The showdown between the Federal Communications Commission and Congress over the Bush administration’s warranteless wiretapping program took a new turn, with FCC chief Kevin Martin rebuffing a seven-month-old request by a key House member to investigate whether telecom carriers violated communications privacy laws through their cooperation with National Security Agency.

By Jeffrey Silva

Sprint chairman and CEO Gary Forsee stepped down today along with a report that the company expected to post a loss of 337,000 post-paid subscribers in the second quarter. The company's projected revenues falling below the $41 million to $42 million it originally expected.

By Kevin Fitchard

Alltel announces it's edition of Wi-Fi to its existing portfolio of wireless Internet solutions. Alltel, the fifth largest carrier, launched Alltel Wi-Fi, powered by Boingo Wireless, which allows subscribers to gain laptop access to hotspots throughout North and South America.

By Rhonda Wickham

Mobile media company mSpot today said it has created an application that will allow customers to edit music ringtones on their phones, allowing them to pick and choose the elements of a specific song they want to play over their handsets rather than settle for the pre-packaged ringtone sold by the carrier or record company.

By Kevin Fitchard

Sprint Nextel and Vonage announced they have settled their patent dispute. This following last month's U.S. District Court ruling that Vonage infringed on six Sprint patents. In the settlement, Vonage has signed a licensing arrangement for Sprint's Voice-over-Packet patent portfolio. The agreement is valued at $80 million, including $35 million for past use of license, $40 million for a fully paid future license and $5 million in prepayment for services.

By Teresa von Fuchs

Sling Media, a digital lifestyle product company, announced that its SlingPlayer Mobile software is now available in the U.S. for select Nokia Nseries and Eseries devices, giving owners the ability to watch and control their home TV from a network-connected mobile phone.

SlingPlayer Mobile promises consumers their entire home TV experience on a PC, Mac, Palm OS, Symbian OS or Windows Mobile-based devices via Internet connections worldwide. With SlingPlayer Mobile, users can also control their home DVR to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind and fast forward, or even program new recordings while on the road.

By Wireless Week Staff

In another blow to the bedraggled MVNO business model, one of the final holdouts of the boutique wireless industry announced plans to shut down today. Disney Mobile stopped selling its family-oriented service plans today as well as discontinued the sale of content and applications. It will continue to maintain voice and SMS as well as customer support until the end of the year, when it plans to wrap up the operation completely.

By Kevin Fitchard

T-Mobile USA Inc. is offering a BlackBerry Curve equipped with Wi-Fi when you sign up to take advantage of the carrier’s HotSpot@Home service, launched in June.

T-Mobile USA touted the device’s ability to hand off calls between its cellular network and its Wi-Fi hotspots and vice versa. T-Mobile has 8,500 hotspots around the country.

By Phil Carson

T-Mobile USA is updating its Sidekick line of handsets, adding a high-end model called the Sidekick LX as well as the first Sidekick made by Motorola. The new models promise better resolution, more elegant slim design and is also the first Sidekick that allows for pictures to be sent along in text messages.

By Teresa von Fuchs

As the industry rallies around WiMAX, Intel, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks have announced that they are testing interoperability across Intel's forthcoming WiMAX chipsets, Nokia's WiMAX devices and Nokia Siemens Networks' WiMAX infrastructure equipment.

Intel, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks have already started testing their equipment and devices with dozens of other equipment vendors' products for interoperability and conformance with industry standards in Sprint's testing labs. The companies hope that early interoperability testing will help to reduce the time required for their respective products to successfully pass the technical requirements of the WiMAX Forum.

By Teresa von Fuchs