LTE received another teammate in the tug-of-war between WiMax and 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology yesterday when Cellular South announced its intentions today to build out a 4G mobile broadband network.

The regional carrier has declared that it will build out its spectrum in the lower 700 MHz band, but not anytime soon, unlike Verizon. Cellular South has the calendar circled for the fourth quarter of 2011.

In addition to sharing its 4G ambitions, Cellular South has also unveiled Samsung as its launch partner. The two companies penned a deal yesterday that will bring two Samsung smartphones to Cellular … Read more

Panasonic is planning to make a comeback with its smartphones outside of Japan in 2012. This is after the Japanese consumer electronics giant pulled out of the overseas mobile phone markets in 2006.

The devices, which will run on Google's Android mobile operating system, will feature networking capabilities with other Panasonic products. The Japanese firm will sell its smartphones in Japan next year before making inroads to overseas markets in 2012.

"We misjudged the speed at which smartphones would be taken up in the Japanese market," Panasonic's head of mobile communications, Osamu Waki, said at a … Read more

AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile are creating a mobile payment network designed to help consumers more easily pay for items at stores using their cell phones, the trio announced today.

The three mobile companies are building the network, known as Isis, with the initial goal of setting up a mobile payment system in which people can use cell phones to pay for items directly at a retailer, known as point-of-sale purchases.

The system will use a technology called near-field communication (NFC), which provides short-range and encrypted wireless communication between different devices. The companies said the system will … Read more

What do you do after you quit your JetBlue flight attendant job while still on the plane, tell the rude passengers what you thought of them, open the emergency slide, and waft your way down it and into the public eye?

If your answer was "train to be a pilot," "try volunteer work," "have a talk show on basic cable," or "pose for Playboy," you would be heartily mistaken. For Steven Slater, perhaps America's most renowned former flight attendant, is to become the official spokesperson for the Mile High Text Club.… Read more

The federal government has taken the first step in freeing up more spectrum for wireless broadband services in the United States.

On Monday, the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a report identifying 115MHz of wireless spectrum that can be shared among federal agencies and commercial users.

The report proposes that the spectrum be reallocated for commercial wireless broadband use within five years. The report and the reallocation proposal are part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to free up 500MHz of wireless spectrum to be used for new emerging wireless services.

In June, President Obama … Read more

Consumers still looking to buy one of Hewlett-Packard's new Slate 500 devices will have to wait awhile.

Only three weeks since its debut, HP's new tablet is on back order, according to a notice on the unit's order page. The notice says the tablet is scheduled to ship in another six weeks, and a person in HP's sales department confirmed that it would be shipping on December 27. This means that people who place new orders for a Slate 500 won't be able to get one in time for the holidays.

HP has attributed the … Read more

Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices has joined the MeeGo open-source Linux project where it will contribute its expertise to drive the adoption of MeeGo in tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices.

Unveiled earlier this year, MeeGo is an open-source operating system created through a merger of Intel's Moblin OS and Nokia's Maemo software. The MeeGo OS is designed to run on mobile gadgets, including Netbooks, tablets and phones, and on embedded devices, such as connected TVs and in-car systems.

The MeeGo project is run by the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit group whose goal is to push the growth and … Read more

There is something both lovable and just about British policemen.

They roam the streets, dispensing righteousness, without the aid of a gun. Which makes it safer for the average British citizen to know that if they happen to offer a policeman a slurry quip they will not be offed within a nanosecond of the punchline.

However, it seems as if the British police is struggling to make ends meet, technologically speaking. For the Daily Mail solemnly reports that bobbies on the beat are being trained to text to save money.

You see, British policemen have radios attached to their lapels. … Read more

Netflix said this week that its instant streaming service will, indeed, be coming to mobile gadgets running Google's Android operating system--sometime early next year. But it won't be available on all such devices.

In a blog post late Friday, Greg Peters of Netflix product development said the incomplete roll out is due to the fact that there's no common way to ensure security and digital rights management across Android devices. Instead, Netflix must work one-on-one with individual handset makers to build in DRM.

"Unfortunately," Peters wrote, "this is a much slower approach and leads … Read more