Clearwire, China Mobile to partner on smartphones, tablets and other LTE devices

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China Mobile and Clearwire have entered into a partnership to work together on new TD-LTE devices, including tablet computers and smartphones. In a press release, the company said that they will jointly work to “further accelerate the time-to-market availability of high volume TD-LTE chipsets and devices that should be commercially available starting in 2012.” CNET… Read More…

Study ranks Verizon as the best wireless network in the West; AT&T comes in as the worst

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Looking for a wireless provider, but not sure where to turn? A new study from J.D. Power and Associates may provide a little bit of guidance. And not a huge surprise here, but the study found that Verizon Wireless has the most robust wireless network in the West, while AT&T has the worst. More than… Read More…

With AT&T acquisition pending, T-Mobile USA goes local in bid to revive its business

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Eric Schlumpf is surprisingly upbeat for someone in his position. As T-Mobile USA’s newly named vice president and general manager for the Pacific Northwest, he’s responsible for shoring up the Bellevue-based company’s subscriber base and leading the front-line employees in its home region as regulators weigh AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of the Deutsche Telekom unit. Subscribers… Read More…

No joke: Senator Al Franken says AT&T’s proposed buyout of T-Mobile will hurt consumers

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AT&T’s proposed buyout of T-Mobile for $39 billion has run into a number of opponents, including Sprint CEO Dan Hesse who argues that the wireless industry will lose its innovative edge if the deal goes through. Now, Hesse is getting some support in the form of Al Franken — the former comedian and U.S. Senator… Read More…

Sprint CEO Hesse continues fight to block AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile

Sprint's Dan Hesse

Dan Hesse once led AT&T Wireless. Now, as CEO of Sprint, he’s trying to block his former employer from buying T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. Bloomberg News has an interesting interview with Hesse about why he thinks the deal will be bad for consumers and the wireless industry in general. “The industry just won’t be… Read More…

TruckerLink remotely monitors fleets, identifies the biggest ‘fuel hogs’ on the road

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With gas prices on the rise, trucking fleets need to watch every penny that flows into the big rigs. Now, a new service called TruckerLink — developed by SignalSet and truck manufacturer Paccar Inc. — allows managers of large fleets to remotely monitor truck locations, driver logs, vehicle inspection reports and, perhaps most importantly in… Read More…

T-Mobile doubles peak data speeds, preps new ‘Rocket’

The new Rocket 3.0 data stick, T-Mobile USA's first 42 Mbps-capable device

T-Mobile USA says it has doubled the theoretical peak download speeds on its wireless network in Seattle and 50 other cities to 42 Mbps, following through on a promise to accelerate its 4G HSPA+ network around the country. The Bellevue-based wireless carrier is making the announcement in conjunction with the launch this week of its… Read More…

Ericsson taking over management of Clearwire network, 700 employees making shift

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Big move by Clearwire this morning, announcing that Ericsson will take over day-to-day management of the Kirkland company’s wireless 4G broadband network. Seven hundred Clearwire employees will transfer to Ericsson by mid-year as part of the seven-year deal with the Stockholm-based telecom services company — continuing Clearwire’s headcount reduction. It’s the latest step in a longstanding… Read More…

All yours, AT&T: T-Mobile profits, customers declining amid ‘ongoing challenges’

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It’s a good thing AT&T is so interested in adding network capacity through its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, because the customer base might not be the same by the time regulators get around to approving the $39 billion deal, assuming they ultimately do. Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of Bellevue-based wireless company, reported as… Read More…

Clearwire restores service in Seattle after outage

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It’s been a tough few days for Seattle area high-tech companies. First, Amazon.com’s EC2 service went down, causing alarm among many startups that rely on AWS. Now, word is that Clearwire — the Kirkland-based mobile broadband company — experienced a failure of its Seattle area network earlier today. The company says that the problem has… Read More…

It’s official: Sprint says AT&T’s T-Mobile deal stinks

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We knew that Sprint wasn’t happy about AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, based on comments by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse about the deal. But the company today made it official, announcing that it will formally oppose the $39 billion combination. An excerpt from the company’s statement. The transaction, which requires the approval of the… Read More…

GeekWire Podcast: AT&T, T-Mobile and a wild week in tech

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This week on the GeekWire Podcast: We look back on one of the biggest weeks we can remember in technology news, including AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, Apple’s trademark dispute with Amazon.com, and Microsoft’s patent case against Barnes & Noble over Android. Mobile industry veteran Paul Griff, the CEO of RootMetrics, joins us as… Read More…

Say hello to your new mobile overlord: Implications of AT&T’s T-Mobile hookup

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AT&T’s proposed $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile USA would create a U.S. wireless colossus, with 130 million wireless subscribers — enough to send waves across the rest of the industry from even its smallest choices in mobile operating systems, wireless standards and hardware. That would impact some of the biggest names in technology — including… Read More…

Wired: Amazon’s Android app store set to debut Tuesday

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Amazon.com plans to unveil its much-anticipated Android app store on Tuesday, according to a report in Wired. There’s been plenty of speculation in recent weeks about the online retailer’s plans to create an online destination for Android applications, similar to Apple’s app store for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad applications, and an alternative to the… Read More…

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse: Clearwire will be a part of our 4G future

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It has been pretty interesting to watch the back-and-forth negotiating between Clearwire and Sprint Nextel, much of which has taken place in the press. The two companies have been engaged in an ongoing dispute over how much Sprint Nextel pays to utilize Clearwire’s 4G WiMax network. Sprint also has been weighing options related to long-term… Read More…