Associated Press | Microsoft Corp. unveiled two phones Monday
that are meant for social networking-savvy teens and twenty-somethings,
in an attempt to revitalize its mobile business and regain ground on
iPhones and BlackBerrys.
Microsoft said its new touch-screen phones – a short, square-shaped
handset called Kin 1 and a longer, more rectangular one called Kin 2 –
will be sold exclusively in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless. They are
being made by Sharp Corp., which has produced Sidekick cell phones,
whose software comes from Microsoft-owned Danger Inc.
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April 7, 2010 at 12:22 p.m.
Filed under:
Consumer news,
Internet,
Telecommunications
By Becky Yerak |
AT&T, which has been criticized for its service and under pressure
to improve, said it invested nearly $40 million from 2008 to 2009 to
increase the wireless capacity of its mobile broadband network
throughout the Chicago area, enabling better and faster connections for
voice and data uses even during peak hours.
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April 6, 2010 at 10:29 a.m.
Filed under:
Internet,
Litigation,
Politics,
Telecommunications
Associated Press | A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the
Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require
broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic
flowing over their networks.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a
big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company. It
had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose so-called “net neutrality”
obligations on broadband providers.
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April 6, 2010 at 8:02 a.m.
Filed under:
Internet,
Telecommunications
An AT&T kiosk at Northshore Mall beyond in Peabody, Mass. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole, file)
Associated Press | AT&T Inc. said Tuesday it would invest
$1 billion to upgrade its business network, services and products for
large companies worldwide as well as for small U.S. firms, a sweeping
enhancement of its systems as network traffic in global economies
migrate from voice to video and data.
The investment brings to more than $4 billion the total that AT&T
has spent to upgrade its systems and services for over 3.5 million
businesses since 2006.
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April 5, 2010 at 2:05 p.m.
Filed under:
Technology,
Telecommunications
Dow Jones Newswires | There were 21 percent more Americans with
smartphones in the three months ended February than the prior quarter,
according to new findings from researcher comScore Inc.
The company also said Motorola Inc. continues to have more U.S.
subscribers using its handsets than any other company. That is one bit
of good news for the company, in what has been several years of
struggling sales amid a dearth of hot products.
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April 5, 2010 at 8:59 a.m.
Filed under:
Telecommunications
Dow Jones Newswires | As part of its planned separation, Motorola says it will begin reporting financial results in four different business segments, which better align with how the company will split. MOT will split the Home and Networks division into two divisions, since Home ends up with Mobile Devices under Sanjay Jha, and Networks will join with Enterprise Mobility under Gregory Brown. MOT plans to report results this way starting in the recently ended 1Q, providing the first steps for the planned split in 1Q of next year.
Dow Jones Newswires | Apple’s upcoming iPhone, reportedly compatible with Verizon Wireless’
network, could help the carrier take the lead in its fierce two-horse
race with AT&T and have a domino effect throughout the smartphone
industry.
The nation’s two largest carriers are neck-and-neck each quarter in
nabbing the highest quality customers. But where Verizon Wireless has
done it with a myriad of products and its reputation for network
quality, AT&T has heavily relied upon its exclusive agreement with
Apple to sell the iPhone.
Companies that could be threatened if Verizon strikes a deal with Apple
include Motorola, which sells Verizon Wireless’s flagship Droid, and could struggle to create devices to match the iPhone’s hype. Motorola
shares rose 1 cent to $7.23 on Tuesday.
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Dow Jones Newswire-WSJ | Apple Inc. is developing a new iPhone to debut this summer and also
appears to be working on another model for U.S. mobile phone operator
Verizon Wireless, say people briefed on the matter.
The people briefed on the matter said that the next iPhone is being
manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision
Industry Co., which produced Apple’s previous iPhones. The
other iPhone model that has CDMA capability is being manufactured by
Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of
Taiwan’s ASUSTeK Computer Inc., these people said.
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March 25, 2010 at 6:52 a.m.
Filed under:
International,
Internet,
Telecommunications
From Bloomberg | Motorola Inc. has removed Google Inc.’s search engine from its Zhishang device shipped to China Telecom Corp. after the search giant said it would no longer comply with China’s requirement that it filter censor search results.
“If you were partnering with Google in China, your business plans have just fallen apart,” said Bertram Lai, head of research at CIMB-GK Securities in Hong Kong.
Get the full story: businessweek.com
March 25, 2010 at 6:26 a.m.
Filed under:
Construction,
Telecommunications
From the Tulsa World | About 300 people will lose their jobs when a wholly owned subsidiary of
Caterpillar Inc. closes its facility in Broken Arrow this year.
Morton, Ill.-based Caterpillar Logistics Services Inc. began operating
in Broken Arrow in 2000. The 70,000-square-foot site is the national
repair and distribution center for U.S. Cellular handsets.
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By Wailin Wong
| Sprint Nextel Corp. has lost its appeal to an advertising watchdog
because of its boast of being “America’s most dependable 3G network.”
The dispute stemmed from a claim against Sprint that rival Verizon
Wireless made in November to the National Advertising Division of the
Council of Better Business Bureaus. The NAD asked that Sprint
discontinue its claim, prompting the company to appeal the decision to
the National Advertising Review Board.
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March 24, 2010 at 10:57 a.m.
Filed under:
China,
International,
Technology,
Telecommunications
A group of Chinese college students hold a candlelight vigil outside Google’s head office in Beijing on March 23. The placards say “We Love Google.” (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Associated Press | China issued a blistering public attack against Google on Wednesday and appeared to quietly begin getting businesses to abandon the U.S. Internet giant after it moved its controversial Chinese search engine offshore.
The critical remarks in a high-profile Communist Party newspaper, coupled with souring business deals, underscored Beijing’s determination to settle scores with Google after a public two-month dispute over stringent Chinese censorship policies. By challenging the often tetchy government, Google appears to have violated an unspoken rule of doing business in China, especially in the Internet industry, whose control Beijing sees as crucial to maintaining its authoritarian rule.
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March 24, 2010 at 8:29 a.m.
Filed under:
Telecommunications
(Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
By Wailin Wong and Zoe Galland | American
mobile phone users are talking, texting and surfing the Web more than
ever, according to new data from CTIA, the association for the U.S.
wireless industry.
The CTIA’s latest semi-annual industry survey showed that in the last
half of 2009, consumers used more than 1.1 trillion minutes, up 38
billion from the same period in 2008. That amounts to 6.1 billion
minutes per day. Consumers also sent almost 5 billion text messages per
day in the last half of 2009. In its news release, CTIA did not offer a
comparative figure for text messaging. But the association did say that
the number of multimedia messages — those that contain a picture or
video — more than doubled on the year.
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March 23, 2010 at 10:02 a.m.
Filed under:
Technology,
Telecommunications
By Wailin Wong | Clearwire Corp., the telecommunications company that launched 4G mobile
broadband service in Chicago last year, said it has started upgrading
its network and expects to increase potential speeds by about 20 to 30
percent.
Chicago is one of 27 markets where Clearwire operates its 4G network.
Current speeds are comparable to a DSL connection, Clearwire said in a
press release, with average mobile download speeds coming in between 3
and 6 megabits per second. Clearwire’s network is designed to deliver
residential broadband-like speeds even when consumers are accessing the
Web from a mobile device and moving around the city. Sprint and Comcast
also offer 4G service under their own brands and using Clearwire’s
network.
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March 22, 2010 at 7:51 p.m.
Filed under:
M&A,
Telecommunications
From the Pioneer Press | A unit of Telephone and Data Systems Inc., bought VISI Inc., Minnesota’s largest
locally-owned data center services and managed Internet hosting provider, in a $17.8 million deal.
VISI, headquartered in the Twin Cities, provides managed hosting,
co-location and cloud-computing services to businesses.
Get the full story: twincities.com
