**As published in Mobile Marketing Magazine**

NEW ORLEANS — At CTIA, the heads of America’s four largest carriers paid lip service to their respective pet projects and, in some cases, their favorite the-sky-is-falling scenarios of the day. Following extended commercial-like keynotes from each executive (complete with those obligatory sizzle reels), they all joined together on stage to field questions from one of the country’s most bombastic and outlandish TV personalities, Jim Cramer of CNBC, who came on stage calling mobile the “fastest-changing industry in the world.”

It could and should have been fireworks, but alas, nary a fuse was lit. Other than the occasional spat over which network is faster, better, greater — ad nauseum — disagreements were few and far between. And that’s unfortunate for the hundreds of millions of customers who send their money to AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless every month. Read more

SAN DIEGO — For the first time ever, there are now more active wireless devices in the United States than there are people. With 327,577,529 active connections at the end of June, the United States currently averages nearly 1.05 devices for each of its 312,403,988 current residents, according to a new survey from CTIA.

Those 327 million subscriber connections generated service revenues of $164.5 billion in the 12-month period ending in June, according to CTIA’s Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey (PDF) of wireless service providers comprising 95.5% of all estimated subscriber connections.

And where’s all that money being spent? Cell sites, for starters. The American landscape was blanketed with 256,920 cell sites at the end of June, marking an annual growth rate of barely 2%. Read more

SAN DIEGO — The heads of the three largest wireless carriers in the country shared the big stage but no news this morning at CTIA Enterprise & Applications 2011. The 90-minute opening keynote session was “full of platitudes” and signified nothing new, Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at Ovum, remarked in a tweet.

Sprint Chairman and CEO Dan Hesse took the role of industry cheerleader as this year’s chairman of the CTIA board, adding: “Those of us in the wireless industry should be thankful that we’re arguably in the most important industry in the world.” Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been said before that The Ford Motor Co. is trying to remake itself as the Apple Inc. of the auto industry. The company is making a big bet on technology with new touchscreen-based interfaces, a host of wireless connectivity options, voice-based commands and now the space of mobile apps.

Derrick Kuzak, group VP of global product development at Ford, gave a morning keynote hitting on these points today in front of a somewhat sparse crowd on the final day of the CTIA Enterprise & Apps show. He also made sure to ingratiate himself to the wireless industry and ask for it’s help on innovation, standardization, and new business ideas. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

SAN FRANCISCO — Holding the torch for CIOs and mobility managers in enterprise, executives that head up those respective departments at United Parcel Service Inc., HealthSouth Corp. and The Western Union Co. kicked off this morning’s keynote in a roundtable format.

“Mobile and wireless is changing the whole role of the CIO,” Bob Evans, SVP and Global CIO director at InformationWeek, said as he introduced each of the panelists. “It’s an extraordinary change taking place in the market today.” Read more

**As published in digiday:DAILY**

Publisher: GetFugu Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: tested on BlackBerry and iPod Touch
Advertising: ads in the form of logos for major brands appear in search results
Functionality: C
Fun Factor: B-
Overall: C

All too often in the mobile app space, users are “getting abused by ads from AdMob,” John Basile, chief software engineer said at CTIA last week. He was demonstrating some new features coming to the GetFugu search app, and compared the company’s zip-code based approach to mobile as akin to a more refined Yellow Pages model. The direct-to-consumer marketing opportunity here is quite obvious, and if GetFugu can prove its value as a mobile search provider, it could spur a renewed interest from brands to gain preferred placement with consumers at a price.

It’s still early days for the company, and after spending the better part of an hour with the app on a BlackBerry Bold 9700 and iPod Touch, it shows. The company is not only building a vast database of searchable logos and voice tags, but it’s simultaneously trying to convince large and small businesses to make a play in the visual and voice search game for a fee. With packages ranging from $9.99 to over $99 per month, depending on how many zip codes the business wants to be associated with, GetFugu will build WAP pages, register a company’s name and logo, provide real-time analytics and more. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

LAS VEGAS – As the official spring-time gathering of the wireless industry came to a close, RCR Wireless News met with the No. 1 and No. 2 WiMAX chipset manufacturers to check the temperature of the space and learn more about their progressive plans for LTE.

Both Beceem and Sequans started in 2003 to make a play in the emerging WiMAX space, but one got an early and definitive lead. Now, as both continue to try to out-maneuver one another in the fast-growing WiMAX market, each is readying its war chest and industry heft in a much-more crowded and competitive landscape in LTE.

Lars Johnsson, VP of marketing and business development at Beceem, pegged the Silicon Valley-based company’s share of the WiMAX chipset space at about 65% while his counterpart at Sequans, Craig Miller, VP of marketing and business development, pegged the Paris, France-based company’s share at upwards of 25%. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Depending on your locale, they may be more hidden or disguised, but make no mistake – cellular towers continue to multiple at a heavy rate. Providing the equivalent of a lifeline by which the entire wireless industry flows to and from, cell towers remain as controversial as ever.

Whether it’s a perceived blight, unmitigated environmental impacts, radiation concerns or a general opposition from local zoning boards, cell tower developers often face a tall order before they can even dream of breaking ground.

It’s not the only bottleneck in the tower development cycle, but many delays can occur at the ground level, where approval is required from local zoning authorities. In rare and the most ridiculous cases, developers and carriers have been tangled up in bureaucratic red tape for five years or even longer. Read more

**As published by RCR Wireless News**

On the surface, there isn’t much to suggest that this newly Democratic-led FCC will make any radical regulatory changes in the wireless industry. There is a loud camp cheering for new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to take a more heavy-handed approach in wireless affairs, but popular opinion inside the Beltway paints a different picture.

While the President Obama appointee is digging into wireless matters such as competition, innovation and third-party application control perhaps more swiftly (and publicly) than his predecessor, the Federal Communications Commission is only asking questions at this point. Questions are cheap. Policymaking is an entirely different matter that must measure political fallout against results. And more important: the nation is still digging out of the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. Read more