MVNO Karma is trying to seed its social broadband mesh network throughout New York, so it’s starting with food trucks. Thirty mobile restaurants are now offering free Karma Wi-Fi. Read more »
Prepaid mobile giant TracFone had a massive quarter, adding 839,000 subscribers and even beating out Verizon Wireless. TracFone didn’t say why, but not coincidentally its Straight Talk brand and partner Walmart began selling the iPhone 5. Read more »
Solavei will sell the device for steep price of $700, but unlocked versions of the new iPhone 5 will work with its SIM cards. Solavei resells T-Mo’s service, giving access to its nationwide HSPA+ network, but not LTE. Read more »
Truphone just got a £75M boost led by Abramovich’s investment arm Minden. The VoIP provider-turned-MVNO said it will use those funds to staff up and expand to continental Europe and Asia. Read more »
ACN’s wireless arm Flash may not have the most compelling rates today, but with a new deal with Devicescape it may be setting the stage for cheaper data plans in the future. Read more »
Red Pocket is letting third-party voicemail provider YouMail at its customers. The move could be a precursor to virtual operators dumping their antiquated voicemail services. If customers are bringing their own phones and apps, why shouldn’t they bring their own voicemail? Read more »
Another year has come and gone with more mobile advances than ever before. What’s in store for the year ahead? Our mobile staff looks a five trends that are likely to affect hardware, software and services in the fast growing mobile space. Read more »
The mobile virtual network operator plans to take the “M” out of MVNO. Using Clearwire’s WiMAX network, FreedomPop will start selling in January a residential broadband service with the same incentives as its mobile service, including 1 GB a month of free data. Read more »
Kajeet plans to offer some kind of 4G mobile broadband service for kids, though it was a bit stingy with the details. Chances are it will start selling dongles and hotspots directly to families, turning modems into virtual nannies. Read more »
Karma has arrived and its brought its concept of social bandwidth along for the ride. It’s betting consumers will be willing to share their 4G connections with strangers if given the proper incentive so it’s doling out free bandwidth in exchange for benevolence. 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 »
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 »
With shipments of the Galaxy S III beginning this week, mobile virtual network operator Ting has broken the curse of the budget operator: It not only has the latest iconic handset, it has the access to the latest network technology, LTE. One hurdle remains: the iPhone. Read more »
Sprint isn’t holding anything back when it comes to supporting its MVNO partners. Ting will not only get access to a device Sprint started selling only last month, but it will gain immediate entry onto Sprint’s brand new LTE network — permissions other carriers would never grant. Read more »
When Republic Wireless launched last November it promised to deliver reams of data, voice, and SMS to its customers using a hybrid cellular-Wi-Fi network model. That Wi-Fi has to come from somewhere, and now we know the source: Devicescape. Read more »
Reports are coming from Japan that Amazon is forming an MVNO. If true, it would be an interesting experiment for Amazon, expanding its mobile business beyond selling devices, apps and e-books to selling connectivity itself. But I suspect this is nothing more than an experiment. Read more »
FreedomPop is even more ambitious than we had imagined. It’s not just giving away gobs of free data; it plans to create the carrier equivalent of Web startup and in the process turn 4G capacity into a currency that can be earned and traded. Read more »
Virgin Mobile will begin to reduce the mobile broadband speeds of smartphone users on March 23, following a similar path as T-Mobile, AT&T and others who have offered unlimited plans. Facing huge demand for mobile data, the days of truly unlimited plans appear numbered. Read more »
AT&T has thrown in the towel on its acquisition of T-Mobile, which kept the mobile industry stalled through much of 2011 as experts, executives and consumer organizations waited to understand what a deal would mean. Now the industry can return to solving the spectrum question. Read more »
