It looks like the brand-new shininess of millions of new iPhones has lost a little luster since the holidays. After a big holiday and iPhone 4S bump, the number of daily app downloads in the U.S. took a big nosedive in March, according to Fiksu. Read more »
Clearwire said today it would roll out LTE in 31 markets in the first half 2013, starting with New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle. Though it didn’t detail any more launch cities, it’s not too hard to guess them. Read more »
Verizon and its cable partners aren’t taking T-Mobile’s bashing of their proposed spectrum deal lying down. In fact, they’re accusing the carrier of hypocrisy, throwing in T-Mobile’s face its own recent attempt to merge with AT&T, which would have created the megacarrier to beat all megacarriers. Read more »
Sincerely is adding a charitable twist to the holiday cards users generate with their mobile phones. Customers can choose from a selection of Sincerely Giving cards linked to specific non-profits. By paying a premium, the giver donates to the specified charity in the receiver’s name. Read more »
The heterogeneous network, or HetNet, will turn today’s big-tower cellular systems into dense, multi-layered and tremendously high capacity networks. Given the complexity of such systems, it’s easy to imagine HetNet as a technology of the future, but Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg says you would be wrong. Read more »
Sprint doesn’t plan to dump WiMAX entirely after it takes its LTE live this summer. Instead, it plans to reposition the older 4G technology as the network for its prepaid customers. Sprint will begin selling WiMAX devices next quarter under the Boost and Virgin brands. Read more »
Sprint’s unlimited data offers plans seem to as a big draw as it had hoped when it comes to selling the iPhone. Sprint sold 1.5 million iPhones in the first quarter, compared to the 3.2 million Verizon and 4.3 million AT&T activated in the same period. Read more »
Verizon’s biggest critics have banded together to try and block its purchase of 4G airwaves from the cable providers – or at least delay it. Sprint, DirecTV, FairPoint and multiple consumer and industry policy groups have joined the CWA’s petition to halt regulatory proceedings over the deal. Read more »
What does a mobile network hosting 41.2 million smartphones look like? It’s a network where growth in data traffic far exceeds data revenue growth. AT&T is selling a lot of smartphones, but even millions of new iPhones don’t fully account for its huge spikes in traffic. Read more »
Verizon hasn’t exactly done a bang-up job selling its critics on the merits of its 4G spectrum consolidation plans. T-Mobile would be a prime candidate to buy up Verizon’s extra 700 MHz airwaves, but it’s not interested and wants the FCC to kill the Verizon-cable deal. Read more »
Arieso is working with a major U.S. carrier to plan for the advent of small cells. The company won’t name the operator, saying only it was a Tier I player, but that carrier is using its tools to help build the heterogenous networks of the future. Read more »
Food Network’s digital strategy has always been fairly straightforward: to supplement its cable TV content and promote its on-air talent. Consequently its Website, its social media efforts and its mobile apps are all linked to its programming. But this week Food Network deviated from that strategy. Read more at paidContent »
France’s Free Mobile launched with enormous hoopla in January, but it sat on a key component of its innovative mobile strategy until today. Free has opened up 4 million Wi-Fi hotspots to its smartphone customers, creating the world’s largest carrier-run mobile data offload network. Read more »
Verizon Wireless has often touted its 700 MHz airwaves as “beachfront property,” but now Big Red wants to dump some of its 700 MHz real estate, trading it for low-rent frequencies in the AWS band. At earnings call on Thursday, Verizon explained its puzzling reversal. Read more »
The global adoption of LTE was going to heal the rift between the CDMA and GSM camps and give U.S. consumers more freedom to switch among carriers and greater choice in devices. Verizon’s planned sale of its extra LTE spectrum pretty much quashes that dream. Read more »
Verizon Wireless next week will begin selling international data roaming plans much the same way it sells domestic data: buckets of megabytes for a set price. But don’t expect to get a lot for your dollar. Verizon is selling 100 MB for $25 a month. Read more »
Verizon Wireless is hosting a fire sale on LTE spectrum, revealing it will “rationalize” its spectrum holdings by discarding extra 700 MHz licenses. The sale would basically make Verizon’s LTE rollout a lot easier, but it would also sound the death knell for interoperable LTE devices. Read more »
Google, Apple and Samsung get all of the attention in the mobile patent wars, but only one of them is a true powerhouse in terms of mobile intellectual property. Samsung, along with Nokia, lead the overall mobile patent portfolio rankings, according to a new study. Read more »
Verizon Wireless plans to launch 27 new LTE markets on Thursday and has been expanding its mobile broadband footprint in cities where it already offers 4G. All of that activity will amount to only 9 million new people covered, but it represents a massive geographical expansion. Read more »
Does the world need 2 Gbps Wi-Fi connections? Rusnano, Bright Capital and several other venture capital firms think it does. They have invested $79 million in Quantenna Communications to build the chips that will make such multi-gigabit wireless local area networks possible. Read more »
AT&T’s networks are getting an upgrade that will transform them from static cellular grids into a kind of network organism whose cells will grow and shrink as customers move through them. Ultimately these self-optimizing networks will be a critical component in providing cheap and ubiquitous mobile data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Android could become the the ideal operating system for the world’s armies, navies and security agencies. The versatile, open and free OS already has most of the necessary pieces in place to power military-grade apps. The only thing Android is missing is security and ruggedization. Read more »
Samsung will take the wraps off its latest Galaxy handset at an event in London on May 3. You’re all thinking this will be the Galaxy S III, and you’re probably right, but there may be more to this event than a mere smartphone unveiling. Read more »
For the last year Sprint has been talking up how it would replace its old Nextel iDEN systems with a shiny new LTE network, but until today it hadn’t revealed when. On Thursday, Sprint network engineering president Steve Elfman provided that critical detail, 2014, FierceWireless reported. Read more »
Verizon’s joint marketing pact with the cable providers may be facing some serious scrutiny, but Verizon and its partners don’t seem to have noticed. On Thursday, Time Warner Cable blithely announced they would launch bundled mobile and cable services together in five markets. Read more »
French operators won’t begin rolling out their LTE networks until this summer, but once they do, Wireless Intelligence projects they will add 4G subscribers at a steady clip until they hit 10 million connections in 2017. Read more »
GetJar COO Chris Dury is taking over the reins of the scrappy Android app retailer, allowing its Lithuania-based CEO and founder Ilja Laurs to focus more on evangelizing the concept of the alternate and open app store, GetJar said on Thursday. Read more »
The aim of ZipList has always been to work with the big food media brands, and now it’s getting its wish. Condé Nast has acquired ZipList for an undisclosed amount, linking the startup with some of the biggest food titles both on and off the Web. Read more at paidContent »
The mobile industry is counting on future wireless networks being heterogeneous: complex multi-layered systems of overlapping big and small cells, pumping out cheap bandwidth. But to arrive at hetnet we first need to figure out how to link all of those small cells together. Read more »
Springpad has long been compared to Internet note-taking sensation Evernote, but starting today Springpad will likely be compared to another darling of the startup world, Pinterest. On Wednesday Springpad evolved into its third iteration, transforming the information capture service into a social networking engine. Read more »
T-Mobile is inviting AT&T customers to take their old unlocked iPhones to its network where they can feast upon its ultra-cheap plans. They won’t get 3G access just yet, but T-Mo says it’s only a matter of time before its networks are fully iPhone ready. Read more »
Singapore’s StarHub has taken its 4G fate into its own hands, revealing today it will shut down part of its 2G network to make room for LTE, rather than wait around for new 4G spectrum to materialize. Its LTE network goes live this year. Read more »
The feds teamed up with law enforcement and the wireless industry to curb the theft of cellphones by essentially rendering the devices useless once pilfered and fingering the thieves if they try to re-activate them. Their plan: A new database that will track stolen phones. Read more »
The auto industry has already developed all the technology necessary to create truly autonomous vehicles. The reasons there aren’t driverless cars all over the road today is in part a cost issue, but it is mainly one of driver mindset. Ford plans to change that. Read more »
AT&T will begin unlocking iPhones after customers contracts expire, which could potentially flood the market with millions of iPhones just begging for new carriers. There are two operators in particular well positioned to take advantage of that deluge of unlocked Apple devices: H2O Wireless and FreedomPop. Read more »
More than a year after promising to make WiMAX and LTE versions of its PlayBook tablet, RIM has delivered squat on its 4G promises. But now new photos have popped up on CrackBerry’s forums that appear to be of the mythical LTE PlayBook. Read more »
Remember the old NetZero dial-up Internet plans that gave you free Internet access as long as you put up with an advertising window emblazoned across your screen? Well, AT&T is experimenting with a similar concept at DFW Airport, only offering Wi-Fi instead of dial-up. Read more »
Google is wants to bring more small websites to the mobile phone, and to help nudge those sites along it’s willing to foot the bill for a year. Google and Duda Mobile are offering free hosting and customization of Web sites for mobile browsers. Read more »
Apple has a new U.S. carrier partner for the iPhone, and once again, it’s not T-Mobile. Instead it’s nTelos, a carrier with only 400,000 customers. Apple isn’t snubbing T-Mobile here. It’s merely following the path of least resistance. Read more »
MetroPCS on Tuesday became the latest operator to begin throttling mobile data, but MetroPCS isn’t eliminating its unlimited data plans entirely. It’s added a $70 price tier that preserves unlimited voice, SMS and LTE data use, but all other customers get capped. Read more »
