NEW ORLEANS–Sprint has gone to great length to explain to its investors and the press how it’s consolidating its various network technologies into one. Its latest 4G hot spot is a perfect example of the concept in practice. The 4G LTE Tri-Fi Hotspot, made by Sierra Wireless, will support three of Sprint’s data networks: 4G …

T-Mobile USA may be going from acquisition target to acquirer. T-Mobile made a splash when it agreed to be bought by AT&T more than a year ago. Now, it may want to make a splash of its own, with parent company Deutsche Telekom weighing the acquisition of MetroPCS, according to Bloomberg. Deutsche Telekom could merge MetroPCS and T-Mobile under a …

NEW ORLEANS–Many Sprint Nextel customers aren’t proactive enough when it comes to taking advantage of speedy, power-efficient Wi-Fi networks, but the company is aiming to change that. Sprint has been quietly rolling out an “intelligent client” called the Sprint connection optimizer designed to help phones locate and remember Wi-Fi networks. The software, which has already been rolled out to the …

NEW ORLEANS–A year ago, tablets were on the rise, and the industry forecast looked promising for expanding a market that Apple essentially pioneered. So why aren’t non-iOS tablets doing better? That’s the question posed at CTIA 2012 by All Things D’s Walt Mossberg, who moderated a panel exploring the topic. “Here we sit in May 2012, and it’s still heavily …

Screenshot by Joe Aimonetti/CNET This is one of the quick and easy tips that makes iOS so remarkable. Yes, it’s simple, but that small attention to detail makes all the difference in terms of user experiences. Due to the iPhone’s small screen real estate, compromises in how some information is displayed had to be made. A specific amount of characters …

NEW ORLEANS–Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs believes that mobile users want more choice and are ready to be freed from the shackles of app ecosystems. Speaking today at the CTIA show here, Kovacs said that just like consumers moved from the walled garden of AOL when the Internet first went commercial, they are now ready to move from the walls erected …

NEW ORLEANS–Cricket’s booth was a still, calm field of familiar phones here at CTIA, but come summer, things will be chirping once more for the prepaid carrier. Between July 31 and October, Cricket plans to launch “upwards of 10 devices,” according to Cricket spokesman Greg Lund. You can bet a fair number of them will feature the all-you-can-download Muve Music …

Apple has ditched half of its legal challenges in the courtroom war with Samsung. The two companies are locked in battle over alleged similarities between the iPhone and iPad and Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets, and are narrowing down the focus of their fight to beat the ticking clock. Apple’s concessions come just days after the Samsung Galaxy S3 kicked …

Emergencies come in all shapes and sizes. It might be a tornado that’s bearing down on your location, a finger that gets burned on a hot stove, or even just a fender bender in a parking lot. To paraphrase the Boy Scout motto: be prepared — with apps! The iTunes App Store is home to countless apps that can help …

NEW ORLEANS—It feels like August in New York down in the Big Easy, but as far as HTC’s concerned there’s still a lot of frost to go around. All the cool breezes though are blowing toward the future of 3D technology on smartphones. Even though Sprint just announced it will sell a variant of the HTC Evo 3D on its …

NEW ORLEANS–Clearwire, often seen in the industry as the odd duck of the wireless providers, may actually be on the unlikely path to offering a globally compatible device. At least that’s what CEO Erik Prusch believes. With major carriers in China, India, and Europe supporting the same spectrum band and variant of LTE, it’s possible that a phone running on …

Sony has shown off two new additions to its Xperia range of smart phones — the 4.6-inch Xperia GX and its cheaper little brother, the 3.7-inch Xperia SX. Sadly, they’re only being flogged in Japan, for now at least. The Xperia GX is the big boy of the two. It’s packing a 4.6-inch screen with a 720p resolution, which is …

NEW ORLEANS–Sprint Nextel is preparing to bid adieu to the Nextel side of the business. Sprint executives today ran through its Network Vision upgrade plan, which includes the decommissioning of its Nextel iDEN network. The company has already shut down 1,900 cellular sites and plans to turn off 9,600 sites by the end of the third quarter, Bob Azzi, senior …

NEW ORLEANS–Security suite maker AVG has teamed with independent Android marketplace and mobile content provider Livewire to scan all the apps it hosts for malware before they are made available to the public, the companies announced today at CTIA. The deal will also install AVG’s free Android security app Mobilation (download) on devices to scan apps after they update. Jon …

NEW ORLEANS–Seven years after it last visited New Orleans and almost seven years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, CTIA has returned to The Crescent City. And as the 2012 Hurricane season approaches on June 1, Verizon Wireless uses the trade show to show how it is preparing for future disasters. We’ve already seen a Verizon Super Switch that can …