DISH Network Wants to Deploy LTE Advanced ASAP DISH Network is keeping up the pressure on the FCC to drop certain requirements related to the company’s plan to use satellite spectrum for a terrestrial LTE wireless network. DISH had hoped to obtain a waiver but rather than granting the waiver, the FCC opted instead to address DISH’s request in a notice of proposed [...] Telecompetitor

Despite Potential for Tragedy, Rural Call Completion Problem Continues It could be “only a matter of time” before life is lost as a result of a call not completing to a rural area, states a letter from Pine Drive Telephone Company, a small Colorado local telephone company, to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission shared with Telecompetitor. Accompanying the letter is a statement from a...

Vonage Extends Free Calling on Vonage Mobile App HOLMDEL, New Jersey, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — App now also features new photo and location sharing Vonage Holdings Corp. (VG) announced the extension of their free calling promotion on the Vonage Mobile® application.  Calls made from the app from anywhere in the world to any phone in the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico...

Nielsen Explores Where We Watch TV, Use Gaming Consoles Eighteen-to -34 year-olds may be famous for their voracious appetite for Internet connectivitiy. But as Nielsen researchers observe in a recent blog post,  those in the 12-17-year-old age group have more of an appetite for gaming. The 12-17 demographic “represent an outsized share of game console usage, more than triple that of their...

Unity Telecom is Latest to Try OTT Approach The pay TV business is changing. So much so that the FCC is currently asking whether the definition of a traditional cable TV provider, or multichannel video programmer distributor (MVPD) as they call it, should change to be more inclusive of the emerging OTT provider. Unity Telecom is the latest to push this envelope with [...] Telecompetitor

Nielsen: Average Smartphone Has 41 Apps 2012 is turning out to be the “Year of the App,” according to the latest Nielsen research. The average number of apps per smartphone has jumped 28 percent, from 32 apps to 41 and smartphone owners are spending more time using apps rather than the mobile web — about 10 percent more than last year, [...] Telecompetitor

Report: 2012 Turning Out to Be Another “Year of the App” 2012 is once again turning out to be the “Year of the App,” according to the latest Nielsen research. One in two mobile telecoms service subscribers own a smartphone today as compared to less than 40% about a year ago, and that percentage continues upwards. Apps continue to drive mobile data demand, as Android and...

DirecTV Adds Satellite Broadband Bundles DirecTV shored up its bundling strategy by adding both Exede by ViaSat and Hughes’ HughesNet Gen4 next-generation satellite broadband services to their TV offer. Both satellite broadband services claim download speeds of 12+Mbps, but actual speeds and availability vary widely. Exede  (formerly WildBlue) is available today and HughesNet Gen4 is close to...

CyrusOne To Break Ground On ‘Massively Modular’ Phoenix Facility May 15, 2012 — HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CyrusOne, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) and preeminent enterprise data center colocation solutions provider, breaks ground tomorrow, on the 57-acre parcel of land it purchased in Chandler, Ariz., last fall. The site will house a 1-million-square-foot...

Comcast Begins Skype on XFINITY TV Roll Out One of the benefits to consumers of competition between cable, telcoTV, and DBS is innovation. All of these telecompetitors are looking to integrate new products into their TV and broadband experience that they hope will provide some sense of differentiation and create stickyness. Case in point is Comcast with their Skype on XFINITY product. Skype...

New T-Mobile Promo Targets Small Businesses Today, T-Mobile USA rolled out its new Small Business Productivity Plan, a “disruptive” promotional offer that can help small businesses maximize their wireless investment and transform their business. The company also highlighted its Small Business Mobile Makeover Sweepstakes that offers a Grand Prize package worth more than $60,000, including free...

Report: Smaller Carriers Rank Higher in Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction with their cell phones, wireless services, and fixed-line telephone services declined over the past year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index  Q1 report on U.S. customer satisfaction. Satisfaction with subscription TV services was unchanged. Amid growing demand for mobile devices and services,...

4G Americas: Only 50 MHz of Usable Spectrum in the U.S. Pipeline Americans’ fast-growing use of new mobile applications and devices has telecompetitors racing to keep up with mobile data demand. Offering insight into important 4G market trends is industry trade association 4G Americas, which has released a white paper that aims “to help mitigate increasing network congestion due to...

FCC Quizzes Verizon Wireless on Unused Spectrum Holdings The Federal Communications Commission wants to know what Verizon Wireless would do with the unused spectrum holdings that the company has offered to sell as a condition of approval of its planned spectrum purchase from several of the nation’s largest cable companies if that purchase is not approved. “Would Verizon Wireless abandon its plans...

EchoStar Preps to Launch New Satellite for NextGen HughesNet Satellite Broadband Palo Alto, Calif. & GERMANTOWN, Md. – May 14, 2012 – Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), the world’s leading provider of commercial satellites, today announced that the EchoStar XVII satellite, designed and built for Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes), a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS),...

Verizon Wireless and Cox Pursue Co-Marketing in Oklahoma Verizon Wireless and Cox apparently aren’t intimidated by the opposition group that launched yesterday to protest Verizon’s co-marketing deals with Cox and other cable companies as well as the carrier’s plans to purchase spectrum from the cablecos. Less than 24 hours after the opposition group held a conference call with members of the...

TDS Opens Stimulus Bid Process for Michigan’s U.P. May 15, 2012 — Contractors from 12 telecom construction companies received details last night (May 14) to bid on a broadband Internet expansion project for Bois Blanc Island, Mich. TDS Telecommunications Corp. (TDS®) hosted the pre-bid meeting in Cheboygan to outline the project. Bids are due to TDS by June 4, 2012. Once complete,...

Report: Nearly Half of U.K. Mobile Internet Users Feel Addicted Most British teenagers using mobile Internet feel as if they’re addicted to their smartphones. Responding to a survey conducted by market research firm Intersperience they said they’d rather give up TV, Facebook and chocolate rather than their smartphones. Adult mobile Internet users said they’d rather do without...

LightSquared Bankruptcy Triggers DISH Spectrum Purchase Speculation LightSquared’s filing for bankruptcy protection yesterday has generated much industry speculation about what will happen with the company’s spectrum holdings. Although that spectrum is officially designated only for satellite use, LightSquared attempted to repurpose it to support a nationwide wholesale LTE network that would be...

Terremark Expands North American Cloud Infrastructure Capacity MIAMI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Seeing increasingly strong enterprise demand for secure cloud computing solutions across North America, Terremark, a Verizon Company, increased its cloud infrastructure capacity by deploying a node of its Enterprise Cloud at its data center in Denver. With the introduction of a cloud node, the Denver...