The world’s first international MVNO, Truphone is now offering shared plans for business, allowing companies to offer a single pool of minutes and megabytes their employees can use in multiple counties. Read more »
Verizon’s prepaid plans are still more expensive than other no-contract operators, but you can now get 2 GB of 3G data on the $60 plan and 4 GB on the $70 plan. Read more »
ESPN is reportedly in negotiations with Verizon to exempt its content from the carrier’s data caps. Such a deal would set a precedence for a very different mobile internet than the one we know today. Read more »
Saturated markets and a slumping global economy shrank sales of mobile phones in 2012. But demand for smartphones will help restore growth moving forward, as shipments of smartphones worldwide will surpass those of feature phones in 2013. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The FBI has amassed terabytes of data from sources near the terrorist attack that occured during the Boston Marathon. This raises a question about the role crowdsourcing could play in solving some crimes while protecting citizens’ privacy. Read more »
Just a few months old, Wandera has attracted a sizable Series A round with Bessemer Venture Partners as the sole investor. Wandera’s technology, mobile data optimization, is nothing new, but its enterprise focus is. Read more »
AT&T’s new deal offer gives international plan customers 1 GB free access over Boingo’s global hotspot network. That wouldn’t be a bad deal if AT&T weren’t already charging you $60-$120 for your data plan. Read more »
A new research paper shows just how easy it is to identify individuals based on supposedly anonymous mobile-phone data, and this isn’t the first time supposedly anonymous data really wasn’t. But how do we balance the need for privacy with the value of these datasets? Read more »
AT&T just dropped the price of mobile data on its shared plans considerably, but there’s a catch. The discounted plans are data only, meaning no smartphone users need apply. Read more »
Mobile data MVNO FreedomPop is exploring the notion of a broadband piggy bank, which stores your unused data every month. It’s a concept ideal for the casual user of mobile broadband. 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 »
Arieso’s technology analyzes mobile connection events to spot exactly where the heaviest users are, so operators can deploy small cells in those locations. For JDSU, this makes for a more comprehensive network testing portfolio. Read more »
GigaOM has learned that pan-African operator Airtel is deploying a large-scale carrier Wi-Fi network using Ruckus and Alcatel-Lucent gear. With mainly 2G networks to its name today, Airtel will use Wi-Fi to jump start its mobile data services. 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 »
Santa Clara startup Vasona has a new mobile network optimization technology that targets congestion at individual cells rather than reshaping the entire network’s traffic indiscriminately. Read more »
Streaming-data specialist Guavus has raised $30 million to help its business of helping telcos make more sense of their streams of network data. By analyzing that data on the fly, they can see in real time who how their networks are being used, and by whom. Read more »
Placed Analytics has published a blog post showing which retailers had the most in-store visits during the holiday season. Placed can’t track sales, but its mobile-phone-derived location data can give a glimpse into who’s attracting the most physical shoppers, and when. 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 »
Using Cisco gear, PT Telkom will build an offload network in schools, malls, hotels and hotspot clusters to ease the mobile data burden on its cellular networks. 100,000 node is huge, but it’s the second network of its size in Asia. Read more »
Companies such as Inrix are making their money helping commuters and commercial drivers find the fastest routes through traffic, but their reach could go much further. Creative organizations can apply the data in entirely new areas, and crowdsourcing means seeing how the world moves. 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 »
ItsOn, a startup founded by wireless gurus Greg Raleigh and Charles Giancarlo, is coming out of stealth mode with $15 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and SV Angel. The company is creating a cloud platform that allows operators to offer tailored data plans for consumers. 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 »
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 »
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 »
Apple stole the spotlight in the third quarter with the release of its iPhone 5, Amazon pursued the tablet market aggressively with a new line of tablets, and Microsoft prepped to launch Windows 8 and the highly anticipated Surface tablet. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Skyfire, which is trying to become a carrier’s best friend with its data optimization tool, has raised $10 million to expand its service to carriers in Europe and Asia. Skyfire’s Rocket Optimizer can provide 60 percent average data savings for videos and 50 percent for images. 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 »
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 »
The demand for mobile data is increasing at an amazing rate. A challenge of this magnitude needs more resources and, more importantly, radically new ways of acquiring, deploying, managing and optimizing these resources. Qualcomm’s Prakash Sangam looks at what’s needed to keep up. Read more »
Mobile data will grow 18 times over the next five years. To successfully address the shift from voice-to data-centric usage models, operators need to act on multiple fronts, because no single solution will be sufficient in isolation. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After much hype and anticipation, MVNO FreedomPop is officially launched, offering 500 MB of free data to anyone willing to fork over a deposit for one of its 4G modems. The iPhone and iPod Touch sleeves aren’t available yet, but they’ll arrive in the coming weeks. Read more »
T-Mobile USA’s new CEO John Legere has a tough job ahead of him given T-Mobile’s shrinking customer base. But if he continues down the path T-Mobile has laid — challenging the status quo of AT&T and Verizon, Legere could help reshape the US mobile market. Read more »
A new research study shows that carriers may be charging for mobile data that you don’t actually consume. A test of two U.S. mobile networks found that carriers count every byte they ship you even if your phone is incapable of receiving that data. Read more »
U.S. Cellular has added Wi-Fi to its mobile data toolbox. But rather than build or lease time on expensive managed hotspot networks, the Chicago carrier is working with Devicescape to tap into its virtual network of nearly 8 million open access points. Read more »
Apple’s wholesale support for LTE across its devices means that 4G network deployment can really get rolling. As these new networks go online, carriers will be forced to start lowering the price of mobile data. It won’t happen immediately, but it will happen. Read more »
T-Mobile is reinstating the unlimited plan for smartphones with just one restriction: you can’t use your phone as a hotspot. Anything else is fair game. T-Mobile insists that the new policy is viable business model, despite what AT&T and Verizon say to the contrary. Read more »
AT&T has stopped subsidizing tablets, recognizing that it can’t sell slates the same way it sells smartphones. Now AT&T and other carriers need to start dropping tablet data plan pricing. If we’re no longer “paying back” the device subsidy, we shouldn’t be paying subsidized plan prices. Read more »
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 »
Though AT&T’s smartphone penetration is well over 60 percent, it keeps activating new smart devices at a rapid clip. AT&T remained the carrier of choice for iPhone customers. It added 3.7 million iPhones in the second quarter, 22 percent of which came from competitors. Read more »
