Palm results poor despite Pre boost

Sales of the Pre helped boost Palm's smartphone sales in the company's fiscal first quarter of 2010 by about 134% compared to the preceding quarter, but Palm still reported its eighth consecutive quarter of loss, and sales dipped over 80%, states CNET News.

The Palm Pre, available exclusively through Sprint Nextel, is gaining traction. The company sold 823 000 smartphones in the fiscal first quarter. Many of those smartphones are believed to be the Pre.

But even though sales of the Pre were strong, Palm still ended up losing $164.5 million, or $1.17 per share, in its fiscal first quarter. Still, the company's losses beat analyst expectations.

Handset manufacturers have urged the Indian government to ban mobile handsets which have counterfeit or cloned International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, reports The Hindu Business Line.

The Indian Cellular Association (ICA), which represents handset makers including Nokia, Samsung and LG, has told the government that a ban only on handsets without the unique identity number will have a partial effect in cracking down on illegal handsets since there were many devices in the market with fake IMEI.

If the government accepts ICA's suggestion then another 20 to 25 million mobile users could face disconnection.

At the 17th September Telecom Council Carrier Connections conference, Clearwire's Allen Flanagan provided an overview and short video on the company's '4G' mobile WiMax Innovation Network - a pre-commercial network for mobile WiMax application development and testing in Silicon Valley, according to WiMax.com.

The network went live only two days prior - on 15 September - and the development focus was said to be 4G mobile applications. The Clear developer network is a precursor to commercial service planned for the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010.

It will cover more than 20 square miles in Santa Clara, Mountain View, and parts of downtown Palo Alto, California. The current coverage footprint includes the local campuses of Intel and Google, two founding Innovation Network supporters who have also commenced their own internal 4G application development programmes.

Details of 3G MicroCell, an in-home base station for the AT&T network, have been floating around for months; what wasn't known was when the company was planning to expand its test programme into commercial availability, writes Wi-Fi Networking News.

With the unveiling of a detailed Web site describing all the advantages - but also with a Zip code availability checker - the company is moving far closer to release.

The idea of a femtocell is to have a broadband-connected tiny base station in the home that allows an existing cellular handset to work without any modification. Sprint pairs its femtocell with unlimited call options while Verizon offers just the signal-strength improvements.