The Senate Commerce Committee passed legislation to extend liability and other provisions of the 1999 wireless enhanced 911 act to Internet Protocol voice communications.The measure would grant IP-enabled voice providers the right of access to essential 911 components comparable to the rights of access...
The mobile payment space continued to gain steam as Nokia Corp. and 10 network operators joined an effort by the GSM Association to allow consumers to pay with their phones at retail outlets.European and Asian network operators KPN, O2, Orange, SingTel, Vodafone Group plc...
AT&T Inc., parent of the top mobile phone carrier, urged the Federal Communications Commission to decide whether Sprint Nextel Corp. should be fined for failing to meet a key deadline in reconfiguring the 800 MHz band to fix interference caused to public-safety radio systems."he...
Industry and disability groups reached agreement on an alternative approach to a federal mandate requiring half of the cellphones offered by national wireless carriers to be hearing-aid compatible (HAC) by Feb. 18, 2008.The consensus accord calls for additional microphone-rated and telecoil-rated HAC handsets than...
Financial institutions are rushing to deploy mobile banking services consumers don't appear to want, according to new figures from JupiterResearch.The market research firm found that just 8 percent of online consumers who own a mobile phone are interested in browsing on the device to...
LAS VEGAS-Rather than ceding control of the mobile TV market to the nation's wireless carriers, nine U.S. TV broadcast groups have formed an industry alliance called the Open Mobile Video Coalition to speed the development and standardization of a mobile variant for digital broadcast...
Killer phones?Residents of Kabul, Afghanistan, have become frightened that a deadly virus is spreading via mobile phone. Rumors have spread throughout the city that a biological virus is spreading via mobile phone calls and killing people. The government has tried to reassure the public...
Iraq has scrapped its long-delayed cellular auction and instead decided to license the three national mobile phone carriers in June under an arrangement calling for revenue-sharing and an upfront cash payment of at least $250 million from each operator, according to Iraqi government and...
AT&T Inc. said it reached confidential settlements and obtained court-ordered injunctions against 13 alleged pretexters in the federal lawsuits it filed in San Antonio and San Francisco. "We stated at the time we filed these suits that AT&T would use every means available to...
Near Field Communication technology is expected to be available on more than 20 percent of handsets shipped by 2012, according to ABI Research.The firm predicts about 292 million phones will ship with the technology in five years."NFC in mobile phones promises a quicker and...
The Federal Trade Commission asked lawmakers for authority to assess civil penalties against individuals and firms that obtain consumer phone records under false pretenses, a practice known as pretexting that policymakers would like to see wireless carriers do more to prevent. "Civil penalties are...
The Federal Communications Commission is set to launch a fast-track rulemaking on Frontline Wireless L.L.C.'s public-safety broadband plan and other issues not resolved in next week's scheduled decision on commercial 700 MHz rules.An apparent casualty of the latest developments is the 700 MHz broadband...
House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) said he plans to get a pretexting privacy bill to the House floor in the next two months.Congress last year criminalized pretexing, but did not pass a related bill co-sponsored by Dingell and then-committee chairman Joe Barton...
The Federal Communications Commission took mixed action on various waiver requests of regional and small mobile phone carriers for relief from hearing-aid compatibility rules. Agency guidelines required non-nationwide cellular carriers to offer at least two HAC-enabled wireless handset models for each wireless network technology,...
CBS Corp. will team with the nation's three largest wireless network operators on an aggressive effort to offer free, ad-supported content across computers, mobile phones and other devices.The network said it will provide content from a rotating list of shows including "Survivor," "CBS Evening...
The Federal Trade Commission asked lawmakers for authority to assess civil penalties against individuals and firms that obtain consumer phone records under false pretenses, a practice known as pretexting that policymakers would like to see wireless carriers do more to prevent. "Civil penalties are...
Frontline Wireless L.L.C. said it picked up big-name, high-tech backing for its market-driven plan to buy spectrum for a national, public-safety broadband network that would be shared with commercial wireless carriers.The company inked new partnerships with former Netscape executive James Barksdale, software radio technology...
Sprint Nextel Corp. will not protest a mammoth telecom contract awarded by General Services Administration, choosing instead to set its sights on the upcoming multibillion-dollar Networx Enterprise contract scheduled to be announced next month. "The Sprint team met with GSA on April 4 for...
The Federal Communications Commission officially grounded the idea of permitting cellphone calling on airplanes.FCC Chairman Kevin Martin signaled two weeks ago the agency likely would terminate a proceeding to re-examine the airplane cellphone ban, citing concerns about the potential for interfering with wireless networks...
NBC Universal plans to start selling ads for its mobile video programming when the upfront season kicks off in May. That's the latest piece of evidence that the once-scoffed-at business of TV on cellphones is gaining momentum this year. The television upfront market kicks...
Another technology designed to get people to watch TV beyond the living room is getting ready for its close-up. Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld technology, or MPH, is an in-band mobile digital television system set to debut later this month at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in...
Trip Hawkins is at it again.The CEO of Digital Chocolate is proselytizing, pushing what he calls "Mobile Games 2.0"-an effort to create next-generation titles that incorporate familiar themes like community, user-generated content and viral marketing. And in the process, he's pointing out some of...
Alltel named best in show at CTIA 2007Alltel Wireless won an E-Tech award for best in show at CTIA Wireless 2007 for its Celltop application. Celltop allows Alltel customers to access, manage and organize information available on their phone via a format similar to...
Days after Steve Jobs emerged victorious, at least with one major record label, in his quest to eliminate digital-rights management, a new study appears to offer another reason the Apple CEO should be optimistic when it comes to his soon-to-be-released iPhone. Arbitron and Telephia,...
