Editor's Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we'll review a new wireless application or service from the user's point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works...
AT&T Mobility left nothing to chance in its quest for 700 MHz spectrum. The nation's No. 1 carrier agreed last week to shell out $2.5 billion in cash for 700 MHz licenses from Aloha Partners L.P. in advance of the upcoming Federal Communications Commission's...
The Weather Channel launched a new weather application optimized for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPod touch. Indeed, being that the iPhone doesn't support third-party downloads, the new offering is less an application and more of a Web site optimized to work in the unique...
Google Inc. continued its head-long charge into mobile with the acquisition of Finnish start-up Jaiku. Jaiku, like rival Twitter and a handful of other "microblogging" companies, allows users to post short messages about what they're doing from PCs or mobile phones. The year-old Finnish...
The Federal Communications Commission said it will conduct further testing on the viability of Wi-Fi and other low-power wireless applications in unoccupied TV broadcast spectrum known as white spaces.The agency's action appears to benefit high-tech companies that urged additional testing after the FCC found...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our Monday 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. In the coming weeks look for columns from Current Analysis' Avi Greengart, iGR's Iain...
DENVER-Companies looking to draw traffic to their mobile Web sites should follow two simple rules: Be careful, and be patient.That was the advice from speakers at last week's Search Marketing Expo in Denver, where executives from longtime mobile players such as Yahoo Inc. and...
Editor's Note: In this monthly feature, RCR Wireless News talks to retail managers across the country to get a first-hand view of what's hot in wireless.Seattle-based Car Toys operates stores in four states, selling mobile devices and service from three of the four national...
THE MOBILE-PHONE INDUSTRY FINDS ITSELF ADRIFT in a sea of uncertainty as the 2008 election year approaches, with litigation, legislation and other factors casting a collective cloud over spectrum auctions critical to rollout of next-generation wireless services and the existing regulatory regime.Competition for new...
Nokia Corp. stepped up its spending spree last week, agreeing to acquire digital mapping company Navteq in a blockbuster, $8.1 billion deal.The Finnish firm-which in the last year or so has out-shopped Paris Hilton-plans to spend $78 per share for Navteq, a 22-year-old, Chicago-based...
Nokia Corp. said it will acquire digital mapping company Navteq in a blockbuster $8.1 billion deal.The Finnish company plans to spend $78 per share for Navteq, a 22-year-old, Chicago-based outfit. The offer marks a 3-cent premium over Navteq's Friday closing price, and a 34%...
DEMOCRATS WARNED FCC CHAIRMAN KEVIN MARTIN not to cripple the open-access stipulation on the 700 MHz spectrum up for auction early next year, following the agency chief's failed attempts to revise the rule through a procedural maneuver shortly after Verizon Wireless lobbied on the...
It's possible Verizon Wireless has done as much for the open access/net neutrality campaign as the liberal MoveOn.org Petraeus ad did for struggling Republicans.Verizon Wireless' decision first to block text messages from pro-abortion group NARAL and then to promptly reverse itself after the incident...
A quick stroll of the show floor reveals all sorts of flashy gadgetry and eye-popping mobile applications. But the executives behind Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Xohm would rather talk about the ecosystem than about megabits per second.WiMAX is a substantial technological step forward for the...
The upcoming auction of 700 MHz could give birth to an unprecedented infrastructure that could serve countless rural consumers as it provides a crucial boost to the nation's public-safety industry.Or it could be a debacle.The winner of the highly prized chunk of spectrum will...
Don Stroberg, VP of sales for Sprint Nextel Corp.'s new Xohm Business unit, sat down with RCR Wireless News to talk about how the company's WiMAX plans are shaping up. Q: How does WiMAX fit into Sprint Nextel's overall strategy? A: Generally speaking, this...
THE WIRELESS INDUSTRY INCREASINGLY FINDS ITSELF on the defensive on policy fronts across the board, a situation with the potential to disrupt the deregulatory framework and the fundamental business model prevalent during the sector's phenomenal success the past three decades.A confluence of forces appears...
Like Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman," the mobile advertising space is just gettin' warmed up. And so is the sniping.Nokia Corp. cranked up the already-deafening buzz last week, agreeing to acquire Boston-based mobile marketing firm Enpocket for an undisclosed sum. One of...
All that cash being poured into voice-activated search is beginning to look like a good bet.A recent study from Usable Products Co. indicates speechrecognition technology finally may have become user-friendly. The New York-based market research firm tested four mobile search offerings-three text-based services and...
Welcome to our Friday feature, Week in Review. Every Friday, RCR Wireless News runs through the major events of the past week, outlining what happened and speculating on what to look for in the coming weeks, months and years. Check below for news about...
Google Inc. brought AdSense to mobile, allowing publishers with mobile-friendly Web sites to accept ads on their Web pages.AdSense places links on relevant Web pages, paying owners of the sites every time a user clicks on the link. A news site could include ads...
So this is what they mean when they talk about "the mobile search wars."Google last week in a long-awaited move took its AdWords mobile, placing paid links on search results accessed by wireless devices. The Internet behemoth told its hundreds of thousands of AdWords...
Broadcasters-having invested hundreds of millions of dollars transitioning to digital technology and now bracing for a government ruling on whether to allow Wi-Fi service in unoccupied television guardbands known as white spaces-turned up the volume of its opposition by launching an inside-the-Beltway advertising blitz...
San Francisco has formally walked away from a deal to build a Wi-Fi network throughout the city. The effort was already largely considered dead late last month when EarthLink Inc. rescinded its proposal-which included a teaming with Google Inc.-to cover the estimated $14 million...
