Sprint buyout of U.S. Cellular in Chicago and St. Louis closed Friday, and it won’t keep its networks running for long. Customers can either trade in their U.S. Cellular devices with Sprint or look for a new carrier. 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 »
With iPhone 5, Apple might just have launched a mad dash towards high-definition voice and what that means is when some calls, we can actually enjoy the conversation. Skype, Google and others have similar ideas. Does that mean return of voice. God, I hope so! Read more »
Mounting evidence suggests Europe’s mobile operators are becoming increasingly censorious, thanks to haphazard adult content filters that are applied to millions of users. The result? De facto, unregulated censorship that screens out thousands of legitimate websites, including GigaOM. Read more »
Wireless industry veteran Whitey Bluestein writes that it isn’t a question of if Apple will offer its own mobile service. It’s merely a question of when. Apple has all of the infrastructure and ambition. And most importantly it has leverage over the operators. Read more »
In documents released late Monday, Carrier IQ revealed its phone monitoring software isn’t just sending same generic performance and network metrics from every device. Operators could use Carrier IQ’s platform to perform research on their unwitting customers, recruiting their phones into virtual focus groups. Read more »
Carrier IQ has become the target of public outrage, but a new study finds that the condemnation of Carrier IQ might be misplaced. The Yankee Group discovered a majority of consumers want their operators to access the very information that Carrier IQ is tracking. Read more »
Mobile operators are paying hotspot aggregators for mobile offload capacity. Why not the other way around? BelAir Networks thinks operators should think big, building their own monster metro Wi-Fi networks, then turn around and sell that capacity back to aggregators and everyone else. Read more »
Smartphones are driving a renaissance in global Wi-Fi hotspots, according to a new report. But the primary beneficiaries of these millions of new access points, the mobile operators, aren’t all convinced of the hotspot’s merits as a means of adding cheap capacity to their networks. Read more »
A survey from British telecom regulator Ofcom paints smartphones as addictive, but smartphones are just a symptom in the spread of broadband across society. Instead of smartphone addiction, let’s talk about how broadband is changing society and creating new business opportunities. Read more »
Mature mobile markets like the U.S., Western Europe, Japan and South Korea continue to generate the big dollars for the mobile industry, but the future revenue growth is coming from new telecom economies. That’s resulting in changes in telecom hierarchies across the world. Read more »
T-Mobile USA struggled in the first quarter, reporting a loss of 99,000 subscribers in the quarter, and increased churn compared to the year before. Revenue was flat, while income fell. It highlights the challenges for the fourth-place carrier, which is preparing to merge with AT&T. Read more »
The underpinnings are already being laid for an Internet of things that will bring connectivity to everything from consumer electronics to pets. But a wide variety of challenges from privacy to platforms, must be met as we move toward an always-on, always-connected society. Read more »
