The Wireless Report

Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smilin' until then.

Well, that's all folks! After three years of existence, The Wireless Report weblog is being retired after today. A decision has been made to close or consolidate a number of blogs in the Weblogs Inc. network and, sadly for us, this blog is among the ones that are being shut down.

Back in 2004, this blog started out as seven separate blogs--Wireless, WiFi, Wireless Development, Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband, WiMax, and RFID. In January of last year, all of those blogs were consolidated into one "super blog"--The Wireless Report.

Mike has been here since the very beginning, and a few other bloggers have posted here as well. Last year, Brian White joined us, and he has been a terrific co-blogger as well as a helluva great guy to work with. Together, we have done our best to post the best wireless news and information as possible, and we also produced a well-received series of podcasts. All in all, we have a lot to be proud of, and we can honestly say we did the very best we could.

In any case, today is the day The Wireless Report packs its boxes, turns in its (RFID-enabled) passkey, and rides off into the sunset. The both of us will be remaining with the Weblogs Inc. network--Brian currently contributes to Blogging Stocks, and Mike posts to Blogging Baby and TV Squad. The both of us will soon be writing for the Engadget blogs, so you should be seeing our names on them in the next few days.

So, that's it. If you'd like to drop us a line, we would really appreciate it. Feel free to e-mail us at thewirelesswatch@gmail.com, and one of us will respond to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for being such a loyal audience. Bye-bye, so long, and farewell.

Happy trails to you,
Til we meet again.

Michael Sciannamea and Brian White
The Wireless Report

Samsung, the all-things-CDMA handset maker du jour these days, will be introducing new handsets to CDMA carriers Alltel and Verizon soon.

The two new models -- the R510 and U540 -- look identical to existing handsets offered from other carriers -- like the T-Mobile Trace and the Sprint A500. Both, both of these are packing CDMA innards in ultra-slim form factors.

[via Engadget Mobile]

Sanyo reported a 7.3 billion yen net loss for the most recent quarter this past Tuesday, casted doubt on whether the struggling Japanese electronics maker will pull out of some markets it serves.

Strangely, a decline in domestic sales (Japan) outpaced strong performance overseas (U.S. market and others). The reason for the declines was given as increased competition in digital cameras that offset higher sales of mobile phones and advanced washing machines. Sanyo only sells mobile handsets to one U.S. carrier -- Sprint.

Carl Icahn -- a financier who likes to get involved with companies he tries to "fix" -- has bought about 1.4% of Motorola's stock and has requested a seat on the board of directors.

There are many guesses that say Icahn wants to split Motorola up into component pieces (like any bullheaded financier) based on lackluster results from its last quarter.

Motorola, though, has has great results in recent years with a stock price that has done well. So, what's Icahn's beef here?

Sprint continues to take its 3G wireless network across the U.S. to the next level, as it's upgraded more markets to the next-gen EV-DO Revision A standard.

Miami Fl., Portland Ore. and Puerto Rico have received the nicety of Sprint's latest upgrade and all three markets now have EV-DO Revision A speeds available to customers.

At this time, the speeds are only available using PC Cards -- not handsets.

Although Siemens has had some issues centered around its wireless operations recently -- selling its handset division to Taiwan's BenQ at a huge loss -- the company saw increased quarterly results recently on strong demand for its enterprise mobility and WLAN products.

Siemens saw more than 125% growth and has bulked up its enterprise offerings to meet increased demand, and the German telecom juggernaut hopefully will see its fortunes continue to rise. After all, enterprise Wi-Fi is doing anything but going away.

As the complexity of certain advanced wireless handsets and fully-fledged smartphones becomes more prevalent, carriers need a way to manage those devices on the network -- millions of them.

As such, Sprint has partnered with mFoundation to do just that. It will be able to provision, configure, diagnose and manage feature phones and smartphones on its network -- remotely and with (hopefully) a minimum of fuss.

Looks like the nation's largest carrier spent a staggering $86 million to upgrade its wireless network in Sin City last year, surpassing the estimate of $46 million which was initially forecast.

If you're in Vegas any time soon and don't have a good wireless signal, Cingular probably wants to know about it after spending so much in upgrading the level of service there. Just don't count cards on that new Windows Mobile smartphone, ok?

Althought 3G wireless technology is still in its infancy here in the U.S. and around the globe, China wants to be the first to have a fully-functional "4G" standard in place.

It apparently has it, as a group of 10 "leading domestic institutions" called the "FuTURE Project" this past Sunday rolled out 4G in Shanghai. More details here.

If you are familiar with "adware", you'll know that it is installed on personal computers (almost always without consumer consent) to display advertising and popups that seem to take over the PC as if it were possessed.

Well, in a fist, marketers have been held responsible for ads displayed through adware -- and the culprits include the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. -- Cingular (the wireless unit of AT&T), which will pay New York $35,000 to cover penalties and investigatory costs.

I guess citizens of Britain are having a cultural crisis over the ringtone selections on their mobile phones, as 4 out of 5 of those citizens fear criticism of their mobile ringtone.

Isn't there anything else in the world to do but give a shout out (good or bad) about a mobile ringtone choice? Apparently, British mobile phone users are in a quandary about choosing their ringtone after new research from Dial-a-Phone indicates 97% of Brits judge personality based on ringtone choice.

As if we didn't all have enough stupid things to judge others on.

Deutsche Telekom -- the German telecom juggernaut -- witnessed lower performance in its most recent quarter as it saw a big cut in profit and forecast more competition.

European competitor Vodafone Group is not making things easy for DT, as it relentlessly cuts prices and forces DT to do the same. T-Mobile USA -- DT's fastest-growing unit -- has also not lived up to forecasts because of the dollar's slide against the euro in 2006.

With a few copmpanies and a handfuls of startups banking on the future of mobile marketing -- kinda like Google bet its future on text ads all those years ago -- the Hyperfactory is set to offer a global platform for contextual media planning based around this platform.

Companies want to find out which types of campaigns work and don't work on the "third screen" -- the mobile phone screen, that is.

Mobile advertising is apparently becoming a big business, though I have yet to see many ads on most of the xHTML and WAP sites I visit (a few hundred, actually).

But, mobile advertising company AdMob says that mobile Web users are drawn to mobile communities and downloading sites (ah-ha!). And, of course, AdMob has served 1 billion mobile Web advertisements in the last six months on those types of properties.

Want your mobile TV, mon? Digicel will be giving mobile television service over its network to its Jamaican customers via technology from Vimio.

The service will offer local live programs, soap operas, news and music videos. The thing is this -- how on earth can this work with Digicel's GSM/GPRS network? Buggy and slow would be my guess.