Alltel Corp.'s MyCircle calling plan has given the carrier a boost in postpaid customers, and the company is on track to expand its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO coverage to about 60 percent of its markets by the end of the year. Kevin Beebe, Alltel's group...
ATLANTA-Cingular Wireless L.L.C. will add two more handsets to its portfolio-both Walkman music phones-from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. in the next couple of weeks, the carrier acknowledged. The first to be released will be Sony Ericsson's W300i, which will be offered through Cingular's...
WASHINGTON--Don't blame the public-safety community if the 800 MHz reconfiguration process is not going smoothly, said Wanda McCarley, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. McCarley's assertion follows a report that Sprint Nextel Corp. wants to extend the rebanding process by two years....
WASHINGTON-A group of rural and regional wireless carriers repeated their assertion that the Federal Communications Commission needs to adopt automatic-roaming rules they believe are necessary for competition. "Many carriers, particularly regional and rural carriers are concerned that competitive market forces are no longer sufficient...
WASHINGTON-The stakes are rising for next week's expected ruling by the Supreme Court on whether to review Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch's appeal of an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down the state's wireless consumer law on federal pre-emption grounds. U.S....
NASHVILLE, Tenn.-For Mike Fitch, well into his second year as head of a trade group for which reinvention has become a survival mechanism, the planets appear to be lining up for PCIA and its wireless infrastructure members. Mobile-phone carriers need fatter pipes to carry...
LONDON-Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. bolstered its mobile music strategy with the launch of a new promotional area for new and developing artists. The company's M-BUZZ initiative allows users to access full-track music, videos, biographies, concert schedules and other content from up-and-coming musicians. The...
NEW YORK-Roughly 4 million U.S. consumers will subscribe to mobile broadcasts from dedicated, multimedia networks such as Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFlo by the end of next year, according to new figures from ABI Research. The market research firm predicted that carriers will increasingly look to...
WASHINGTON-Two proponents of cell-broadcast technology said a Senate-passed bill to update the nation's emergency alert system could further delay widespread deployment of wireless warnings to the nation's 219 million cell-phone subscribers. The Warning, Alert and Response Network Act, sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)...
ATLANTA-Cingular Wireless L.L.C. struck a five-year agreement with the U.S. Army, Air Force and Defense Telecommunications Services-Washington worth more than $150 million. The deal, according to Cingular, will "enable the military branches to administer wireless usage more efficiently and cost-effectively." The contract consolidates Cingular's...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-Alltel Corp. is set to begin a major advertising push for its MyCircle offer, which allows customers to place unlimited calls to up to 10 wireless or wireline numbers from any carrier. The MyCircle offer requires that customers be on a postpaid...
ESPOO, Finland-Nokia Corp.'s Mobile Search platform will incorporate Microsoft Corp.'s Live Search capabilities to streamline mobile information searches onseries smart phones-now "multimedia computers," in Nokia's parlance-and select S60 platform devices in various markets, the Finnish handset vendor announced. Mobile Search resides on Nokia devices'...
AUSTIN, Texas-Chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor Inc. said it signed a definitive merger agreement to be bought by a private-equity consortium led by The Blackstone Group. The transaction is valued at $17.6 billion.Other members of the consortium include The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds and Texas Pacific...
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.-Revenue from sales of cellular base stations will remain strong through 2008, but by 2009 base station revenue will begin a steep decline, says a new report from In-Stat. "Spending on cellular base stations by cellular service providers these last few years has...
Revised earnings guidance by two firms that have traditionally served Nokia Corp.-delivered within four days of each other-may reflect a softening in Nokia's Western European sales due to an invasion of light, slim phones by competitors, according to a market analyst who specializes in...
Less than two years ago, carriers were blaming publishers for stifling mobile gaming by churning out a surfeit of high-profile, licensed games that made for a rotten user experience. Now it's the game makers' that are pointing fingers. Handsets are quickly evolving into mini-videogame...
The IEEE standards association announced a leadership shake-up in its troubled 802.20 working group, which is supposed to get the work on a mobile wireless broadband access standard back on track. All of the officers of the working group will be replaced "in an...
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...
NASHVILLE, Tenn.-The Wireless Infrastructure Association's annual convention began with the launch of a new a new forum that says its mission is to promote the understanding, acceptance and deployment of distributed antenna systems. DAS usage is gaining ground as a way to propagate RF...
Unlimited video streaming is unlikely to be in wireless carriers' interest, Verizon Wireless President and Chief Executive Officer Denny Strigl told a New York audience, but the company still believes that a significant portion of its future revenues will come from data services. "I...
NASHVILLE, Tenn.-Tower industry officials last week said lessons learned from last year's horrific storms have made them better prepared for the next big one. Speaking at PCIA's wireless infrastructure convention, tower executives outlined how they have improved all aspects of disaster planning and response...
WASHINGTON-The telecommunications-reform bill, which includes the all-important wireless pre-emption provision, will not be debated on the Senate floor this week so its only hope for passage is if it is part of the debate when the Senate returns for a lame-duck session in November,...
VeriSign Inc. finally jettisoned the bulk of its direct-to-consumer mobile content business, selling a 51-percent stake in its Jamba subsidiary to News Corp. for $188 million. The companies announced plans to form a mobile entertainment joint venture, with Fox Mobile Entertainment retaining the Jamster...
LOS ANGELES--Wireless carriers toasted their high-speed mobile broadband networks with a number of 3G-related announcements during last week's CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment event. Verizon Wireless declared that it chose Motorola Inc. to upgrade its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision 0 network with Revision A...
