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Verizon announced yesterdey their plans to start 4G trials next year. To do so, they will team up with Vodafone (Vodafone and Verizon co-owns Verizon Wireless). The chosen technology will be LTE (Long Term Evolution) eventually, standard developed by 3GPP.

Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and Nortel.

Verizon Wireless is the first company to launch high-speed wireless broadband service in the United States using CDMA Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) technology. Its data innovation and leadership have been marked by the introduction of new multimedia handsets and innovative applications such as V CAST Music, V CAST Video, VZ Navigator^SM, V CAST games, e-mail, Internet access, and picture and video messaging on a variety of devices, including handsets, PDAs and laptops.

Link Verizon Press Note

Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer, has called it “a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices.”

Well, we’ll see. This statement sounds too serious.

What Verizon Wireless has announced, indeed, is that they will open their network to any device and application which meets a “minimum technical standard” by the end of 2008.

OK. This means that Verizon would accept to become a bitpipe by the end of 2008. But we need to read the small print that describes that “mininum technical standard”. This will come in “early 2008″. Then, we’ll see how much Verizon does open the door.

Via EngadgetMobile

Last night, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, announced in an interview with Forbes at the Churchill Club dinner in Santa Clara that a 3G version of Apple’s iPhone will come out next year.

No more details where revealed, but is another huge declaration confirming last SevenClick exclusive related to the expected 3G iPhone launching in May 2008.

Whole interview here by Barron’s
Thanks Santiago P.

According to Engadget Mobile, Google and AT&T could be discussing the possibility of the latter to join Open Handset Alliance. Ralph de la Vega — AT&T Wireless CEO — said that the provider is, “Analyzing the situation,” concerning the use of Google’s Android operating system for some of its handsets. As you might know, T-Mobile and Sprint have already joined OHA. So, If AT&T joins OHA, Verizon Wireless will be the only USA operator not offering OHA handsets.

This information is only a rumor, nothing has been officially confirmed.

Via Engadget Mobile

Yoigo is going to celebrate its first year of operations in Spain. Its CEO, Johan Andsjo, indicated that he was very satisfied and that during this period, products and services haven’t suffered problems in its quality.

Andsjo also thinks that the mobile phone market will live a “prices war” between 2008/2009. This way, the other mobile phone companies will must reduce its tariffs between 40% or 50%.

Moreover, the operator has increased its daily subscriptions since it launched the new tariff with which calls between the same company are free.

Yoigo has not planned tariff segmentation as other operators. The company declares that ” the most important for us is that the consumers know the real price”.

Via Heraldo

One week after the Android announce, Google has revealed its intentions to bid for a part of the wireless spectrum. If manages to accomplish the task, the internet giant will be able to have its own cellphone network.

The auction will be held in the U.S.A. the next January and will sell the wireless sprectrum now holded by the analog TV broadcasts (to freed up by 2009). Google have commited at least 4.6 billion dollars, without partners, to win the licence. A formal communication of intentions has to be made to the FCC before December the 3rd.

Google may be definitely heading to become a full-scale american mobile carrier due its wide alliance with cell-phone industry companies and the open source phone system presented last week.

Analysts have voiced doubts about it, but seems that Google is testing some advanced wireless network at its main headquarters in California.

Via Yahoo News. 

This is madness!!! This is Sparta Spain!!!.

No, I’m not talking about 300 the movie. aecomo announced that up to 12 new MVNO will start business in following weeks or months. Spain is a completely saturated market, with a 109% of mobile phone penetration. One year ago, the fourth network operator, Xfera, started business after 4 years of waiting and a selling process, under the name of Yoigo. At the same time, MVNO started business with promises of better pricing plans and best offers than traditional operators namely, Vodafone, Movistar and Orange.

One year ago, Yoigo have gained only a 0,7% of the market and all MVNOs only 0,5%. Conclussion: the market is saturated.

With this panorama, we receive the announcement of 12 new MVNOs with skepticism. We don’t expect significant changes in pricing rates, or better offers with new devices. These new companies could find a niche, but some of them will probably fail. Let’s see.

Via aecomo 

Past Friday we referred to a post from Noticiasdotcom where they talked about América Móvil joining Open Handset Alliance. No official confirmation was found about it.

Today, Noticiasdotcom tells that América Móvil has denied its participation in OHA by means of a brief press release. Indeed, they deny having any kind of conversations with Google.

Via Noticiasdotcom
Link SevenClick

Via NoticiasDotCom, we read that América Móvil joins Open Handset Alliance. America Movil is the Mexico-based carrier owned by Carlos Slim, the third richest man of the world according to Forbes.

This would be good news for Alliance, since América Móvil is the leading carrier in Central and South America, disputing its leadership with Telefonica, that had already joined the Alliance.

We have not found official confirmation, neither in América Móvil or Open Handset Alliance websites.

Via Noticiasdotcom

One month ago, we talked about how Verizon was going to adopt Firethorn as its Mobile Banking Solution.

Now, The USA based AT&T has launched a mobile banking service in cooperation with Wachovia & SunTrust Banks, using the same provider, but in this case, pre-loading the application on future AT&T handset beginning later this year. This is a very important point because, it is easy for users to locate the mobile banking icon in the applications folder on the device and access the service.

AT&T customers pay no additional fee to access mobile banking and, because the application resides on the handset, the service is optimized to reduce the number of new page views necessary to complete a transaction. Minimal data usage charges apply and vary based on individual use.

The mobile banking application is also available for download on more than 30 of AT&T’s most popular handsets - representing approximately 30 million devices in the market today.

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Via Cellular-News