dish

Not long ago, I wrote a piece speculating on what T-Mobile would do if the AT&T deal fell apart.

Well, looks like "if" has come true. So I thought I'd go back to some highlights from the earlier post.

By itself, T-Mobile is a wireless operator struggling to keep its best customers from leaving. Over the past several months, the carrier has aggressively cut prices and made itself a haven for bargain seekers--all for the sake of sparking a little growth. As a result, it resembles a large prepaid carrier more than one of the … Read more

Dish Network is sitting pretty right now.

The demise of AT&T's $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile leaves AT&T in a vulnerable position, that of a company in need of wireless spectrum but with few sources from whom to acquire it.

Verizon Wireless has only exacerbated the dilemma with its own move to acquire spectrum held by the cable providers, which shores up its own position. The broadcasters, meanwhile, have been sitting on a stash of spectrum and have been fighting attempts by the Federal Communications Commission to repurpose it for the wireless industry.

AT&… Read more

As the four stamps in my passport can attest, Australia is my travel destination of choice.

The only problem is that with such an immense place, even a two-week trip will show you only a corner of the country. So when an Aussie friend suggested that during a recent visit, I take a road trip to the small town where he was born, I jumped at the chance. And when I learned that the town was Parkes, I got even more excited. … Read more

If T-Mobile USA doesn't end up with AT&T, Dish Network is waiting in the wings.

Dish is interested in a partnership with T-Mobile, pooling together their collective wireless spectrum to create a stronger competitor to AT&T and Verizon Wireless, Dish CEO Joseph Clayton said in an interview with Bloomberg.

It's one of a number of alternative options that T-Mobile could pursue if the AT&T deal falls through.

T-Mobile's primary justification for its merger with AT&T is the lack of spectrum and parent Deutsche Telekom AG's reluctance to put … Read more

Sprint Nextel gave Dish Network the nod on its plans to acquire spectrum and build its own 4G LTE network, reversing its position from just a month ago.

Sprint said in a recent filing that Dish's proposed network does not interfere with its own operations, according to Fierce Wireless. The two companies will use spectrum that are adjacent to each other, and Sprint had been concerned over potential interference issues.

But Sprint disclosed in the filing that it has signed a deal with Dish in a resolution of the issue, clearing the path for Dish to get government approval … Read more

What do you get when you combine an Android smartphone, cell phone image sensor, Lego building blocks, and a handful of Caltech engineers and biologists? The ePetri, which isn't Petri Dish 2.0, but a full reworking of a technology that dates back to the late 1800s.

Traditionally, the Petri dish (named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri) has been used in the medical field to identify bacterial infections by studying samples via microscope as the cultured cells grow in an incubator.

The Caltech researchers have a few choice words for such an approach in 2011, including "expensive," "labor-intensive," and "suboptimal." So they set out to improve not just the dish, but the entire process.… Read more

iPhone 4S pre-orders top 1 million units, Yahoo pulls out of its bid for Hulu, and Netflix announces the cancellation of Qwikster in a brief blog post.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Dish and Blockbuster announce their Netflix-killing movie delivery and streaming plan, but it's kind of a letdown unless you're a really happy Dish subscriber. HP puts Meg Whitman in charge and boots Leo Apotheker, which no one seems all that happy about except maybe HP's wildly dysfunctional board. The entire foundation of the world and physics is rocked by the possibility of particles that can travel faster than light, but mostly, you just wish we could go back in time and un-announce that the show's going weekly. Hey, but bonus show Monday! See you then!

Dish Network unveiled today the "Blockbuster Movie Pass," a bundle of services that includes streaming video; DVDs; Blu-Rays and games by mail; and access to premium movie channels. The catch: you need to be a Dish Network customer.

The service will launch October 1. Existing Dish subscribers can sign up for the package for an additional $10 a month. New customers who sign up for Dish's America's Top 200 package for $39.99 a month get access to the service for a year.

"More Americans are demanding an easier way to view their video," … Read more