Motorola said it's considering spinning off its flailing mobile phone unit. The company said in its press release that is now looking into a “structural and strategic realignment” to help it recapture market share and enhance shareholder value.

Motorola has been in the dark for several quarters as it has lost market share to bigger rivals like Nokia and Samsung.

I think this is a smart thing for Motorola to do. After the success of Razr, the company is finding it come up with another phone that will repeat the glory that was Razr.

Sprint Nextel, America’s third largest wireless provider, will lay off about 4,000 employees and eliminate about 125 retail outlets after it suffered a net loss of more than 100,000 customers in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The layoffs and other cost-cutting measures are expected to save the company US$700 million to $800 million a year.

Verizon Business, a U.S.-based telecommunications giant, has secured regulatory licenses to provide long distance and international telecommunications services in India.

Verizon sees a significant potential in India’s fixed-line communications marketand believes that business services such as videoconferencing will be major drivers of growth.

AT&T Inc., has begun offering a VoIP telephone service in Detroit, Michigan, with rates as low as $20 per month. AT&T U-verse Voice is a digital voice service delivered over the AT&T U-verse Internet Protocol network.

AT&T’s digital phone service comes with a number of convenient perks, including an option for U-verse TV subscribers to view their call histories on their TV sets. Also included in the service are call forwarding, call screening, call display, and “do not disturb” and international call blocking options.

American wireless provider, Alltel, has extended its My Circle calling feature, where you can select 10 numbers from any carrier to call for free.

Alltel is now making My Circle an option for a greater percentage of its customers, adding My Circle 5 (add five friends to call whenever you like) to all plans costing $49.99/month

My Circle 20 (will allow you to add 20 friend) will be offered to customers paying at least $99.99. My Circle 10 will continue to be available with all plans priced $59.99 or higher.

Details about the My Circle service are available at AlltelCircle.com.

Vonage Holdings Corp. has settled a patent dispute with Canadian network equipment maker, Nortel Networks.

Vonage and Nortel Networks said they have agreed to end the litigation between them after the two companies reached a mutually beneficial agreement to cross license certain patents.

This settlement could mark the last of the string of patent suits against Vonage.

America’s second biggest mobile phone carrier, Verizon Wireless, is suing smaller rival, Alltel Corp., for allegedly making false statements about Verizon’s calling plans in its television advertisements.

According to the suit filed in federal court in Richmond, Verizon wrongly claims Alltel suggested that Verizon customers are required to extend their contracts when they change calling plans.The ads feature Verizon sales representatives trying to stop customers from switching to Alltel when they learn of Alltel’s supposedly more flexible contract policies.

N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, Inc. (NEW), the nation’s leading provider of extended service plans and buyer protection programs for consumer products, today announced that its Wireless division has established an agreement with Alaska Communications Systems (ACS) based in Anchorage, Alaska, to provide handset insurance to ACS’s wireless consumers.

NEW offers wireless carriers a distinctly competitive advantage in this traditionally underserved industry. The company, which has led its industry in innovation and delivery of world-class customer care solutions for more than 25 years, generated more than $2.5 billion in revenue for their clients in 2007.

Meet Samsung Solid, Samsung's first strongphone, if you can call it that, with a military IP54 rating, which means its dust, water, and shock resistant.

Features aren't its strongest forte but it more than makes up for that with a rubber body and a unique SOS feature. Pressing the volume button three times quickly will immediately send a message to a predefined number from its phonebook and the next incoming call will automatically be answered. The built-in flashlight sure sounds handy.

XE Mobile posted a message on its web site today stating that the company will cease operations and shut down entirely on December 31st. On that day, phone service will stop, and all user accounts will be canceled.

Without funding and no customer support XE Mobile had no option put to cease its operations.

Karlsruhe, Germany-based ComBOTS will connect your PC or landline phone with others around the world for free, or at least for no extra charge on top of whatever you already pay for broadband service. ComBOTS’s Web site is unclear about whether you can originate calls using your mobile, but you can certainly call other mobile numbers from your PC or landline. That said, communication options from your mobile include photo and other file transfers, chat, text messaging, and emoticons. Pro: Rich-media chat messages including audio and video. Con: Apparently can’t originate mobile calls.

Gizmo Project is an open-source VoIP softphone that enables free or minimally expensive calls worldwide. Its spinoff, SIPphone.com, is a startup offering more complex, business-oriented tools that use Gizmo’s protocols, including PSTN (public switched telephone network) gateways, voice mail and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)/PSTN network peering. Gizmo features Call In and Call Out (similar to SkypeIn and SkypeOut). typically for 1.9 cents per minute, instant messaging, and the ability to record conversations or map where caller and receiver are located. Pro: Available for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms. Con: Umm...

Google Talk comes in two flavors: a widget to use from a Google site (with Flash 8.0) and a 1.5MB download. It integrates directly with a user’s Google Personalized Homepage, and the Google Talk application automatically loads your contacts from a Gmail account, speeding setup time. Unfortunately, the Google Talk Client currently works only with Windows and BlackBerry devices, although Google promises Linux and Mac OS X versions in the future. Pro: Interfaces available in a dozen languages, including British English. Con: Google Talk does not connect with landline phones or mobiles.

iChat has many of the same features as Skype, excellent voice quality and ready integration with iSight video cameras. It is also less of a bandwidth hog than Skype. The current version, iChat AV for Mac OS X 10.4, is the next best thing to being at a conference table with your co-workers, enabling razor-sharp videoconferencing with three others or audioconferencing with nine. In October, a new version of iChat will accompany the release of OS X 10.5 and add more bells and whistles; see this demo to find out what it can do. Pro: Extremely crisp audio and video built into every Mac. Con: You need a Mac.

Jajah offers the chance to make entirely free PC-to-PC VoIP calls and a limited number of free calls to and from landline phones. You visit Jajah’s Web site, then enter your phone number and the number you want to call. Your phone rings and you answer, after which your recipient's phone rings and Jajah completes the call.

Jajah operates on an honor system that allows you about 1,000 minutes per month of free calls because other Jajah users pay to use the company’s premium services (such as business accounts, calls to non-Jajah users and some foreign calls). Go over that limit, and Jajah will ask that you purchase some premium services; if you don’t, you may be cut off (and remember, they have your phone number). Pro: Mac-friendly, with a plug-in that connects Jajah calling with the OS X Address Book, plus an Outlook plug-in that is in beta. Con: Ceiling on free calls limits usefulness for high-volume callers.

If your company has some IT experts lying around, consider WengoPhone, an open-source application being developed through OpenWengo.com. WengoPhone Classic provides voice and video over IP, while the WengoPhone NG project currently underway completely rewrites Classic to be more modular, extensible and VoIP-provider agnostic. Pro: Open-source. Con: Probably unusable by the nonprogrammer.

ooVoo lets you videoconference with up to six people at onc, and send out video messages rather than emails if your fingers are numb from typing. Although it’s currently available only for Windows users, ooVoo’s conferencing setup looks strikingly like iChat’s, and the company is now developing Mac-friendly software. ooVoo sells several compatible third-party cameras, headsets and speakerphones and runs its own servers, making a Skype-like outage less likely. Pro: Makes video-spamming friends easy. Con: Friends can spam you back.

SightSpeed emphasizes free PC-to-PC voice calling and videoconferencing, and its $4.95-per-month Pro service adds video-mail recording and multiparty videoconferencing. Available for Windows and Mac. Pro: MySightSpeed feature allows voice and videoconferencing via browser with non-SightSpeed members (although both parties require Internet Explorer 6 or higher; see demo here). Con: ooVoo does most of the same things for free.

Ontario, Canada-based Softroute Corp.’s Vbuzzer allows PC-to-PC voice VoIP-based calling, faxing and videoconferencing for free, with nominal rates for completion to landlines and mobiles worldwide (typically 1.5 cents per minute to the U.S., Canada and China and, 1.7 cents per minute to other countries). Pro: Works with relatively old computers (minimum 500 MHz chip speed). Con: Currently available only for Windows 2000 and XP.

VoipBuster provides free calls — for a price. In what may be a mistranslation from the original German, VoipBuster advertises that if you buy credits, (called “Freedays”) you can then make up to 300 minutes per week of “free” calls to landlines in three dozen countries, plus mobiles in the U.S., New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong. Go over that 300-minute limit, and you pay VoipBuster’s normal rates, which are still quite cheap at 1.2 eurocents per minute including VAT. Pro: Very cheap rates for toll calls. Con: Confusing idea of “free.”

Today MetroPCS announced that seven wireless telecommunications markets will receive EV-DO-based 3G. MetroPCS won the 3G spectrum in 2006's AWS auction. Three existing markets, Detroit, Dallas and Los Angeles, will see their service upgraded to EV-DO from 1xRTT. MetroPCS is also launching four brand new markets with 3G. They are Boston, Las Vegas, New York and Philadelphia. The EV-DO 3G network will allow MetroPCS to offer more advanced data services, including unified communications and video mail. MetroPCS did not provide a timeframe for the 3G roll-out.

Virgin Mobile USA announced that all new customers, as well as existing customers who upgrade to new handsets, will now be able to activate their phones over the air. Phones are programmed automatically and don't require users to enter information or get help from customer service. The service should help Virgin Mobile USA speed up customer activation times and reduce customer support costs.

more at Mobile Tech News

In response to Verizon Wireless' announcement last week that it would open up its network, AT&t made it known that it is opening up its wireless network to outside devices.

The problem how with this announcement is that it's always how AT&T worked. AT&T users have always been able to use almost any GSM phone on the company's network and swap SIMs. The announcement is more of a PR offensive. That may be because of the push by the FCC to require carriers on the 700MHz spectrum to provide open access to their networks. Or it might be to get in on the love being shown Verizon and Google for their embrace of "openness."

Whatever the motivation, though, all these changes on behalf of the major cell carriers are good news for consumers.

Genius (www.geniusnet.com) is pleased to announce the that the 2008 International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award was awarded to the company’s BT-03I touch Bluetooth® headset. This distinguished award was given to the BT-03I because of the headset’s unique touch design and easy-to-use features that set this headset apart from others currently on the market. It was nominated in the “Headphones” category.

The Genius BT-03I is designed to compliment Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones and PDAs. This award-winning headset supports A2DP hands free, headset profile that supports listening to music or talking on a call, while enjoying high quality sound. Other notable features include if you are listening to music and there is an incoming call, the BT-03I receives it and mutes the music automatically, so you can take the call with no interruptions.

Read full story here.

Nokia announced new software for N series devices that will allow users to stream Internet radio stations to their phones.Nokia claims it as a new way to discover music, as the station directory available with the service lets users browse music by station name, genre, country or language. In addition, you also get hourly updates of the top ten most popular internet radio stations - which you can the n add to your Favorites list for easy accessibility.

The service will also optimize the music stream depending on what sort of connection the user has. It is available today for the N82, N91, N95 and N95 8GB and will be embedded on other S60 3rd Edition phones in the coming months.

bnetTV.com, Inc. (www.bnettv.com), a subsidiary of Winmax Trading Group, Inc. (Winmax) (Other OTC:WNMX.PK - News), had the opportunity to be the Lead Internet Media sponsor for The Yankee Group's inaugural Mobile Internet World in Boston. The bnetTV.com on-the-ground reporting team conducted interviews with Google Senior Software Engineer, Sean Owen, who spoke to the team about optimizing mobile search. Yahoo!'s Director of Business Development, Michael Shim, announced to the bnetTV team two new products: Yahoo! oneSEARCH and Yahoo! GO. MTV's VP of Digital Distribution, Greg Clayman, spoke about how MTV is developing and delivering Mobile content. Steve Bratt, CEO of the W3 (World Wide Web) Consortium, discussed the convergence of standards between the Web and Mobile Web. Emily Green, President and CEO of the Yankee Group, the event host, addressed the overall focus of the conference.

View full details here.

The first Levi's mobile telephone has just been launched, recently, in Hong Kong. ModeLabs Group, the creator of the stylish phone has just announced it. In a city that is often the forerunner in fashion and technology trends in China, the product definitely is a big hit.

ModeLabs Group's main challenges today are the design and international marketing of products that really stand out with first-level brands.

So far, the Levi’s mobile phone has received an excellent reception in Hong Kong, and ModeLabs is working closely with Levis to benefit from their brand image, the strength of their communication, and their commercial networks.

The FCC is threatening to shut down major parts of Sprint's iDEN network as portions of the 800 MHz spectrum it operates in interferes with public safety channels. The conflict between the iDEN network and public safety agencies was addressed years ago as Sprint was given new spectrum to move its iDEN network onto. Though the carrier has already spent $1 billion to move the network, the FCC says that progress is not moving according to schedule. The carrier estimates the relevant parts of the network serve nearly 20 million subscribers. Sprint has asked the Court of Appeals to help protect it against threats of a shutdown.

Continue reading story here.

AOL Uk has today announced AOL mobile a new mobile internet portal offering the lastest in mobile technology, it offers advanced functionality and a "real" internet user experience.

The offering promises a web experience closer to that of a desktop PC than any other current mobile portal. Pulling content straight from the channels on its internet portal and offering Web Surf, Email and Search, the AOL Mobile portal keeps users connected and informed whilst on the move.

The AOL mobile portal also ensures that all web content is configured to match your phone, regardless of what handset you have. The service is able to remember user favourites and recent requests - from Premiership Club news to horoscopes to local weather information. Log in just once to your emails and you have continuous access with no need to re-sign in for 30 days. These benefits emphasise AOL's commitment to extending its leadership in easy-to-use web products into the mobile market.