MetroSprint? MetroPCS came within “hours” of joining forces with Sprint, according to a report, before the deal was killed by Sprint’s board. The $8 billion deal would have seen further consolidation in the wireless industry, but would have been tough sledding. Read more »
We’ll have to wait another year for the LTE network Clearwire has long been promising. At its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch said the WiMAX carrier’s first batch of 5,000 LTE cell sites will be switched by June of 2013. Read more »
For the first time in six years, Sprint’s aging Nextel and wireline businesses didn’t overwhelm all positive gains from its primary CDMA business in its quarterly results. Still, Sprint is anxious to shed the Nextel albatross and Wednesday detailed its plans to shut down iDEN. Read more »
It’s no secret that Sprint plans to shut down its iDEN network in 2013, but until recently the details of how it would sunset it were a secret. Over the weekend, new maps appeared on the Sprint website that identify the individual cell sites being decommissioned. Read more »
The new Galaxy Tab 7.7 with dual-core chip tests just as fast, if not faster, than a recent quad-core tablet. Sprint is selling a capable $99 Android slate from ZTE, while Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus looked like it was losing Google’s support as a true Nexus phone. Read more »
The AT&T-Mo saga wasted countless dollars and resources, dominating the attention of regulators and the wireless industry for a year, but AT&T’s failure more than made up for those losses. We now have more fearsome regulation and a greater awareness of the mobile market’s precarious competitive state. Read more »
Not all cellular network traffic comes from our cell phones and gadgets; a growing amount will come from machines using these networks to communicate, including the utilities that provide you with power and water. Spring announced a host of new smart grid partnerships on Thursday. 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 »
Sprint will launch LTE in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and six other smaller markets by mid-2011, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse revealed Thursday. He also went into more detail about how it planned to grow its initial low-bandwidth LTE network into a big fat one. Read more »
Sprint has given its partner LightSquared 30 days to get regulators to green-light the launch of its controversial 4G service, but it may not be enough. If Sprint pulls out of the network-sharing deal, LightSquared’s costs multiply, almost certainly killing its rollout plans. Read more »
In the wake of its failed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, analysts are speculating where AT&T can find enough spectrum to keep pace with Verizon Wireless. But instead AT&T should be scrambling to ensure that it makes the most of the spectrum it does ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Unlike competitor Sprint, T-Mobile has taken a more restrained approach to its use of Carrier IQ’s handset monitoring software. T-Mobile acknowledged installing the software in 450,000 Android and BlackBerry phones, but it claimed to use a limited version and collects data only for troubleshooting purposes. Read more »
The business model for standalone wholesale wireless network operators is broken. But in the coming year a new and ultimately more successful model is poised to emerge, transforming the entire communications landscape as we know it Tim Farrar of Telecom, Media, and Finance Associates, Inc. explains. Read more »
Verizon Wireless couldn’t have asked for a better outcome to the AT&T-Mo saga. Not only did its archival take a beating but Verizon managed to lock down its spectrum position while AT&T was distracted. But most importantly to Verizon, AT&T backed off before it went over the brink. Read more »
Between the collapse of AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile and the death throes of a proposed wholesale 4G network created by a satellite company and now-broke hedge fund, the wireless industry has generated a lot of stories but no real change in the past ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Though most U.S. operators use Carrier IQ’s handset monitoring software in some form, they’re not all using it to the same degrees. Sprint turns out to be Carrier IQ’s biggest fan, installing its software on half of all devices while AT&T uses it much more sparingly. Read more »
AT&T is scrambling to make huge concessions to gain approval of its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA. Approval now looks highly unlikely, and the fallout could change the mobile landscape in a big way. Here’s who might ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The much rumored and much talked about deal between Sprint Nextel and LightSquared has finally come to fruition, the two companies announced Thursday. LightSquared says that this deal will lower its expenses by more than $13 billion. Here is the breakdown of the deal: Read more »
The term “digital home” has been tossed around for a number of years with few indications of how big the market actually is. Small startup companies and potentially-disruptive technologies are regularly identified as the key players in what was, in 2008, a $553 billion U.S. market. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Fuel cell-powered cars may have fallen from favor in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean fuel cell technology is dead. Germany’s P21, which is focused on building fuel cell systems for cell towers, just picked up €10 million ($13.6 million) in funding for its technology, joining […] Read more »
