The 3rd Generation Partnership Project today published the initial standard for UMTS femtocells, choosing a simplified architecture and highly-utilized protocols that easily integrate with both wireline and wireless operators’ networks. With the standard finalized, the Femto Forum believes it now has the ammunition it needs to convince operators to deploy femtocells in huge volumes. more

I arrived in Las Vegas yesterday to discover, to my pleasant shock, a long line of cabs waiting at the airport for customers. In my 20-plus years of visiting Vegas on business, I’ve arrived at all hours of the day and night and always started my visit by standing in a long cab line.

So this is the world turned upside down by the economic downturn.

But at the MetaSwitch Forum 2009, which brought me to Vegas in the first place, there’s a very different sense, one that is much more hopeful. While admitting that it’s tough to predict 2009 revenues and profits, MetaSwitch executives say they are already seeing something of an uptick. more

With more people cutting the cord, a critical social element of the family home phone is being lost. Individual family members have individual mobile numbers. There is no family line to speak of, so gone are the long conversations with grandma where Mom, Dad and the kids all participate on separate extensions. MetroPCS, however, has recreated the family phone home on wireless.

Along with releasing impressive Q1 subscriber numbers, MetroPCS announced GroupLineSM, a simultaneous ring service paired with conference calling that allows a caller to reach all members of a family plan through a single ‘home’ number. When a call to the group is made, all of its members’ phones ring simultaneously, and those that pick up are dumped into a conference where they can talk no matter where they happen to be. more

Mobile application developer Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge beat out more well-known brands to have the largest installed base of apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store, according to research today from comScore. Approximately 34% of iPhone or iPod Touch users had installed the game by February 2009. more