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Budget posts

Obama's proposed 2010 budget juices carriers for more cash

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 28th 2009 @ 10:41AM

There's no easy answer to erasing a staggering trillion-plus dollar deficit in a federal budget, but you've got to start somewhere -- and Obama's looking at the nation's wireless carriers as cash cows just waiting to be milked. The President's proposed budget for 2010 calls for an increase in spectrum license user fees from $50 million to $200 million, with further increases to $550 million over the course of the next decade, all of which would be on top of the billions carriers have already shelled out in spectrum auctions. A good way to bring in some extra cash? Yeah, probably, but considering that carriers will be more than happy to pass the increases on to consumers, let's just be straight: it's a tax.

[Via El Reg]

Motorola looking to decrease spending, cuts R&D funding

by Michael Caputo posted Sep 18th 2007 @ 9:44PM

With news of cost cutting tactics traveling down hill, we assume that consecutive quarterly losses and other negative news have caused Motorola, the third largest handset manufacturer in the world, to start trimming the proverbial fat off its business. Moto has announced that it will start by cutting 15 percent of costs from its research and development sector by the end of 2007. Is reinventing the same phone only by adding different colors not the proper business model anymore?

[Via mocoNews]

LG's entry-level VX3450 now on Verizon Wireless

by Conrad Quilty-Harper posted Sep 19th 2006 @ 1:31PM

Verizon Wireless has announced that it is shipping the LG VX3450, an entry-level clamshell that replaces the VX3300. The low pricing -- $29.99 on a 2 year contract, or $79.99 on a 1 year contract -- reflects the phone's skeletal feature set (Verizon claims it's for people who "want to keep life simple"): for your money you get a basic blue flip-phone with an external antenna, a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, an external mono-display, and wait for it... a custom ringtone composer! As you can probably tell, we're not too ecstatic about the VX3450, but as it's one of the cheapest handsets from Verizon Wireless you can probably expect to see a whole lot of them out and about from now on. So just consider this post as a friendly warning, m'kay?

New budget slider from Alcatel

by Chris Ziegler posted May 26th 2006 @ 2:26PM

We don't talk much about Alcatels on this side of the pond, but that doesn't mean they aren't holding down the low to mid range, with a full 14 cellphones in their current lineup. Latest among them is the OT E260, a GSM 900/1800 no-frills slider that lacks a camera (gasp!). For its lowly market segment, the E260 is a looker, sporting a simple glossy black face and weighing in at a svelte 90 grams. Besides a straight-outta-2002 102 x 80 color screen, you'll get 16-channel polyphonic ringtones, and that's about it.

[Via Mobilewhack]