TMCNet Mobility TechZone Week In Review

There was big news all over in the Mobility TechZone this week, so let's step in and check out some of the big highlights in the sector with our week in review.

First out of the gate was the announcement that Verizon was looking to launch the Verizon "Share Everything" plan, a line of family plans that afforded users not only unlimited voice calling and text messages, but also a pool of data access which families could share out among their members. The plan, dubbed an industry first by Verizon, also paved the way for more controls over those plans to launch in the future.

Next came a report that the city of Lexington, Kentucky was found one of the safest cities in the United States, thanks to their new acquisition of a P25 Land Mobile Radio setup. The P25 allows for 800 MHz simulcasting and is interoperable across the various major figures in Lexington, like the Bluegrass Airport, the University of Kentucky, and the Lexington Police and Fire Departments. Lexington has also worked with the supplier of the P25 system, Cassidian Communications, before on 911 call processing and emergency notification systems.

Then, Maravedis-Rethink issued a report suggesting that, while mobile broadband penetration in India markets has been a slow process to date, they expected it to take off in a big way. The report released expected India to account for 41 million 3G subscribers by the end of the year, and by 2017, that number is expected to increase over nine-fold to 371 million subscribers. The primary block to getting those numbers up sooner, according to the report, is a matter of getting inexpensive multimode technology to the user base.

Next was a discussion of just what the media missed when it came to Apple's recent Worldwide Developer's Conference earlier this week. The main point of just what was missing from most commentary that week was Apple's slight change in focus, specifically their shift in focusing away from getting new customers and more on keeping the loyal customers they already had. Also missing was the slow excision of other companies from the Apple experience, including mentions of Flash memory without Samsung, and the removal of any trace of Google from the Apple experience.

Nokia came in with the next report, announcing a plan to eliminate another 10,000 jobs by the end of next year. The move was said to be a necessary one to give Nokia its best chance to return to what chief executive Stephen Elop described as "long-term competitive strength". But even with the layoffs planned, Nokia is also looking to double down on its Lumia line of phones, and hopes to gain ground with them in an increasingly competitive market.

Finally, we got a look at what's being referred to as "Super Wi-Fi", or IEEE standard 802.22, which offers a low-speed connection over long distances that may be the answer for places that have long been underserved in terms of Internet access. Since Super Wi-Fi has a range of around 62 miles and a maximum speed of 22 Mbps, it should provide a substantial upgrade for large portions of the world. Handing off from 802.11 standards to those of 802.22 may be a problem though.

It was a huge week in terms of mobility tech news, and our global online community is constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest to bring your way. We'll see you back here next week for more, and another week in review wrap-up!