ORLANDO, Fla.-The intriguing thing about the mobile handset business is that competition and ambition can help a vendor thread the eye of a needle. To some, that's the slim opening for vendors not counted among the top-tier, whose five companies claim more than 80...
ORLANDO, Fla.-The day two keynotes at CTIA Wireless 2007 were all about collaboration. And, of course, money.From music to video to m-commerce, Wednesday's speakers hammered home the need for content providers and financial institutions to partner with carriers to push mobile data services and...
Kyocera Wireless Corp. and regional wireless operator Cellular South are set to test near field communications technology in May with consumers in Memphis and Jackson, Miss., to see if consumers take to the application and how the technology works in the real world. Participants...
Sierra Wireless Inc. announced that it will acquire M2M vendor AirLink Communications Inc. for $10 million in cash and 1.3 million in shares. Under the agreement, AirLink shareholders will end up with around 4.8 percent of the combined company.The deal is notable as it...
Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. will soon sell a self-branded handset, made by Kyocera Wireless Corp., dubbed the Marbl for $30 to its predominantly pay-as-you-go customers.The truncated name, missing a final vowel, appears to play off Motorola Inc.'s penchant for doing the same with its...
Big opportunities come with big risks, particularly in chasing the future of the cellphone business.One opportunity, pursued by the market's two giants and their challengers, is to deliver ultra low-cost handsets into the hands of low-income subscribers in developing markets. The upside to this...
Handset vendor Kyocera Wireless Corp. announced it will team with chipset maker Runcom Technologies to pursue the high-speed, inexpensive network promise of WiMAX. Kyocera said it will use Runcom's WiMAX chips in its planned devices.The companies' agreement cites the promise of the proverbial "quadruple...
Big opportunities come with big risks, particularly in chasing the future of the mobile handset business.One opportunity, pursued by the market's two giants and their challengers, is to deliver ultra low-cost handsets into the hands of low-income subscribers in developing markets. The upside to...
Handset prices at the major carriers continue to gyrate, week-by-week, suggesting that carriers-like retailers changing their window displays-are perennially in search of the right combination of brand, features and price to lure in new subscribers or retain current subs with an upgrade. Yet some...
OK, so online shoppers safely ensconced in their comfy chairs at home don't actually drop to the ground so much as they maybe nod off after another frenzied session of online purchasing. But wireless carriers continued to tinker with handset prices as the typically...
TOKYO-Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it will recall 1.3 million cell phone battery packs produced by Sanyo Electric Co. after learning that a few of the batteries have generated enough heat to cause ruptures.The service provider said the problematic batteries are installed in...
WASHINGTON-Mobile-phone companies asked U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake to refer jurisdictional questions to the Federal Communications Commission in connection with brain-cancer and headset lawsuits in Maryland federal court, a request that builds on emerging agency activism in support of the wireless industry in major...
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y.—Janam Technologies L.L.C. said it licensed Access Systems Americas Inc.’s Palm OS Garnet platform until 2011. Janam Technologies provides rugged mobile computers, and the agreement allows Janam to develop and sell application-specific mobile computers based on the Palm OS Garnet platform....
Leap Wireless International Inc. said it will allow its Cricket customers to roam in Cricket markets across the country without paying an additional fee. The carrier also announced a new WAP-based wireless portal and a new rate plan that includes unlimited mobile Web data...
WARREN, N.J.-Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. announced two new services that incorporate audio and messaging. "Txt Tones" will allow users to link musical tones to text messages instead of rings. The three- to five-second sound clips can be used as an alert that a text...
SAN DIEGO—Leap Wireless International Inc. announced it will allow its Cricket customers to roam in other Cricket markets without paying an additional fee. The carrier also said it is pushing data services for its customers with a new WAP-based wireless portal and a new...
WARREN, N.J.—Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. announced two new services that incorporate audio and messaging. "Txt Tones" will allow users to link musical tones to text messages instead of rings. The three- to five-second sound clips can be used as an alert that a text...
LOS ANGELES-Just in time for holiday sales, Amp'd Mobile Inc. has added a Motorola Inc. Razr to its handset lineup and designed a $100 promotional package that includes a headset, universal adapters and a memory card when customers sign a two-year postpaid contract. Amp'd...
LOS ANGELES—Just in time for holiday sales, Amp’d Mobile has added a Motorola Inc. Razr to its handset lineup and designed a $100 promotional package that includes a headset, universal adapters and a memory card when customers sign a two-year postpaid contract. Amp’d customers...
Big deals attract attention. Watching mergers and acquisitions play out is a perennial spectator sport in the technology business, in part because the results of M&As take time to reach fruition or wither on the vine. After Motorola Inc. announced last week it would...
LOS ANGELES--The M2M module market is growing as enterprises grasp the technology's promise of efficiency in gathering data from many points and wirelessly transmitting it to a single cellular connection for those who need it. Applications range from fleet management to telematics, from home...
Amp'd Mobile Inc. is "fast approaching" 50,000 subscribers and is on track to have a customer base of between 100,000 to 150,000 customers by Christmas, according to Peter Adderton, chief executive officer and founder of the mobile virtual network operator. Adderton told RCR Wireless...
Shipments of machine-to-machine modules are projected to more than triple by the end of the decade, particularly those modules that connect to a network of nodes via short-range wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi or Zigbee, according to ABI Research. And that's likely to be...
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.-American consumers spent about $4.4 billion on 67 million mobile phones in the first half of the year, according to The NPD Group. Motorola Inc. captured 32-percent market share, or nearly one-third of those sales, double the market share of its nearest...
