Microsoft plans to pass wireless auction: CEO
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Microsoft Corp  said on Tuesday it will not participate in an upcoming U.S. mobile phone airwave auction despite speculation that Web rival Google Inc  will bid at least $4.6 billion on the wireless spectrum.
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A Google Inc.  executive said on Tuesday that the company had heard the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will propose the winner of a coming auction of valuable wireless airwaves be required to provide an "open platform" to consumers and rivals.
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates speaks Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004 at Microsoft Corp.&#39;s annual shareholders meeting in Bellevue, Wash.
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(InfoWorld) - Wireless carriers planning to offer next-generation wireless services have bid $13.9 billion in a spectrum license auction that ended Monday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said. The FCC sold 1,087 of 1,122 available licenses to 104 companies in its first auction of so-called advanced wireless service spectrum, often called third-generation or 3G wireless. The licenses can be used to offer several services, including voice, data and video, the FCC said. The bidders with the fiveÂ highest winning bidsÂ were T-Mobile License, Verizon Wireless, SpectrumCo, MetroPCS, and Cingular, the FCC said. The unsold licenses remain held by the FCC and will be made available again in a future auction. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, in a statement, called the auction "the biggest most, successful auction" in FCC history. It was the largest auction of wireless broadband in a single FCC auction, Martin said. "Although we cannot envision our lives without access to the Internet, I believe we are only beginning to imagine the way mobile broadband networks will impact our lives -- changing the business and entertainment possibilities available to consumers," Martin added. The auction made available "raw material" needed for next-generation wireless broadband, said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst. "The remaining question is, what will these companies do with this spectrum?" he said in an e-mail. "What new services or new competitors will we see using this spectrum? We will have to stay tuned to see what hatches from this auction."
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Bill Gates is about to announce a new step in Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) home-entertainment strategy.
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Microsoft's CEO shares his big plans in mobile software, and why he thinks the iPhone is "quite nice."
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Google Inc. on Friday said it will bid at least $4.6 billion for wireless airwaves being auctioned off by the federal government &#151; if certain conditions are met.
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A venture led by Microsoft Corp  co-founder Paul Allen has applied to bid in an upcoming U.S. auction of coveted wireless airwaves, according to auction documents released late on Tuesday.
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InfoWorld - Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, has endorsed a wireless spectrum auction proposal from Frontline Wireless, saying its plan represents the best chance for U.S. public safety agencies to get a much-needed interoperable communications system.
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(InfoWorld) - In an effort to show wide support for its newest Windows Mobile operating system, Microsoft is highlighting several announcements from handset makers on Monday at 3GSM in Barcelona. Device manufacturers including Toshiba and LG Electronics are announcing plans to offer phones based onÂ the new Windows Mobile 6.0. Some operators are also allowing customers to upgrade from the previous Windows Mobile software. T-Mobile USA Inc., for example, plans to announce on Monday that it will offer an upgrade to the new operating system to customers who are using the HTC device running Windows Mobile 5.0 Most of the phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 will become available in March or April. Analysts and competitors have criticized the Windows Mobile platform for being available on a smaller range of phones than other operating systems, specifically Nokia's Symbian S60. But Microsoft argues that it is offering the best choice to users. "We are now promoting 140 different form factors from 48 device makers," said Marianne Roling, director of mobile embedded devices for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Microsoft. "We're seeing lots of traction." British Telecommunications PLC (BT) said Monday that it is taking advantage of Windows Mobile 6.0's built-in VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) capabilities by selling a Hewlett-Packard device running the software to customers of its converged Fusion service. TheÂ HP iPaq 514Â running Windows Mobile 6.0 will be offered to business users of the service, which lets customers make low-cost VOIP-over-Wi-Fi calls as well as standard mobile calls. Users can roam between the two networks without dropping calls. Windows Mobile 6.0 includes support for wireless VOIP but users need to subscribe to a service like BT's Fusion in order to seamlessly move between the networks, Roling said. Microsoft also plans to announce on Monday that The Carphone Warehouse Group will offer a hosted mobile e-mail service to small and medium-size businesses based on a hosted server product from Microsoft. End users, who may use Windows Mobile 6.0 phones, will pay a monthly fee for the service.
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A Google Inc.  executive  said on Tuesday that the company had heard the chairman of the  U.S. Federal Communications Commission will propose the winner  of a coming auction of valuable wireless airwaves be required  to provide an &quot;open platform&quot; to consumers and rivals.
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The search giant said it was interested in a share of wireless spectrum being auctioned off by the federal government â if certain conditions are met.
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Microsoft on announced it has inked a pact to put mobile versions of its Windows Live services onto handsets made by one of its chief competitors.
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The Internet service provider is hoping to find a buyer for its drastically scaled back--and doomed?--municipal Wi-Fi business, the CEO announces.
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Microsoft Corp  said on Tuesday  it will not participate in an upcoming U.S. mobile phone  airwave auction despite speculation that Web rival Google Inc   will bid at least $4.6 billion on the wireless  spectrum.
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Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, has endorsed a wireless spectrum auction proposal from Frontline Wireless, saying its plan represents the best chance for U.S. public safety agencies to get a much-needed interoperable communications system.
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(InfoWorld) - Sprint Nextel's ambitious Xohm WiMax vision will be based on a radical change in the way users pay for the service compared with cellular plans. Users will sign up for wireless broadband for a day, a month, or a year without a contract tied to a specific device. Payment could be made via a credit card wirelessly. The pricing approach, described in broad strokes by Sprint chief technology officer Barry West Wednesday at WiMax World in Chicago, will be designed on the principle of "affordable" broadband and "around the needs of the individual," he said in an interview. That approach breaks down the concept now seen with cellular plans, in which users typically buy a two-year contract in part to subsidize the cost of a single mobile device that a user is locked into using. A Sprint spokesman explained that the proposed pricing will rely on subscriptions, but not contracts in the sense associated with typical cellular contracts. And the longer the subscription a customer buys, the cheaper the service will be, he said. West said Sprint will announce pricing early next year, but also said it will probably be based on tiers of service. The cost of devices, such as laptop cards able to transmit mobile WiMax, will approximate the cost of a 3G broadband laptop card today, he said. In response to a question from an audience member, West also said that Xohm will not be backed by what the industry calls service-level agreements, a kind of guarantee that a minimum bandwidth will be provided or the customer receives a refund. "We will give you a good experience, but not SLAs," West said. Several Sprint executives have described Xohm WiMax speeds that are expected to be 2Mbps to 4Mbps, although the technology is capable of 10Mbps. At a demonstration onboard a moving tour boat on the Chicago River Tuesday night using Motorola gear, mobile WiMax shared across 12 laptops and cell phones was clocked at 2.5Mbps downward. West noted that the demonstration was across only one channel, and that Sprint will be able to offer many channels to handle users at a single antenna site, offering plenty of bandwidth for many users. West, who calls himself a technology "pragmatist," said he does not envision any hidden technology bugaboos in the nationwide rollout of Xohm planned for next year. In the next three years, he has predicted 50 million devices, such as laptops and mobile phones, will be WiMax-certified. Getting the certification process for interoperability in order will be difficult, but he said that even if there are 100,000 different devices, it is conceivable all of them could be served from only 10 different chip sets. "That's not unmanageable," he said. By contrast, West said Xohm's biggest challenge will be servicing the needs of 210 million Internet users in the United States alone, and meeting their demands for access, applications, and services. In his keynote, West said some critics have already begun to question whether West's predictions for Xohm's growth are too ambitious. He said commercial rollouts are still on schedule for the second quarter of 2008, and work has begun on 10,000 base stations nationally, with 20,000 WiMax antennas. The initial rollout in Chicago and Baltimore/Washington in December is "pretty much on target," he added. As for competition, West said he doesn't see Verizon Wireless or AT&T.