With the U.S. economy in a lull, many businesses suffer. Wireless, however, still thrives. And as the top four carriers continue to get stronger and hungrier, it could become a game of Pac-Man; big guys eating the little guys. Analysts and research firms have...
The following list includes venture capital and other investments into wireless companies announced during the past week. The value of the investment is included when available.--BitWave: Apex Venture Partners, TVM Capital and ECentury Capital Partners invested $10 million in a Series B funding round...
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 RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way....
ESPN Inc. unveiled an expansion of its current agreement with Major League Baseball Advanced Media that "covers all new platforms" including online, interactive television and mobile.The Walt Disney Co. subsidiary locked up rights to deliver MLB content through its online and mobile channels, video...
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications took a baby step toward improving its position in the United States today by announcing its first handset for T-Mobile USA Inc.The TM506, a 3G clamshell with a 2-megapixel camera and video, assisted GPS and stereo Bluetooth, offers tri-band GSM...
Sprint Nextel Corp. is providing another possible incentive for customers to stick around, knocking $35 off one of its monthly plan offerings - but shoppers will need to check the fine print. According to industry research firm Current Analysis, the carrier lowered its Phone...
A new report from Informa Telecoms & Media predicts the struggling mobile base station market could be revived by mobile data traffic demands by 2011.The report predicts mobile data traffic will grow nearly 1,100% to 1,925 petabytes by 2012 from 162 PB last year,...
In an industry that constantly looks for the next big thing, ringtones are yesterday's news. But the little snippets of music still generate billions of dollars.Ringtone revenues are on the wane, to be sure: Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) predicts the U.S. market will shrink...
Alltel Communications L.L.C. is teaming up with Pacific DataVision to offer a voice messaging system targeted at the business sector.SkyMail will be available across Alltel's wireless network that includes more than 13 million customers in 34 states, according to a news release."We are pleased...
Rob Shaddock, leader of Motorola Inc.'s mobile devices consumer products group, since April, is leaving the company, Motorola confirmed today. In April, Shaddock had been given charge of the company's multimedia phones. Going forward, John Cipolla will lead the consumer products group, reporting directly...
Passengers on coast-to-coast American Airlines flights can now sit back and surf the Web.The world's largest airline said it has teamed up with Aircell to provide Internet access to passengers on flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles and...
ASPEN, Colo. - The cable industry remains infatuated with wireless, yet details on how it plans to tackle the market remain murky.The latest to shine a light on the issue was Cox Communications Inc. President Patrick Esser. Esser, speaking at the Progress and Freedom...
The pressures of the mobile chip business, plus a fit in products and customers, has driven Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST Microelectronics-NXP Wireless to join forces, the two companies said today.The joint venture, subject to regulatory approvals, combines ST-NXP's 2G/EDGE and 3G offerings with...
Divergent strategies for handset vendors are reflected in two launches announced today. Palm Inc. will sell its Treo Pro device unlocked and unsubsidized through its online stores and resellers in the United States for $550, while launching it in Europe with Vodafone and O2,...
Believe it or not, CEOs still tell their I.T. managers to let them use whatever device they fancy, regardless of company standards for security and device management. Works for Apple Inc., which may well have chosen that path to get its foot in the...
Nuance Communications Inc. isn't letting a tiff with Zi Corp. stand in the way of a good spending spree.The Burlington, Mass.-based speech recognition firm will fork over roughly $180 million in stock to pick up SNAPin Software, a Seattle-area developer of customer-care applications. The...
The companies listed below represent the ten largest national and regional licensed wireless carriers based on subscriber numbers at the end of the second quarter of this year.
Once again, there was no movement among the top 10 carriers. AT&T continued to rank No. 1...
It's no secret that the recording industry is increasingly looking to mobile to offset plummeting revenues from CDs and other physical goods. But sometimes its strategies seem horribly misguided. Word came over the weekend that Pandora, a streaming-music Internet site that draws roughly 1...
Many people aren't leaving home when it comes to accessing the Internet using a wireless data card, according to a new report by Nielsen Mobile.Wireless data cards, gadgets that allow laptop and PC users to connect to the Internet using a cellular network, are...
Google Inc. is toying with display ads on its popular YouTube mobile site.The dominant online player said is has begun placing marketing messages on "select pages" of YouTube's mobile site in the United States and Japan."This is our first step in testing mobile advertising...
Nuance Communications Inc. went on the offensive in its effort to acquire Zi Corp., calling Zi's unwillingness to enter negotiations "perplexing and inappropriate."Nuance, a behemoth on the speech-recognition playground, last week offered an unsolicited, 80-cents-per-share bid for Zi, marking a 150% premium over the...
Editor's Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We've gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.The mobile communications industry is turning the page on its history of proprietary, closed development. Today, mobile...
Itron Inc. will use AT&T Mobility Inc. to help utility companies improve business metrics. Itron plans to deliver its advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) solution over the AT&T wireless network, offering utility companies the ability to cut costs, better manage resources and improve customer service.Itron's...
