The mobile-phone industry finds itself confronted by a new net neutrality bill in the House, a development that adds to mounting pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to force wireless carriers to allow third-party devices/applications on networks and to forbid them from interfering with...
The long-anticipated 700 MHz auction kicked off today, attracting 1,849 bids totaling more than $2.4 billion during the first round.
The Federal Communications Commission, which will hold a second round of bidding today, is keeping the identities of bidders secret during the auction to...
Here's a hypothetical: What's the distinction between a smartphone, a MID, a PND, and a UMPC?Posing this type of question invites a geek fight. We who follow the smartphone space and remember the personal digital assistant (PDA) know it's a fool's errand to apply...
The pieces continue to fall in and out of place in the ever-evolving wireless world, but it now appears the many changes - from the subtle to the spectacular emergence of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, Google Inc. and open access - have unwittingly joined in...
Below are RCR Wireless News' 10 biggest stories of the year. These are the stories that rocked the industry in 2007, and set the groundwork for the future of wireless.
1. iCANDY
iPhone looks tempting, but users have to wait until June to see if it...
What a perfectly odd year it has been. Indeed, I think 2007 will go down as a year filled with surprises in the wireless space.A few of the major twists and turns this year:● A cellphone with a closed operating system, running on a...
Verizon Wireless' open platform announcement was met with a mix of optimism and skepticism by parties at the forefront of a campaign to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that mobile-phone carriers allow third-party devices and applications on their networks. "We think this...
Editor's Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry.--Google announced...
Big things tend to start out small, or so the saying goes.So it was that Voice over Internet Protocol provider Skype Ltd. came out of nowhere in February to petition the Federal Communications Commission to extend to the mobile-phone industry a landmark third-party connectivity...
WHILE THE 700 MHZ OPEN-ACCESS COURT BATTLE ESCALATES into a brawl among major stakeholders eyeing the upcoming auction, the public-safety community is methodically laying the foundation to partner with the winner of a national wireless license in an unprecedented experiment of high stakes for...
The Apple Inc. iPhone was expected to cause a shift in the industry on services, and its visual voicemail component may very well be initiating new ways for consumers to retrieve and review their audio messages.In recent weeks, applications developer Acision announced its own...
Editor's Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News' new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry.--Vodafone announced...
Verizon Wireless challenged in federal appeals court the Federal Communications Commission's 700 MHz open-access rules, the opening salvo in what could evolve into a messy legal battle. The move puts a cloud of uncertainty over the upcoming auction of more than a thousand wireless...
Despite the Federal Communications Commission's publicly stated desire to avoid anti-competitive behavior in the 700 MHz auction and its embrace of blind bidding as a safeguard against such activity, there are growing concerns that the combination of hefty reserve prices on key spectrum blocks,...
hedge*hog*ging v. Interrupting conversations in an office environment by poking your head over the top of the cube.The drastic drop in the price of the iPhone got us hedgehogging all week. It's evident an Apple/Verizon Wireless partnership never would have worked as Apple is...
Personalization refers to the way consumers use mobile content as kind of a bumper sticker, telling others who they are and what they think. It won't be long, though, before users will be placing those bumper stickers on your phone-not theirs.Ringback tones were the...
THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION LAST WEEK approved 700 MHz rules to foster the creation of a nationwide public-safety/commercial broadband network and introduce new devices and applications in a wireless space tightly controlled by four national operators.The FCC designated for auction a nationwide 10-megahertz spectrum...
The Federal Communications Commission approved 700 MHz auctions rules to foster the creation of a nationwide public safety-commercial broadband network and the introduction of new devices and applications in the wireless space.The agency voted to designate for auction a nationwide 10-megahertz spectrum block adjacent...
In a sense, the iPhone phenomenon-the feeding frenzy that gave instant icon status to a multimedia device that was conceived outside the box before a single consumer had even removed it from inside the box-arguably represented the most poignant, glorious manifestation of the convergence...
Nokia Corp. will enhance its N800 Internet tablet with VoIP from Skype, giving the latter a degree of legitimacy in the mobile device market. The N800 is a handheld Internet browser that eschews cellular connections in favor of Wi-Fi, and now supports Skype's software...
Major wireless policy debates are increasingly ceasing to be Inside-the-Beltway brawls limited to high-powered lobbyists hired by well-heeled, warring industry factions. Instead, proponents of ambitiously controversial proposals-particularly those promising to extend the reach of a free and open Internet-have been able to tap into...
Madrid, Spain-based "social router" company FON announced it has given away 7,000 routers in its Fonbucks campaign designed to encourage people living next to a Starbucks Coffee Co. location to provide free or inexpensive Wi-Fi services. FON said it ended up giving away 5,000...
The mobile phone industry has joined an eclectic group of parties-including a handful of sometime foes-to urge the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling that critics say dramatically and unnecessarily expands copyright law liability. The case involves Cablevision...
The Skype debate is playing out on two distinctly deliberate levels-one that plays to the nitty gritty of the law and another that plays to emotions.The wonky public-policy crossfire pits cellular carriers that control cellular networks against consumer groups with an overarching net-neutrality agenda...
