News

AT&T pettitioned the FCC to put the proposed merger of Sprint's Xohm and Clearwire's WiMAX ventures on hold, pending further scrutiny. AT&T says that the proposed entity has stated that it plans to compete directly with mobile broadband providers such as AT&T, and therefore its merger should be studied at the same level of detail as deals involving AT&T and other national carriers (such as Verizon and Alltel).

AT&T says that it is not fundementally opposed to the plan, but that it believe Xohm and Clearwire "should be required to demonstrate that its merger serves the public interest just like any other providers would have to do."

Nokia has settled its plant closure dispute with the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia by agreeing to repay EUR1.3 million in grants it received to open the plant. Nokia announced earlier this year that it would be closing its Bochum plant and moving the production to Romania.

The Bochum plant closure resulted in an expected loss of 2,300 jobs and had a large economic impact on the area. Nokia had previously attempted to dissolve the dispute by setting up a 'Growth for Bochum' fund totaling EUR20 million. This fund was designed to encourage and finance entrepreneurs in the areas of mobile telephony and information technology.

Verizon Wireless announced its earnings and subscriber results for Q2, 2008. The company reported net subscriber additions of 1.5 million, which it claims is the highest figure in the U.S. market. This brings its subscriber base to 68.7 million strong, keeping it in the number two position in terms of subscriber base. The company also reported a record low churn rate of 1.12 percent, a figure that indicates that the company's subscribers are, as a whole, satisfied with its service.

Verizon Wireless reported total quarterly revenue of US$12.1 billion, an 11.8% gain versus Q2 2007, and said that data revenue is up 45.3% from the same quarter in the prior year, coming in at $2.6 billion. Verizon claims that its customers sent almost 70 billion text messages and 1.4 billion picture/video messages during the quarter. That's over 780 million messages per day, or a bit over 9,000 messages per second on average.

Samsung Electronics announced its quarterly earnings for Q2 2008. The company reported KRW2.14 trillion (US$2.12 billion) in earnings for the quarter on sales of KRW18.14 trillion (US$18 billion).

The company said that it sold 45.7 million mobile phones in Q2, which is an increase of roughly 22% from Q2 of 2007.

Samsung is predicting that the market will see a greater than 10% sales growth in the second half of the year due to normal seasonal shopping and new products. The company is also predicting increased competition at the high end of the market.

The FCC has approved the Motorola EM330 Ischia flip phone. It features a VGA resolution camera with video capture, paired with a microSD card slot for extra storage space and an FM radio, in addition to dedicated music keys.

It appears to be headed for the Chinese market in white and blue schemes.

The i8510 INNOV8 is the first Samsung S60-powered smartphone to feature quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), and dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (900/2100MHz). It comes with an 8 megapixel autofocus camera that offers image stabilization and blink, smile, and face detection, for perfect photos, a built-in GPS receiver to geotag photos with location information, a built-in FM radio, 3D surround sound, and a standard 3.5mm audio por, bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and 16GB of built-in memory in addition to a microSD card slot for even more storage options.

The i8510 INNOV8 is capable of recording QVGA video at up to 120 frames per second and VGA-resolution video at up to 30 frames per second, with a full video editing suite on board.

This sleek slider handset sports a 2.8" QVGA display capable of showing 16 million colors.

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 is set to go on sale in Europe in August, with other markets seeing it in September. No word yet on pricing.

Nokia and Qualcomm announced a new 15-year agreement covering their various patents involving GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMax, and LTE technologies.

Both companies have agreed to mutually settle all pending cases, and Nokia will withdraw its official complaint against Qualcomm to the European Commission. For the next 15 years, Nokia has a license for all of Qualcomm's current patents for use in Nokia handsets, and has also agreed to let Qualcomm use Nokia's patented technologies in its chipsets.

Sprint sold its entire network of cellular towers to TowerCo with $670 million. TowerCo will be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the nearly 3,300 towers.

Under the deal, Sprint will lease the use of the towers back from TowerCo in a long-term agreement. Sprint hopes that this move will provide it with more operating cash flow and will also allow it to focus on its core services rather than dealing with the physical network infrastructure. Sprint currently has 53 million subscribers and operates its network using CDMA and iDen technologies.

Sony Ericsson claimed to be taking its Walkman line of music phones "beyond music" with the W902, a music phone with more than just music up its sleeve. It packs AF and image stabilization for both photos and videos, as well as picture and video blogging and Sony Ericsson's BestPic technology. The phone also features Google maps support and the ability to geotag the photos that it captures.

Of course it also deals with music quite handily, too. The Walkman music player is on-board for a full music experience, and the W902 ships with an 8GB Memory Stick Micro (M2) card and the high-end HPM-77 wired headphones in the box. The Walkman player comes complete with Sony Ericsson's SenseMe technology, as well as shake control, automatic display rotation, and the TrackID function.

The W902's main display is 2.2" in size and offers QVGA resolution and the ability to render up to 262k colors. It is also protected by scratch resistant mineral glass to keep it looking bright and clear for a long time. Other features include email support and the ability to synchronize with a Microsoft Exchange server as well as the Access NetFront web browser for a near-desktop like browsing experience.

The Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman weighs 100g (3.5oz) and is rated for up to 9 hours of GSM talk time, 4 hours of 3G talk time, or 25 hours of music playback. It will be available in select markets in Q4 of this year. No pricing or specific market availability information is available at this time.

AT&T announced its quarterly earnings figures, highlighting a number of positive growth statistics in its wireless business.

AT&T Wireless reported a net increase of 1.3 million new subscribers for the quarter, up to 72.9 million total. Compared with Q2 of 2007, wireless revenues are up 15.5% to US$12 billion, while data service revenue is up 52% year over year, coming in at $2.5 billion. Overall, AT&T's wireless unit's operating income is up 91% from the prior year, totalling an impressive $3.1 billion.

Some of the reasons behind all the good financial news are a three-fold year-over-year increase in text message use, and a 170% increase in the use of MMS. The company also claims that 18% of its subscribers have an "integrated" device, which is code for smartphone, and that such users generate roughly double the amount of money that non-smartphone users do. Speaking of smartphones, AT&T has said that the new Apple iPhone 3G has been selling very well, with sales level nearly double that of the original iPhone for the same initial 12 day period.