When we first talked about Apple going with T-Mobile as the wireless service provider for the iPhone in Germany, it was just a rumor. Now, T-Mobile, the wireless arm of Deutsche Telekom has confirmed that they have had talks with Apple about selling the iPhone in Germany. Discussion of the iPhone’s arrival in Europe intensified [...]
Archive of entries posted on August 2007
NewCo finally gets a crappy name
NewCo, the online video collaboration between NBC Universal and News Corporation that had no name, has finally got a name! and it’s hulu. The naming convention appears to be taking a page from the Internet company tradition of creating meaningless but cute-sounding company names. I don’t think the name has much ‘bang’ or ‘pizzazz’. Frankly, [...]
4th Generation Wireless services may be around the corner
Airvana, a wireless equipment vendor, has successfully completed a multi-carrier CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision B (Rev B) call in its lab, which a major step towards commercialization.Rev B is a multi-carrier system that combines multiple 1.25 MHz channels into one super channel, allowing users to share the compounded capacity of the combined spectrum. Several months ago, [...]
FCC shoves mobile roaming down large cellular carriers throats
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission recently enacted rules dictating that mobile carriers provide roaming services on a nondiscriminatory basis. That is, cellular telephone service providers must allow customers of competitors to connect to their networks at a “reasonable” cost, when the equipment is technologically compatible. The new rule stopped short of setting roaming rates or [...]
Nokia Rubs Salt in Old foe Qualcomms wounds
Qualcomm has lots of friends, but Nokia is not one of them. In fact, Nokia is almost an arch enemy; this club includes Texas Instruments (TI), who with Nokia, was trying to develop CDMA chips for Nokia phones (mostly), but this didn’t work out because Qualcomm apparently was charging too much to license its patents [...]
Qualcomm to settle 3G Patent Dispute with Broadcom?
Earlier this week, Qualcomm’s General Counsel Lou Lupin resigned in the face of mounting legal battles related to Intellectual Property in 3rd Generation Wireless systems. Rightfully so, because Qualcomm has had several setbacks in its patent disputes with Broadcom and Lou was responsible for directing these battles. Moreover, for a company like Qualcomm that has [...]
How Clearwire Got a Content Team Overnight
Amp’d Mobile did two things great (and nothing else worth mentioning): one was to offer cool handsets. The other was to offer a really exciting deck of content (for example, Lil’ Bush). Well, now that Amp’d Mobile is no more, Clearwire has apparently acquired Amp’d Mobile’s 50-plus member content team to lead a new content [...]
Stellar Growth in 3G Wireless Broadband
3rd Generation (3G) wireless systems, whose primary focus is wireless broadband (data), arrived on the scene a few years ago. You can say that it’s still at its early stages, but the customer uptake shows a very rosy picture for wireless broadband. There are many factors driving this. One is mobile music downloading. Following behind [...]
Ooma to Raise Prices
Ooma just announced that it is taking pre-sales orders for the ooma Hub™ and ooma Scout™ in advance of the company’s consumer release slated for September 2007. Pre-sales orders will have for first priority fulfillment next month when the company opens up the online store. Pre-sale Ooma systems come at the introductory pricing of $399 [...]
Sticking it to Qualcomm
Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has upheld the ban on importing new models of cell 3G phones that have chips from Qualcomm. The Department of Homeland Security review found insufficient justification for overturning the order on grounds that it would create problems for public safety agencies. I have to applaud the Bush Administration for doing [...]
