mobile broadband, mobile payments/banking, and others. At the same time the operators are rolling out national fibre backbone networks to support the ever increasing demand for bandwidth. At least two operators are rolling out fourth generation (4G) LTE ...

Sprint on Wednesday introduced the HTC Evo 4G LTE smartphone, adding a new phone to a stable of devices that will be compatible with the carrier's high-speed network when it launches soon in the U.S.

In the context of mobile payments, the rollout of Google Wallet might easily be viewed as being as critical to the industry as Google itself has been to the Internet search engine. But not unlike the Internet search engine, there’s not just one name in the game and with a competitive marketplace emerging even before widespread user adoption, it will be an interesting if not exciting game to watch.

A joint venture between AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile, Isis is currently Google Wallet’s only visible mobile wallet competitor. Although it has been around since 2010, Isis has until recently maintained a relatively low profile compared to Google which announced its plans almost a year afterward.

Companies in today's briefs include: AT&T, Sony, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, VeriFone, Ingenico, ViVOtech, Equinox Payments, Isis, MetroPCS, LG, Verizon Wireless, Z Wireless, T2 Wireless.

Every industry needs a killer app. For electricity, it was the lightbulb. For the Internet, it was e-mail. But what will be the killer app for near field communication (NFC)? That was the topic addressed by Osama Bedier, VP of payments at Google, during his keynote at 4G World 2011’s NFC Forum.  The answer may just be payments, he said, but it won’t be payments alone. Bedier took issue with the current state of NFC affairs in which players are releasing competing initiatives (like Google Wallet vs. the carrier-run Isis) and squabbling over arcane technology issues like the best place for the secure element (be it on a chip, SIM card, etc.). Only if the industry can collaborate enough to ensure that mobile payments—together with mobile shopping, coupons, loyalty programs, and more—deliver consumers what he terms “magical experiences” will NFC truly take off and see success. “Magical moments are the ones that save consumers time and money,” Bedier said, and what NFC has going for it is the magical ability for users to simply tap their device to another device (or poster, or object) and receive an instance response and an instant connection. “The number of devices will reach tens of billions, and every one of those devices will connect to the Internet,” he said. “There is no better technology to connect these devices today than NFC.” He said that Google, with Wallet, is dedicated to showcasing the best experiences it can but is also trying to foster the kind of openness that will let the ecosystem leverage all aspects of NFC. “We want to learn, iterate and eventually help stitch the experiences together to create something truly magical.” If that means that merchants and consumers use Wallet to exchange information among themselves—and use Google ...

Apple Offers Unlocked Versions of All Its iPhonesCIO TodayNow, that it is has finally been introduced, he's speculating that the iPhone 5 may have been delayed to wait for maturation of two evolving technologies, high-speed 4G long-term evolution (LTE ) networks and near-field communication (NFC), ...and more »

By Kate Mitchell, Sr. Marketing Director, 4G World 2011 4G World and Connected Planet have announced the finalists in the Best of 4G Awards. The awards recognize leaders in the development and deployment of 4G technologies and are presented as part of the 4G World 2011 Conference and Expo, happening Oct. 24-27 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill.  4G World is the largest event in the world covering the entire ecosystem of next-generation technologies and business models that power the mobile Internet industry and economy. This year marks the third annual Best of 4G Awards. Winners in each category will be announced Monday, Oct. 24, at the 4G World VIP Press Party. “Nominees for this year’s awards included some of the biggest names and best products in the 4G mobile and wireless ecosystem,” said Rich Karpinski, editor-in-chief for Connected Planet. “The quality of the submissions really challenged our world-class advisory board and judging panel to select the top winners among these great entries.”

T-Mobile USA has been the epicenter of Android since HTC rolled out the T-Mobile G1...

By 4G Trends Staff In addition to 4G World’s comprehensive program of more than 200 speakers and industry-leading keynotes, the event will also play host to several new summits offering attendees deeper exploration of hot topics: Customer Experience Summit in the world of 4G, customer experience is everything. But do your customers have the best possible experience you can deliver? Are you doing all you can to optimize this experience? Where do you begin? Are you ready to compete on experience? The focused and insightful Customer Experience Summit will allow you to: Explore the essential ingredients of the 4G customer experience, including new offers, new devices and new networks. Hear case studies from communications service providers that have made substantial improvements in their customer interactions. Participate in lively debate about the best approaches to policy and security. Examine models of customer experience definition and process that will inform your next set of crucial investments. WCAI Spectrum SummitPresident Obama, the FCC and the NTIA have all made spectrum a top priority in 2011. To expand mobile access, increase the amount of unlicensed spectrum, build a nationwide public safety network and deploy smart grid, over 500 MHz of new allocation needs to be made available. The WCAI Spectrum Summit explores associated spectrum plans and their potential impact on the industry, featuring keynotes, sessions and round tables on topics such as: Broadcast incentive auctions and a national public safety network Mobile satellite spectrum Smart grid spectrum and more! 4G Backhaul Summit The interactive and informative 4G Backhaul Summit sorts out the solutions and positions service providers to give candid feedback on their 4G backhaul technology choices and plans. How will the changes of 4G—including higher speed macro cells and the introduction of microcells—influence service providers’ backhaul solution portfolios? Dedicated tracks ...

By Nick Holland, Senior Analyst, Yankee Group Mobile payments are clearly front and center at the moment, and they are sure to become even more important as 4G networks take hold. However, it is not all opportunity. As mobile phones become capable of making payments in the physical world, criminals will inevitably follow the money.  Yankee Group surveyed 18 key stakeholders involved in the development of mobile payment security. Interviewees represented a cross section of the mobile payment landscape: mobile operators; banks; card networks; handset, SIM card and PoS device vendors; retailers; and security professionals. In our interviews, we asked respondents who they perceive to be most important in ensuring security for mobile payments, both now and in two years’ time. The results show that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Our survey results indicate that experts in the field consider the status quo unlikely to change--89 percent say banks will remain critical in mobile payment security and therefore mobile payments overall.  Credit card networks are also considered to be highly important in securing mobile payments, garnering 67 percent of responses. While their importance drops a little over two years, they remain one of the highest ranking categories as far as survey participants are concerned.  On the flipside of mobile payments are point-of-sale (PoS) and ATM vendors. Sixty-one percent of respondents consider them to be highly important in securing mobile payment transactions both now and in the future. This makes sense given that their role is in capturing payment data and transporting it securely to payment processors.  With mobile phones becoming a payment vehicle, it is likely that fraudsters will focus on the naivety of consumers and merchants. Therefore the role of app developers and app stores in monitoring code and validating apps becomes increasingly important ...

Companies in today's briefs include: Alcatel-Lucent, Foursquare, Juniper Research, FCC, Google, Fring, Sprint, ViVOtech.

Mobile network operators (MNOs) might not be enjoying the dominance they once had in the mobile ecosystem, but they remain influential and valued partners for other players. This was readily apparent at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, where MNOs rallied around three key themes: Openness, usability and innovation.   Openness The world’s leading MNOs—including AT&T, Telefónica and China Mobile—used MWC 2011 as a platform to once again call for the creation of user experiences that are agnostic to device, OS and network. Examples of advances in this direction include: HTML5 is big news. HTML5 was one of the most-used terms at the show. MNOs in particular are excited by the promise of the write-once-run-anywhere approach. WAC gets a boost. Eight major MNOs announced they are connected to the WAC platform: China Mobile, Russia’s Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Orange, Smart, Telefónica, Telenor, Verizon and Vodafone.   Usability MNOs are also attempting to boost their market influence in content and device usability. MNOs addressed discoverability and usability challenges in numerous ways, including: Orange’s Gestures. Gestures allows one-touch shortcuts to apps and features 27 designs that can be assigned to individual actions or applications, such as speed dialing or sending an SMS to a specific contact. Stroking across a Gesture symbol initiates the app or service, obviating the need to scroll or click through several menu steps. Gestures will be available in Q2 2011 on Orange Android devices that use the company’s Signature home screen. MNOs enhancing OTT. MNOs are exploring improved usability of OTT content and services. Kevin Thau, Twitter’s VP of business development, offered some support for MNOs playing a role in content delivery. MNOs and handsets vendors are already building Twitter into the fabric of devices. Twitter now has over 200 ...

Also, one analyst believes Apple will be pushing 3G-equipped iPads harder in the coming year, and, iOS 4.3 is expected to be available to end users on February 14. iLounge cites a "previously accurate source" that claims Apple is developing accessories ...

Press Release Mag (press release)BlackBerry Curve Touch and Storm 3, BlackBerry Curve Touch Appears As RIM's ...Press Release Mag (press release)A new Samsung 4G LTE smartphone currently known as the i520 is expected for Q2, as well. Then there's the Monaco Touch, which might as well be called the ...

For connecting to 3G networks, the device would have an Infineon XMM 6260 modem, while a TI WiLink 6.0 WL1271 chip would supply Wi-Fi and Bluetooth access. A Broadcom GPS chip, NPX NFC chip, Chipworks digital compass and a Toshiba I/O controller were also ...