T-Mobile to Spend $2.7 Billion to Offer Advanced Services
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The move will allow customers to have access to video and other advanced services on their cellphones.
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(InfoWorld) - Expanding its U.S. turf, T-Mobile USA announced Monday that it will buy SunCom Wireless Holdings for $2.4 billion in cash and assumed debt. T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, will make a cash payment of about $1.6 billion for SunCom, which operates wireless networks in the southeastern U.S. and Caribbean. The acquisition will improve T-Mobile's network coverage in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, T-Mobile said in a news release. SunCom has provided roaming service to T-Mobile in these areas since 2004. It operates a network that includes GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution). T-Mobile expects to fully integrate SunCom's network into its own, the company said in a news release. T-Mobile, the fourth largest wireless carrier in the U.S., has had limited coverage in parts of the southeastern U.S. The SunCom acquisition allows T-Mobile to continue its strategy to "grow abroad with mobile," RenÃ© Obermann, chairman of Deutsche Telekom's board, said in a statement. The acquisition is subject to governmental and regulatory approvals as well as approval by SunCom shareholders. The companies expect the deal to close in the first half of 2008. At the end of the second quarter of 2007, SunCom had more than 1.1 million customers, up by more than 105,000 customers from a year earlier. Its revenue for the quarter was $242.5 million, up from $206.7 million a year earlier. The agreement, approved by the boards of both companies, will give holders of SunCom common stock $27 per share in cash. The $27 per share purchase price represents a premium of 22.7 percent over the closing price of SunCom common stock on the New York Stock Exchange Friday.
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Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday launched a new $7.95-a-month messaging and call-forwarding service that lets people get many of the benefits of advanced
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Depending where you're roaming T-Mobile has cut by more than half charges for business customers who transmit data over its mobile networks in countries where it operates its own network.â¦
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T-Mobile USA added nearly a million cell-phone subscribers in the fourth quarter, but full-year results fell short of its parent company's target.
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Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's leading telecom operator, says it plans to invest 8-10 billion dollars (244-305 million US) in its third-generation (3G) mobile phone business over the next two to three years.
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$2.7bn here, $4.2bn there - it starts adding up T-Mobile USA, America's smallest cellco, is to splashing $2.7bn on a 3G network build-out. Until last month, the German-owned firm was constrained by a severe shortage of wireless spectrum - meaning crap reception in many areas and more network busy signals than its rivals.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - T-Mobile USA planned to launch its converged Wi-Fi and cellular service nationwide Wednesday, following theÂ introduction of the serviceÂ late last year in Seattle. The service lets users of a special mobile phone make calls over Wi-Fi from their homes as well as T-Mobile hotspots. Users can also make regular cell phone calls when out of range of a hotspot. Calls hand off between the two networks if a user moves from their home, for example, beyond the range of their Wi-Fi network. T-Mobile has been working on this service for around four years, said Mike Selman, T-Mobile director of marketing. The company began the project after asking customers what would make them give up their landline phones and rely only on their mobile. The answer they most commonly gave was that the phone had to work better in their home, he said. Because cellular networks often don't work as well indoors as outside, T-Mobile is using Wi-Fi to provide better service to customers in their homes. For now, customers can choose from a Nokia or Samsung phone. Each costs $50 with a two-year contract. Customers can use any access point, but T-Mobile encourages them to use either the D-Link or Linksys routers it offers. The access points, which are free after a mail-in rebate, come loaded with software that gives voice calls priority, helping ensure better quality. T-Mobile customers must have a cellular plan of $39.99 or more in order to sign up, and then must pay an additional $19.99 per month for unlimited local and long-distance calls from the hotspots. A family plan that includes up to five lines costs $29.99 per month. T-Mobile is also offering an introductory rate that doesn't expire. Customers who sign up while the offer is valid will pay $9.99 for one line and $19.99 for up to five. Users can also opt to have their Wi-Fi minutes count the same as their cellular minutes under a regular plan, and not pay the additional monthly fee. If a cellular and Wi-Fi network are both in range, the phones default to the lower-cost Wi-Fi network. Also, when users move from one network to the next, the call is billed based on which network started the call. For example, if a user begins a call on the cellular network and then walks into their home, even if the call is transferred to the Wi-Fi network, the entire call will count against their cellular voice plan. Users can make phone calls from any of T-Mobile's 8,500 hotspots across the country, located in Starbucks coffee shops and other locations. The phone automatically connects and authenticates at the T-Mobile hotspots. In many cases, customers can also use other hotspots. If the hotspot has no security, a user can connect to it and make calls. However, if a hotspot employs a browser redirect page that requires a user to agree to terms, the user won't be able to connect. That's because the available phones can't display HTML Web pages. Users can also type in a password to connect to a secured Wi-Fi network. Thomas Hagan, a T-Mobile customer in Midway, Georgia, who tried the service for four weeks, said he had no trouble using the phone in hotels, a local bookstore and his corporate Wi-Fi network. He found it very easy to set up the router in his home and connect to the phone to it. Overall, he was impressed with the call quality over the Wi-Fi network and didn't have any problems with calls dropping when transferred between the cellular and Wi-Fi networks. "The phone was a little larger than my existing phone, so that took a little getting used to," Hagan said, although he added that he ultimately took to the phone. Customers can only choose from two devices and they're both low-end flip phones with limited functionality. T-Mobile relies on technology called Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) to offer the service. On June 18, Cincinnati BellÂ launched a similar UMA service in its region. Operators including OrangeÂ in Europe have also launched the converged services.
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T-Mobile USA, the U.S. wireless unit  of Deutsche Telekom AG DTEGn.DE, does not expect to offer  broadband mobile data services for at least the next two years,  its chief executive said on Thursday.
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Large U.S. businesses will spend $61 billion on security by the end of this year, amounting to 7.3 percent of total IT budgets.
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK - Sprint will invest more than $2 billion to upgrade its wireless PCS network, and $1 billion of that will go to Nortel.
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Mobile multimedia content will get its own nationwide network in the United States by 2006 if an $800 million project by Qualcomm goes according to plan.
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This move, and other cost-cutting measures, are expected to save the company $700 million to $800 million a year, the company said.
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(InfoWorld) - T-Mobile USA Inc. came out the biggest spender in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's Advanced Wireless Services spectrum auction, which ended Monday. Participants bid a total of nearly US$13.9 billion on 1,087 licenses to offer 3G (third-generation) mobile services in areas across the U.S. The auction began Aug. 9 and went on for 161 rounds. The radio frequencies could be used for services including data, voice and video on mobile devices. The auction is the first of two that should roughly double the amount of radio spectrum available in the U.S. for mobile services. The FCC is also preparing to auction frequencies around 700 MHz that have been used for TV broadcasts. Moving those to mobile use could take years. T-Mobile is playing catch-up against bigger carriers in introducing 3G services. Its bidding company, T-Mobile License LLC, had the winning bids on 120 licenses and will pay almost $4.2 billion for its spectrum. All told, the licenses it won could reach almost 475 million people, a number greater than the U.S. population. There was a wide variety of licenses up for auction, ranging from local to regional coverage. The five biggest bidders, led by T-Mobile, represented the country's biggest cellular companies. Cellco Partnership, representing Verizon Wireless Inc., came in second place with $2.8 billion in bids for 13 licenses. SpectrumCo LLC, representing Sprint Nextel Corp. and cable partners, bid almost $2.4 billion for 137 licenses and Metro PCS AWS LLC bid almost $1.4 billion for eight licenses. Cingular Wireless LLC, represented by Cingular AWS LLC, came in fifth with bids of more than $1.3 billion for 48 licenses. Overall, more than half of the 104 winning bidders that participated were certified as small businesses, according to the FCC. The agency put 1,122 licenses up for auction. The unsold licenses will be made available again in a future auction. The winners need to make down payments within ten days after the FCC puts out a public notice on the close of the auction. In the same time period, they have to submit long-form applications for the licenses.
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Plans to boost defence spending by Â£2.7bn over three years are announced by the Tories.
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Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile phone arm, T-Mobile, said Thursday it would likely shed 2,200 jobs &#151; about 10 percent of its work force &#151; in order to save &#36;195 million over the next two years. It said the cuts will be in Europe.
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InfoWorld - T-Mobile USA planned to launch its converged Wi-Fi and cellular service nationwide Wednesday, following the&#160;introduction of the service&#160;late last year in Seattle.