When Microsoft Corp.'s CEO Steve Ballmer publicly mentions someone's name as a respected veteran who will run a new company in partnership with his juggernaut, people listen. At CTIA I.T. & Entertainment 2007 in late October, Ballmer told a standing-room-only crowd that Mort Rosenthal...
AT&T MOBILITY WILL TELL YOU that writers expounding on the issue of unlocked phones far outnumber consumers actually interested in buying them.Preliminary data shows that, while not literally true, that statement does reflect that a relatively small number of American consumers are researching unlocked...
Verizon Wireless is offering Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry Pearl online accompanied by a new pricing scheme for BlackBerry e-mail and Web access. Verizon Wireless retail stores and their stores in Circuit City will offer the device beginning Nov. 8.The move takes advantage of...
Sprint Nextel Corp.'s quarterly profits plunged as the carrier bled postpaid iDEN and prepaid Boost Mobile L.L.C. subscribers, posting a net loss of 60,000 subscribers for the quarter. The company's net income fell from $279 million in the third quarter of 2006 to $64...
Verizon Wireless tweaked its prepaid calling plans to add access to its music, navigation and other data services starting tomorrow. The carrier will offer three varieties of its INpulse plans. The INpulse Core plan looks much like a continuation of Verizon Wireless' basic prepaid...
Verizon Wireless reported another strong quarter of results, although the company saw small increases in its consistently low churn rates. The carrier added a total of 1.6 million net customers. However, Verizon Wireless lost about 115,000 customers from its wholesale business, which primarily...
LITIGATION SURROUNDING RULES for auction-bound 700 MHz wireless licenses took an unexpected turn last week.Verizon Wireless filed to withdraw its appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz open-access rule, only to have cellphone industry trade association CTIA immediately fill the void by challenging...
AT&T INC. ROLLED THROUGH the quarter with 2 million net customer additions, and most of them (1.2 million) were coveted retail postpaid customers-up more than 30% from retail postpaid gains during the same quarter of 2006.The nation's largest carrier also managed to cut its...
Wireless customers aren't pleased with their retail sales experience, and their opinion of it has gotten steadily worse since 2006, according to the most recent survey of retail sales satisfaction from J.D. Power and Associates. The semi-annual survey examined evaluations from more than 6,300...
With ringtone revenues in decline and full-track downloads struggling to find an audience, carriers and third-party vendors are working furiously to breathe life into a withering mobile music industry.Ringtones for years have been the most popular type of content on (or off) carrier decks,...
AT&T Inc. reported a strong quarter, adding 2 million net new wireless subscribers to bring its subscriber base to 65.7 million.Of its net additions, 1.2 million were retail postpaid customers, up more than 30% from retail postpaid gains during the same quarter of 2006.AT&T...
If you own the platform, you control the message.That's not some esoteric, technological mumbo-jumbo-though you'll hear plenty of that this week-but one take on Symbian Ltd.'s position as sponsor of the Smartphone Summit, which allows the company to spin the data on its fortunes.While...
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, tween-focused mobile virtual network operator kajeet Inc. announced a new line-up of handsets as well as an expanded retail effort. The MVNO's new handsets include the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. m300, an $80 phone available in...
The Apple Inc. iPhone has been AT&T Mobility's top-selling handset since its launch June 29, according to new data from Strategy Analytics, and is now the fourth-hottest selling device on the United States market."The iPhone has quickly assumed a leading market-share position (in the...
The first glimmer of quantifiable iPhone impacts is in, courtesy of NPD Group.The news is not-so-good for Palm Inc. and carriers T-Mobile USA Inc. and Alltel Corp. Research In Motion Ltd., however, appears to have nothing to fear.The top-tier carriers report third-quarter earnings beginning...
Signs are popping up that carriers are getting closer to making use of the spectrum they acquired in the advanced wireless services auction last year. T-Mobile USA Inc. confirmed that it has begun offering its first 3G handset to customers in New York, although...
It's happening again. "It" is the overwhelming feeling I occasionally get to defend the wireless industry and the way it treats its customers.But the news last week that senators were going after wireless carriers again for their early termination fees as part of the...
NOKIA CORP. RODE A CONTINUING WAVE of worldwide consumer demand for handsets in the third quarter, posting impressive gains in revenue and profit and volume.The other top-tier, incumbent handset makers also posted healthy numbers for the quarter just over. Motorola Inc. reports Thursday."People are...
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 RCRNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
"You can't just build a device without understanding what that customer really wants," says Cathy Quaciari, director of B2B devices for AT&T Mobility. Quaciari's role is to help business users-be it an individual or an IT manager overseeing 1,000 workers-shop for wireless devices.
Indeed, Quaciari...
The holiday season is always the most critical time of the year for the nation's carriers and handset makers. It's make or break for everyone.
Indeed, much of the industry's revenues are generated during the fourth quarter. Thus, all players across the market pull out...
Music and messaging may be the mantra for holiday sales, according to conventional wisdom, but Sprint Nextel Corp. is taking no chances. The carrier will offer the HTC-branded Touch on Nov. 4, for $250 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate. The Touch, naturally,...
Helio L.L.C., which has made a point of maintaining its handset pricing, is offering a limited-time, online-only promotion with at least $50 off each of the three currently available handsets. The discounts include $50 off the dual-slider Pantech Corp. Ocean handset, reducing its price...
Nokia Corp. will offer a new CDMA handset in North America this fall, though details about possible carrier deals and pricing were not given. Such a phone, however, could run on Verizon Wireless' and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s CDMA networks and enables Nokia to address...
