Mobile advertising has come a long way since the early days of "American Idol." The hit show is credited with catalyzing text messaging in North America, generating more than 13 million messages during the 2004 season from fans voting via their mobile phones. Mobile...
Wi-Fi news is never in short supply. Last week, EarthLink Inc. announced that it teamed with Google Inc. to submit a proposal for San Francisco's Wi-Fi network contract. Instead of having to choose between free or paid options to get Wi-Fi services, the city...
As all things GSM were talked about last week during the 3GSM World Congress trade show, the wireless industry was put on notice that Cingular Wireless L.L.C. is getting down to business with its national UMTS network buildout plans. The carrier announced contract expansions...
The evolution of the wireless industry has had a profound effect on the players involved. Within all levels of the market, companies have had to scramble to adapt to changing demands and conditions. And the rollercoaster isn't likely to slow down-for anyone. From carriers...
When Cingular Wireless L.L.C. managed to squeeze the launch of its 3G network into the last month of 2005, the move catapulted 16 major metropolitan cities into the spotlight as the most competitive 3G markets in the country. Cingular rolled out its BroadbandConnect service...
The very mention of Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem puts a whir in many propeller hats. The whirring is justified to a certain degree, but wireless carriers have approached investment in IMS technology with much caution. To understand their position, it's essential to first understand...
Tier 1 operators are beginning to use retail outlets to build long-term customer relationships and generate revenues from lucrative data applications. But when it comes to the brick-and-mortar sales counter, the wireless consumer is still very much up for grabs. While the wireless industry...
If Amp'd Mobile Inc.'s bargain-basement full-track download music service was designed to get attention, it's working. The recently launched mobile virtual network operator made headlines a few weeks ago when it said it would match the price of Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes service, selling...
Editor's Note: Each year, the RCR Wireless News editorial staff chooses the person who has impacted the wireless industry the most during the past 12 months. This year's choice is Motorola Inc.'s Ed Zander. Since the beginnings of the U.S. wireless industry, Motorola represented...
For the past few years, the strategy for U.S. carriers looking to retain customers was simple: offer subscribers a slick new handset at no charge. But in today's transitory market-where profit margins from voice services continue to thin as data revenues just begin to...
While Bluetooth's emergence into the marketplace was probably over-hyped a couple of years ago, the short-range wireless connectivity technology is coming of age quickly. Last week, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group excitedly released the latest Bluetooth numbers from IMS Research, which found that, globally...
The hottest trend in video games has nothing to do with 3-D graphics, big-brand tie-ins or real-time multiplayer. It's advertising. And it's coming to mobile gaming.In-game advertising is rapidly attracting the attention of brands looking to get face time with the Holy Grail of...
After years of hype and billions of dollars in network upgrades, the time has come for the worldwide W-CDMA market to take off. Perhaps the best indication that W-CDMA technology has reached the tipping point comes from Vodafone Group plc, one of the world's...
Opinions are not hard to come by in the ongoing debate between proponents of GSM and CDMA technologies. It's easy to get caught up in questions about which technology is better, which one is growing faster, which one will take over the world. But...
While most will busy themselves with decorations and gifts this holiday season, U.S. carriers and handset makers likely will be caught up in fierce battles over pricing, services and-ultimately-customers. As Halloween makes room for Thanksgiving, wireless executives need to gird themselves for perhaps the...
There's little doubt that m-commerce is quickly gaining traction among U.S. users. But exactly what m-commerce means to the wireless industry is far from clear. Contactless payments-speedy point-of-sale transactions that are processed through RFID chips-are being deployed at thousands of merchants in the United...
Technologies that employ some aspect of tracking and monitoring are all around these days, and although many people might consider such applications an invasion of privacy, it's hard to deny that tracking technology has crime-fighting applications that come in handy. Take, for instance, the...
Wireless developers really do own the short end of the stick. Whereas Microsoft Corp.'s Windows system largely dominates the computer industry, there is no such unifying platform in wireless. Developers in the mobile-phone space are left with a dizzying array of choices from Java...
During the past 10 years, more than 400 million mobile-phone users have become intimately familiar with Christian Lindholm's designs. In his new job with Yahoo! Inc., Lindholm hopes to reach far more people. "The Internet is now at the dawn of version two," he...
While deep-pocketed publishers try to wow gamers with sophisticated titles and eye-popping three-dimensional graphics, Randy Shepherd is stooping to conquer. The managing director of Werd Interactive Inc. is targeting middle-aged businessmen, soccer moms and other unlikely gamers with a handful of simple, stripped-down offerings...
U.S. wireless carriers ultimately want to get every American on their networks. In this utopian dream, everybody would be a paying customer. Subscribers would make all their voice calls from their mobile phones, they would gobble up services like downloadable music and mobile TV,...
Wireless operators rank among the most prolific advertisers in the business world. The wireless industry spent $692 million on advertising during the first quarter, a 17.7-percent increase from the $588 million the industry spent during the first quarter of 2004, according to Nielsen Media...
Jason Ford can walk through any mall in the United States without eliciting a second glance. But in the tiny universe that is wireless gaming, he may as well be Brad Pitt. As the general manager of games for Sprint PCS, Ford's attention is...
As profit margins from voice become razor-thin, operators are hoping to push lucrative content and applications to bulk up the bottom line. Ironically, they're looking to voice-driven technologies to help. Consumers' difficulties in accessing content and services from a wireless phone are well documented....
