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Research In Motions 1st-Quarter Loss Narrows
Research In Motion on Wednesday posted a loss in its fiscal first quarter as revenue jumped 46% amid healthy subscriber growth. For the quarter ended May 31, the maker of the BlackBerry wireless device reported a net loss of $8.2 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $10.7 million, or 14 cents a share, a year earlier. During the quarter, BlackBerry subscribers increased by about 81,000 from the fiscal fourth quarter to 615,000 subscribers.
Read the full story on: Smartmoney.com
Sony Ericsson: No CDMA in U.S. Phones
Handset maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications said Tuesday that it will phase out production of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)-based cell phones meant for the United States and Canada. The company said in a statement that it will continue to make phones for the Japanese market based on the CDMA standard. Sony Ericsson will focus on developing cell phones using the worlds most popular standard, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), according to the statement.
Read the full story on: CNET News.com
Qualcomm Licenses CDMA Chip Technology to Via
Qualcomm this week said it has licensed its second- and third-generation CDMA chip technology to Taiwans Via Technologies. Qualcomm has licensed its cdmaOne and CDMA2000 technology to Via Telecom which is part of Taipei-based PC chip-set house Via. The assignment of the royalty-bearing license agreement enables Via Telecom to develop, manufacture and sell cdmaOne and CDMA2000 1X ASICs. “This agreement allows us to provide our wireless customers with a baseband processor solution, for use in a wide variety of CDMA2000 devices offering voice, data and GPS-enabled applications, which will help deliver time-to-market and product differentiation advantages keyed by the CDMA standard,” Ker Zhang, CEO of VIA Telecom, said in a statement.
Read the full story on: EE Times
i-mode Reaches Italy, Spain
The wireless Internet service popularized by Japans NTT DoCoMo, called i-mode, is going into Italy and Spain. DoCoMo announced that Italys Wind Communications will use i-mode and that Telefonica Moviles of Spain will launch the service Thursday. No date has been announced for Winds launch of i-mode, although the carrier said it expects to offer services by the end of 2003. The Wind-DoCoMo deal is for a five-year period and grants Wind exclusivity to i-mode services for both 2G and 3G for a period of four years. Telefonica Moviles will be the seventh market for i-mode, following Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The Spanish carrier announced a licensing agreement nearly a year ago.
Read the full story on: WirelessWeek.com
Nortel, Cingular Team on Caller Access
Nortel Networks on Wednesday said it will supply Cingular Wireless almost exclusively with cell phone network equipment that tracks subscriber information to weed out invalid callers. Nortels home location registers (HLR) decipher callers account information, and if everything matches up, the voice call or data session goes through. Cingular is the fourth major U.S. carrier to switch almost entirely to Nortels HLR technology. Nortels No. 1 competition in this market is Hewlett-Packard.
Read the full story on: CNET News.com
Verizon No Fee to Keep Cell Number
In a dramatic about-face, No. 1 cell phone carrier Verizon Wireless said Tuesday that it should be easy and cheap for customers to keep their numbers when switching carriers. It also said it wouldnt charge customers who want to switch — pressuring rivals to do the same. The Federal Communications Commission said carriers, by Nov. 24, must offer number switching in major markets. To recoup the cost of allowing number switching and other government-mandated upgrades, carriers such as Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless and Nextel in recent months started charging most customers a monthly fee — usually around $1.50. Verizon wont charge a fee until at least November. It will re-evaluate its stance then, the company said.
Read the full story on: USATODAY.com