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Archive for the 'Cellular News' Category

Japan Launching WiMAX Rival

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008

Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications auctioned two blocks of broadband wireless spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band last December. Cellular carrier KDDI, with a WiMAX strategy, was the winner of one nationwide license. Willcom was awarded the other.

Japan’s Wireless Broadband Planning, KDDI’s WiMax joint venture, has committed to spending [...]

U.S. 3G Penetration: Bigger Than Europe

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008

ComScore says the United States has caught up with Western Europe in the adoption of 3G, with 28.4 percent of American mobile subscribers having 3G devices versus 28.3 percent in the largest countries in Europe.

The number of U.S. subscribers with 3G enabled devices has grown 80 percent to 64.2 million during the past year. [...]

Life 360 Android App

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008

Life360, a Berkeley-based mobile app startup, was just named one of the top ten $275K winners of Google’s Android Developer Challenge.
Life360’s application automatically notifies families about emergency events and can send messages to selected family members, even if most infrastructure has failed (pdf). Life360 alerts are customized to each user; as an example, [...]

AWS Interference Testing Underway

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008

The FCC will conduct tests this week to see if the proposed 2150 MHz service interferes with T-Mobile’s ajoining AWS spectrum, notes Information Week.
The FCC wants to combine the 2155-2175 MHz band with the 2175-2180 MHz band to create a 25-MHz block of spectrum for a single nationwide license. This would then be auctioned off [...]

Intel + India’s BSNL = 100m WiMaxers

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 2nd, 2008

India is the most promising major market for WiMAX and Intel is taking steps to ensure India’s potential is realized, says industry analyst Caroline Gabriel, today.
BSNL, the 7th largest telecom company in world, is a state-owned incumbent. It is the first and largest operator in India. After India’s telecommunication policy was revised to allow private [...]

Wireless Providers Survive Gustav

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 2nd, 2008

Hurricane Gustav (National Weather Service) brought down cellular and Internet service in parts of Louisiana, but its impact was much milder than that of Katrina, reports the Associated Press.

AT&T, the main landline phone company in the state, said it had 2,000 employees working to assess damage and perform repairs. Most of its cellular towers in [...]

Nokia: Comes With Music

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 2nd, 2008

Nokia today announced that the United Kingdom will be the first market in the world to launch ‘Comes With Music‘, its brand of competition to Apple’s wildly successfull iPhone store. Comes With Music comes with a year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog, which includes some (but not all) major [...]

Cleartalk: The 4th AWS Network

Posted by Sam Churchill on September 2nd, 2008

Cleartalk is the 4th operator to deploy in the AWS band (1.7/2.1 GHz), following CDMA operators Leap Wireless and MetroPCS last spring and T-Mobile, which began its nationwide service launch of high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) over the band this summer, reports Telephony.
Cleartalk has launched CDMA 1X networks in Abilene and Lubbock Texas, using spectrum [...]

Wireless Carriers Prepare for Hurricane Gustav

Posted by Sam Churchill on August 29th, 2008

Hurricane Gustav (Times-Picayune coverage & Wikipedia), the tropical storm bearing down on the Gulf Coast, could be a test for the country’s wireless carriers, which faced criticism and a regulatory push after Hurricane Katrina took out networks.

Sprint Nextel’s Emergency Response Team, with trucks that can act as cell towers, was “caravaning down, military-style,” to the [...]

China Mobile: TD-SCDMA in 28 More Cities

Posted by Sam Churchill on August 28th, 2008

China Mobile is planning a large-scale launch of the country’s own TD-SCDMA technology by the end of June next year, reports Unstrung.
The world’s largest mobile operator, by subscriber numbers, said yesterday that the operator plans to roll out its TD-SCDMA network to a further 28 cities. The operator has already invested 15 billion Chinese Yuan [...]