Leap goes live in Vegas 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Leap Wireless officially launched its Cricket Communications service in Las Vegas today, pitting it against fellow new entrant and regional all-you-can-eat minute plan operator MetroPCS....

Sprint: CDMA Direct Connect ramps up  

By: By Kevin Fitchard

As Sprint’s operating and customer losses continue to mount, the company today revealed it plans it plans in the coming months to move its QChat CDMA push-to-talk technology from commercial trials to large-scale launch, reducing its reliance on the Nextel iDEN network for its industry leading Direct Connect service...

Infrastructure strategies for new wireless services 

By: By John Spindler, ADC

Mobile carriers are offering new services such as video and GPS mapping in an effort to drive ARPU, but these new, bandwidth-hungry services are putting greater strain on cellular networks...

MetroPCS to complete AWS shift in one year 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

By the time New York City goes live, MetroPCS hopes to be selling nothing but dual-band AWS-PCS handsets, allowing new customers going forward to roam seamlessly between its two networks...

Was Google Clearwire investment a 'steal'? 

By: By Rich Karpinski

We know what Sprint/Clearwire needed: cash to fund a new, massive greenfield WiMAX network. But what did Google, one of the surprise investors in yesterday’s deal, get for its $500 million investment? And was it something that the service providers in the equation should have been so willing to "sell off"?...

Mobile handset market unaffected by economic slowdown 

By: By Sarah Reedy

Despite a widely reported economic slowdown, the global mobile handset market was largely unaffected in the first quarter of 2008. According to iSuppli, shipments rose by a double-digit percentage compared to the same period in 2007...

Clearwire-Sprint WiMAX deal reborn 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

The deal that was lost has now been found. Sprint and Clearwire have resurrected their WiMAX joint venture, this time with the added bonus of a $3.2 billion investment from Google, Intel and three cable companies...

iPhone 'jail-breaks' stall growth at OSS firm Synchronoss 

By: By Rich Karpinski

Qwest wireless switch adds another nail to MVNO coffin 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Until Monday the main casualties of the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) fallout have been small boutique operators, but now Qwest Communications is giving up on its virtual operator relationship with Sprint, opting instead to sell the standard Verizon Wireless service available at any cellular kiosk. The MVNO business model isn’t just failing the niche players; it isn’t working for the big retail operators either...

Qualcomm ramps up MEMS display production 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Qualcomm is shifting its nanotechnology project Mirasol into high gear, announcing a partnership with Foxlink to break ground on a new fabrication plant in Taiwan that will manufacture the reflective ambient-light displays in volume....

Wild idea? AT&T, others to launch Skype competitor, firm predicts 

By: Rich Karpinski

With voice lines eroding rapidly, AT&T, British Telecom, NTT and other incumbent carriers will soon launch their own IP telephony competitor to Skype, essentially writing off voice revenues entirely while moving customers to data, wireless and IPTV services, investment banking firm ThinkPanmure predicted today....

Microsoft updates Zune targeting iPod – eventually iPhone too? 

By: Rich Karpinski

Microsoft is famous for losing the initial battle but winning the long, drawn-out war...

Nortel lays down royalty rate for LTE 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Nortel has always claimed to hold a substantial amount of the intellectual property in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFMA) and multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna technology that will power the world’s future 4G networks, but this week it actually put a number to its claims. ...

T-Mobile launches 3G in New York 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

New York just gained its fourth 3G network. T-Mobile today said it has turned up its wideband CDMA network in the Big Apple, the first of what the service provider said would be multiple 3G service launches throughout the year....

Breaking down NextWave's licenses 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

For the second time in its history, NextWave Wireless is engaging in a massive spectrum sale, clearing out its stores of broadband wireless and mobile licenses in the U.S....

The three-screen advantage 

By: By Sarah Reedy

The cell phone -- highly personal and seemingly always at hand -- is inching closer to becoming a sought-after platform for advertisers...

Biding time with mobile TV 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

PVR capabilities are coming to handsets and mobile networks, but DRM issues could hold them back...

By the numbers 

By: By Rich Karpinski

The telecom industry is changing and evolving so rapidly these days, it's sometimes hard to keep up. It's also difficult to separate hype from reality and real trends from blind alleys. For that reason, we thought we'd take a look at a (large) handful of key industry numbers, figures and metrics hard data or at least very strong, educated guesses to create a snapshot of where the industry is today, and where it's heading...

Sprint loses rebanding appeal 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Sprint will have to vacate its Nextel 800 MHz spectrum in June, even if public safety agencies haven’t vacated the spectrum by then, a federal appeals court ruled today. ...

MagicJack attacks 

By: By Sarah Reedy

MagicJack founder, and inventor of its technology, Dan Borislow, doesn’t like the term voice-over IP (VoIP). He thinks it has a negative connotation in an industry prone to struggles. ...

Ribbit adds voice to Salesforce – at $25 a pop 

By: By Rich Karpinski

Alternative service provider Ribbit this week said it has gone live with a service integrating mobile voice calling and other telephony features into Salesforce.com...

MetroPCS launches in northern Florida 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

MetroPCS has turned up its service in Jacksonville, Fla., transitioning the former PTA and Cleartalk PCS networks into its own footprint...

Alcatel-Lucent’s Olivier Coste on DVB-SH and mobile TV  

By: By Sarah Reedy

Last Friday, Alcatel-Lucent announced it would trial the new hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile broadcast technology with DISH Network in the United States kicking off this month. ...

Alcatel-Lucent: As CDMA declines, W-CDMA steps up 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Alcatel-Lucent doubled its sales in Wideband CDMA in the first quarter as the synergies of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies' merged UMTS portfolios begin to emerge, company officials said today...

Leap expands IP core 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

As Leap Wireless grows, so does its IP network. The operator of the Cricket Communications service had added Genband’s latest-generation wireless gateway and more-robust session border controllers from Acme Packet to its networks to meet increasing traffic demands as Leap adds customers and grows its footprint...