The mobile-phone industry reacted angrily to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's 700 MHz draft decision to impose an open-access-like condition on more than a third of the 60 megahertz to be auctioned, asserting such a regulation amounts to Silicon Valley welfare."Crafting special rules...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new 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...
It's beginning to look like all that money being poured into mobile search may end up in the pockets of patent lawyers.Shares of Local.com Corp. skyrocketed last week after the online search company said it had received a patent for ad-supported mobile search. The...
Major wireless policy debates are increasingly ceasing to be Inside-the-Beltway brawls limited to high-powered lobbyists hired by well-heeled, warring industry factions. Instead, proponents of ambitiously controversial proposals-particularly those promising to extend the reach of a free and open Internet-have been able to tap into...
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...
Editor's Note: Welcome to Reality Check, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new 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...
Shares of Local.com shot skyward after the online search company said it received a patent for ad-supported mobile search.The Irvine, Calif.-based outfit said the patent addresses "the method of responding to enhanced directory assistance" including voice- and text-based searches from wireless handsets. The patent...
Hello! And welcome to our Thursday 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 RCR Wireless News to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the...
Madrid, Spain-based "social router" company FON announced it has given away 7,000 routers in its Fonbucks campaign designed to encourage people living next to a Starbucks Coffee Co. location to provide free or inexpensive Wi-Fi services. FON said it ended up giving away 5,000...
I spent much of the past week on my phone, browsing mobile content storefronts, accessing local business listings and checking out the latest baseball scores. Surprisingly, though, my thumbs are well-rested-which is a feat, considering all the megabytes of data I accessed. What's my...
MEDIA COMPANIES AND RETAILERS are beginning to target wireless users with free, advertising-supported services. And carriers are slowly tolerating-if not quite embracing-such offerings.USA Today last week launched a mobile search service that delivers text alerts about news, sports scores, stock quotes and other topics...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our new Tuesday feature, Mobile Content and Culture. This weekly e-mail service will cover the most important mobile content news of the week, and will also include contributed columns by big names in the industry, application and service reviews by...
YouTube Inc. quietly launched a stripped-down, mobile version of its popular video-sharing site.The wireless offering, available at m.youtube.com, offers a small selection of streaming videos in a handful of categories such as "Featured," "Recently Added" and "Top Rated." The service marks the conclusion of...
It's no secret that a stroll through the offerings on carrier decks is enough to give you carpal tunnel syndrome. A recent study of four U.S. wireless services providers by Strategy Analytics found that a simple music download from a carrier portal required anywhere...
Perhaps it is just as well that Allen Salmasi is still flying under the radar, given the tumult and upheaval that ensued when his last startup found it couldn't repay the federal government the nearly $5 billion it owed for scores of mobile-phone licenses...
Perhaps we should all just go back into hibernation for a few weeks until some of this iFrenzy subsides.On the other hand, given that iHysteria will only gather greater force in the weeks ahead from its virtual-life-source-namesake-master-the Internet-we might as well sit back and...
FIRST IT WAS Cyren Call Communications Corp. Then, more recently, Frontline Wireless L.L.C. And now, even more recently, Google Inc.The mobile-phone industry, itself an iconic symbol of cutting-edge disruptive technology, suddenly is uncomfortably under siege by a new wave of disruptors that have their...
A collection of wireless industry entrepreneurs urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to build open access into one of the 700 MHz licenses set to be auctioned later this year, saying the agency has an historic opportunity to unlock a new wave of...
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 Compete's Miro Kazakoff, Current Analysis' Avi...
Google Inc. is jumping onto the crowded m-commerce field with a wireless version of its Checkout service.Google Checkout, which launched a year ago, is a PayPal-type offering that allows users to make purchases online from partners including Toys "R" Us, RadioShack Corp., Dick's Sporting...
As the 700 MHz auction nears, the intensity over auction rules is heating up. And indeed, the legacy of this Federal Communications Commission could very well ride on the success-or problems-of this auction. Potential bidders are trying to persuade the commission to write...
The Internet is rapidly evolving from a desktop experience into a multi-platform phenomenon available on the go and around the world. Carriers, publishers and marketing firms are just hoping advertising doesn't get lost in translation. The wireless Web remains a nightmarish territory, fraught with...
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards urged the Federal Communications Commission to fashion 700 MHz rules to further the reach of the Internet using an open-access approach advocated by Frontline Wireless L.L.C., consumer groups and Internet giants. "By setting bid and service rules that...
When cold weather began to take hold in the nation's capital a couple years back, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, attempting to dispense a bit of common-sense wisdom to readers and put in a dig at a consumer culture based on brand names,...
