Welcome to our Friday feature, Week in Review. Every Friday, RCR Wireless News will run through the major events of the past week, outlining what happened and speculating on what to look for in the coming weeks. Check below for news about carriers, handset...
EarthLink Inc. has fired 900 employees and closed offices in Orlando, Fla.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and San Francisco. The company said it will also substantially reduce its presence in Pasadena, Calif., and Atlanta. Billed as a "corporate restructuring," the company expects to pay...
Despite the tumultuous nature of the business, it appears the mobile virtual network operator market hasn't lost the interest of private equity and venture capitalists. Movida Communications Inc. announced that it received $40 million in financing from a group of new and existing investors.The...
Friction is growing between wireless executives and their Hollywood counterparts as both begin to experiment with mobile entertainment. One of the few points people from the telecom and television industries can agree on is that no one has yet discovered the best way to...
Qwest Communications International Inc.'s new CEO takes the helm of a company that has weathered financial storms, been through a turn-around that included selling off its wireless network and forging a mobile virtual network operator agreement with Sprint Nextel Corp. and now needs to...
LG Electronics Co. scored a pair of carrier wins last week spanning the range of wireless offerings. One of the deals was with the industry's largest player and long-time LG partner AT&T Mobility, while the other was with mobile virtual network operator and first-time...
Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. added to its handset vendor list by announcing plans to add LG Electronics Co.'s "Aloha" handset to its lineup later this month. The handset, which is set to retail for $35 , marks the first deal between the two companies...
Wireless and telecom reseller TelePlus World Corp. reported weaker second quarter results, which the company said were due to switching back-office providers and the backlash from acquiring mobile virtual network operator Liberty Wireless. TelePlus, which operates in the U.S. and Canada, earned second quarter...
Qwest Communications International Inc. named Edward Mueller its new chief executive officer. Mueller is a veteran of the telecom industry and former CEO of Williams-Sonoma. Qwest's current CEO Richard Notebaert, who oversaw the company's path to its first year of operational profitability in 2006,...
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.Despite the travails of Amp'd Mobile Inc., not all news is dour in the mobile virtual network operator space....
Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. have had very divergent luck recently in trying to operate in the shadow of their two larger rivals, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless.Sprint Nextel, which in customer numbers is a strong No. 3 behind the big two,...
CLEARWIRE CORP. IS GEARING UP to put pen to paper on a deal that will bring Amp'd Mobile Inc's. 50-plus member content team on board to lead a new content offering under the Clearwire brand.The move likely would give Clearwire a major boost in...
Clearwire Corp. has reportedly reached a deal to bring Amp'd Mobile Inc's. 50-plus member content team on board to lead a new content offering under the Clearwire brand. The move would likely give Clearwire a major boost in content offerings, as it has thus...
GreatCall Inc. finally found some well-heeled backers for its Jitterbug service.The Del Mar, Calif.-based startup said it pocketed $36.6 million in funding from Charles River Ventures, Nauta Partners and Steelpointe Capital Partners. Jitterbug, a mobile virtual network operator using Sprint Nextel Corp.'s network, targets...
Sprint Nextel Corp. continued to show signs of turning around its customer growth challenges, saying it added 400,000 subscribers during the second quarter. While the results pale in comparison to its larger competitors AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, both of which added in excess...
Despite the widely recognized success of Amp'd Mobile Inc.'s large portfolio of original content, a source at the company has told RCR Wireless News that less than 1% of the company's nearly $400 million total budget was spent on such endeavors.This revelation, which came...
Canadian telecom provider Telus Corp. reported Q2revenues were up 4% year-over-year due to growth in wireless and data, but that its earnings for the second quarter were impacted by the advent of wireless number portability in Canada as well as the bankruptcy of Amp'd...
As a service shut-off deadline looms, Amp'd Mobile Inc. customers now have an out: Prexar Mobile, a small mobile virtual network operator managed by a nationwide CLEC, signed a deal to acquire Amp'd Mobile's customers. Prexar is hoping the boost to its business will...
WITH VIRGIN MOBILE USA L.L.C. SEEKING A $500 MILLION INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING, the company is looking to complete the first IPO of a mobile virtual network operator in the United States. The IPO market has been stronger this year than in recent years, which...
AS AMP'D MOBILE INC. WINDS DOWN its mobile virtual network operator service, questions loom about the health of the MVNO space.Bankrupt Amp'd Mobile has halted customer service and was on the verge of cutting off network access to its customers entirely last week, before...
Yahoo Inc. has tapped Chicago's Novarra Inc. to provide transcoding technology for its oneSearch offering.Novarra, which powers mobile Internet services for a handful of wireless services providers-including bankrupt mobile virtual network operator Amp'd Mobile Inc.-will provide technology that customizes Web pages for mobile phones....
AT&T Inc. reported a strong quarter and said its mobile division activated 146,000 Apple Inc. iPhone customers in the first day and a half of the device's release, more than 40% of whom were new customers for AT&T Mobility.That figure was far fewer than...
Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. said that its users have earned more than 9 million minutes of free airtime since the mobile virtual network operator instituted its Sugar Mama program, which offers customers the chance to receive calling minutes in exchange for watching advertisements.The opt-in...
Sprint Nextel Corp.'s stock spiked for a brief time yesterday in after-hours trading due to a report that Korean operator SK Telecom was going to make a bid for the U.S. wireless carriers, according to Reuters. Sprint Nextel stock temporarily rose more than 14%...
