Verizon Wireless says its LTE network is on track to span more than 400 cities by the end of the year. The network is set to light up today in 33 new cities around the country ranging from Connecticut to Washington. Verizon will also expand its existing LTE footprint in 32 other markets, including Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Miami, Seattle Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.
Clearwire is working on roaming between its forthcoming TD-LTE network in the United States and China Mobile’s TD-LTE network overseas. The two companies, longstanding partners on TD-LTE, said Wednesday they signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the business and technical aspects of supporting roaming between their separate networks. The agreement may be used as a blueprint for roaming agreements between other members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative founded by Clearwire and China Mobile.
Smartphone users buying videos from Samsung’s Media Hub can now bill purchases directly to their AT&T phone bill. The service is available on a number of Samsung devices sold by AT&T, including the Captivate, Galaxy Exhilarate and Samsung Galaxy S III. Subscribers using the Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II will be able to access direct carrier billing when they upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
PayPal is adding to its mobile payments arsenal with the acquisition of card.io, a San Francisco-based startup that has developed technology to capture credit card information with a smartphone camera. Card.io’s technology will still be available for use by third-party developers, PayPal product executive Hill Ferguson said in a Tuesday statement. Financial terms of the deal were not announced.
Qualcomm posted healthy increases in sales and profits during its third fiscal quarter despite continued chip shortages that have made it difficult for the company to meet demand. Profits rose 17 percent over last year to $1.21 billion on sales of $4.63 billion. CEO Paul Jacobs said in a call with analysts that the company is “working very hard to bring up additional capacity.”