Sprint to launch its first 4G smartphone this year (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The current 4G leader, Sprint has announced to introduce its first smartphone before mid-year with an aim to make the greater speed a reality for many businesses over the coming year.
Sprint’s 4G networks reaches about 30 million people in 27 markets and with the addition of Houston, New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Washington by the end of the year; it will expand the footprint to include 120 million people.
Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network has already been launched in 2008 but there have been no handsets to use on it. Apart from Sprint, several other USA carriers has also announced their entry into 4G services with Verizon announcing the introduction of its 4G network later this year using a competing technology called LTE.
AT&T is expected to launch its own LTE network sometime in 2011. Undoubtedly, Sprint’s rush to deliver 4G ahead of its competitors explains its choice of network technology.
Sprint to launch WiMax phone by summer
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Sprint has planned to launch a WiMax-equipped phone by the end of June. The date has been preponed by several months than what the company has announced last time regarding the time of the availability of the device.
No details have been provided about the device by the firm.
Mobile operators join force on global apps platform
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An open international applications platform has been launched by a joint force of the world’s largest mobile operators. This marks the largest unified move to date by the operator community into the mobile apps space.
A combination of 24 of the world’s largest mobile carriers, the so called ‘Wholesale Applications Community’ includes America Movil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom Austria, MTN Group, NTT Docomo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, VimpelCom and WIND.
Vodafone, China Mobile, SoftBank and Verizon Wireless in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) mobile apps initiative are also included in the group. The move has been backed by GSMA, an industry association. The aim of the alliance is to create a wholesale platform for mobile apps providing a single point-of-entry for developers. Operators are also eyeing the revenue-generating potential of getting into the apps business.
The new operator-led initiative has also got the support from the handset vendors including LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
Sprint signs RealNetworks to streamline music services
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telecom operator Sprint and digital entertainment services firm RealNetworks has signed a deal as per which the latter will streamline the operator’s mobile music offerings by introducing a unified digital storefront promising user-friendly access to ringtones, ring backs and full-track downloads.
Media Entertainment Platform of Real will manage, administer, market and deliver Sprint’s digital music content; the proposed storefront will premiere later this year under the terms of the agreement.
86 different mobile operators across 48 countries worldwide make Real’s ASP services available, thus reaching a combined subscriber base totaling more than 900 million.
Sprint waives call fees to Haiti
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Customers making call to Haiti in search of information on family and friends will have to pay less charge as Sprint has agreed to waive any long distance fees for calls made to the disaster stricken place.
Fees will be waived from January 12 through February 28 and the fees for messages have also been reduced.
Sending 2,000 phones to Haiti, contributing about $250,000 to various relief efforts and notes that its customers donated more than $5 million via text message are some of the actions taken by Sprint to make contribution to the relief work carried out in Haiti, which was hit by a massive earthquake on January 12 this year.
AT&T, Verizon, other US carriers to sign cybersecurity deal with federal govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: AT&T, Qwest, Sprint and Verizon will supply managed security services to U.S. federal government agencies through the federal umbrella telecommunications contract known as Networx, to help them to meet cybersecurity defense requirements.
Currently, U.S. government is shifting its strategy for defending federal networks against a rising tide of hacking attacks launched by foreign governments and criminals. The government instead of focusing on consolidating external Internet connections is directing agencies to deploy a standard set of security tools and processes on all of their Internet connections.
A shift for the federal Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) Initiative is represented through this move.
Sprint suffers a net loss of USD2.44 billion in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A net loss of USD2.44 billion for the twelve months ended December 31, 2009 has been posted by Sprint Nextel, which is a 13% year-on-year improvement. A net loss of USD2.79 billion has also been suffered by the company and the revenues continued to fall, down 9% from USD35.64 billion in 2008 to USD32.26 billion a year later.
Operating income before interest, depreciation and amortization went down from USD7.66 billion to USD6.41 billion. The company also lost a total of 1.13 million wireless subscribers in 2009.
According to CEO Dan Hesse, Sprint’s performance built notable momentum during the second half of 2009 and the firm continues to closely manage costs, and in 2009 it generated the highest annual free cash flow since the merger.
The fourth quarter completion of the Virgin Mobile USA and iPCS acquisitions, as well as additional large investment in Clearwire, are hailed important for the future of the company.
Sprint & GetJar offer 60,000+ free apps
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Independent app store’s 60,000-plus free applications will be offered under the new partnership between Sprint and GetJar to all feature phone subscribers as well as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile smartphone users. A link to the GetJar catalog is now live on the Sprint portal across most of its handsets.
Facebook Mobile, Google Maps, YouTube, Weather Channel Mobile, ShopSavvy and Loopt are some of the popular applications offered by GetJar. 750 million GetJar apps have already been downloaded by the consumers worldwide.
According to Sprint director of product management and development Kevin McGinnis, the company has been fairly open about its views on storefronts and they want to provide the greatest amount of choice and support operating systems, as opposed to their own proprietary storefront.
Nexus One early termination fee follows FCC enquiry
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: $150 equipment recovery fee will have to be paid by customers who cancel their Nexus One accounts within 120 days of purchase. The step by Google has raised controversies as Google and T-Mobile currently charge users, separate early termination fees if they drop their Nexus One in less than four months.
Consumers originally would have had to pay up to $550 for breaking their contracts early with T-Mobile charging early termination fee of $200 and Google charging $350.
After Verizon doubled its standard early termination fee from $175 to $350 last November, the practice of charging early termination fees has come under fire. AT&T, Google, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon have received letter from FCC to gather facts and data on the consumer experience with early termination fees.
Deutsche Telekom seeks IPO for T-Mobile USA
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A number of discussions have been held by T-Mobile’s parent, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom with a number of banks about underwriting an IPO for the unit. Partial spinoff of the business which would carve it into a separate entity with its own balance sheet has been considered another option.
Since a past few years, there were continuous rumors regarding Deutsche Telekom’s intention to dispose of its US arm in some form or other. Merger talks with Clearwire and Sprint died off after Clearwire was able to raise the necessary funding for its own network independently.
T-Mobile would be able to raise the funds to boost its network quality, after the floatation of the stock market without Deutsche Telekom ceding management control.
