The U.S. economy is taking its toll on more device makers. Research In Motion (RIM) said it expects lower revenues for the third quarter, in the range of $2.75 billion to $2.78 billion, which is lower than previously forecast. The company blamed foreign exchange impacts and lower-than-estimated unit shipments as a result of the economic…
White House Rejects FCC Proposal for Cell Backup Power
Wireless carriers received a bit of a reprieve when the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rejected an FCC proposal to require all cell phone towers be equipped with backup power. “CTIA is pleased the Office of Management and Budget recognized that the FCC failed to seek and evaluate public comment on these…
Qualcomm Loses Appeal for Contempt Decision
There’s more bad news for Qualcomm. The wireless chip maker again lost a federal court appeal, with the judge upholding last month’s decision that Qualcomm is in contempt of an injunction forcing it to stop infringing on rival company Broadcom’s patents. Any overlapping patents belonging to Qualcomm are not enforceable because of inappropriate disclosure methods,…
Sprint Employees Get Class Action Status
Sprint Nextel, already in financial trouble, now faces a class action lawsuit by 19,000 current and former employees who said they were shortchanged on sales commissions. A federal judge in Kansas ruled that the lawsuit can continue. Sprint previously denied the charges, which stated that the problem was caused by computer issues during Sprint’s merger…
Gartner Says Q3 Cell Sales at 309M
Consumers bought more than 309 million cell phones worldwide in the third quarter of 2008, Gartner said today, up from 305 million in the second quarter. That’s a 6% increase from the same quarter in 20007, but less than half of last year’s growth rate of 16%, the analyst firm said. Nokia sold nearly 118…
InterDigital Reaches Patent Deal with Samsung
InterDigital entered into an agreement with Samsung Electronics and its affiliates that resolves outstanding arbitration issues involving Samsung’s sale of 2G handset-related products, as well as the 3G patent licensing disputes for Samsung’s sales of products through 2012. Under the terms of deal, InterDigital agreed to grant Samsung a royalty-bearing license covering Samsung’s sale of…
G1, BlackBerry Devices Get iPhone-like Apps
Customers of T-Mobile’s G1 and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry series can make their smartphones a bit more like the Apple iPhone today. For users of the G1 phone, currently the only U.S. handset running Google’s Android mobile operating system, the popular Opera Mini browser and PhoneFusion visual voicemail applications are now both available and free…
Garcia Out as Sprint CDMA Chief
Sprint Nextel CDMA President John Garcia has left the company, according to a Reuters report. Keith Cowan, president of strategy and corporate development, will temporarily run the CDMA unit, the carrier said. Cowan joined in mid-2007 and previously worked at BellSouth. Sprint lost $326 million, saw its revenue fall to $8.8 billion and lost 1.3…
Apple Says iPhone 2.2 Reduces Dropped Calls
Apple launched iPhone 2.2 software into the wild late last week, giving the lusty smartphone a hodgepodge of new features simultaneous with rival Research In Motion’s launch of the BlackBerry Storm. But perhaps most important, Apple says the software means fewer dropped calls, the ability to turn off auto-correction in the on-screen keyboard, better sound…
Verizon Says Employees Accessed Obama Account
President-elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone account has been improperly accessed by Verizon Wireless employees, the carrier confirmed. Reports about the improper access surfaced yesterday, while Verizon first contacted the Obama transition team Wednesday. “This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama’s personal…
GSMA Endorses ENUM, NFC
The GSM Association at a meeting in Macau yesterday declared its support for Carrier ENUM and for mobile payments based on near-field communications. ENUM, which the GSMA previously called Number Resolution Service, is an IETF-sanctioned standard for converting traditional phone numbers into IP addresses. The GSMA endorsed clearing services company NeuStar’s recent Carrier ENUM test,…
Qualcomm Again in Contempt of Broadcom Injunction
Broadcom today said a federal judge again ruled contempt against rival mobile chip maker Qualcomm for infringing the rules of an earlier injunction. The injunction, issued in December last year, prevents Qualcomm from making, using, selling, importing and developing certain kinds of EV-DO chips, but allows sales to legacy customers until Jan. 31, 2009, with…
TerreStar Gets Extensions
TerreStar, the company formed to build a terrestrial wireless and satellite network, will get more time to reach some government-mandated milestones. The company announced the FCC granted TerreStar Networks a request for an extension of its satellite launch milestone from Sept. 30, 2008, to June 30, 2009, and its operational milestone from Nov. 30, 2008, to…
M2M Could Reach 95M Connections in 2013
The machine-to-machine (M2M) market will see 95 million cellular modules shipping in 2013, ABI Research said in its latest report, “Cellular M2M Markets” yesterday. Telemetry and telematics will account for 73 million of those connections, with wireless local loop also play a role.\ The world economy and a recession could negatively impact the M2M predictions,…
Obama Transition Teams Picks Wheeler for Science and Arts
Wireless industry star Tom Wheeler is joining President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team to focus on matters of science, technology, space and the arts, officials announced. Wheeler, who currently funds several wireless industry startups through Core Capital Partners, previously led the CTIA and the NCTA. Wheelers also writes about history and focused on technology in a…
Ericsson to Launch U.S. IPTV Tech
Ericsson will announce IPTV middleware for the U.S. market this week, company officials said. The system will comply with Open IPTV Forum specification and will be integrated with existing IMS platforms. Ericsson also said it will support video products from Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, along with smaller companies Accedo Broadband, Agama Technologies, Amino, SecureMedia,…
FCC Approves Mergers, White Spaces
Verizon Wireless can acquire Alltel, while Sprint Nextel can acquire Clearwire and former analog TV signals can be used for new purposes, the FCC voted yesterday. While most of the country was focused on the presidential election, people in the wireless industry watched FCC votes, which as expected were 5-0 decisions with a handful of…
Mformation Sues RIM
Mobile device management firm Mformation Technologies has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Research In Motion Limited and its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary Research In Motion Corporation. According to the complaint, Research In Motion (RIM) and its subsidiary have infringed, and continue to infringe, two…
iPhone Draws Lower Income Users
The strongest growth in Apple’s iPhone users is coming from people who earn less than the median household income, according to a study by comScore. The report, titled “All about iPhone,” shows that iPhone adoption since June rose 48% among those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 per year and by 46% among those earning between $25,000…
Gabriel Sues Qualcomm
Gabriel Technologies has filed a lawsuit against San Diego-based Qualcomm. The lawsuit claims that SnapTrack, which is owned by Qualcomm, breached the joint development agreement. The complaint accused Qualcomm of procuring more than 90 separate patents by falsely claiming ownership and sought over $1 billion in damages. The disputed technology involves significant refinements and enhancements to…
NGN/IMF Forum Plans 6th Plugfest
The NGN/IMS Forum announced its sixth plugfest will be held Jan. 12-16 next year at the University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab. Officials said tests will be performed for inter- and intra-domain NGN services routing; visited networks scenarios; billing, charging and service creation; presence and location-based services; interfaces operational testing; SIP signaling compression and VoIP.…
McCain in Cell Tower Controversy
Verizon installed a temporary cell phone tower at the Arizona ranch owned by Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his wife Cindy McCain and AT&T followed suit, the Washington Post reported today. Both companies deny any ethical wrongdoing, stating that cell coverage is essential wherever there’s a presidential candidate. In Verizon’s case, the McCains sought…
Forum Approves MPLS Spec
The IP/MPLS Forum has approved the first technical specification under its MPLS in Mobile Backhaul Initiative (MMBI), which defines how MPLS can be used to backhaul traffic for mobile operators. Mobile backhaul networks traditionally have used TDM- or ATM-based backhaul facilities to support revenue-generating services which are sensitive to delay and loss and require a…
CTIA Wants Universal Service Break for Some Customers
The FCC should not fully charge universal service fees to customers whose wireless phones are not their primary phones, officials from the CTIA said in a letter to the Commission, citing recent AT&T and Verizon Wireless proposals. Such customers represent 40% of all U.S. wireless customers. They should only have to pay partial fees, the…
FCC Opens E-911 Reporting System
The E-911 Architecture Information System is now active, FCC officials said. The system is designed to collect reports from local exchange carriers, mobile radio service providers and VoIP providers in order to analyze emergency networks. Reports must be filed by Feb. 6, 2009, the Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced. Details for obtaining…