A Web Blog for the Mobile Masses

Motorola hits Q3 goals, sees growth in all sectors

Sprint piles on the wireless subscribers

Sun grants Orange 'infinite use'

Alvarion, InterWave renegotiate acquisition terms

FCC maintains designated-entities rules for January auction

Nextel, Motorola focus on camera phone

BellSouth wraps sale of Latin American assets

Verizon Wireless, NextWave nearing $3 billion spectrum deal

SBC exploring Wi-Fi/cellular convergence

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Give or take a buck or two, it seems unreasonable to expect consumers to fork over more than $1.99 per month for a service many already view as a freebie. Wi-Fi is now available gratis at so many restaurants, hotels and conference centers across the U.S. that many users consider it a bonus along the lines of a Happy Meal toy or in-room HBO. For the fast-food joints and motor lodges of America, Wi-Fi is about generating traffic, not revenue. It's simply an enhancement of their existing business.

Which is precisely the attitude carriers should adopt as well. Wi-Fi is never going to generate meaningful revenue--the spread of free access long since guaranteed that ship already sailed. But as a bundling element to give DSL an edge over cable, or as a platform that converges with cellular networks to enable voice over IP--a plan not-so-coincidentally announced by SBC just last week--Wi-Fi could prove more valuable for carriers than ever before.

You could argue carrier Wi-Fi is a bust. I would contend it's merely a late bloomer.

E-mail me at jankeny@primediabusiness.com.

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A forum for Web blogging and opinionated discussion of the news, events and trends shaping the wireless industry.

Wireless News
Motorola hits Q3 goals, sees growth in all sectors
Kevin Fitchard
Oct 20 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
Motorola posted impressive Q3 numbers this week, but the good news wasn't enough to stop the shares from taking a hit in the stock market as the vendor forecast more tepid growth in the fourth quarter.

Sprint piles on the wireless subscribers
Kevin Fitchard
Oct 19 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
Sprint racked up another 951,000 wireless subscribers in the third quarter, more than half of which came from affiliates and its new wholesale MVNO partners. The carrier now has 22.3 million subscribers, 2.8 million of which are from carrier customers.

Sun grants Orange 'infinite use'
Dan O'Shea
Oct 19 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
European mobile carrier Orange has tapped Sun Microsystems' enterprise Java system, an internal software infrastructure that currently supports 22,000 employees in several European countries.

Alvarion, InterWave renegotiate acquisition terms
Kevin Fitchard
Oct 19 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
Alvarion and InterWave have settled their differences, negotiating a settlement that will require InterWave to settle for a lower purchase price. Under the new terms Alvarion will pay $4.18 a share for the cellular base station vendor for a total of $40.5 billion, 28% less than the $56 million price tag the two companies negotiated in July. In addition, Alvarion has agreed to interim financing for InterWave while the companies take the new deal back to their investors.

FCC maintains designated-entities rules for January auction
Donny Jackson
Oct 18 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
The FCC on Friday denied requests by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) to alter designated-entity (DE) rules for the January auction of 1.9 GHz spectrum.

Nextel, Motorola focus on camera phone
Jason Ankeny
Oct 18 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
Nextel Communications and Motorola have announced the release of the Motorola i860, which the two companies are touting as the first camera-enabled push-to-talk handset.

BellSouth wraps sale of Latin American assets
Jason Ankeny
Oct 15 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
BellSouth today announced the completion of its sale of three Latin American wireless assets to Spanish carrier Telefónica Móviles SA. BellSouth will record a $600 million gain from the $1.2 billion deal, which the company will deploy to reduce debt and help fund the $41 billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless, which BellSouth co-owns with SBC.

Verizon Wireless, NextWave nearing $3 billion spectrum deal
Jason Ankeny
Oct 15 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
Verizon Wireless is in talks to acquire 20 wireless spectrum licenses from bankrupt NextWave Telecommunications for $3 billion, a source close to the negotiations told Reuters.

SBC exploring Wi-Fi/cellular convergence
Kevin Fitchard
Oct. 14 2004    TelephonyOnline.com
SBC officials said today the carrier is now experimenting with Wi-Fi/cellular convergence, and in 2005 plans to leverage its hot spot network and Cingular assets to offer a multi-access mobile voice service that will eventually merge with a commercial VoIP launch.

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