Alcatel-Lucent’s board of directors is said to be planning to meet next week to discuss a new restructuring plan for the infrastructure vendor, according to a Reuters report. The company, which has struggled to achieve profitability since its inception, is rumored to be planning layoffs affecting 5,000 workers. 

Intel has closed its $375 million patent acquisition from InterDigital, first announced in June. The transaction provides Intel with about 1,700 patents and patent applications covering mainly 3G, LTE and 802.11 technologies including WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA and LTE-Advanced.

Virgin Mobile USA has opened pre-orders of the Samsung Galaxy Reverb, an Android smartphone with a 4-inch WVGA screen, front-and rear-facing cameras and 1.4 GHz processor. The phone will become available online on Sept. 19 before hitting retail stores.

4G Americas reports that there were 225 million HSPA and LTE connections in North, Central and South America by the end of June, an increase of 65.6 million over last year.  Overall, the trade group said there are more than 1 billion cellular subscriptions in the Americas region. 4G Americas based its findings on data from Informa Telecoms & Media.