Cingular launched the LG CG225, an entry-level clamshell handset. The features are basic, but fairly well equipped for being a base model. Quad-band GSM VGA camera IM (AIM/Yahoo/MSN/ICQ) Speakerphone Cingular is selling the CG225 for free with a 2-year service...
Jun 30 2006 - 03:57 PM ET | In The News
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for the government's Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum auction. The sale is scheduled to begin on August 9th. Three groups were lobbying for the auction to be delayed until...
Jun 30 2006 - 03:49 PM ET | In The News
Researchers from the University of Utah claim that using a cellphone while driving impairs drivers to the same degree as alcohol. Several states have laws enforcing the use of hands free devices while driving, but they only have a limited...
Verizon Wireless today announced that it will begin to pro-rate early termination fees. Unless another carrier jumps in before this Fall, Verizon will be the first national to adopt the policy. The policy will not be retroactive to contracts signed...
Sprint is showing off the Sanyo Katana, a high-profile handset that is set to launch on July 10th. Like recent models from other companies (RAZR, FUSIC, V, etc) , that Katana eschews arcane model numbers and uses a more...
As expected, Cingular has activated its UMTS/HSDPA 3G network in the New York City metro area. Coverage is limited but should expand in September. The Samsung ZX10 is the only 3G handset being offered in the market. Cingular should continue...
Jun 30 2006 - 10:24 AM ET | MVNO, Samsung
Sports savvy MVNO Mobile ESPN launched its second phone this week, the Samsung ACE. The company reportedly went "back to the drawing board" after failing to draw man subscribers after its launch earlier this year. With the ACE, Mobile ESPN...
Research In Motion announced its Q1 results for fiscal 2007. The popularity of Blackberry increased, with both revenue and profits increased. Key metrics from the release: There are now 5.5 million blackberry subscribers (680k additions in the quarter) RIM shipped...
Jun 30 2006 - 10:03 AM ET | Backpage, Danger
MobiTV has announced a version of its software for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices. MobiTV allows subscribers to view live television on mobile handsets via the phone's regular data connection (not over a specific mobile TV standard such as DVB-H). Channels...
Jun 30 2006 - 09:57 AM ET | Backpage, Nokia
There is no shortage of copycat and counterfeit consumer electronics and Nokia is taking a stand. The Finnish company has filed suit againt two Chinese companies that it accuses of copying the Nokia 7260 design. The lawsuit reflects the increasing...
Jun 29 2006 - 01:42 PM ET | Backpage
Marvell has agreed to buy Intel's mobile chip business. The $600 million deal was announced this week. There were rumors of a sell-off in the works for Intel's mobile chip business earlier this month. Despite being the leader in desktop...
The Sanyo SCP-2400 was announced by Sprint today. While it looks like a conventional Sanyo flip phone, the SCP-2400 has parental control options that make its target age in the 8-12 range. The controls make it easy to set which...
Verizon Wireless announced it has chosen Lucent to deploy EV-DO Revision A. The network upgrade is a combination of hardware and software updates. Verizon has been testing Lucent's rev A technology since 2005. Once completed Verizon Wireless will be able...
Jun 27 2006 - 03:06 PM ET | Backpage, Rumor
Korean handset maker VK is reportedly amid a major cash crunch. If a loan is not paid back by tomorrow the company will be forced to go into bankruptcy proceedings. VK recently restructered and reduced its workforce. The company is...
One year after its start, Sprint Nextel has announced metrics for its 800MHz reconfiguration. Sprint is swapping out spectrum to aid emergency response workers that were complaining of interference with their equipment. The FCC gave Sprint three years to complete...
Jun 27 2006 - 02:49 PM ET | Backpage, Data
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 as a candidate recommendation. The document is based on work from 30 organizations, including Nokia, Vodafone, Opera Software and NTT DoCoMo. It offers up "best practices" for...
Jun 26 2006 - 06:00 PM ET | Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel has completed its purchase of Nextel Partners, six months after announcing the deal. Nextel Partners was an affiliate of Nextel that sold wireless service under the Nextel brand in rural areas. Sprint's purchase of Nextel violated Nextel Partners'...
Jun 24 2006 - 12:20 PM ET | MVNO
Ad-for-service startup MVNO Xero Mobile announced that it is complying with requests for information from the SEC. The company became a publically traded [XRMB.PK] company through a reverse merger and is thus subject to regulation from the SEC. Xero's business...
Jun 23 2006 - 02:04 PM ET | Cingular
Cingular has updated its message pricing to not differentiate between text and multimedia messages. Customers now simply pay for blocks of messages which can be used in any manner. This mirrors the practices of T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Alltel. There...
Jun 23 2006 - 01:46 PM ET | Cingular, Nokia
Cingular Wireless has launched the Nokia 6102i, a minor update to the 6101/6102. Features remain similar, with Bluetooth being the main addition. T-Mobile launched its version of the device, the 6103, last month. Features of the Nokia 6102i include: GSM...
Jun 23 2006 - 01:40 PM ET | Nokia, Sanyo
Sanyo has made a statement about the newly broken partnership it had with Nokia to co-develop and market CDMA handsets. The AFP reports that disagreements between the companies centered around intellectual property rights: "The plan of setting up a joint...
Motorola may be second to Nokia in handset volume, but it has the top slot for Bluetooth headsets. The Chicago based company controls 28.2% of the quickly growing vertical. The next big growth segment should be stereo Bluetooth headsets, which...
Mobile phones might increase the severity of injuries sustained while being struck by lightning and doctors have advised patients to not use them outside during thunderstorms. Since it's advisable to not be outside (regardless of being on the phone or...
Cingular has become the first US carrier to release Motorola's RAZR V3 in Blue. MobileTracker noted back in April that this was expected. The features remain the same as all other RAZR V3's. Quadband GSM Dimensions: 3.86 × 2.08...
Jun 22 2006 - 02:28 PM ET | Nokia, Sanyo
Nokia has put an end to the announced partnership between itself and Sanyo for the development of CDMA handsets. Announced earlier this year, the deal was was supposed to result in a whole new company to create the handsets. According...
Jun 21 2006 - 03:04 PM ET | Motorola
Motorola has announced a collection of new handsets bound for emerging markets. The focus is on price and as Motorola notes to "Connect the Next Billion." Two of the handsets include GSM 850 and might launch in the US as...
Jun 21 2006 - 02:50 PM ET | Samsung
Samsung is not shy about identifying its "World firsts" and that tradition continues with the Samsung X820 (also known as the Ultra Edition 6.9). At a mere 6.9mm, the X820 is the self-described world's thinnest handset. In comparison to other...
Jun 21 2006 - 12:32 PM ET | Push-to-talk
A standard for push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) has been approved. The Open Mobile Alliance made the announcement at CommunicAsia this week. With a cross-carrier standard in place it should be possible to have PoC conversations span carriers, something today that...
Jun 21 2006 - 12:17 PM ET | Backpage, Nokia
Nokia has announced a podcast application for its N91 music phone. The free (in beta) app lets you find and download both audio and video podcasts, even without the need of a computer. Since the N91 sports WiFi it can...
Jun 20 2006 - 12:47 AM ET | Danger, T-Mobile
After much speculation, T-Mobile and Danger have officially announced the T-Mobile Sidekick 3. While it wasn't officially announced until today, most of the specs were leaked through FCC filings. Features of the Sidekick 3 include: IM (AIM/Yahoo/MSN) MP3 player with...
Jun 20 2006 - 12:17 AM ET | MVNO
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the recent string of media oriented mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are having a hard time signing up customers. A multitude of the niche targeted carriers have launched recently, including some heavily financed...
Jun 20 2006 - 12:10 AM ET | Nokia
As part of an Asian product launch event, Nokia announced the 2875i. Another CDMA handset that wasn't specificaly targeted at Asia was also announced at the event, the Nokia 6275i. Features of the device are very similar to the 2865i,...
Jun 20 2006 - 12:06 AM ET | Nokia
Nokia introduced the 6275i at its Nokia Connection 2006 event in Singapore. The CDMA handset is not part of Nokia's agreement with Pantech and as such doesn't include EV-DO data. Besides lacking 3G data, features are rather high-end and include:...
Jun 18 2006 - 07:38 PM ET | Nokia, Siemens
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nokia and Siemens will announce a merger of their phone equipment divisions tomorrow. The deal is valued at $31.6 billion dollars and will see both companies controling a 50% stake. The new company...
A collection of mobile industry players have announced a foundation to create an open source Linux-based platform for mobile phones. Founding members include: Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone. While Linux is not new to...
Jun 14 2006 - 01:21 PM ET | Backpage, MVNO
Amp'd Mobile has signed a distribution deal with BestBuy that will have the upstart carrier's products in BestBuy stores sometime this summer. Amp'd is a content-centric mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that launched late last year. Despite hundreds of millions...
Jun 14 2006 - 12:53 PM ET | SMS
eBay has launched a service to alert buyers via SMS of events in auctions they are participating in. Text messaging is just one of three new alerts eBay launched, but is the only one available today. Alerts via phone call...
Jun 14 2006 - 11:50 AM ET | Sprint Nextel
Embarq, Sprint's newly spun-off wireline business, has launched wireless service through a MVNO relationship with Sprint. The company can now provide bundle service packages of wireline, wireless and internet service. Depending on the plan, Embarq customers will have free calling...
There have been lots of 'mobile only' short film competitions, but New Love Meetings is the first feature-length movie we have heard of shot entirely by a mobile phone. The documentary was filmed with a Nokia N90 in the MPEG4...
Jun 13 2006 - 10:07 AM ET | T-Mobile
Adding to this week's launch of Disney Mobile and Verizon Wireless Chaperone, T-Mobile USA is getting in the game with kidConnect. Aimed at helping parents manage costs, kidConnect is basically a new service plan that doesn't allow any overage fees....
Jun 13 2006 - 09:48 AM ET | 3G, Motorola
According to a Bear Stearns research note, Motorola expects by year end to ship a GSM based Q smartphone equipped with UMTS 3G technology. At the Q's announcement Motorola made it clear that it planned on bringing the Q to...
Jun 13 2006 - 09:37 AM ET | Nokia, T-Mobile
T-Mobile USA launched the luxury targeted Nokia 8801 (which is the US version of the Nokia 8800). Despite being almost a year old, the 8801 still carries the hefty price tag of $549.99, enough to be the most expensive phone...
Jun 13 2006 - 09:16 AM ET | MVNO
Disney Mobile has soft-launched and is now selling service through its website. The mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has been in the works for quite some time and is taking aim at the emerging market of selling kid-phones to parents....
Jun 13 2006 - 09:06 AM ET | In The News
A new report from 3G Americas and Informa Telecoms & Media states that there will be 2 billion worldwide GSM mobile subscribers by the end of June. Just two and a half years ago we reported on the 1 billion...
Verizon Wireless will formally introduce a child locator service called Chaperone on Monday. The location based service ties in with the LG Migo handset which went on sale in December 2005. Location data is accessible from a website or directly...
Jun 09 2006 - 02:15 PM ET | In The News
The Attorney General for the District of Columbia has sued Inphonic [free reg req] on behalf of consumers. There have been more than 2,000 consumer complaints against the company over the past three years. Inphonic is the leading online retailer...
Verizon Wireless has launched an upgraded version of the LG V (AKA VX9800) that has been infused with V CAST Music. The company made a similar move recently with the launch of Motorola's RAZR V3m. The LG V V Cast...
Jun 08 2006 - 12:41 PM ET | Backpage
India passed the 100 million subscriber milestone last month. That's enough to make it the fifth largest mobile subscriber market in the world. By population India is the world's second largest country, with 1.1 billion people. China is the largest...
Jun 08 2006 - 12:07 PM ET | Nokia
Nokia has signed a $129m contract with Pantech to buy two handset models from the company. The models will be CDMA handsets with EV-DO 3G data technology. Thanks to patent disputes and delays caused by betting on 1xEV-DV instead of...
As expected, Cingular Wireless has launched the BlackBerry 7130c. The device was approved by the FCC last month and has a similar feature set to the 7130e which is carried by both Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Along with the introduction...
Cingular Wireless launched the Samsung D407 this week. The small clamshell handset comes with a mid-range feature set and price point. Quadband GSM plus EDGE Bluetooth VGA camera Speakerphone Push-to-talk IM (AIM/Yahoo/MSN/ICQ) Cingular is selling the D407 for $69.99 after...
Jun 07 2006 - 04:11 PM ET | Backpage
Intel is considering selling off its mobile chips business unit as part of a company wide overhaul. Despite being the leader for PC chips, Intel has had only limited success with chips for mobile devices. Its XScale line is used...
UPDATE: The Sidekick 3 has been officially announced. More information about the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 (AKA Danger HipTop) has been posted by the FCC. It was approved by the FCC back in April. The hotly anticipated handset is expected to...
Jun 07 2006 - 01:40 PM ET | Backpage, Nokia
Nokia has enabled a way for N-Gage owners to legally download games, instead of having to purchase them on individual MMC cards. The games are downloaded to a PC and then transfered to a memory card with the aid of...
T-Mobile USA launched a second low-end phone this week, the Samsung t209. The other launch was Motorola's V195. The t209 is very similar to the x495 which has been part of T-Mobile's line-up since August 2005. Features of the Samsung...
T-Mobile USA has launched the Motorola V195, an entry-level clamshell that adds a few features to the Motorola V188 (which is still carried by T-Mobile). For a low-end handset, the V195 still packs in most expected features besides a camera:...
Sprint Nextel is continuing to protest against the proposed $67 billion merger of AT&T and BellSouth. The new company would completely control Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless carrier. Sprint's objections to the deal center around access to data lines...
Jun 05 2006 - 03:13 PM ET | Nokia
Better late than never, Nokia has announced that US bound shipments of the N91 have begun. Nokia announced the N91 back in April 2005, but its launch was continually delayed until its debut last month. The N91 isn't offered by...
Jun 05 2006 - 03:10 PM ET | Backpage
Windows Mobile handset maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is set to buy a controlling stake in Dopod. Dopod is a growing handset vendor in Asia and uses HTC exclusively to make its products. Dopod accounts for about 5% of HTC's...
Jun 05 2006 - 02:56 PM ET | Cingular
Cingular Wireless has launched the Samsung D807. The slide style handset was announced earlier this year at CES. The handset sports mid-level features and a thin profile (just slightly thicker than the Motorola RAZR V3). Features include: Dimensions: 3.98 ×...
Verizon Wireless has launched the Samsung SCH-a930, a handset we first saw at CES this year. The music savvy clamshell has support for the V Cast Music service and a bunch of other neat features: EV-DO highspeed data Bluetooth 1.3...
Jun 01 2006 - 11:12 PM ET | In The News
Lawmakers in Lawrence, Kansas will soon vote on a proposed law to restrict usage of cell phones by drivers. It would be the most strict legislation of its kind in the country. Other cities that have cell phone laws on...
Motorola confirmed an earlier report that the company is launching a temporary store in Chicago. The store will be located at 666 North Michigan Avenue and will open on June 8th. Officially called Destination Q, the store will focus on...
Cingular today announced the immediate availability of ringback tones. Unlike ringtones which are heard by the owner of the phone, ringback tones are what is heard by the caller (conventionally a standard ring). Cingular customers can now set a custom...
Jun 01 2006 - 01:13 PM ET | MVNO
Youth-centric MVNO Amp'd Mobile has added pre-paid service to its lineup. Previously the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) relied soley on post-paid service contracts. Pricing runs as follows: Calls - $.10/minute SMS/MMS - $.10/$.25 Data usage - $.375/megabyte Push-to-talk -...
