The UK's largest fixed wireless access provider, is moving its network to WiMAX, and the EC has announced a decision that should increase the availability of WiMAX spectrum in Europe. On-Communications, which offers fixed wireless services designed to compete with business-quality leased lines, already operates in London, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Oxford, and will be using equipment from Airspan for a major rollout of "hundreds" of WiMAX base stations. New installations will use Airspan's MicroMax products...

Pioneer hopes to start bringing out Blu-ray DVD recorders within the year, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday, as the company takes aim at a rapidly growing market after the end of a bitter format war. Pioneer's product, which it hopes to launch by the year-end shopping season, will be developed with Sharp and make it the seventh Japanese manufacturer to enter the market for the high-definition DVD recorders, the Nikkei said.

The global BWA/WiMAX subscriber base increased by 260,246 in the first quarter of 2008, reaching a total of 1,988,246 subscribers according to figures from Maravedis. “Even with an increase of more than 19% in WiMAX subscribers in the first quarter of 2008, operators are still waiting for the tipping point that will lead to acceleration of WiMAX adoption and deployments,” said Adlane Fellah, CEO and founder of Maravedis.

Nvidia is admitting that some of its notebook chips are failing at "higher than normal rates" in a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The chip failures will cause Nvidia to take a US$150-200 million charge this quarter to cover what it calls "warranty, repair and return and replacement" for laptops with unspecified Nvidia graphics chips and chipsets.

In a move that could give a welcome, if short-lived, boost to consumer electronics makers and retailers, consumers up and down the West Coast are snapping up headsets that let them talk on cell phones while driving –and stay in compliance with a law that took effect in California and Washington state on July 1. The law, which stipulates penalties for driving while talking on a handheld cell phone, is a boon for Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Nokia agreed to buy Navteq, the largest maker of maps used in car-navigation equipment, in October to add maps to its phones and compete with TomTom and Garmin. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator in Brussels, said the Nokia purchase raised no competition concerns. The case is the second acquisition of a digital map company to receive EU clearance this year. The commission approved plans by TomTom, Europe's biggest maker of car-navigation devices, to buy Tele Atlas NV on May 14.

...Sources say that the DoT wants the WiMax launch be initially restricted to only three players who will operate this service in the 2.5 GHz frequency band where one of the slots is reserved for state-owned BSNL/MTNL. This contradicts the recommendations of telecom regulator TRAI which had suggested that wireless broadband be rolled out in 3.3-3.4 GHz and 3.4-3.6 Ghz frequencies and up to 13 players be allocated spectrum to offer WiMax services....

China's Huawei Technologies said it has been selected by Mobilink, the largest GSM operator in Pakistan and a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom, to deploy a commercial WiMAX 16e network. In a statement, Huawei said the network will cover central business districts and hot spots in Islamabad, Karachi, Sialkot, Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

Comcast has revealed its intention to pursue WiMax femtocells as a key to its wireless strategy. Dave Williams, senior VP for wireless and technology at the cable giant said that part of the new Clearwire deal calls for 5MHz of spectrum across the US to be set aside solely for WiMax femtocells. ”It was hard won, but that’s in the deal,” said Williams, who joined Comcast earlier this year after most recently serving as chief technology o

The Ministry of Communications is set to publish its final WiMAX policy by Sunday at the latest. The policy will include a revolutionary proposal for encouraging deployment of a WiMAX network in which the money will be returned to the operator winning the tender as the network penetration deepens and the deployment broadens. The idea is to create an incentive for new operators to deploy as large a network as possible.

...Today, wireless operators control content, but the power they wield is in subsidies for handsets. When Apple came along with its iPhone, it changed the trend. It told operators, 'Get lost, don't subsidize and don't tell us what to do. We can sell the handset with no problem and give unlimited Internet access.' The wireless companies are trying to stop it but WiMAX will change things. Content is king, so wireless networks are the ones that supply the pipeline. They're not interesting in the least."...

...But there could be an even bigger pothole in the road to electric vehicles: Battereis based on lithium ion technology may be hard to come by. Dr. Robin Tichy, product marketing manager at lithium ion battery pack vendor Micro Power Electronics, says that lithium ion cells have been in short supply since the infamous Sony laptop battery recalls which began in the summer of 2006.