Telus CEO says merged Telus-BCE could keep wireless
122292
The controversial plan to create a  Canadian telecom "champion" by merging Telus Corp.  with  market leader BCE Inc.  would not choke competition and  require a sale of either company's lucrative wireless network,  Telus's chief executive said on Thursday.
616058
Sprint Nextel has decided to consolidate its two headquarters, eliminating a relic of the merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications in 2005.After that deal closed, the new company set up its corporate headquarters in Reston, Virginia, which had been the home of Nextel, and established an operational base in Sprint&#39;s home of Overland Park, Kansas. Now it will have just one main office, in Overland Park.The move was widely anticipated as a new CEO, Dan Hesse, took over the troubled operator. Consolidating the networks and corporate cultures of Sprint and Nextel has proved harder than merging them financially, and it has weighed down a company that has enough problems already, according to industry analysts. Sprint is losing subscribers and struggling to distinguish itself as the number-three player in the U.S. behind AT&amp;T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. It is close to a limited launch of its WiMax mobile broadband network but is unlikely to reach its WiMax coverage goal by the end of this year, an executive said Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.Since Hesse took the helm in December, the company&#39;s top financial, marketing and sales executives have left, and it has announced plans to lay off 4,000 employees.Consolidating management in Overland Park will cut travel costs, bring executives closer to the company&#39;s operations and make better use of Sprint&#39;s real estate assets, according to a company statement. The move will require relocation of only a small number of executives, and Sprint will continue to have &quot;a very significant employee presence in Reston,&quot; the company said. Sprint has about 4,400 employees in the Washington, D.C., region and about 13,300 in the Kansas City, Missouri, area, where Overland Park is located.Sprint traces its roots to the Brown Telephone Co., founded in Abilene, Kansas, in 1899, according to the company&#39;s Web site.
727835
(InfoWorld) - After testing the waters with consumers for more than a year, BT Group plans to extend its converged fixed-mobile communications service to businesses early next year. The move follows a successful field test with a government organization. BT Corporate Fusion, announced Thursday, combines Wi-Fi and mobile phone service for voice calls, using VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) technology when calls are made over a wireless network to lower phone costs. The service will be rolled out initially in the U.K. and Italy early next year, with Germany, France, Spain, and the Benelux countries to follow. The operator plans to announce handset deals in the coming weeks. The new service works like this: Calls made from dual-mode Wi-Fi-GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phones within an office building are connected through Wi-Fi access points and routed over existing fixed-line infrastructure. Using VOIP technology to route those calls saves money. Outside corporate premises, the dual-mode phone operates like a mobile phone, providing ubiquitous coverage and global roaming. These calls, however, are more expensive because they are carried over mobile phone networks. The Leeds City Council has been testing the new converged service at two locations. Several operators, including Deutsche Telekom and the Danish subsidiary of Sweden's TeliaSonera, have launchedÂ new converged fixed-mobile servicesÂ but these offerings areÂ targeted at consumers, largely in a move to keep customers from abandoning traditional fixed-line telephone service. On Thursday, BT also said the group expects to more than double revenue from networking services for enterprises in the U.S., Japan, China, and India. The company did not pen a number to its predication.
588110
Vodafone's CEO said that the Internet is the future for mobile, and he called on the industry to cooperate in selecting technology to further develop the market.
5045
Deutsche Telekom  plans to keep on cutting jobs and may consider small investments in emerging markets, its chief executive said in extracts of a newspaper interview released on Sunday.
403678
Their merger will make them No. 3 -- no threat to Cingular and Verizon Wireless, but a worry for smaller outfits like T-Mobile. Faced with growing pressure to upgrade their networks and compete with larger
241285
Here are answers to some questions arising from the closing of Cingular Wireless&#39; acquisition of AT&amp;T Wireless. Q: With the merger, how will the combined company rank in the industry?
452136
CEO James Balsillie doesn't seem too worried about the long term effects from the company's recent 3-hour outage this week.
465382
(InfoWorld) - EarthLink's announcement that it will lay off 900 people is a blow to broadband competition, but some industry followers say it doesn't signal the end of municipal Wi-Fi. While EarthLink's statement about the job cuts doesn't include a single mention of Wi-Fi, the company's municipal Wi-Fi business is likely to be hit hard. A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made on Tuesday says the position of president of municipal networks is being eliminated and Don Berryman, who held the position, is one of the employees being let go. At the end of June, EarthLink had just over 2,000 employees. In addition, EarthLink has been reining in its municipal efforts since earlier this year. Most recently, in July, the company saidÂ it would not take on any new municipal Wi-Fi projectsÂ until it's confident of a reasonable return. EarthLink's woes could eliminate the potential for new competition in the broadband industry. "What you won't see any more is a new entrant in the telecom business coming in like EarthLink did and trying to build green-field networks and compete against the incumbent to build a third pipe to the consumer," said Ron Sege, CEO of Tropos Networks, the vendor that supplies EarthLink with Wi-Fi network equipment. Instead, he suspects that existing operators will build Wi-Fi networks as an extension of their DSLÂ offerings and that cities may build the networks in order to use them for public safety applications or meter reading. EarthLink's troubles point to a couple of problems with many of the municipal Wi-Fi business plans, said Phil Solis, an analyst at ABI Research. "The whole premise of doing municipal Wi-Fi was that it would be extremely low cost," he said. "But the low-cost assumptions were built on having 30 or 40 Wi-Fi [access points] per square mile." In practice, operators found they might need as many as 100, which changed the economics, he said. In addition, some operators assumed that the municipalities would use the networks, but in some cases that didn't happen. Some newer contracts are requiring municipalities to commit to a certain level of business, guaranteeing the operators some revenue, he said. Solis called EarthLink's restructuring a "reality check." Operators and cities are better off considering Wi-Fi, WiMax, and cellular, depending on the application, he said. Wi-Fi can still work in dense areas and will work even better when 802.11n, a faster Wi-Fi standard, becomes widely used, he said. Given more time, EarthLink might have succeeded, Sege said. Gary Betty, EarthLink's former president and CEO, started the municipal Wi-Fi business at the company. But Betty suddenly died in early January, leaving no one to "carry the flag" for municipal Wi-Fi, Sege said. He suspects that Betty may have had a long-term growth plan that would have seen the networks start to pay off in around five years. New President and CEO Rolla Huff hopes for a quicker payoff, he said. EarthLink, which has scheduled a conference call for Wednesday to further discuss the restructuring, has not said what it plans to do with the Wi-Fi networks it has already built. It operates networks in Anaheim, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Milpitas, California; New Orleans, and Philadelphia. It could continue to operate them or consider selling them to Clearwire or Sprint Nextel, companies that are just beginning to build WiMax networks. EarthLink's customers and access to city infrastructure for hanging network equipment could be valuable to them, Sege said. News of the restructuring could cloud the municipal Wi-Fi initiative in San Francisco, where city officials early this year finished negotiating a contract with EarthLink. The network still needs approval by the city's Board of Supervisors. A committee is scheduled to vote next week whether to send the contract on to the full board for approval. Opponents have used EarthLink's financial woes to raise question the viability of the plan. In its statement, EarthLink said it expects subscriber additions to slow down in 2008. At the end of June, EarthLink had more than three million dial-up and 1.1 million broadband subscribers. In addition to offering wired and wireless Internet service, EarthLink is also part owner of Helio, a struggling mobile virtual network operator. (Stephen Lawson in San Francisco contributed to this story).
679971
In todayâs Wall Street Journal is the news [paid subscription req.] that Sprint and Nextel are moving forward with the planned merger, despite a possible threat from #2 wireless carrier Verizon Wireless.
75159
Mere weeks after the closing of a massive $41 billion merger of Cingular Wireless (owned jointly by SBC Communications and BellSouth) and rival AT&amp;T Wireless, the wireless industry is hot with rumors of the next major deal.
346377
Rumors are swirling that the next massive wireless merger is in the works.
490210
Now that the purchase of AT&amp;T Wireless is complete, Cingular Wireless' new status as the nation's biggest cell phone provider may prove fleeting if the merged company doesn't move quickly.
729027
Although the Unwired, Austar and Soul alliance failed to secure the Federal Government Broadband Connect grant, Unwired CEO, David Spence, believes its ownership of WiMAX spectrum will place the wireless carrier in a winning position.
310781
The two vendors are reportedly in talks to combine their wireless infrastructure units.
528685
Research In Motion expects to start selling a BlackBerry with both cellular and Wi-Fi wireless capabilities, the company&#8217;s CEO said Wednesday.
240557
Telecom company BCE Inc.  said on Wednesday it is discussing with telecom company Telus Corp.  the possibility of combining the two companies.