Nokia Siemens Buys Motorola’s Wireless Networking Biz

By Geoff Duncan July 19, 2010

Behind all the cell phones and mobile-enabled gadgets folks use these days are substantial telecommunications networks supporting all those devices…and someone has to make all that infrastructure so consumers can watch YouTube clips of kittens wherever they may be. One of those companies was Motorola…but not anymore. Nokia Siemens, a Finnish-German joint venture, has announced it will be buying Motorola’s cell phone networking gear business for $1.2 billion.

“”This is an exciting acquisition that I believe has significant benefits for customers, employees and our shareholders,” said Nokia Siemens CEO Rajeev Suri, in a statement. “Motorola’s current customers will continue to get world-class support for their installed base and a clear path for transitioning to next generation technologies while employees will join an industry leader with global scale and reach.”

Although the global mobile networking gear business is largely led by Alcatel-Lucent and LM Ericsson, Motorola has been a key supplier to the U.S. mobile operators Verizon Wireless and Sprint, which give Nokia Siemens a solid entry into the U.S. CMDA-based mobile infrastructure market. Motorola also makes a lot of the WiMax gear being deployed by Clearwire and Sprint to offer 4G service, although other major carriers have placed their bets on LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology for 4G service…and Sprint itself might be thinking the same thing.

Under the deal, Motorola will be keeping the iDEN business; it invented the technology, which is currently used by Sprint’s Nextel business and remains a staple of dispatchers and emergency services. Motorola will also keep parts of its mobile gear business focused on public safety, government, and enterprise users.

The deal could give Nokia Siemens some stability moving forward, since the gear deals with more than 50 operators should provide it a sold financial base. The economic downturn has hit Nokia Siemens’ profits in recent years. Under the deal, some 7,500 Motorola employees will be transferred to Nokia Siemens, including development centers in China and India.

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UPDATE: And now, it's gone. As expected, Apple has removed iTether from the App Store. Oh well...
Original text:
Skip your iPhone carrier's expensive tethering plan — Apple has (inexplicably) allowed a tethering app into the App Store. The app, iTether, lets users connect to the Internet on their laptop using their iPhone's wireless connection.
At a cost of $14.99, iTether is one of the more expensive apps out there — but the cost is a fraction of what you'll spend by subscribing to a tethering plan through your carrier. Verizon and AT&T both charge $20 a month for tethering, while Sprint's tethering plan is a whopping $30 a month extra.
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It appears highly likely that Apple will be forced to remove iTether from the App Store sometime soon, as all three iPhone carriers forbid the use of tethering without subscribing to their over-priced service. So if you want to give it a go, we suggest moving as quickly as possible.
Even if you are able to download iTether, it's not entirely clear that you'll get away with tethering your device. AT&T has reportedly been automatically upgrading users who they found were tethering their (jailbroken) iPhones to the DataPro plan, which adds an addition 2GB of data usage, as well as tethering, for $45 a month.
We haven't had a chance to use iTether yet, but reviews have so far been mixed, with many users saying it works perfectly, while others have had difficulty getting the app to work. If you try iTether, let us know what you think of it in the comments.
Download iTether here (iTunes link).
(via 9to5Mac)