Alltel Corp. added a new handset over the past week dubbed the "Snap," which the carrier is selling online for 99 cents with a two-year contract.The Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. flip phone features a camera and support for Alltel's various Web and application offerings.The...
T-Mobile USA Inc. appears to have refreshed its handset lineup by discounting most of its Motorola Inc. Razrs-four models dropped to $30 from $50-and discontinuing the Moto Pebl.The Pebl had once been one of Motorola's flagship devices, and T-Mobile USA was the only major...
Tween-focused mobile virtual network operator kajeet Inc. added more than 400 Longs Drugs stores as points of distribution for its pay-as-you-go wireless service. The Longs Drugs stores are located in California, Nevada and Hawaii. Kajeet will offer the LG Electronics Co. Ltd. LX150 handset...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our Monday feature, Analyst Angle. We've collected a group of the industry's leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Current Analysis' Avi Greengart, Compete's Miro...
Alltel Wireless added "The Wafer"-a new, thin, bar-style handset from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.-to its portfolio. The handset is $50 with a mail-in rebate and two-year contract, and is available to existing Alltel customers whose rate plan allows them to upgrade their handset.The Wafer...
AT&T Mobility slashed prices last week on its two BlackBerry Pearl models to $100, down from $150 for the red model and $200 on the regular model. Research In Motion Ltd. credited its strong earnings last quarter to the popularity of the Pearl.AT&T Mobility...
RadioShack Corp. appears to have pulled out of its tailspin, reporting a five-fold increase in net income in the first quarter.The retail chain said it netted $42.5 million in the recent quarter, up dramatically from a net income of $8.4 million in the year-ago...
Nokia Corp.'s clamshell-style N75 device, announced last September, has finally arrived at AT&T Mobility's online store for $200 with a two-year contract-at least it was briefly last week, before the carrier removed the offer, due to the product not arriving in its distribution center....
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...
Sprint Nextel Corp. is upstaging with the Upstage.Perhaps taking advantage of a lull in pricing changes by its larger rivals, Sprint Nextel this week slashed its price on the latest and greatest from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.; the Upstage music phone, a Sprint Nextel...
AT&T Inc.'s wireless division, Cingular Wireless, posted mixed first quarter results with customer growth coming in below expectations but churn and average revenue per user exceeding forecasts.The country's largest wireless carrier said it added just shy of 1.2 million customers during the quarter, which...
Big-box retail is second only to the network operators' own branded retail stores as the channel of choice among American consumers. Big-box retailers as a distribution channel are rapidly rising in importance among carriers as well. This evolution reflects the growing sophistication of the...
Build it and they will come. Typically, this old saw is trotted out to underscore the odds that, in fact, "they" won't come when you build "it," whether it's a baseball diamond in a corn field or a "multimedia computing device" hiding out in...
Cyphermint Inc. announced a deal to provide mobile payment services for Texas-based financial services provider Fidelity Express.The Marlborough, Mass.-based startup said registered Fidelity Express customers will be able to initiate payments from their cellphones or schedule mobile alerts allowing them to process payments with...
Alltel Corp., the nation's fifth-largest carrier, discounted two smartphones over the past week, dropping prices on the Palm Inc. Treo 650 to $150 (from $200) and the UTStarcom PPC6700 to $200 (from $250). T-Mobile USA Inc., fourth-largest in the nation, also lowered the price...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our Monday feature, Analyst Angle. We've collected a group of the industry's leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry. In the coming weeks look for columns from Compete's Miro Kazakoff, Jupiter Research's Julie...
LAS VEGAS-New technologies and trends are trickling down to impact the businesses of rural carriers, bringing with them a host of new opportunities and challenges. The common theme among sessions at the Rural Cellular Assocation annual convention in Las Vegas last week was how...
T-Mobile USA Inc. announced a new addition to its lineup of Sidekick phones, the Sidekick iD, which is a slimmed-down version of the innovative device that will sell for $100 with a contract."The T-Mobile Sidekick has always been about freedom of expression and communicating...
LAS VEGAS-When businesses invest in social and environmental responsibility, they reap benefits, according to Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc.-and the crowd at the Rural Cellular Association's annual convention here reaped sweets in the form of chocolate-covered Cherry Garcia bars,...
Verizon Wireless has discontinued sales of its kid-focused Migo phone, by LG Electronics Co. Ltd., while Cingular has dropped its youth-targeted Firefly device at its retail stores, as the nation's top two carriers apparently continue to figure out the potentially lucrative market for children's...
The U.S. ringtone market will dip 8 percent this year as the novelty fades and users learn to create their own mobile music clips, according to Broadcast Music Inc.BMI predicted that ringtones will generate $550 million in retail sales in 2007, down $50 million...
U.S. Cellular Corp. has taken its push-to-talk retail offering out of commission and limited the sale of walkie-talkie phones and service only to business channels. Retail stores and call centers will still support business PTT customers, according to the carrier, but the SpeedTalk product...
This year, worldwide replacement handset sales will rise to more than double the number of first-time purchases, according to a forecast by market research firm iSuppli Corp. And that has implications for the higher-end of the handset market and vendors with a market-segmentation strategy....
EMI Group has become the first major music label to offer digital music tracks without anti-piracy software. The move has some claiming digital rights management (DRM) software is slipping precariously close to its demise, while others are holding out to see what kind of...
