Telecompetitor

The FCC will review mobile phone exclusivity contracts, best illustrated by Apple’s iPhone and Palm’s Pre. Incoming FCC Chair Julius Genachowski confirmed he will instruct the FCC to do so. Genachowski was approved by the Senate Commerce committee this week. The full Senate still needs to confirm him, but that’s expected to be just a formality. It’s unclear what such a review will actually accomplish. ...

Open Range Communications, a Colorado based rural wireless network operator, has signed a five year agreement with Alvarion for WiMAX equipment that could reach $100 million. The deal provides the equipment necessary to build Open Range’s broadband wireless network, which spans 546 rural markets, across 17 states, covering 6 million people. Open Range secured funding through the RUS Broadband Loan program ...

Google launched Google Voice (GV) earlier this year, which was a reincarnated voice app developed by Grand Central. GV is basically a unified communications application for consumers (more likely prosumers). You can create all kinds of rules around your Google Voice telephone number including simultaneous ring, hunt groups, and unified messaging. Google adds unique twists to the product, including voicemail transcripts and in-call transfers. One down side ...

Sprint is selling its iDEN network in several mid-western states. The move comes from a lawsuit from iPCS, a Sprint affiliate that has shown its displeasure with various Sprint initiatives, including the Clearwire venture. The markets in question include portions of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska. Sprint has until January 2010 to sell the assets, which they say will have minimal impact on ...

Let the hunt begin. Comcast has begun a campaign of targeting current Verizon customers who will transition over to Frontier, assuming the recent Frontier-Verizon deal is approved. In a letter obtained by Telecompetitor, Comcast’s northwestern region is citing the Frontier acquisition of Verizon territory in Washington and Oregon as reason to switch to Comcast. “Recently it was announced that Verizon ...

Sprint announced the wholesale availability of its femtocell solution to its partners, including cable companies. The arrangement will allow Sprint partners to offer branded CDMA based femtocell service to subscribers. Sprint has been offering the Samsung Airave femtocell to its retail customers for nearly a year. A Sprint CDMA femtocell creates an ‘indoor cell tower’ that uses a customer’s broadband ...

Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN), a Salem, Massachusetts based telecom holding company, is purchasing the remaining divested Alltel assets from Verizon. The purchase for $200 million includes approximately 800k subscribers and the wireless network and spectrum assets covering 26 markets in Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. The new ATN/Alltel footprint covers 4.5 million POPs. Verizon was required to divest the assets as ...