July 16 - 4:25pm EDT   Aircell, which will offer Wi-Fi access on airplanes while in flight via its Gogo service, today announced it would base its second generation of the service on the 4G Long Term Evolution data network. When the service goes live later on this year, it will use CDMA EVDO Rev A for data transfer during flights, topping out at more than 12 Mbps. By the end of 2009, Aircell plans to up that number to 22.7 Mbps with advances in its current technology. When the company incorporates the 4G LTE network in 2011, throughput speeds will jump to 300 Mbps, Aircell promises. [full story]

July 9 - 3:05pm EDT   Although fourth-generation (4G) cellular wireless still has yet to hold its own, the South Korean government is already developing 5G access that may be ready soon after 4G services go live, the country's officials say (registration required). The country hopes to invest money equal to $58.4 million over the next three years into both advancing 4G access and to starting work on 5G at the same time. Doing so is said to hopefully make the Asian country the top-ranked cellphone producer in the world by setting a 4G standard and becoming the primary source of 4G on the planet. [full story]

June 19 - 2:40pm EDT   Sprint's next wave of cities to receive its Xohm WiMAX service after Baltimore will focus primarily on Texas and the northeast, the carrier is telling interested customers. In addition to extra launches planned for Chicago and Washington DC, the 4G service should be available in Boston, Philadelphia, and Providence in the New England area as well as its first southern effort in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. [full story]

June 18 - 4:10pm EDT   Sprint's long-delayed full rollout of its Xohm WiMAX Internet service should start in September, company chief technical officer Barry West said Wednesday at the WiMAX Forum's Global Congress event. The executive now claims that the 4G-class wireless network will start its normal, paid business in September with a first run in Baltimore; Chicago and Washington DC, which have also participated in early trials, will see their networks opened to the public sometime in the fall. Other cities should come soon after, West says. [full story]

June 12 - 4:40pm EDT   NXP Semiconductors today announced it's set to launch the world's first 4G mobile modem, called the Nexperia Cellular System Solution PNX6910. The modem uses soft architecture to achieve claimed download speeds of 150Mbps and 50Mbps upload speeds. When it launches, it will be capable of supporting the LTE, HSPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS and GSM networks in mobile data devices, says NXP. [full story]

June 10 - 2:10pm EDT   Apple's decision to allow subsidized prices for the iPhone 3G is an admission that it needs to follow the traditional cellphone provider model, Verizon's chief operating officer Denny Strigl claimed at the second day of the Deutsche Bank Conference. The executive downplays the impact of the new cellphone on his own company and contends that Apple and AT&T are simply learning to accept a conventional practice that discounts the phone's up-front price rather than insist on splitting monthly phone revenues. [full story]

June 5 - 10:35am EDT   Quickly following up on earlier confirmations by its partner Vodafone, Verizon on Thursday said it would buy out Alltel in a cash merger with a total value of about $28.1 billion. The deal is mutually agreed upon and should see the union take place by the end of the year following approvals from the US government; Alltel chief Scott Ford will continue to run Alltel until the deal is completed. [full story]

June 4 - 4:30pm EDT   The American cellular industry may consolidate once again with a potential Verizon buyout of Alltel, CNBC claims. Referring to anonymous sources said to be aware of the deal, the TV news network asserts that Verizon would pay as much as eight times Alltel's pre-interest, pre-tax earnings, or $27 billion, for the acquisition. The deal would be a friendly takeover as Goldman Sachs and TPG, the financial institutions that took Alltel into private holding just last year, are eager to turn a premium no matter how small. [full story]

May 15 - 2:05pm EDT   Alltel will use Long Term Evolution (LTE) for its next-generation phone network, according to statements made during a conference call discussing the provider's latest financial results. Company chief Scott Ford explained that the technology is Alltel's pick and that LTE will have a "significant" installed base for the company's cellular network within the next three to five years. Ford doesn't say when Alltel will start its rollout, but notes that there is no short-term budget and that nothing will be underway until at least 2009. [full story]

May 14 - 8:45am EDT   AT&T's cellular Internet access will be more than five times faster in 2009 than it is this year, the company's mobility chief Ralph de la Vega said today at Morgan Stanley's annual Communications Conference. The executive says that the company's HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) network will be improved from the theoretical peak downloads of 3.6 megabits per second common across most of the network today to about 20 megabits per second in 2009. [full story]

April 3 - 10:35pm EDT   Verizon will use its recent 700MHz wins to setup a nationwide 4G cellular network, the company declared tonight. A lift of the FCC's ban on discussing the 700MHz auction results reveals that the telecoms firm will introduce a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network on its share of the frequency, providing much faster Internet access than the carrier's existing 3G, EVDO Revision A-based network. [full story]

April 3 - 10:25pm EDT   AT&T today held a conference call regarding its acquisitions in the 700MHz spectrum, and confirmed that it will use the Long Term Evolution system for its upcoming 4G telecommunications infrastructure. Representatives during the call told MacNN its B-block acquisitions of the 700MHz spectrum would allow it to cover 87 percent of the US populace with its 4G architecture, and would give it finer control over its network and applications. Since it is a closed system, it allows AT&T to enable or restrict certain devices. [full story]

March 26 - 12:50pm EDT   Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has managed downlink speeds of up to 250Mbps in field testing of LTE (Long Term Evolution), a company announcement claims. LTE, often dubbed 4G broadband, is expected to eventually replace the current worldwide 3G standards, HSDPA and HSUPA. LTE should allow individual cellphone users to reach download speeds of up to 20Mbps; this at least two and a half times faster than the fastest 3 and 3.5G deployments, still used in a minority of public networks. Most 3G connections are over five times slower. [full story]

March 20 - 3:20pm EDT   Verizon was the winner of the nationwide license for the crucial 700MHz wireless auction as well as most regional licenses, the FCC has revealed. An initial list of winners shows the telecoms giant to have successfully won both the national license as well as 11 out of 12 of the local licenses available for the "C" block that is likely to be used for wireless data. The licenses supply the company with coverage across all of the US and would allow it to launch any future service with few gaps in its network. Only AT&T Mobility has managed to win a major regional "C" block bid for coverage in the Mississippi Valley, according to government documents. [full story]

March 20 - 12:00pm EDT   Sprint intends to be one of the first carriers in the US to offer a truly unified cellular network based on the same structure as the Internet, the company's core technology VP Ben Vos said at a conference today. The provider hopes to break from the conventional use of old and new technologies at different stages of the network and will use an IP (Internet Protocol) network for its entire backbone as well as its multimedia systems. The switch will let all of Sprint's devices share a common platform and let them talk to each other the same way: programmers could write a program that works properly on Sprint's upcoming Xohm WiMAX network that behaves the same way on ... [full story]