01
Mar
fcclogo

FCC To Investigate Cell Phone Unlocking Ban, Unsure If It Has Any Authority To Enforce Any Change

Posted by in News

The President still hasn't weighed in on what he plans to do about the cell phone unlocking ban (he's been a little busy with that sequester business that's gonna cost some people their jobs), but FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is a little closer to the situation. Speaking to TechCrunch, the communications head said the organization plans to "look into" the issue and decide whether action should be taken and, if so, what action there is to take.

While Genachowski doesn't sound ready to start pummeling carriers just yet (though it wouldn't be the first time), he admits that the ban is worrisome (and it is!), saying the "ban raises competition concerns; it raises innovation concerns."

On the subject of pursuing any course of action: "It’s something that we will look at at the FCC to see if we can and should enable consumers to use unlocked phones." Those words "can" and "should" are the two major hurdles that the FCC has to get past, though.

19
May
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China Approves Google's Acquisition Of Motorola, Deal Expected To Be Finalized Next Week

Posted by in Google, News

When we last heard about Google's deal to buy Motorola, the EU  and the US had approved the deal. The one major market we were left waiting on is China and now, according to the Associated Press (known around here as "the other AP"), the country's regulators have given Google the green light. The deal is now expected to close next week.

The biggest asset of the deal is, of course, Motorola's 17,000+ patents. Google has already promised that it will not interfere with Motorola's dealings and continue to operate the company entirely independently. The approach would make sense in the context of rumors that Google would be expanding it Nexus line.

15
May
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Meizu.com Goes Down For Mysterious Reasons, Company Says Business Unaffected

Posted by in Meizu, News

Meizu, the Chinese electronics manufacturer best known for making a splash this year by announcing its own quad-core device built in-house, took down its site for unknown reasons earlier today. We reached out to the company to find out what's going on with its site. The company responded to let us know that the site will be back soon, once it's been cleaned up to "comply with local regulations."

We are currently cleaning up our forums and wish to stress that all our other business areas are fully functional. We are working to bring our websites back online as fast as we can, but do not know exactly when we will succeed in doing so.

13
Feb
EU_Flag

Google Gets The Thumbs-Up From The EU To Acquire Motorola, Still Waiting On US, Chinese Approval

Posted by in Google, Motorola, News

Google just got one step closer to finalizing its acquisition of Motorola Mobility with approval from the 27-member European Union. Google still needs approval from the U.S. and China, as well as a few other key jurisdictions, before it can bring Motorola into the fold, but at the moment things are looking rosy for the Big G.

The EU did express some hesitations about the deal, however. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had this to say in a statement to the press:

"This merger decision should not and will not mean that we are not concerned by the possibility that, once Google is the owner of this portfolio, Google can abuse these patents, linking some patents with its Android devices.

24
Oct
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PSA: Verizon Locking Bootloaders On LTE Devices Likely Does Not Violate FCC Block C Spectrum Rules

Posted by in Legal, News, Verizon Wireless

It seems there's been some renewed interest in the subject of Block C LTE "no locking" provisions after news that the Motorola RAZR will come equipped with a locked bootloader per Verizon's request. About four months ago, I published an article on this very topic. To summarize: Verizon can basically do almost anything it wants with handsets on its network in the name of reasonable network management - subject to a few limitations and caveats.

But before we get into the reasoning for this, let's talk history.

The Block C Auction Of 2008

Back in 2008, the FCC auctioned off a block of the 700MHz wireless spectrum dubbed "Block C." Verizon was the sole purchaser of the block, having bid $4.7 billion to acquire the chunk of spectrum.