Mobile payment joint venture Isis — the product of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile — announced that Chase, CapitalOne and BarclayCard will place their credit, debit and pre-paid cards on the Isis wallet when it launches this summer. The card issuers cover 100 million card holders in the U.S. Read more »
Martin Geddes thinks the telecom industry has reached its peak. As he explains, telecom is like the railroad business at the height of the railroad barons. It has acquired its maximum share of the economy, and the only way now is down. Read more »
Want to know what’s going to happen at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week? Why not ask the organizers? I got on the phone with the GSMA, and here’s what they told me to expect: connectivity in everything, NFC and, of course, LTE. Read more »
Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica — the world’s third-largest mobile firm — saw profits cut in half after a troubled year. With Nokia, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom all facing a torrid time, is the writing on the wall for Europe’s mobile businesses? Read more »
With new products from a variety of players like Google and Isis comes a potentially confusing year as the term “mobile wallet” gets thrown around repeatedly. What exactly is the “mobile wallet”? Here are some important definitions for those looking to make a move in the space. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
T-Mobile isn’t just launching a sizable LTE network in 2013, it’s becoming the Grim Reaper for 2G technology as we know it. T-Mobile has unveiled a plan to radically reshape its networks, shutting down the majority of its GSM capacity to focus almost entirely on 4G. Read more »
Several companies and nonprofit organizations filed their opposition to Verizon’s planned $4 billion buy of spectrum owned by the cable companies on Wednesday. But this isn’t an industry fight. This is a fight that should involve everyone from consumers to Internet companies. Read more »
T-Mobile USA may have had a horrible fourth quarter while its merger with AT&T suffered its death throes, but the operator is definitely taking advantage of the aftermath. T-Mobile is using the breakup fee and spectrum won from AT&T to build an LTE network in 2013. Read more »
Last month we reported on the wireless revolution Iliad’s Free Mobile was leading in France. Now the first casualty reports are in. France Telecom’s Orange reported on Wednesday it lost 201,000 net subscribers in a little more than a month, fleeing to Free’s ultra-cheap plans. Read more »
Is AT&T failing to keep its story straight about the need for more spectrum, or is it just that the popping of the spectrum bubble has taken them by surprise as well? The nation’s second largest operator now sees a data drizzle rather than deluge. Read more »
When AT&T first started throttling unlimited smartphone data users plans last fall, it claimed it had to limit the “extraordinary” consumption of its greediest customers. It turns out extraordinary is only 2 GB – a full gigabyte less than it sells customers under its most-common data plan. Read more »
On average, 100 million people watch the Super Bowl. With connected devices everywhere, we’ll be tweeting about it and sharing thoughts on social networks. So will fans at the game. Here are some staggering numbers showing how Super Bowl 46 is ready for such mobility. Read more »
This year’s CES was the biggest in the show’s 44-year history. It boasted 15 miles of exhibit hall aisles, 3,100 booths and 153,000 attendees. It is easy to be jaded by the endlessly repetitive products, but the thousands of innovations point toward a future of connectivity. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
T-Mobile may soon begin restricting roaming data usage to cut down on the amount of packets its customers consume off the carrier’s networks. If true, the new caps could affect many of T-Mobile’s customers, though the size of the impact on each customer may be small. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
T-Mobile added a new family locator service called FamilyWhere to its suite of carrier-specific Android apps on Tuesday. The software is powered by Safely, which now has passed one billion “locates” for premium subscribers. Will T-Mo customers pay after the free trial or simply use Life360? Read more »
A set of quarterly results today from AT&T (NYSE: T) that underscored some of the aftershocks the carrier is feeling in the wake of its fail… Read more at paidContent »
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 »
Update: Mobile operator O2 says that as of 2pm Wednesday, it has fixed the part of its mobile web browsing service that was reporting mobile… Read more at paidContent »
After its failed merger with AT&T, T-Mobile’s break-up fee included some choice 4G spectrum it will use to bulk up its HSPA+ network. In a map submitted by a GigaOM reader, you can see exactly where T-Mobile gains new airwaves and how much. Read more »
What if consumers actually enjoyed signing contracts? What if carriers just gave away phones — all of them — for free? John S. Wilson of Policy Diary imagines a world where carriers could entice consumers into signing four- or five-year contracts, with the right perks. Read more »
The ITU has approved the LTE-Advanced standard, and the web understandably got excited, proclaiming the arrival of ‘5G’. We’re also pretty amped up about LTE-Advanced and the huge gains in speeds, capacity and network efficiency it will deliver, but we also think the party is a bit premature. 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 »
Adding T-Mobile support to the iPhone may sound simple, but it’s a much more difficult task than it appears. New bands don’t just necessitate new antennas, but a complete phone redesign. T-Mobile’s Apple moment may come with the iPhone 5, but don’t hold your breath. Read more »
While some operators in some countries (like the U.S. and Japan) have already celebrated birthdays for their LTE services, 4G in the UK hasn… Read more at paidContent »
Apple isn’t one to talk about its future plans, but that doesn’t always stop partners or potential partners from sometimes spilling the beans. Case in point: T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray told Cnet in an interview Tuesday that Apple’s “next chipset will support AWS.” Read more »
At CES, T-Mobile launched the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G which can take full advantage of the operators HSPA+ 42 Mbps speeds. I sat down with T-Mobile CTO, Neville Ray, to discuss the operators 4G network of today as well as it’s plans for the future. Read more »
SNL reports that Google is bidding on T-Mobile. If the rumor were somehow true, then Google is suffering from hubris. Selling software, services and handsets is fundamentally a different business than selling connectivity. Google buying T-Mobile would be a bigger disaster than AOL-Time Warner. Read more »
Today we know a bit more about how Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) plans to extend its business opportunities in the years ahead: mobile services will… Read more at paidContent »
MobiTV, one of the more established mobile TV companies in the market today with deals in place with several major U.S. mobile operators, to… Read more at paidContent »
The biggest spectacle in the tech industry kicks off Sunday evening, when an estimated 150,000 people will flood into Las Vegas not to place… Read more at paidContent »
At an analyst conference, Sprint CEO let slip a change in Sprint’s data policies that could have a big impact on iPhone and other smartphone customers lured in by Sprint’s unlimited plans: the carrier has been throttling back speeds to the heaviest consumers of smartphone data. Read more »
China presents one of the single biggest opportunities for mobile companies looking for more growth, and it’s no surprise that companies lik… Read more at paidContent »
If AT&T-Mo’s failure taught us anything it’s that big U.S. operators can no longer grow by acquiring each other. Instead they’re going to have to buy up what unused spectrum is left on the market to stockpile fuel for their future mobile broadband networks. Read more »
Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse talks about how AT&T’s attempted acquisition of T-Mobile set off all sorts of alarms, and made him realize just how tenuous the competitive situation in the U.S. wireless industry is. Read more »
The past year in mobile has been even more eventful than most of us would have predicted. Our appetite for mobile data grew dramatically; Google’s Android continued its march to worldwide dominance; Amazon joined the tablet bandwagon; and AT&T tried and failed to acquire T-Mobile USA, among many other things. All of that activity lays the groundwork for a very promising — and very challenging — 2012. This research note serves both as a review of the major trends and events of 2011 as well as a forecast for the coming year. Companies mentioned in this report include Millennial Media, Quattro Wireless and Samsung. For a full list of companies, and to read the full research note, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As 2011 comes to a close, I’m thinking ahead to what mobile technology trends I expect to see in 2012. While I formulate those thoughts for a post later this week, now is a good time to see how I did with my 2011 predictions. Read more »
We already knew that mobile advertisements perform better on larger screened devices and now there’s evidence of when the best time of the year is for a these ad spots in apps. If you guessed the year-end holiday season, you’d be right according to this infographic. 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 »
Operators may be using Wi-Fi to move data packets off of their 3G and 4G networks, but they could be shipping all kinds of mobile traffic via Wi-Fi. Kineto’s new smartphone software makes the world of Wi-Fi hotspots one big off-ramp for voice, SMS and MMS Read more »
