Wireless Communications

Fin "Sonny" Polk, a systems analyst for the city of Oxnard who set up a wireless communications system for city employees, died Friday in a local hospital following a brief illness. He was 44. Polk was born Dec. 13, 1952, in Highland Park, Mich., and was baptized at New Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Detroit. He graduated from Highland Park High School, attended the University of Michigan and received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Wayne State University.

— With public airwaves getting crowded, the Defense Department and other federal agencies need to share a swath of valuable government spectrum with wireless companies to help meet rising demand from smartphones and other mobile devices, the Commerce Department says. Sharing the spectrum would be a new approach and would involve finding ways to prevent commercial systems from interfering with key government functions, according to a 155-page report released Tuesday by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Richard M. Neustadt, a pioneer in the field of wireless telecommunications who co-founded the Private Satellite Network to provide closed-circuit television for companies, has died. He was 47. Neustadt, who lived in Santa Monica, died Sunday in a Yuba River rafting accident near Downieville, Calif.

It seems like an odd strategy for a company in a mature business with limited growth to buy another with even dimmer prospects. But that's what satellite broadcaster Dish Network Corp. did in April when it acquired bankrupt video store chain Blockbuster in a deal valued at $320 million. Purchasing Blockbuster, and embarking on an almost $3-billion spending spree for broadband spectrum, are part of Dish's ambitious plans to turn the company from a pay-television service with about 14 million subscribers into a competitor of Netflix Inc. and a player in wireless communications.

John Sculley and Spectrum Information Technologies have agreed to drop the lawsuits they filed against one another after Sculley quit the company last month--thus halting, at least temporarily, one of the most colorful public spats in the business world.

TRW and ICO Global Communications will join forces on a satellite network to provide wireless communications services, ending a long legal battle between the two companies. The companies announced Wednesday that TRW will invest about $50 million in cash in London-based ICO in exchange for about 7% of ICO's outstanding stock, which has a face value of $150 million.

For Motorola Inc., the news that its chairman was quitting to run Eastman Kodak Co. was stunning and unwelcome. But it would be even more stunning if Fisher's departure caused any serious problems at the Chicago-area company. Industry executives said Thursday that Motorola's remarkable success in recent years is less a reflection of Chairman George M.C.

In an ambitious effort to assure women, minorities and small businesses an ownership stake in the burgeoning wireless communications industry, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules Wednesday that will give those groups special treatment in a multibillion-dollar radio spectrum sale later this year.

In deals that would cement its nationwide presence in the burgeoning wireless communications field, NexTel Communications Inc. said Friday that it will merge with Dial Page Inc. and buy all of Motorola Inc.'s specialized mobile radio licenses, two stock-swap transactions valued at a total of $2.4 billion. The deals are the latest in a string of aggressive moves by NexTel, a provider of specialty mobile radio services.

Question: I am going to Switzerland (and a little Italy and Germany) this summer. I now have a Sprint Droid Evo smart phone that I love. It is 4G and Wi-Fi and receives calls, texts and e-mails. What's the best way to communicate with the family in the U.S.? Everyone will adore clear and simple answers. Joan Lutz Fountain Valley Answer: Carrier pigeon? Smoke signals? Message in a bottle? All are simpler and clearer than the answers about using cellphones in Europe . Unless, of course, money is no object and your phone actually works in Europe.

Only Steve Jobs could make anticlimax seem so fascinating. After the Apple CEO unveiled his company's most fervently anticipated new product at an invitation-only media event Wednesday, most of the anticipation was left in the bottle. Despite months of hype heralding an entirely novel kind of electronic device, the reality was underwhelming. The iPad resembles a scaled-up iPhone -- without the phone. It's an iPod too big to fit in your pocket yet too small in capacity to hold your entire music collection, with a Web browser featuring excellent graphics but tied to a data network (AT&T's)

The messages came in French and English in the minutes and hours after a magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12: "heavy earth quake right now!" "I see at a distance clouds of dust." "Hundreds of dead body in the collapse of Hotel Montana." "parts of the Palace have collapsed." "Phones seem to be out. . . . Communication is at a standstill." Before authorities could begin to assess the damage, before reporters and aid workers could arrive on the scene, Twitter and other social media sites offered a quick portrait of the damage.

She was the ultimate all-American mom from the 1970s raising six kids on TV, but when it came to learning how to use her cellphone to send text messages, she avoided asking her own tech-savvy children. "I didn't want to see them rolling their eyes," said Florence Henderson, best known for playing Carol Brady, the sitcom mom on "The Brady Bunch." The 75-year-old actress "was always very afraid of anything technical like that," and instead of seeking help from her children, she got a three-minute lesson from a business associate.

Here's maybe the best reason yet to make sure your Wi-Fi connection is secure from snoopers. A French technology company called Withings has introduced the first bathroom scale with Wi-Fi capability. And if that wasn't enough, it also has an iPhone app. All you do is step on the scale, and your weight shows up on a personal Web page (hopefully, that's secure too) or the phone screen, where you can compare it with past readings. You can even get a graphic showing weight loss -- or gain -- over time.

People have been asking for years whether cellphones can give you a brain tumor. And for years, the wireless industry has been telling us not to worry our pretty heads. So that's settled, right? Maybe not. A group called the International EMF Collaborative issued a report the other day warning that cellphones may be more dangerous than users have been led to believe by health authorities. The report, titled "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern," says the latest research indicates that regular use of cellphones can result in a "significant" risk of brain tumors.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlined plans Tuesday to blanket Los Angeles with wireless Internet access in 2009, in what would be one of the nation's largest urban Wi-Fi networks. The L.A. Wi-Fi initiative would give Los Angeles residents, schools, businesses and visitors uninterrupted high-speed Internet connections -- for work, research, Web browsing or even phone calls.

SpectraSite Holdings Inc. said it would pay local telephone company SBC Communications $1.3 billion for lease rights to 3,900 wireless communications towers, giving SpectraSite the largest tower portfolio in the top 50 U.S. markets. The deal comes as telecommunications companies shift the high cost of building and maintaining wireless communications towers to specialists. SpectraSite forged a similar pact with wireless telephone carrier Nextel Communications Inc. last year.

The Obama administration made it a national priority to spread high-speed Internet access to every American home and it offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operators are staying away from the program. With today the deadline to apply for $4.7 billion in broadband grants, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast won't be going for the stimulus money, sources close to the companies said. Their reasons are varied. All three say they have enough cash to upgrade and expand their broadband networks on their own. Some say the grant money could draw unwanted scrutiny of their business practices and compensation programs, as seen with automakers and banks that got government bailouts.

Frank Gruber's workstation at AOL in Dulles, Va., could be in any cubicle farm from here to Bangalore -- pushpin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting. It's so drab, there's nothing more to say about it, which is why the odds of finding Gruber there are slim. Instead, Gruber often works at the Tryst coffeehouse in the Adams Morgan neighborhood here, at Liberty Tavern in nearby suburban Clarendon, Va.