Free Mobile continues to gouge large chunks out of the French mobile market. It added 805,000 subscribers in Q3, bringing its total subscriber base to 4.4 million in just nine months. Meanwhile, France’s big three are still growing but at a much slower pace. Read more »
In five months, PC messaging startup MightyText has quintupled its user base to 1.2 million, and it’s now ready to expand to its Android-to-PC SMS synchronization service to new tablets. Read more »
Vodafone is already trialing 1000 small cells in the UK, and starting next year it plans to expand its use of tiny base station technology into its other global networks. Vodafone is still cautious though about small cells’ immediate impact. Read more »
GrubHub has souped up its mobile apps and web portal with new order tracking features, allowing its diners to track the status of their meals from the moment they leave the restaurant to the moment they arrive at the front door. Read more »
As the wireless industry in the US matures, new subscriber growth reaches its lowest level in a decade while traditional SMS revenues and traffic begin to decline, according to a new report. Like Europe and parts of Asia, the US market is getting saturated. Read more »
What happens when infrastructure startups disappear? Innovation doesn’t stop, but the industry definitely loses a critical font of ideas that challenge the big vendor mentality and established standards. Services innovation is already outpacing network innovation — the problem is only going to get worse. Read more »
Once you subtract all of the M2M connections and factor out all of the people who don’t own mobile devices, the number of devices owned by the typical U.S. wireless user comes to one-and-a-half per person. Read more »
Sprint is launching its new LTE network footprint from the outside in. Rather than start with the big cities and then move to smaller markets, Sprint is starting in small cities and suburbs and building up to the big metro launches. Read more »
I confess: I used T-Mobile’s 200 MB plan for a year, and it served all of my smartphone needs. Since then I and most other smartphone users have graduated to heavier data buckets, but there is still a need for a cheap 200 MB plan. Read more »
AT&T isn’t against Softbank taking over Sprint. Ma Bell just wants to get something out of the deal, according to Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld. Also Sprint’s buying a majority stake in Clearwire doesn’t give it the direct control of the 4G operator that we thought. Read more »
Nokia Siemens Network just turned a big quarterly profit, all thanks to its recent LTE momentum. The infrastructure vendor is trying to build on that momentum by pushing into future LTE technologies like small cells and HetNet, which it claims will increase network capacity 1,000-fold. Read more »
Striking a deal with Clearwire’s founder Craig McCaw, Sprint now has a majority stake in the 4G operator. Clearwire is still struggling financially and it will need a lot more cash to build its nationwide LTE network, but Sprint now has control over its spectrum. Read more »
Verizon activated 4.5 million LTE devices in the third quarter, an increase of 1.3 million over Q2. While the iPhone 5 was introduced only 10 days before the close of the quarter the new LTE-powered Apple phone contributed to that growth. Read more »
Apparently after four years of letting Clearwire flounder, Sprint is now interested in taking control of the struggling WiMAX operator. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint is set to take over the Clearwire board to ease the way for its own acquisition by Softbank. Read more »
AT&T aims in three years to have a new LTE network up in the airwaves the FCC just approved for 4G use. In the rather plodding world of telecom, three years is a quick timeline. But AT&T has political and strategic reasons for moving soon. Read more »
The compromise plan turns a worthless hunk of airwaves into prime cellular real estate, while protecting neighboring satellite radio from interference. AT&T now just needs to consolidate the remaining 2.3 GHz licenses out there so it can build its new LTE network. Read more »
Ford and University of Michigan researchers are experimenting with interior coatings that will combat microbial buildup left by grubby hands on the steering wheel and radio dial. In short, Ford is hoping silver ion additives will keep our cars from smelling. Read more »
TeliaSonera’s revenues and subscriber base aren’t budging, but the Nordic carrier claims its costs are skyrocketing. In an effort to realign its business with new mobile data realities, the carrier said it will lay off 7 percent of its workforce over two years. Read more »
RIM’s QNX has pulled the wraps off the developer program for its new connected car platform, Car 2. Launching in early 2013, the SDK uses the same WebWorks tools as BlackBerry 10, creating the industry’s first dev program that bridges the smartphone and dashboard. Read more »
Chicago will become the first city to receive a fiber network as part of Gigabit Squared’s college town connectivity program. The Windy City may not be your classic college town, but the University of Chicago’s south side neighborhood makes an interesting testbed for the technology. Read more »
According to new reports, Clearwire isn’t part of Softbank’s US plans. Clearwire and Softbank have a lot in common when comes to 4G technology, but that doesn’t mean there’s room for the struggling mobile broadband operator in Sprint and Softbank’s marriage. Read more »
Big Switch, Nicira and Schuberg Philis share their insights on software-defined networks–how they’re being deployed today and how they will evolve to replace traditional infrastructure driven networks. Read more »
T-Mobile has two markets that are officially iPhone ready, but unofficially there is a lot of upgrade activity going on nationwide. Unlocked iPhone owners in Las Vegas and Kansas City can now access T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. By year end that list should be far greater. Read more »
There are multiple networks inside today’s cars, controlling everything from the power windows to switching gears in the transmission. Broadcom hopes to replace all of those disparate systems with a unified in-car Ethernet network and its recruiting automakers like BMW and Hyundai to its cause. Read more »
Unless there’s a major hiccup, T-Mobile and MetroPCS will become one next year. What does that mean for its customers? GigaOM breaks down how it will impact subscribers on both networks in both the short and long-term. Read more »
Verizon has given a date on when it expects to retire its 2G and 3G networks: 2021. But even that date isn’t hard and fast. According to the company, Verizon will keep them running as long as its customers need them. Read more »
T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray says MetroPCS voice-over-LTE services will definitely be supported post merger as long as customers own VoLTE phones. But, whether the new T-Metro expands VoLTE beyond the Metro footprint, however, remains an open question dictated by demand and logistics. Read more »
A week later, Sprint is now holding off on a counter bid for MetroPCS, choosing instead to see how the Deutsche Telekom’s deal to merge T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS plays out, according to Bloomberg. Read more »
The Wholesale Application Community’s dream of a single pool of APIs shared among all global carriers may have died, but Telefónica may be trying to revive it. It’s recruited fellow mega-operator Telenor into its BlueVia developer platform. Together they reach 400 million global subscribers. Read more »
MetroPCS is the most aggressive operator in the country when it comes to VoLTE, but its proposed merger with T-Mobile might put its rollout of mobile VoIP on hold. If the merger passes, the combined T-Metro would no longer face the same capacity constraints. Read more »
Yummly is been doing semantic recipe search for more than two years. Now it’s applying its food parsing algorithms to food advertising. Its new ad platform will go beyond on the usual keywords and seek to make deeper associations between taste, nutrition and products. Read more »
In two years, Verizon has signed up 11 million LTE customers, but those customers account for more than a third of all mobile data traffic. With LTE iPhone 5 sales getting into full swing, Verizon expects more than half of traffic to be on 4G soon. Read more »
Funambol’s first round of funding in four years comes just as mobile operators are mounting a challenge against the cloud storage services offered by Google, Microsoft and Apple. Funambol provides a white-label cross-platform service, which several of the big carriers have already tapped. Read more »
NetZero is giving each of its customers 1 GB of free bonus data each month. You can’t use that yourself, though. You have to give it to other NetZero customers in 200 MB increments, but there’s nothing to stop your friends from returning the favor. Read more »
Nokia once again is giving T-Mobile “exclusivity” on a new mid-range windows handset, which to be honest doesn’t give T-Mobile much. The Lumia 810 may be a perfectly capable device, but AT&T is selling the much more capable 920 along with 810′s twin brother. Read more »
Hotels, airlines and grocery stores already link everything imaginable to their loyalty card programs. Why not 4G, as well? Sprint wants to make it easy for the hospitality and retail industries to become mini-virtual operators renting and selling mobile data modems to their customers. Read more »
Sprint is working with Zoove to use its personalized dialing codes for a vanity phone number service. For $3 a month customers can select a vanity code up to nine numerals in length. Read more »
Ruckus is following a different path than its arch-rival BelAir Networks. Instead of preening itself for acquisition, it’s filed for an initial public offering. Hoping to raise $100 million, Ruckus will keep plugging away at building expansive outdoor Wi-Fi networks. Read more »
Huawei is reportedly giving some serious thought to listing itself on a US or international exchange, exposing its books and ownership structure to the world. An IPO won’t silence all of Huawei’s critics, but it would help the company close equipment contracts and acquisitions. Read more »
Reports are now surfacing that Sprint may counter Deutsche Telekom’s bid for MetroPCS. What would Sprint gain if it derails the Metro-T-Mobile merger? Sprint would get some attractive spectrum, but it won’t help its overall 4G strategy much. It’s licenses simply don’t line up with Metro’s. Read more »
