Networking the vote 

By: By Sarah Reedy

By the presidential election this year in November, one-third of the millennial generation, those born between 1982 and 2003, will be eligible to vote....

Nextlink kicks off spectrum clearinghouse 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Looking to lease some high-frequency spectrum but don't want to pick up the phone? Nextlink, XO Communications' wireless subsidiary, may have just what you're looking for...

SMS, 411 latest to go free 

By: By Rich Karpinski

First came free (ad-supported) voice-over-IP calling. Now even more telecom services are going the free route, including short message service, along with an ever-growing array of free 411 providers...

Barry strikes back 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

As Barry West, 4G president and chief technology officer for Sprint, began his keynote address at the Wireless Communications Association's conference, he couldn't help taking a jab at his chosen technology's detractors...

DISH’s DVB-SH testing could gel with 700 MHz plans 

By: By Sarah Reedy

In another boon to the expanding DVB-SH ecosystem, DISH Network and Alcatel-Lucent today announced they will test the new hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile broadcast technology in the United States starting in May of this year...

Ericsson North America sales get a boost 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

While its overall outlook for mobile infrastructure sales may be flat, Ericsson may have found a bright spot in North America, traditionally the region at the bottom of the vendor’s revenue chart....

NextWave to unload U.S. spectrum 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

NextWave plans to sell its U.S. wireless spectrum, ending all pretensions of becoming a mobile operator and allowing the carrier-turned-vendor to focus exclusively on its multi-faceted equipment and software businesses....

Moto looks to WiMAX, simplified phone platforms for future growth 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Motorola’s mounting losses dominated the financial news in wireless today, but the beleaguered vendor pointed toward two strategic shifts that might ultimately pull the company out of the mire, though neither would likely bare results until 2009 when it plans to split into two separate companies...

Pivot's Demise Leaves Quad-Play Opportunity to Telcos 

By: By Sarah Reedy

Just as Comcast and Cox Communications announce that they are abandoning their Pivot wireless phone partnership with Sprint, Compete today released survey findings indicating that most consumers would be interested in buying their wireless service from their existing cable or telco provider....

Towerstream moves to WiMAX 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Towerstream is officially embracing WiMAX, shifting its technology in the nation’s largest markets away from propriety broadband wireless gear to the new 4G standard going forward. ...

Backhaul, billing systems delay Xohm launch 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Sprint’s commercial launch of Xohm is being held up by problems in provisioning backhaul and, to a lesser extent, in implementing its unique customer management and billing system, Xohm President and Sprint Chief Technology Officer Barry West said today...

AT&T touts macro-economic defenses 

By: By Ed Gubbins

AT&T countered widespread fears of slow economic trends with growth in first-quarter profits aided by its wireless and wholesale businesses...

Mobile banking grows in prevalence 

By: By Sarah Reedy

Mobile payment, still a nascent service, is expected to reach 32.9 million users worldwide in 2008 and grow to 103.9 million users in 2011, according to a study released by Gartner. While Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) sites are currently the most popular for accessing banking information, short message service (SMS) will remain the dominant mobile payment technology through 2011...

Radio Disney goes mobile  

By: By Sarah Reedy

Radio Disney this week launched a Radio Disney Mobile Web site and text-messaging program for Disney fans on Web-enabled handsets...

Nokia promises integration of devices and services strategies 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Nokia’s new services strategy has yet to bear fruit financially, but on the company’s earnings call Thursday, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said Nokia is not only committed to services and applications as the future of the company, but it also plans to build more devices surrounding its growing services portfolio...

Qwest CTO on femtocells, open access and wireless broadband 

By: By Ed Gubbins

As the only Bell carrier without a wireless arm, Qwest Communications can claim a unique intersection with the wireless world and a unique view of the technologies and trends now bridging the wireless and wireline worlds. In the first part of a two-part interview, Qwest’s Chief Technology Officer Pieter Poll explores this terrain, lending his views on a range of pertinent technology issues, including femtocells, open access, fixed-mobile convergence, wireless broadband and more...

MediaFLO goes live in San Diego 

By: By Sarah Reedy and Kevin Fitchard

Qualcomm filled a slightly embarrassing hole in MediaFLO network coverage today, announcing that the broadcast TV service has now officially launched in its hometown San Diego...

NSN Still Struggling Under Price Pressures 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

In Nokia’s earnings call today, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo summed up the first 12 months of Nokia’s networks joint venture with Siemens in one statement: “Overall progress has been difficult but steady,” he said....

Alltel networks the phone camera 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Ontela-powered service instantly ships photos taken on the phone over the wireless network to PC and photo-sharing sites...

MetroPCS pushes PTT to any phone 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

NAB: Mobile TV’s Three ‘Megatrends’  

By: By Sarah Reedy

Among an array of standards for mobile television, the FLO Forum had a presence at the NAB show this week promoting Forward-Link Only (FLO) as the standard of choice to expedite the mobile TV market....

Jaxtr Adds Free SMS to Telco-Busting Mix 

By: By Rich Karpinski

Alternative VoIP service provider Jaxtr today added advertising-supported, free SMS service to its offering, ahead of its planned for-fee premium service to be launched this summer....

Verizon, AT&T experiment with new pricing plans 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

It turns out that the unlimited talk plans the major operators announced last month were just the beginning of their experimentation with new service plans...

Congress mulls what to do with unclaimed 700 MHz D block 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

For the commercial operators participating in the 700 MHz auction, the question of license ownership was settled weeks ago, but for the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, the decisions over a future nationwide wireless emergency networks are just beginning....

Qualcomm the big question mark in 4G cross-licensing 

By: By Kevin Fitchard

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, NextWave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson have all signed a pact agreeing to the fair cross-licensing of intellectual property they collectively own in building new Long Term Evolution equipment and standards. Qualcomm did not...