Interesting times
By: By Rich Karpinski
As the year ends down, the year-in-review stories wind up. Let it never be said that Telephony missed a chance to add our two-cents. Thus: the 2007 Best and Worst issue, on newsstands now, as they say. Or you can hop over to our Web site and see our Top-X lists right now...
Playing the open game
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Did you hear the news? AT&T has an open network -- it’s had it for years. And it can’t quite see what the fuss is about when Verizon Wireless announced it plans to open up...
Growing pangs
By: By Tim McElligott
Ever get a notion about something only to dismiss it because it's not your area of expertise? Ever been reluctant to open your mouth about something that appeared obvious to you, but stopped because you knew that the experts in that field would scoff and snicker?...
Parsing the players in 700 MHz
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The 700 MHz auction may prove to be one of the most contentious wireless auctions in history. It has certainly proved to be one of the most controversial...
What does it mean to be open?
By: By Rich Karpinski
Verizon Wireless opened up its network this week. As the shock wears off, the question becomes: What did it really do? Telephony’s Kevin Fitchard provides a great overview of the announcement, noting Verizon’s plan to publish technical standards for building devices and applications to work on its network and establish a testing facility to certify gear...
How open is your network?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
VZW is taking its network down the open-access path, making it accessible to any device and any application that meets basic network connectivity guidelines. While analysts near and far wore their fingertips to nubs typing about the broad implications of VZW’s move, ThinkEquity basically said, “What’s the big deal?”...
Review: iPhone corporate email a welcome app
By: By Sarah Reedy
The iPhone has long been a consumer favorite, but its usefulness to corporate America is still in doubt, due in large part to the fact that it doesn’t gel with enterprise e-mail mainstays Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Many still wonder if the iPhone can successfully be used as an enterprise smartphone at all...
WiMAX follows muni Wi-Fi down slow-go path
By: By Rich Karpinski
Big news in the WiMAX market this week as Sprint and Clearwire cancelled a joint venture to build a nationwide WiMAX network. Each plan to go it alone, they claim, but with Sprint facing corporate headaches and Clearwire limited in its ability to quickly find new partners, the goal of nationwide WiMAX undoubtedly took a hit...
Open letter to Sprint: Don’t give up on WiMAX
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The news last week that Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMAX venture has sputtered sent Clearwire into a stock freefall and has many media outlets questioning Sprint’s dedication to its pet technology. The big question everyone is asking is whether Sprint’s ambitious plans to launch Xohm nationwide are being scrapped...
Shut up about the Gphone already
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Yesterday Google revealed its plans for mobility: a software stack that would allow it to proliferate its Web services throughout the wireless world. Through Android and the operator and handset vendor alliance it is creating, Google plans to get to its customers from the Internet, not through the device...
Who will win the wireless wars?
By: By John Celentano
New wireless access technologies are arriving with the promise of anywhere, anytime high-speed Internet access. Led by WiMAX, these technologies can provide connections to customers where wired and conventional cellular networks come up short...
Pick your poison: Google or Skype
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The carriers’ worst fears have transformed from spooky specters (it is Halloween this week) to reality, though a rather murky reality. Two companies that two years ago had no business in the handset industry are now everywhere you look...
Facebook--yeah, right
By: By Tim McElligott
Facebook has 45 million people registered on its Web site. I'm one of them. Not only do I not pay a dime for the service, I don't really even get what the "service" is. I registered because I can't criticize something I haven't at least taken the time to look at...
What the ITU means to you
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The International Telecommunication Union last week put the seal of approval on WiMAX, accepting the technology into the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards. The deal has little impact on North America since U.S. and Canadian regulators don't follow the ITU's cues. But there are bigger machinations at work here...
The smart money's on ...
By: By Carol Wilson
One of the best things about my job is the opportunity it gives me to talk to a lot of very smart people. Most recently, I spoke with Andy Lippman, one of the founders of MIT's Media Lab and now a visiting technical fellow at Nortel Networks...
So long to the contract?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
AT&T joined Verizon Wireless in pro-rating its early termination fees, announcing this week it would not only stop charging the full ETF for customers exiting their contracts, but it would no longer force customers to extend their contracts when making changes to their calling plans or adding features...
Disney: On second thought
By: By Tim McElligott
I wonder how many people left good, solid jobs to take a ground floor opportunity with Disney to work on its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business with high-in-the-sky, apple-pie hopes. I'll bet they believed the risk-reward factor leaned heavily in their favor. Who could blame them?...
Post-merger troubles
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Alcatel-Lucent’s smooth integration looks like it may have hit some rocky terrain. The Financial Times reported last week that Alcatel-Lucent is losing its massive UMTS contract with AT&T to Ericsson, which, if true, would be quite a surprise...
No mo' MVNO
By: By Tim McElligott
What does it mean when the marketing champion of all time, Disney, could not make a go of it as a mobile virtual network operator? Or that Disney-owned ESPN couldn't translate its powerful brand into a mobile business either? ...
Is Navteq just the beginning?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
If anyone was still thinking Nokia's Ovi strategy was a joke, then Nokia just plopped $8.1 billion on the table to quell any doubts...
Dinner in 90 seconds
By: By Kevin Fitchard
We have sports commentary programs, daily newscasts, football games and full-length episodes of "CSI" broadcast to our mobile phones. What's next? A cooking show perhaps? ...
AT&T and WiMAX
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The latest little nugget of speculation circling the industry is that AT&T is about to launch WiMAX services in the near future, something I admit would be a distinct possibility, though the story would be a lot less exciting than it sounds...
Apple Doesn't "Hate" Phone Hackers -- But What About AT&T?
By: By Rich Karpinski
It's a big day in the iPhone world today as multiple solutions for "unlocking" the device have appeared on the Web, including a free version released today ...
Why Apple becoming an operator is ridiculous
By: By Kevin Fitchard
I believe Wall Street is deluded with the notion that starting up a wireless operator is as simple as launching a Web site. The big -- unattributed -- speculation this week is that Apple plans on bidding in the 700 MHz auction to get the spectrum necessary to launch its own wireless service...
Keeping an open mind
By: By David Waite
In the upcoming 700 MHz auction, the FCC is mandating that 22 MHz of spectrum be allocated to allow, with certain constraints, open access to applications and devices...
