RCR Wireless News articles from August 2008

RCR Wireless News archives from August 2008

Sprint Nextel dinged $73M for ETF policy; California court decision seen as harbinger for other ETF cases.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS A California Superior Court judge ordered Sprint Nextel Corp. to pay $73 million after finding its early termination fee policy violated California law. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw said the...

Sagem, world's No. 8 handset maker, to go to venture capital company; Owner Safran to take $343M hit as part of deal.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Safran said it will swallow $343 million to spin off its troubled Sagem Mobiles division to venture capital firm Sofinnova. Sofinnova plans to rebrand the handset manufacturer as Sagem Wireless, with Safran holding...

ETC...
August 4, 2008... Do his thumbs hurt? LG Electronics Co. Ltd. crowned the latest texting champion in its second-annual LG National Texting Competition held July 9 in New York City. Nathan Schwartz, a 20-year-old from Clyde, Ohio, won the $50,000 prize for...

Mobile capex to grow to $163.5B in five years, ABI predicts.
August 4, 2008... Byline: KRISTEN BECKMAN Mobile capital expenditures exceeded $131 billion last year and will grow to $163.5 billion in 2013, driven by increasing traffic and preparations for fourth-generation networks, according to a new study from ABI...

VZW quietly rolls out Rev. A PTT service; Pair of phones target business users.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Verizon Wireless has re-placed itself in the push-to-talk arena. As promised earlier this year, Verizon Wireless has released two new PTT phones, running on the carrier's CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A network. The new...

N2 recall throws Neonode off balance.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON Neonode Inc. needs patience from investors, the company's interim CEO wrote in an open letter. The fledgling, Swedish public company, known to many for its small, touchscreen N2 device which debuted long before...

Leap shuffles executives.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Leap Wireless International Inc. played musical chairs with a few of its senior executives. Al Moschner, formerly VP and chief marketing officer, has been appointed to COO. In his new position, Moschner will lead the...

Commscope Q2 results get boost from Andrew buy.
August 4, 2008... CommScope Inc. released second-quarter results, reporting revenue of $1.09 billion, net income of $40.2 million and strong international sales. CommScope said sales more than doubled on a year-over-year basis, due primarily to the acquisition...

Advertising: Another dime in mobile music jukebox.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Mobile music has been a one-hit wonder. But the big follow-up to the lucrative ringtone market may not be ringback tones, full-track downloads or any other single application. It may be advertising. Ringtone...

Internet players' move to mobile is new frontier for all.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Google Inc.'s Internet dominance has grown in recent years as the competition well, what passes for competition continues to plod along. But for the long list of Web-based players moving to the new platform, wireless...

There's money to be made in micropayments; Technologies are in place, but business models still need work.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Hardware, software, high-speed networks, uptake it seems all the pieces are in place for mobile commerce to take off. Well, all the pieces except maybe a viable business model or two. That was the takeaway from...

Centennial looks to 3G deployments, higher ARPU users.
August 4, 2008... Byline: DAN MEYER Centennial Communications Corp. put out results for its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year that ended May 31, with a consolidated annual revenue exceeding $1 billion. Consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter...

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August 4, 2008... LG's Voyager is the first Verizon Wireless handset to support the carrier's visual voicemail service.

Verizon Wireless pit-bull ad unleashes flurry of complaints.
August 4, 2008... Byline: SHERRY MAZZOCHI Verizon Wireless has stepped into a steaming pile of complaints from animal lovers over commercials for its LG Electronics Co. Ltd. Dare phone, but the marketer is sticking with the 30-second spot. The...

Wireless History Foundation scores more support, announces details of Oct. 13 reception in Chicago.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER It's a big year for wireless. As cellular communications celebrates its 25th anniversary with a lavish celebration planned for this October, more wireless luminaries have voiced support for the Wireless History...

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August 4, 2008... Sprint Nextel's Airave femtocell is designed to allow customers to increase cellular coverage in their home or office.

The no-contract customer; Tracfone's Net10 dives into unlimited fray.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Just like Ronald Reagan claimed with his trickle-down economic plan, wireless customers are beginning to see unlimited offerings filter down to cheaper price points and in some cases to offerings that do not require a...

AdMob targets iPhone.
August 4, 2008... AdMob launched an iPhone-specific "advertising marketplace'' to deliver marketing campaigns through the high-profile device. The San Mateo, Calif.-based startup announced deals with advertisers including Ford Motor Co., Electronic Arts,...

Sprint Nextel's Airave femtocell to go nationwide.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to expand its femtocell offering nationwide in the coming weeks, the company said last week. The carrier's Airave essentially a small network base station for the home that connects to DSL...

Danger's personal Sidekicks.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON T-Mobile USA Inc.'s new Sidekick device is the first to launch since Microsoft Corp. bought the software company at the heart of the Danger Inc. franchise. Sharp makes the handset's hardware. The news: The...

Garmin: Nuvifone is MIA until next year.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON Garmin Ltd. reported rosy jumps in sales in its various sectors automotive, outdoor, aviation, marine but its earnings and outlook disappointed analysts, sending the company's stock tumbling more than 19% to a new,...

A STRETCH LIMO; Linux group adds more members, embedded handsets hit markets.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON The LiMo Foundation announced nine new members today and said that more handsets with its operating system are launching in North America and Japan. The organization is a leading proponent of an open-source, Linux...

Wireless: Go for gold during Olympics.
August 4, 2008... Byline: Colin Gibbs Once again, the Olympics will be seen as a kind of barometer for mobile data. But for wireless to perform alchemy at this year's games by turning consumers into gold, carriers and their business partners will need to...

Nortel stock plunges on outlook.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Nortel Networks Corp.'s stock plunged nearly 15% after the infrastructure provider released relatively flat second-quarter results, but warned of future instability in the U.S. market. The Toronto-based company...

VZW upgrades to visual voicemail; LG Voyager first to offer service.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Verizon Wireless quietly launched visual voicemail, allowing customers to view caller and voicemail information and listen to voicemail messages in any order on their phones. Voice messages will be displayed on...

Toshiba shuts down Japanese mobile TV unit.
August 4, 2008... Toshiba Corp. said it will shut down its four-year-old, satellite-based digital multimedia broadcasting service, which it offers via its Mobile Broadcasting Corp. business unit. The company said the service has failed to attract sufficient...

TerreStar signs roaming agreement with AT&T.
August 4, 2008... Byline: KRISTEN BECKMAN Satellite communications company TerreStar Networks Inc. said it signed a nationwide reciprocal roaming agreement with AT&T Inc. TerreStar is developing an all-IP integrated satellite-terrestrial communications...

Moto CEO: iPhone knockoff in the works.
August 4, 2008... Byline: JOHN PLETZ Motorola Inc. says its troubled handset business is improving and will be stronger by the end of the year, but CEO Gregory Brown isn't willing to say when he expects the unit to break even. Yet Brown insists the...

Update: VerizonWireless pulls Dare ad.
August 4, 2008... Byline: RUPAL PAREKH Editor's Note: The original news story about the Verizon Wireless Dare ad appears on page 20 of this week's issue. The day after page 20 went to press, Verizon Wireless pulled the ad. Verizon Wireless is the latest...

Fall gal.
August 4, 2008... Byline: Dan Meyer I guess if you lose a few billion dollars, someone has to take the blame. Or at least that was the case last week at Alcatel-Lucent, where after posting another quarter of underwhelming results, one of the wireless...

RTG, Spectrum Marketplace start spectrum exchange event.
August 4, 2008... Byline: KRISTEN BECKMAN Media206 and The Rural Telecommunications Group have teamed to launch an event that will focus on buying, selling, leasing and exchanging spectrum in the secondary market. The Spectrum Marketplace event is...

Qwest starts selling VZW; Carrier steers new customers to new partner with "white-glove' experience.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER The question was popped earlier this year and now Qwest Communications International Inc. has sealed the deal. Qwest is leaving Sprint Nextel Corp.'s network to become an exclusive agent for Verizon Wireless, offering...

Mobile revenues pop at EA, but not enough for Street.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Electronic Arts Inc. continued to grow its mobile revenues even as it disappointed investors with a $95 million quarterly loss. The publishing giant's wireless business generated $44 million in revenues during the...

Alcatel-Lucent CEO, chairman to step down; CDMA slowdown impacts Q2 results.(Financial report)
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Alcatel-Lucent's troubles are likely to continue in the third quarter, as the network vendor struggles with structural problems, according to one research company. As part of its second-quarter results,...

Handset help: Nuance looks to embed customer care assistance into handsets; Company to target wireless carriers and enterprises with new app.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Nuance Communications Inc. is targeting carriers and plenty of others with a mobile application designed to cut the cost of customer-care calls. Mobile Care is a client-server application designed to...

VZW posts $12.1B in Q2 revenue; Data ARPU grows, customer churn drops.(Financial report)
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Verizon Wireless may lag behind larger rival AT&T Mobility in total customers, but the industry's No. 2 players continues to hold a financial lead. Verizon Wireless posted an 11.8% increase in total revenues during...

BY THE NUMBERS.
August 4, 2008... Femtocell management to generate $360M in revenues The fast-growing femtocell market will generate $360 million in revenues for companies that provide device and service management for femtocell networks, according to a research brief from...

7-Eleven's MVNO launches in Singapore.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER While some mobile virtual network operators are switching off the lights, others seem to be thriving and globally at that. After seeing success in the United States and Canada, 7-Eleven Inc. is expanding its...

Sprint Nextel updates mobile Web home page.
August 4, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Sprint Nextel Corp. overhauled its mobile Web service in an effort to deliver customized Internet content to subscribers. Sprint Web offers an adaptive home page that uses technology from ChangingWorlds to deliver...

Nokia, D&G see 10% clickthrough on viral effort.
August 4, 2008... Byline: KRISTEN BECKMAN Luxury brand Dolce&Gabbana said it ran a successful mobile advertising campaign on the Nokia Media Network. The company's youth-oriented brand, D&G, used a viral campaign on mobile handsets to raise awareness of...

T-Mobile USA to give parents more control.
August 4, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Thanks to a new T-Mobile USA Inc. offering, parents can give their children a different type of allowance each month, and it's not the typical $5 they get for finishing chores. The carrier unveiled Family...

Moto makes profit, hangs onto No. 3 ranking; Handset spinoff will wait more than one year.
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON Motorola Inc. managed to both pleasantly surprise the market and disappoint industry observers who are looking further down the road. The company posted a meager profit, beat expectations on handset volumes and forecast...

The year's second act; Will U.S. consumers keep spending? On smartphones?
August 4, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON The maturing U.S. handset market continued to chug along in the first half of the year though slowing relative to years past and analysts offered an array of views on what forces will shape the market in the second...

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August 4, 2008... PATRICIA RUSSO, chief executive officer of Alcatel-Lucent, speaks during the presentation of the company's 2007 results at a news conference in Paris, in February. Russo has decided to leave the company.

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August 4, 2008... PALM INC.'S CENTRO device, priced at $100 at Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, is an extreme example of lower smartphone prices.

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August 4, 2008... VERIZON WIRELESS IS TEAMING with hip-hop producer Timbaland to push its mobile music offerings and build customer loyalty.

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August 4, 2008... NUANCE MOBILE CARE gives wireless users the option of checking account details themsleves without speaking to a customer-care representative.

AD SPENDING IN WIRELESS; Carriers hold top spots, handset cos. don't register.
August 4, 2008... RCR Wireless News' sister publication Advertising Age ranked the leading national advertisers in its June 23 issue. Interestingly, wireless carriers accounted for the No. 1, 2 and 3 spots in U.S. advertising spending by company in 2007. (See...

Rumors swirl around iDEN's fate.
August 18, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Sprint Nextel Corp. appears to be actively weighing its iDEN options, including sharing the network with a partner or an outright sale. CEO Dan Hesse stopped short of saying Sprint Nextel is fully committed to the...

Bad signal? Debate continues over iPhone 3G connectivity issues.
August 18, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON A slice of iPhone 3G owners have said they are experiencing 3G connectivity issues such as weak signals, dropped calls and devices that revert from a carrier's 3G network to its EDGE network, eclipsing the device's...

Top-down green initiatives; Regulations, policy central to cleaning up wireless footprint.
August 18, 2008... Byline: JEFFREY SILVA Now more than ever, policymakers and the wireless providers they regulate are finding it easier indeed, politically and socially fashionable to make peace with the latest iteration of the green revolution. Green has...

Handsets in a drawer; Eco-friendly mobiles require a battle on many fronts.
August 18, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON The ecological impact of the most ubiquitous consumer-electronics device in history yes, mobile handsets may be likened to a coin. On the coin's face is the easily recognized topic of recycling, as familiar to...

Green forecast remains partly cloudy; Reducing waste key to cleaning up wireless ecosystem.
August 18, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS Here's the good news: Some of you mobile players are among the most progressive corporations around when it comes to being gentle to Mother Earth. The bad news? Well, yeah, there's plenty of that on the green...

13 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK.
August 18, 2008... MCI Communications Corp. turned itself into a national wireless powerhouse, signing cellular resale agreements with five wireless service providers. The resale pact built on MCI's $190 million purchase of Nationwide Cellular Service Inc., the...

Consolidation fallout; Dwindling numbers leave fewer options.
August 18, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER 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...

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August 18, 2008... HIP-HOP STAR T-PAIN PERFORMS at the 2008 South Florida summer fest. Zed last week unveiled an exclusive deal to distribute ringtones from the digital-only label Nappy Boy Digital. T-Pain founded the label.

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August 18, 2008... HELIO HAS CLOSED four of five retail outlets, with only the New York location remaining open. The MVNO is set to cut its workforce down to 200 employees prior to Virgin Mobile USA taking over.

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August 18, 2008... NOKIA SAID ITS "REMADE" concept phone was used to explore the possibility of manufacturing a device from recycled products. The Remade uses upcycled aluminum cans, plastics from drink bottles and rubber keys provided by car tires.

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August 18, 2008... IN 2007, 60% of all cellphones purchased worldwide were replacement phones, according to a report from ABI Research. The report makes clear that this turnover is a huge economic opportunity - it forecasts that by 2012, the market for recycled...

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August 18, 2008... GREENPEACE CLAIMS ITS OWN INVESTIGATION unearthed evidence that e-waste is being exported - often illegally - to Ghana from Europe and the United States. Above, a container of electronic waste (e-waste) from the Port of Oakland in the United...

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August 18, 2008... IN RECENT MONTHS, according to the EPA, major handset vendors, wireless carriers and retailers have teamed up with the EPA and its Plug-In to eCycling program. Samsung announced the E200 Eco cellphone at the Olympic Rendezvous @ Samsung in...

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August 18, 2008... ERICSSON'S TOWER TUBE IS a slim column of concrete with an elevator inside to raise radio equipment to the top of the tower.

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August 18, 2008... THIS VERIZON WIRELESS SITE in California's remote desert is one of the company's eight solar-powered cell sites in the western United States, some requiring access by helicopter. Each has solar-charged battery back-up power for cloudy days.

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August 18, 2008... NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS' Flexi base station uses up to 60% less power than the previous generation of equipment.

$1,000 iPhone apps actually not a good thing.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Colin Gibbs Mobile operators are smiling through clenched teeth as the mobile industry moves toward "openness.'' And "I Am Rich'' is a good example of why some of their fears are well-placed. In case you missed it, Apple got a...

Ringtones: Becoming part of the artists' rollout process; Despite slowdown, tones to pull in $510M in revenue.
August 18, 2008... Byline: COLIN GIBBS 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:...

GREENPLACE'S GUIDE ON ELECTRONICS.
August 18, 2008... Say what you will about Greenpeace's use of political theater to make its points, the non-governmental organization's (NGO) analysis is consistent with much of the latest science on reducing the use of hazardous materials and shrinking carbon...

BY THE NUMBERS.
August 18, 2008... Femtocell market could hit $1.8B by 2013 A study from ABI Research predicts the market for femtocell semiconductors could top $1.8 billion 2013, from $72 million this year, growing at an annual compound growth rate of more than 300%. ...

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August 18, 2008... IT MUST BE A SIGNAL-BOOSTING BOX: Brandt Gillespie talks on a first-generation iPhone outside an Apple Store as he wears an iPhone 3G bag on his head in Salt Lake City. Gillespie put the bag on his head after he was unable to activate his new...

...ETC...
August 18, 2008... Spoils for the undead The alternative rock group Hollywood Undead won Virgin Mobile USA's second annual Book The Band Contest. The band, which commanded more than half the votes cast in the contest, has never performed live. Instead, it...

Helio slims down, more cuts expected; Virgin Mobile USA set to take over rival MVNO.
August 18, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Just a month-and-a-half after Virgin Mobile USA Inc.'s announcement to acquire Helio L.L.C., all but one of Helio's five retail stores have closed. The New York location remains open, for now, while stores in Denver,...

Rural groups vocal about roaming, data in VZW buy; Alltel acquisition meets opposition, condition demands.
August 18, 2008... Byline: DAN MEYER A handful of rural operators and trade organizations again raised concerns over future roaming capabilities in filings last week regarding Verizon Wireless' attempt to acquire the nation's No. 5 operator, Alltel...

iPhone in enterprise: Not quite ready for prime time.
August 18, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON 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...

Operators push online, less packaging; A couple of carriers tie trees to paperless billing promotions.
August 18, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Lately in the land of red, white and blue, people are talking a lot about green, including wireless service providers. In an industry that boasts 263 million subscribers who get a heap of stuff with their service,...

VZW tops J.D. Power customer care study; No. 2 wireless provider No. 1 in survey.
August 18, 2008... Byline: ALLIE WINTER Verizon Wireless ranked highest in J.D. Power and Associates' 2008 Wireless Customer Care Performance study. The results, which normally find T-Mobile USA Inc. on top, included more than 11,000 respondents and were...

Sanjay Jha's sense of urgency; New Moto leader gets challenge, dollars, advice.
August 18, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON The initial question on many minds when news broke that Sanjay Jha, COO at Qualcomm Inc., would help lead Motorola Inc. out of the woods: Why swap celebrated success for plying the trackless wilderness? Jha himself...

U.S. device sales healthy in second quarter, Motorola still controls No. 1 position.
August 18, 2008... Byline: PHIL CARSON Motorola Inc. retained its No. 1 position in the United States during the second quarter with nearly 26% market share, followed by LG Electronics Co. Ltd., according to quarterly data from Strategy Analytics. The...

RTG ups ante at FCC in opposing VZW/Alltel deal.
August 18, 2008... Byline: DAN MEYER Following on a similar filing earlier this month, the Rural Telecommunications Group Inc. filed an individual petition with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to deny Verizon Wireless' pending...

It's not easy being green.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Tracey Ford The wireless industry must continue its leadership role in addressing consumer-electronics waste, not just because it's good corporate citizenship, but because it's good business for individual companies and the...

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August 18, 2008... PARTS FROM PDAS and cellphones are pictured at a Noranda Recycling facility in Brampton, Ontario. Noranda Recycling, a division of Falconbridge Ltd., recycles electronics items including cellphones, computers, and televisions to extract plastic...