Stories by Stephen Lawson

Carriers hope Firefox makes OS market more competitive

Telecom carriers continue to complain about taxes, regulation and over-the-top competition, but Mozilla's Firefox OS provides a glimmer of hope to some executives speaking at the opening of Mobile World Congress.

Nokia Siemens to merge cloud, base-station computing to boost performance

Nokia Siemens Networks will expand the role of cellular base stations with a new platform that will store and deliver some application data locally, while tapping into information about subscribers and traffic to improve the process.

Broadcom chip eases location tracking's thirst for power

Broadcom says it's invented a chip that can tell your phone where you are all the time without quickly draining your battery.

Nokia Siemens targets carriers' Wi-Fi, small-cell rollout challenges

The suppliers of mobile carrier networks are still thinking small when it comes to making speeds fast and signals strong, and this year's Mobile World Congress next week will again host introductions of Wi-Fi access points and small cellular base stations.

Cisco's small-cell move is focused, but its network aims are ambitious

Cisco's long-anticipated entry into cellular base stations will come at Mobile World Congress next week, along with the company's familiar promise of an end-to-end architecture.

Small-cell goodness will depend on crucial, complicated backhaul links

Adding small cells to mobile networks made up of full-sized base stations should help to fuel more voice and data calls, but outdoors, linking those dispersed cells to wired networks presents its own problems.

Cisco posts higher profit and revenue in Q2

Cisco Systems posted higher revenue and profit in its fiscal second quarter as Chairman and CEO John Chambers reiterated the company's ambitious goal to become the biggest company in IT.

Hotspot 2.0 guru talks Wi-Fi roaming, new job at Ruckus

Dave Stephenson is at the center of one of the most important efforts in mobile networking, the move to shepherd smartphones and other devices among Wi-Fi hotspots safely and automatically.

VMware buying Virsto to bolster storage virtualization

VMware plans to acquire Virsto Software, maker of a "storage hypervisor" that will be added to VMware's popular virtualization lineup and licensed by EMC.

F5 to acquire SDN vendor LineRate Systems

F5 Networks plans to extend the reach of software-defined networking to improve application performance by acquiring software startup LineRate Systems.

Carrier hands off LTE voice call to 3G, looking toward future need

Mobile engineers have successfully demonstrated the handoff of a voice call from LTE to 3G, a capability that may prove critical in carriers' plans to put voice on their new, fast data networks.

Sprint looks toward transformation as losses continue

Sprint Nextel posted another quarterly loss but reported progress toward becoming just plain Sprint, a company with more money and fewer networks, which it hopes to be by the end of this year.

Oracle to simplify database clones and snapshots with Snap utility

Oracle database users can now create snapshots and clones of the company's databases on a Sun ZFS Storage Appliance in one step, which should simplify both storage management and internal development in enterprises.

While Dell stars in a comeback drama, he's also pursuing a TV career

If that computer company he's buying doesn't work out, Michael Dell has another bet going: TV stations.

Mobile data use soared at Super Bowl while some Internet traffic dipped

Internet use fell in U.S. homes but soared inside the Superdome during this year's Super Bowl.