RuralWireless
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Rural wireless carriers file FCC petition opposing handset exclusivity
If you thought you were annoyed when one of the big wireless carriers locked up a phone you were after, you have no idea how frustrated small and rural wireless carriers are -- they've just filed a petition with FCC seeking to ban the practice. The 80 companies in the Rural Cellular Association serve small markets not well-covered by the big guys, like parts of New Mexico, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, and they say that carrier exclusivity deals not affect their bottom line, but also deprive consumers of desirable phones like the iPhone and upcoming Blackberry Bold. They've actually got a pretty good point: lots of rural customers can't purchase and use an iPhone without technically breaking the AT&T service agreement. We'll see how this one goes -- although we'd love nothing more than to use any phone we wanted on any carrier, there are plenty of reasons it won't happen, and exclusivity is the easiest way for carriers to differentiate themselves to consumers.
Intel touts long-distance WiFi for rural areas
While some companies are busy exploring other options for bringing wireless connectivity to rural areas, Intel's apparently been hard at work pushing plain old WiFi as far as they're able to, and they're reportedly now seeing some rather impressive results. According to Technology Review, the company's so-called "rural connectivity platform" (or RCP) is able to beam WiFi signals from one antenna to another located more than 60 miles away, and at data rates up to 6.5 megabits per second, no less. To do that, Intel whipped up some software that effectively rewrites the way the two radios communicate with one another, in particular by eliminating the extra data sent confirming transmissions. Of course, those high-powered antennas also come into play considerably, but Intel says the entire system is both inexpensive (it's aiming for below $500 when it starts selling it in India later this year) and low-power, with two or three radios in a link requiring just five or six watts.[Via The Inquirer]
Verizon Wireless to buy Rural Cellular for $2.67 billion
Another one bites the dust, so to speak. This time around, we've got Verizon Wireless doing the acquiring, as it has just announced plans to pay $2.67 billion for "one of the nation's largest rural carriers," Rural Cellular. The news comes just over a month after AT&T handed over a staggering amount of its own to pick up Dobson Communications, and this agreement will expand the carrier's coverage "in parts of the East Coast and the South, as well as in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Idaho, Washington and Oregon." Verizon did note that it planned on deploying CDMA service in Rural Cellular's existing GSM markets in order to convert customers over, but it also mentioned that the existing GSM networks would remain to "serve the roaming needs of other GSM carrier's customers." Look for the deal to be finalized sometime during the first half of next year, and don't be surprised if we see a few more consolidation efforts go down in the meantime.
