Google has acquired Quickoffice, a maker of productivity apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Financial terms of the deal were not made public. Google said it plans to use Quickoffice’s technology for its Google Apps products.
Ericsson’s second report on trends in the global wireless industry estimates that 85 percent of the world’s population will have 3G service within the next five years. The number of mobile subscribers by 2017 is expected to reach 9 billion, compared to 6 billion at the end of last year.
AT&T is set to launch its first LTE smartphone with “environmentally conscious features” on June 10. The Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate uses recycled materials, an energy-efficient charger and has received platinum certification from UL Environment. The Android device comes equipped with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and front- and rear-facing cameras. It is expected to retail for $50 with a new two-year contract and qualifying voice and data plan.
West Central Wireless has hired Alcatel-Lucent to construct an LTE network in rural areas of Texas. In addition to its own LTE services, West Central Wireless will allow other regional operators to share its core network for their own LTE services through network hosting arrangements. The service is expected to launch late this year with LTE dongles and home broadband routers, with smartphones scheduled for launch at a later date. West Central Wireless is a subsidiary of the Central Texas Telephone Cooperative.
Cisco has unveiled a new packet core solution it’s calling the “foundation for a new generation of mobile Internet networks.” The Cisco ASR 5500 expands on its exisitng ASR 5000 Series to address rising data traffic and the demands of trends like the bring-your-own-device trend, bandwidth-hungry apps and machine-to-machine applications. The ASR 5500 is said be capble of of integrating signaling, data, in-line services, and policy and charging control within a single platform, and Cisco reports it offers a 10-fold performance improvement in throughput and can scale from a gigabit to terabit platform.
Alpha Technologies has come out with a line of new power products designed to fit operators’ changing network architectures. The line includes the CXPS-D 48-5000 power system, the CXPS-C 48-10000 DC power plant and the Cordex HP 2.4kW rectifier. Alpha Technologies also announced a new power line product for Distributed Antenna Systems, the eLimiter 100VA Power Limited Distribution System, which distributes 48V power from a centralized power system to deliver current over copper cable pairs to power remote nodes.
Catalyst Investors has increased its investment in tower company InSite Wireless Group, LLC. The size of the investment was not disclosed. It will be used to acquire and develop additional towers. Catalyst Investors first began working with InSite more than a decade ago through its predecessor company, Mountain Union Telecom.
