The Financial Times says it has seen a questionnaire the European Commission is sending to carriers, asking them to clarify Apple’s channel terms. Authorities are also said to be looking into 4G restrictions on the iPhone 5. Read more »
Roughly half a dozen new mobile operating systems will come to market over the next 6 to 12 months. Many of these look to be more sophisticated than the older ones controlled by Apple and Google, for whom serious competition could be just around the corner. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Ubuntu Server is all about virtualization and OpenStack these days, and the new version reflects that. It’s not a long-term support release, but rather a good opportunity to test out new integrations. Read more »
5G is still just the merest twinkle in the mobile industry’s eye, yet the blogosphere is now using the term to describe T-Mobile’s forthcoming network. Just as with 4G, we’re conflating technology with marketing, and we need to stop. Read more »
Verizon’s generated some impressive activation numbers in the normally slow first quarter: 5.9 million LTE devices; 7.2 million smartphones; and 4 million new iPhones, half of which were the LTE-capable iPhone 5. Read more »
Ever wanted a single app that check you into any airline or an app that could aggregate healthcare data from multiple doctors and insurance companies? Apigee’s new API Exchange aims to make those apps possible. Read more »
Locking phones down to a specific mobile operator is an unpopular practice, and T-Mobile is maintaining it but only for customers who make use of its device financing options. Read more »
Expense management is crucial for companies who wish to install successful, safe BYOD programs. Here’s a look at the ways in which enterprises can monitor costs when it comes to their employees’ personal mobile devices. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hype over T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” event on Tuesday is building. There are no guarantees about what exactly T-Mo will announce tomorrow, but here’s what we expect — and hope — will come out of the NYC press extravaganza. Read more »
French carriers have reportedly made an unofficial complaint to EU competition authorities over Apple’s iPhone sales quotas. The Commission is unlikely to see this as a matter for an antitrust investigation. Read more »
The practice of locking phones is a symptom of a greater disease in the U.S.: device subsidies. If we can separate the hardware from the service, consumers will ultimately have greater choice and save money. Read more »
Carrier mobile data revenues are set to pass mobile voice revenues in the fourth quarter, according to analyst Chetan Sharma. When that happens carriers will find themselves facing a fundamentally different kind of business. Read more »
The OneAPI Exchange will get carriers into the identity verification business, but more significantly it’s the first carrier developer service designed to work universally across all carriers’ networks. Read more »
The subscription music serve has done well by Cricket, so now the carrier wants to share its fortune. It already has one licensee lined up, but separating off Muve could bring in more. Read more »
GoSmart Mobile will focus on the budget-conscious voice centric user. There are data plans, and one of them is even unlimited, but you won’t get access to T-Mobile’s full HSPA+ network speeds. Read more »
There are no LTE-Advanced networks or chips today, but that hasn’t stopped equipment makers and carriers from claiming the opposite. Here’s how they’re getting away with it. Read more »
How does RootMetrics know who has the best mobile data network? During a ride-along, Root showed us just how it collects the millions of data-points that go into its detailed coverage maps and performance reports. Read more »
Sprint sold 6.1 million smartphones, including 2.1 million iPhones. The exodus of Nextel and Boost customers continued, though, resulting in overall subscriber losses. Read more »
Globally the average mobile user consumed 201 MB a month in 2012. In North America, we binged on more than triple that amount. By 2017, Cisco says, those numbers will increase by a factor of 10. Read more »
After focusing its LTE rollout on small town America for months, Sprint is returning its attention to big cities. Boston and Austin join Chicago and Indianapolis as the latest cities to get the 4G upgrade. Read more »
Deutsche Telekom is considering investing in Fon, the crowdsourced Wi-Fi provider. Though the deal is far from certain, DT could benefit greatly from a close relationship with Fon’s millions-strong Wi-Fi community. Read more »
AT&T is buying up the remaining piece of Alltel still in operation for $780 million. Though the deal gives AT&T 585,000 new subscribers, judging by the price Ma Bell seems more interested in its airwaves. Read more »
AT&T apparently is revving up the acquisition machine once again, this time targeting Europe mobile carriers. Buying an overseas mobile arm might be a good investment, but it does little operationally for Ma Bell. Read more »
Ofcom wants to make it possible for consumers to pull out of their mobile contracts without paying a penalty, if the carrier raises the agreed contract price. But, as operators have warned, this may mean drastically reducing upfront hardware subsidies. Read more »
Signaling traffic growth is outstripping mobile data traffic by 30 percent to 50 percent and threatening the stability of mobile networks. However, the growth in signaling traffic is not only an indicator of success but also shows that mobile data has come of age. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The year 2013 may bring real disruption to the mobile industry. Upstart carriers are embracing noncellular technologies to provide cut-rate services, third-party developers are gaining traction with cheap (or free) alternatives to SMS, and a major U.S. operator is preparing to drop handset subsidies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Everyone may be focused on the forthcoming T-Mobile iPhone, but T-Mo revealed a strategy Thursday that will have far greater implications for the mobile industry. By eliminating subsidies it’s changing the way phones and services are sold and altering the consumer’s relationship to the carrier. Read more »
The mobile-messaging value chain is changing as OTT players upend mobile operators’ SMS business. There will be 27.7 trillion messages by 2016, and most of the growth in traffic will come from IP-based services. Successful carriers will use this new technology to extend reliability and scalability. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In just two years, the US and Canada have spawned 15 LTE networks and 21.5 million LTE subscriptions, according to Wireless Intelligence. Verizon was the first major operator to launch LTE, and it’s used its head start well, racking up 14.9 million 4G connections. Read more »
VoIP may be the future on mobile communications, but new findings from testing outfit Spirent show the technology needs to improve its power efficiency if it’s to become viable. Its tests found that a VoLTE call consumes twice as much battery life as a 2G call. Read more »
Even using a smartphone in fairly normal ways — checking your location with a web-based map, sending email or text messages, uploading photos and so on — can result in massive charges when it is done while roaming internationally, thanks to the market control that telecom carriers enjoy. Read more »
Whether it’s the iPhone 5, the importance of LTE, or BYOD trends disrupting the enterprise, there are always technologies, trends, and companies changing the way we define mobile. Here are some noteworthy segments to watch in the coming months, from location-based shopping to apps to wireless networks. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The switch from voice to data isn’t just affecting carriers. The new mobile data reality is driving device makers to change the way handsets are designed, Internet companies to deal with the smaller screen, and infrastructure makers to re-architect the fundamental topologies of their networks. Read more »
What happens when you get four-dozen carriers in a single room? Apparently nothing. The organization tasked with creating common carrier APIs, the Wholesale Application Community, revealed on Tuesday it is dissolving, selling off its technology to Apigee and folding its development efforts into the GSM Association. Read more »
Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) technology brings together business applications, the Internet and the world’s public-switched telephone network (PSTN) to provide businesses with new ways of enabling communication. Here’s how to leverage this new technology. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Discussions about the cloud now involve more than just the IT department. New developments in hardware architectures, more-energy-efficient data centers, regulatory concerns and simplifying analytics are all discussions currently circling through the industry. Here’s what to consider when thinking about your business in the cloud. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
“Operators treat partners like vendors.” That quote comes form Google director of global android partnerships John Lagerling, who said it at a Dublin conference where it was captured by Light Reading. It’s a telling statement — one that sums up a big problem facing the wireless industry. Read more »
For developers, consumers and even carriers, Android seems irreparably broken. But Google’s not likely to “fix” Android anytime soon, because despite the fragmentation problem, the company is getting what it wants: massive amounts of user data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Want a new iPhone, but not sure which U.S. carrier is best suited for your needs? Enter CarrierCompare, a free iPhone app that uses real network tests in your location combined with crowdsourced data to help you choose the carrier that’s right for you. 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 »
