New US LTE network borne of satellite operators, launching next year
Over the next few years we're looking at major LTE build-outs in the US from at least two players -- Verizon and AT&T -- but we've rather unexpectedly gotten a third player coming into the fold today led by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners. Basically, these guys just got regulatory approval last week to buy satellite operator SkyTerra , combining about 23MHz of spectrum through slivers of ownership in the 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz terrestrial bands with 10MHz of L-band satellite space.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: entry, from-at-least, harbinger, hedgefund, lte, other-providers, result, skyterra, terrestar, time, unexpectedly, verizon
Beijing Gorld combines sub-par cellphone with lackluster e-reader
Alongside the Get Smart shoe phone , Beijing Gorld's 600TW e-reader / cellphone has to be one of the less useful combos we can imagine. As an E Ink device, it's pretty straightforward -- 6-inch display and a battery life of approximately 6,000 page turns.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: 600tw, battery-life, beijing, beijing-gorld, cellphone, connectivity, engadget, gprs, plethora, shoe, smart, sms, the-plethora, useful-combos
Verizon’s BlackBerry Tour getting push-to-talk capability tomorrow
When you think push-to-talk in the US, Sprint's Direct Connect service is still the very first thing that comes to mind -- but Verizon and AT&T both continue to soldier on with their own significantly less popular solutions to meet the needs of niche markets that might otherwise bail for iDEN. Big Red's stable is getting a little bigger this week on news that the BlackBerry Tour 9630 will magically be made PTT-compliant through the availability of a new app tomorrow that'll work with Verizon's existing PTT plans
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: berry-tour, direct-connect, directconnect, engadget-mobile, listed-as-one, slightest, sprint, still-the-very, verizon, vzw, words
Stats: iPhone OS is still king of the mobile web space, but Android is nipping at its heels
AdMob serves north of 10 billion ads per month to more than 15,000 mobile websites and applications. Thus, although its data is about ad rather than page impressions, it can be taken as a pretty robust indicator of how web usage habits are developing and changing over time.
Categories: Android, BlackBerry, htc, Mobile Phone Tags: figures, internet, mobile, predominant, recent-figures, result, smartphone, symbian, symbian os, web
T-Mobile service down through much of the Southeast this morning
We're getting a few reports this morning that T-Mobile customers through the nation's Southeast have been suffering an outage, and a thread going on the carrier's official forums corroborates the story. It seems that phones attached to both 2G and 3G services throughout much of Florida, Georgia (including Atlanta), Tennessee, and the Carolinas have been affected since the wee hours to some extent; as far as we can tell, service is starting to come back online in some parts, but for others, inbound callers are getting "circuits busy" messages
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: circuits-busy, engadget-mobile, florida, georgia, service-outage, tennessee
Exclusive: Android Froyo to take a serious shot at stemming platform fragmentation
We had a couple people at CTIA last week -- people whose words carry weight -- tell us off the record that the next major version of Android would take big strides toward stopping the ugly trend toward severe fragmentation that has plagued the platform for much of this and last year. You know, the kind of fragmentation that has already left users running not one, not two, not three, but four distinct versions of the little green guy (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, and 2.1) depending on a seemingly arbitrary formula of hardware, carrier, region, software customization, and manufacturers' ability to push updates in a timely fashion. Put simply, Google's been iterating the core far faster than most of its partners have been able to keep up.
Categories: Android, htc, Mobile Phone Tags: conversations, core, ctia, Customization, distinct, elements, exclusive, fashion, froyo, gingerbread, green, market, pace-on-android, platform, time
Palm isn’t hot on Pre overclocking, indicates warranties are at risk
You know the hacked Pre firmware releases that have been coming out lately, first for 1.3.5.1 and then recently for 1.4 ? We tested out that later one and found the results to be good, and indeed one of the creators, caj2008, sent us plenty of data from early testers showing minimal heat gains and battery losses.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: 1.3.5.1, application, before-dialing, endorsed, gains, minimal, multiplier, palmos
Toshiba’s QWERTY-equipped K01 slides through the FCC
If you've yet to lose faith in Windows Mobile 6.5, or if you're holding out hope for community-made Windows Phone 7 patches magically upgrading your OS, here's another handset for your consideration. Toshiba's K01 comes with a 1GHz Snapdragon inside and a QWERTY keyboard plus 4.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen (capacitive) on the outside
Categories: htc, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: after-the-break, bands, consideration, entry, htc, north, qwerty slider, qwertyslider, result, slider, smartphone, snapdragon, wifi, winmo
Verizon’s Nexus One could be arriving ‘by the end of next week’ (updated)
Let's start with the obvious proviso here, the above image is so painfully easy to fake that even our computer illiterate grandparents could mock one up within a few minutes. That said, it's purportedly a screenshot of a little oopsie by Google's online store, which is said to have briefly displayed the Verizon option for Nexus One handsets as available to buy for $199 plus the relevant contractual shackles.
Categories: Android, htc, Mobile Phone, nexus one, Other Tags: cdma, engadget, entry, htc, insider, online, relevant, verizon, verizon-wireless
European Milestone gets OTA 2.1 update, Droid update MIA
Motorola Milestone owners, your moment is now. The Android 2.1 update you've been waiting for is now available en masse. Users outside of Hong Kong (which already got served ) have received notice that an over-the-air update is available to unlock the nine home-screens, Google Earth, and other goodness that comes along with the latest flavor of Google's mobile OS.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: cellphones, entry, hong, milestone, motorola, Ota, screens