RadioShack, Sprint in Mall Kiosk Venture
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RadioShack Corp. , the No. 3 U.S. electronics chain, on Tuesday said it has signed a deal with Sprint Corp.  to open wireless kiosks at malls nationwide.
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The wireless carrier will open showrooms in hundreds of branches of the retail chain across the United States.
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Will Blockbuster and Napster throw a holiday party at RadioShack?
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Customers of Sprint and SBC Communications will be able to use both companies&#39; wireless Internet connections with less hassle under a reciprocal deal announced Friday.
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Virtual worlds, mobile coupons and  bar-code readers on cell phones are the next technology wave  that U.S. chain stores must ride if they hope to stay  competitive in the fast-changing world of global retail.
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(InfoWorld) - The groundwork is being laid for a risky experiment in consumer electronics as manufacturers prepare for Sprint Nextel and Clearwire's Xohm WiMax service. Motorola unveiled a WiMax client chipset on Tuesday and praised Sprint's strategy of leaving WiMax clients to device makers and retailers. But that plan, a change of pace from U.S. carriers' usual practice of selling and subsidizing phones themselves, could take years to pay off in the mass market. The chipset, introduced at WiMax World USA in Chicago, is small, economical, and more power-efficient than 3G platforms, according to Gary Koerper, Motorola's vice president of platform planning and architecture. It will hit the market in client devices in the second half of 2008, with the company initially focusing on building WiMax phones that carry its own brand, he said. The devices will be offered for various WiMax services around the world, including Xohm. With Xohm, Motorola will have free rein to make whatever kind of device it wants as long as it's certified to work on the carrier's network, Koerper said. Motorola calls that great news, but some observers see a hard road ahead with device makers or carriers pushing an alternative to carrier-subsidized phones. "The model Sprint is pursuing is really taking the shackles off Motorola innovation and Motorola's brand," Koerper said. Typically, the world's second-largest mobile phone maker has to develop a new product and then get a carrier to buy in on it. With WiMax devices designed to work with Xohm, Motorola can look straight to the consumer and build what they want. This could make it easier for Motorola to compete with Apple's hot iPhone, he said. Apple's product has stolen the thunder from Motorola's popular Razr line even though it commands a full, unsubsidized price. Sprint's whole WiMax initiative is a risky bid to gain an edge in the U.S. mobile market, where Sprint is in third place by subscribers. The technology promises a fat pipe to the Internet that subscribers can take with them all over a metropolitan area. Motorola said its chipset offers 10Mbps downstream and 3 to 4Mbps upstream, far faster than current 3G and comparable to a cable modem. But it will take more than fast Internet access to attract and keep paying customers, said Albert Lin, an analyst at American Technology Research. There are other ways to get fast data service, and there will be more in the future, so Sprint needs to create attractive services such as a VoIP application, high-quality video content, and easy tools for professionals to access corporate networks over VPNs, Lin said. Ease of use, support, and coverage will also be key because cellular services already have those established, he added. "You don't automatically get hundreds of thousands of early adopters," Lin said. The lack of a subsidy isn't even the biggest concern for vendors trying to sell devices for such a service, but it is a long-term problem, he said. Although down from about 95 percent a few years ago, the percentage of phones sold with subsidies in the U.S. is still 85 percent or more, according to Lin. Worldwide, about half of all cell phones are sold with subsidies, he said. As people look for more special features on their phones, they are looking outside of carriers' offerings more often, but it will be three years before the average U.S. consumer will want an unsubsidized phone, Lin predicted. Len Lauer, an executive vice president at mobile technology giant Qualcomm, was also pessimistic in an interview earlier this year. He doesn't think the mobile industry can be transformed by new strategies like Sprint's nor by the any-device, any-service band planned for the 700MHz wireless spectrum to be auctioned next year. U.S. consumers are too addicted to subsidies to buy many devices sold outside the carrier channel, said Lauer, a former Sprint executive. Motorola is pitching its chipset as competitive with 3G instead of an expensive, futuristic new technology. The cost of the chipset is already low and will keep falling to the point that Motorola could soon bring the chipset to inexpensive phones to be used primarily for voice in developing markets, Koerper said. The chipset, consisting of a baseband modem and a radio reference design, has been tested and verified with WiMax network infrastructure from Motorola and other leading vendors, the company said.
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Alcatel-Lucent and Sprint plan to sell a PC card and gateway as a remote management and security system for PCs.
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Level 3 today announced that it has purchased Sprint&#39;s wholesale dial-up Internet access business for $34 million in cash. Sprint is one of the largest providers of wholesale dial-up service to ISPs in North America.
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Xohm, which serves as Sprintâs high-speed wireless Internet division, will begin offering mobile Internet business agreements for WiMAX network access starting Tuesday.
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In cell phone speak, Sprint Nextel Corp. hit a dead spot last night in its bid to build a 106-foot cellular tower -- disguised as an agricultural silo -- near the village of Philomont in rural western Loudoun County.
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Sprint Nextel has tapped Samsung Telecommunications America to develop the mobile network infrastructure in New York City for Sprint&#39;s Xohm-branded WiMax broadband effort.
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Through a deal with rival SBC Communications Inc., Sprint Corp. will almost double the number of places subscribers can wirelessly log on to the Internet at high speeds, according to a report from the Kansas City Business Journal.
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With just a few months to go before the launch of its next-generation wireless network, Sprint Nextel Corp. has a distinctly modest lineup of compatible devices.
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Sprint (FON:NYSE - news - research) and SBC Communications (SBC:NYSE - news - research) set a plan that will give their customers access to both companies&#39; Wi-Fi Internet service hot spots.
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The two companies join forces to beat out the competition. Also:  Sprint to debut services to help companies manage cell phones issued to employees & hellip;. Netflix skating on thin ice.... and more.
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Cell phone shoppers looking for new deals and features didn&#39;t find them yesterday, a day after Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc.
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Sprint is launching a set of services designed to help businesses get a better grip on the array of wireless devices and applications that enterprises are rolling out with increased frequency.