Telephony’s latest podcast features CTIA vice president of operations and CTIA Wireless show director Rob Mesirow, who discussed his expectations for the upcoming show. Mesirow acknowledged that the recession will have an effect on attendance, though he’s not sure to what degrees. He doesn’t, however, expect the content of the show to be diminished. While travel budgets may be cut, operators are still moving forward with 3G and 4G expansion plans and new wireless data services continue to explode, he said. (more…)

Symmetricom is debuting its precision time-keeping client at CTIA Wireless, promoting it as a means for operators to convert their backhaul networks to carrier Ethernet quickly. The client, called the TimeProvider 500 Translator compliments the TimeProvider 5000 Grandmaster Clock server announced last year. The master clock synchronizes with remote clocks at the edges of the network—usually in the radio network controller–correcting any time shift in the clock signal caused by latency in the network. The re-synched signal is then passed on to the base station. (more…)

While most companies are looking towards visual voicemail to improve their long-standing voicemail interface, me2me AG, a wholly owned Swisscom venture, is entering the United States market hoping to update voicemail through making it searchable and prioritized. The company is making its U.S. debut at CTIA with a voice-enabled personal messaging and Web service. (more…)

AT&T is keeping quiet on the forthcoming launch of its CruiseCast in-vehicle satellite television service, but its partners aren’t. In advance of CTIA, RaySat, the division of RaySat Broadcasting Corporation that makes satellite antennas, and its technology partners announced their involvement with enabling the service. Synchronoss, NDS, Harmonic, ST Electronics and Hyundai Digital Technology are among the vendors involved with the production. AT&T originally set the launch date for the spring, suggesting a CTIA launch would be a reasonable expectation, but Winston Guillory, president of Raysat, said that later spring or the early summer is a more realistic target.
Here’s the story: CruiseCast prepped for commercial launch by AT&T

It looks like an MVNO, it acts like an MVNO, but Zer01’s new nationwide virtual mobile operator isn’t quite an MVNO. The key is VoIP, said CEO Ben Piilani: instead of buying wholesale minutes from network operators, Zer01 is using interconnect agreements GSM and UMTS carriers to access their wireless data pipes, over which it is delivering its IP voice service. As a result, Zer01 will be able to launch a nationwide unlimited mobile voice and data service for $70 a month. (more…)

Ever wonder how at show like CTIA Wireless dozens of vendors can run demos using the exact same spectrum without chaos ensuing? The reason is Comsearch, which for the last ten years at CTIA shows has been parceling out borrowed licenses, managing the airwaves and playing spectrum cop when the need arises. (more…)

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality, they seldom attack a human.”
It might not be a sentence that you would ever even say, but if you can text it faster than Ben Cook, holder of the text messaging speed record in the 2008 Guinness World Records, you’ll win $500. Interop Technologies, which provides wireless messaging, device management and connectivity gateways, is holding the competition at its booth, #5636, to lighten the mood for CTIA attendees this year. (more…)

More than three-fourths of United States consumers are happy with their experience downloading and listening to songs on their mobile phones and almost a third would accept advertising to get it free, according to a KPMG survey conducted for the Mobile Entertainment Forum.
KPMG’s third-annual Global Consumers and Convergence survey found that 21% of U.S. respondents and 30% of global subscribers have purchased songs at least once on their mobile phones in the past year. Compared to the MEF’s 2007 survey when only 26% were satisfied with this experience, this year a total of 84% of U.S. consumers and 66% globally were satisfied with the downloading and listening experience. Of the respondents, 29% of mobile phone users surveyed in the U.S. said they were also willing to see advertising in exchange for free songs. Globally, that number rose to 49%. (more…)

Exalt Communications today introduced its new semi-protected microwave backhaul radio, a system which backs up the main failure points of the long-haul radio without building a fully redundant radio system. Exalt estimates that its system costs half a quarter to half as much as fully redundant radio link, which would allow an operator to save millions in large microwave backhaul deployment, yet has enough failure-tolerance to give it peace of mind. (more…)

Sybase 365 and Integra5 are teaming up to turn the TV into a mobile phone—or at least a text-messaging device. The two announced today a partnership which hooks Integra5’s MediaFriends television social media platform into Sybase’s SMS interconnectivity hub, creating a solution that will allow consumer to send text messages directly to their friends’ TVs. (more…)