When Cingular Wireless L.L.C. launches high-speed data packet access-based service en masse in the United States later this year, the protocol is expected to double the carrier's reach, making a significant mark not only in this country, but around the world as well. But...
Ironically, the march toward a simplified, converged "digital home" is producing an overwhelming number of wireless and wireline offerings for consumers. It seems the only thing growing as fast as the types of digital content and services consumers can access at home is the...
Even as Voice over Internet Protocol providers race to meet the Federal Communications Commission's deadline to offer enhanced 911 service, many of them are running into the same roadblock that stymied wireless deployment-incumbent local exchange carriers. VoIP carriers are learning a lesson that wireless...
As the mobile-phone market continues to surpass all forecasts, there are multiple ways those phones end up in the hands of consumers. At the beginning of last year, industry observers expected handset makers to sell around 500 million phones worldwide in 2004. Instead the...
Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java technology is 10 years old this year, a milestone the company is using to highlight Java's widespread influence throughout the electronics and computer industries. When Sun introduced the technology, the company promoted Java as the "write once, run anywhere" platform...
The coming surge of mobile virtual network operators will target virtually every demographic, from ethnic groups to sports fans to rural users. But no group of consumers is being courted as much as America's youth. As wireless enters the multimedia era, the market of...
The mobile-phone industry has evolved in countless ways during the past few decades. Phones today feature a dizzying array of new technologies and services, from multiple radios to integrated digital cameras to blazing fast processors. But perhaps the most notable change in the market...
The wireless industry's drive for cost efficiencies has seen marked improvements during the past several years as many carriers have begun posting operating profits after years of racking up huge debts. Those improvements have been bolstered by greater operating efficiencies as carriers have balanced...
Less than 10 years ago, dot-com was the technology phrase de jour. Business plans, companies and even an economic boom (and bust) were built upon one little dot. Today, at least in the wireless world, `dot' has taken on a new meaning.Dot unites 802...
We've all seen the ads: "Raising the Bar." "Can you hear me now?" "Nextel. Done." "Get More." Then again, with the wireless industry spending billions of dollars each year on advertising, how could we not have seen them?According to Advertising Age, the telecom industry...
Last year marked somewhat of a turnaround for the worldwide wireless industry-carrier capex spending increased by 18 percent in 2004 compared with 2003 levels after several years of declines, according to UBS. The same was true in North America, where capital expenditures increased 7...
WASHINGTON-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) often describes his state as having a lot of land between light poles. In other words, rural America by its very definition has fewer people and more land. This combination has traditionally been harder and more expensive to serve by...
Editor's Note: RCR Wireless News announces that Wayne Schelle has been inducted into the Wireless Hall of Fame for 2005, now in its sixth year. The Hall of Fame recognizes the efforts of those people who have made significant contributions to advance wireless telecommunications....
In the juggling act between GSM and W-CDMA, dilemma is beautiful.But it is a terrible kind of beauty because both vendors and carriers must decide how much of their resources to devote to GSM without jeopardizing the promise of W-CDMA.Today, GSM provides the main...
Building the network for a single-service protocol provided its own challenges. GSM, despite its worldwide acceptance, had to work out a profitable model. That compelled carriers to determine what kind of base stations to deploy, how many towers to install and where to locate...
Few carriers have put as much strain on their technology personnel over the past several years as Cingular Wireless L.L.C. From its beginnings as the merged wireless operations of BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc. to the carrier's decision in 2001 to migrate its...
Similar to mechanics in the automotive world, test-and-measurement companies are the quiet heroes of wireless technologies. They take little credit when the networks hum and huff, yet they witness each technology's creation day and play parts in their burial rites. From handsets to access...
WASHINGTON-Homeland security-as an overarching national policy and an omnipresent mindset created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks-has been a mixed blessing for a wireless industry which already had a good thing going generating hundreds of billions of dollars annually from...
From the consumer's point of view, 2005 is shaping up to be the year mobile music goes big-time. And nearly everyone in the wireless industry is scrambling to make sure they cash in. Industry observers predict this year may do for mobile music what...
More than 1.5 billion people subscribe to wireless services. The vast majority of those wireless users see their mobile phone as a device that allows them to talk to other people-and nothing more. The wireless industry, however, is spending billions of hours and dollars...
Will ZigBee wireless technology have an effect on Bluetooth? Once envisioned as the solution to all personal-area wireless connectivity, the reality of rapidly growing multimedia file sizes, connectivity needs and reliability have proven to be challenges for Bluetooth as it attempts to redefine itself...
After years of what seemed like endless hype, Bluetooth wireless technology has become a mass-market consumer product technology, having shipped in more than 240 million units with price points of less than $3 per chip. It is the only wireless technology that enables interoperable...
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. By successfully closing the acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., making Cingular Wireless the nation's largest carrier, as...
Just a few years ago, players on the CDMA aisle of the technology wars believed the future belonged to them alone. The other players, huffing with GSM, could not figure out what armor to deploy. Qualcomm Inc.-which gave CDMA to the industry and the...
