In a filing with the FCC, the Coalition to Save Our GPS today called on the Commission to “promptly rule” that LightSquared can never use the upper mobile satellite spectrum (MSS) band for high-powered terrestrial operations. The coalition argues in the filing that such use of the upper band “should be taken off the table […]
Telecommunications
Schmidt defends Google, mourns Jobs’ death
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt on Tuesday defended his company as a great innovator despite allegations from late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that the Internet search giant stole ideas from Apple’s iPhone. Schmidt also told reporters that he is still “very sad and recovering from the sense of loss” from Jobs’ death last month and does […]
Sprint sees rating actions after bond announcement
Sprint Nextel was the subject of a number of actions by ratings services Friday following its announcement that it plans to issue bonds in a private placement and may use proceeds to fund Clearwire. Sprint, majority owner of Clearwire, received a debt ratings downgrade from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, which cited costs for upgrades […]
U.S. Cellular: We turned down iPhone
U.S. Cellular, the country’s sixth-largest cell phone company, on Friday said it had the opportunity to carry the iPhone but turned it down because the phone is too expensive. It’s the first U.S. carrier to acknowledge turning down the phone. Consumers pay $200 for the base model of the iPhone 4S, but Apple charges carriers […]
Comcast debuts 100 Mbps, voice trunking service in Mich.
Comcast is now offering its DOCSIS 3.0-enabled 100 Mbps tier to businesses in Michigan, as well as a voice trunking service. The Comcast Business wideband tier features up to 100 Mbps on the downstream and 10 Mbps on the upstream, which is up to 60 times faster than download speeds for a T1 line. The […]
Comcast snags Emmy for iPad app
Comcast was in an elite group when it recently scored an engineering Emmy for its Xfinity TV iPad app. Comcast’s Charlie Herrin, senior vice president of product development and technology, was on hand to pick up the Emmy engineering award. “It was an honor to have been selected, and certainly humbling. … Lots of TV […]
Time Warner Cable beefs up iPad lineup with 37 Spanish channels
Time Warner Cable has bolstered programming for its iPad app with the addition of 37 Spanish-language channels. Some of the new Spanish channels that are now available on the TWCable TV app include Discovery Español, CNN Español, Boomerang Español, Caracol and Disney XD Español. The new networks will join the five Spanish-language channels already available […]
Glum Q4 forecast overshadows Alcatel-Lucent’s profit spike
Alcatel-Lucent’s rosy third-quarter profits were overshadowed this morning by a grim fourth-quarter forecast that warned sales could take a hit from the European financial crisis. For the remainder of this year, the company expects “weaker revenues there than initially planned in the fourth quarter,” CEO Ben Verwaayen said, citing “market uncertainties” and “selective spending from […]
Report: Faulty Android phones cost carriers $2B annually
The return and repair of Android smartphone devices is costing mobile operators as much as $2 billion per year, according to a study by WDS. The study analyzes more than 600,000 technical support calls that the WDS teams around the world have handled in the last 12 months. Taking a comprehensive view of the four […]
Google angling to enter MVPD biz
Google is laying the groundwork to start distributing video, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The company has long talked about being in the TV business. The issue was whether it would voluntarily restrict itself to over-the-top (OTT) content or attempt to compete with multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). If the latter, […]
