IDG News Service, IDG News ServiceStephen Lawson, Stephen Lawson

Verizon Communications is putting the pedal to the metal on its FiOS service with a new 300Mbps option next month, offering a majority of its customers a wild Internet ride, though it hasn't said how much that ride will cost.

The company said Wednesday it will refresh its portfolio of services next month, introducing four new speed tiers. The most eye-catching will be the top plan, with 300Mbps (bits per second) downstream and 65Mbps upstream. With that grade of service, subscribers will be able to download a two-hour high-definition movie in 2.2 minutes and upload five minutes of HD home video in 31 seconds, according to Verizon. The fastest FiOS service now is 150Mbps downstream and 35Mbps upstream, with TV and voice, for $199.99 per month.

Research In Motion has warned that it expects an operating loss for the current quarter and has hired two investment banks to help it study alternative company strategies that might include licensing its OS.

The troubled BlackBerry maker said competitive pressures were hurting its business and that the current quarter, which ends June 2, is likely to end in a loss.

Sprint Nextel will finish shutting down its narrowband iDEN network as early as June 30, 2013, the company disclosed on Tuesday.

The iDEN system is the infrastructure that serves Sprint's Nextel brand and its popular push-to-talk service, which date back to before Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005. But the by-now archaic data speeds of the technology and the costs of maintaining two totally separate networks, sounded the death knell for iDEN as far back as the merger deal's announcement in 2004.

Cisco Systems owned up to some miscalculations in its video collaboration strategy but showed off some promising future capabilities in a briefing with media this week.

The company's video meeting business is best known for its TelePresence Meeting Systems, especially the high-profile three-screen meeting rooms that include Cisco-designed furniture and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Cisco is now looking beyond those swanky environments toward mobile devices that can bring video meetings to participants wherever they are.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved a rule change for part of the 800MHz band at a meeting on Thursday, opening the door for Sprint Nextel to use the band for its 4G LTE network.

Sprint has frequencies in the 800MHz SMR (Specialized Mobile Radio) band that so far have been dedicated to the iDEN network, which delivers the narrowband 2G service that Sprint acquired by buying Nextel in 2005. When the FCC carried out a rebanding project several years ago to eliminate interference between iDEN and public safety radios, it decided that services on those frequencies couldn't use channels wider than 25KHz. That channel width can't support anything more than a narrowband service such as iDEN, which delivers average throughput of 20Kbps (bits per second) to 30Kbps.

Verizon Communications on Tuesday became the first service provider to say it will use Alcatel-Lucent's upcoming 7950 XRS core routing system, which will bring the French-American equipment vendor into the carrier core routing business for the first time in about a decade.

Alcatel announced the 7950 XRS (Extensible Routing System) at an event at its Santa Clara, California, campus on Tuesday. It will be offered in three versions, which will accommodate between 32 and 160 100Gbps (bit-per-second) ports. The first of those will begin shipping in the third quarter this year. Ihab Tarazi, vice president of Global IP (Internet Protocol) and Transport Planning and Technology at Verizon, spoke at the event, which was webcast.

EMC has acquired Syncplicity, an enterprise file-management service provider, for an undisclosed sum.

The privately-held company offers cloud-based file management that lets enterprise users securely access and synchronize files and use applications on a variety of devices. EMC will bring Syncplicity into its Information Intelligence Group portfolio, according to a press release.

Traditional mobile phone plans are now on the wane in the U.S., but the country's biggest carriers are still bringing in more money and leading the world in revenue, according to a report based on first-quarter results.

For the first time ever, U.S. mobile operators reported a net decline in postpaid subscribers, who sign up for ongoing service and pay a monthly bill, according to a report released Monday by Chetan Sharma Consulting. The seven major carriers together lost about 52,000 postpaid subscribers from 2011's fourth quarter to the first quarter of 2012, the report said.

Voyager Mobile, the startup that had planned to launch last Tuesday but said it was delayed by an attack on its website, went live on Sunday with an unlimited voice, text and data plan for US$39 per month.

Voyager is the latest MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) to launch a service using the Sprint Nextel and Clearwire networks. Along with its $39-per-month plan, it is offering unlimited voice and text for $19 per month. A future component of the service, a program called Voyager Rewards, will let customers earn points by talking on the phone and exchange those points for airline miles, phone upgrades, gift cards and free monthly service.

After more than a year of active testing and debate over LightSquared's plan for a nationwide, wholesale 4G network, the now bankrupt company may end up as no more than a cautionary tale for mobile investors.

Industry observers say there are three things that might bring some value to LightSquared's main asset, a chunk of disputed radio spectrum: The company could swap the spectrum for another block, sell it to another carrier, or win a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. But all three are unlikely, they said.

Voyager Mobile, a startup promising cheap, unlimited mobile service around the U.S., has postponed the launch it planned for Tuesday, saying a malicious attack took down its website.

Voyager announced on Monday that it would launch a nationwide 3G and 4G service with unlimited plans starting at US$19 per month, with no contracts or credit checks. The service would also include Voyager Rewards, which would let users earn points by talking on the phone and exchange them for airline miles, phone upgrades, gift cards and free monthly service.

LightSquared, the startup that planned a nationwide wholesale mobile network only to be shot down by regulators because of GPS interference concerns, is declaring bankruptcy.

The move came after lengthy negotiations with lenders and does not shut down the company's only commercial operation, a satellite-based mobile service. The bankruptcy is expected to give Philip Falcone, the hedge-fund chief who built LightSquared out of two satellite acquisitions, several months of control over how the company addresses its troubles.