling service in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.In support of the new expansion, MetroPCS...
Cingular Wireless and Lucent Technologies Inc. said they completed the first High-Speed Downlink Packet Access data calls using a trial UMTS network deployed by the two companies in the Atlanta area. The companies noted the HSDPA tests delivered sustained over-the-air data rates of more...
Even as it begins serious deployments of third-generation technologies, the wireless industry is hedging its bets on next-generation technology. Since W-CDMA and CDMA2000 someday may reach their tethers, some industry players are eyeing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing -OFDM-as the next big technology.Major vendors say...
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.-Sprint PCS and Sybase Inc. said they will expand their relationship to develop and market corporate wireless data applications. Under terms of the agreement, the carrier will use software developed by Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions to offer mobile communications to industries including...
WOODBURY, N.Y.-Comverse introduced its Comverse MMS Exchange, a central hub that allows multiple network operators to interconnect their multimedia messaging services. Operators currently must implement separate routing connections and interconnectivity agreements to provide seamless MMS services, said the company. MMS Exchange creates a central...
VIENNA, Austria-Telekom Austria said it acquired a call option to purchase Bulgarian wireless carrier Mobiltel AD. The option gives the Austrian carrier the right to purchase full control of Mobiltel for up to $2.1 billion in late 2005. "The terms of the transaction underline...
Time Warner Cable is in discussions with Sprint PCS to test a wireless offering that would be bundled with the media giant's TV, landline phone and Internet services. However, it is unclear whether Time Warner Cable will offer the services under its own brand...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission declared the outage reporting requirements and the changes to the telemarketing rules to be in effect Dec. 30. Under rules adopted in 2004, carriers must report service outages impacting at least 900,000 user minutes. The wireline industry has been subject...
TOKYO-Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. announced it invested in two Chinese wireless software companies in an effort to tap into the massive potential of the Chinese market. DoCoMo said it will invest $4 million in Emcore Technology Inc., a Chinese location-based services company....
More than 1.5 billion people subscribe to wireless services. The vast majority of those wireless users see their mobile phone as a device that allows them to talk to other people-and nothing more. The wireless industry, however, is spending billions of hours and dollars...
JERUSALEM-In the wake of complaints that too many children were being exposed to erotic material, Israel's Communications Ministry said last week it had moved to get wireless carriers to restrict access to mobile porn. In an official statement, the ministry said it amended licenses...
The aftershocks from 2004's massive carrier consolidation continue to reverberate across the wireless industry. As Cingular Wireless L.L.C. works to digest AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Sprint Corp. completes its merger with Nextel Communications Inc., the rest of the industry is left to work...
As usual, the wireless industry plans to come out in force during this week's Consumer Electronics Show, running Thursday through Sunday in Las Vegas. Among the expected announcements: c LG Electronics Co. Ltd. will unveil three new devices. Prices for the phones were not...
