• Parvus announced that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has included its RiderNet3 mobile access points in a Wi-Fi pilot program, believed to be the nation's first cellular-based wireless Internet service for commuter rail. The system uses CDMA EV-DO for the cellular backhaul. Starting today, the MBTA "Wi-Fi Commuter Rail Connect Test Program" will offer free wireless Internet service on at least one coach of every train traveling the 45-mile commuter rail line between Worcester and Boston. Forty-five coaches will be equipped with the service, enabling the line's 18,000 daily passengers to use laptop computers, cellular phones, PDAs, or other Wi-Fi-enabled devices to access the Internet during their commutes to and from South Station on participating coaches.

• Nokia Siemens Networks and Ubiquisys have signed an agreement to partner in the marketing and sales of 3G femtocells to mobile operators worldwide. Ubiquisys' ZoneGate femtocell supports industry standard interfaces and conforms to Nokia Siemens Networks' Femto Gateway's open architecture.

• Alltel Wireless announced that it is now offering the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 in red. The device is available in Alltel retail stores and online at shopalltel.com for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate to new customers who sign-up for a 2-year service agreement as well as existing eligible customers on qualifying rate plans.

• Ericsson announced that it has demonstrated for the first time Long Term Evolution (LTE) in both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) mode on the same base station platform. LTE is the only technology that can use the same platform for both paired and unpaired spectrum, thereby enabling large economies of scale for operators. Ericsson said its LTE TDD mode demonstration encompassed a variety of applications and showcased speeds over 90 Mbps in the downlink with 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). Ericsson has previously demonstrated LTE in FDD mode several times with speeds of up to 160Mbps.

• Backhaul systems company Exalt Communications has introduced its high-capacity, carrier-class 4.9 GHz wireless backhaul solutions for public safety applications, such as video surveillance.  The EX-i and EX-r 4.9 GHz wireless backhaul solutions, provide capacity, security and availability in both all-indoor and all-outdoor configurations.  The solutions are software-configurable and offer up to 55 Mbps total aggregate throughput. The radios can be configured for both native TDM and native IP traffic, providing secure and cost-effective solution with 128- or 256-bit AES encryption and SNMPv3 management.

• Mobile commerce services company mPoria has launched GoLo, a mobile consumer shopping service that allows consumers to purchase in-demand, hard-to-find products at significantly discounted prices.  Through GoLo, mPoria drops the retail price of each featured product every few seconds until the item either sells out or its retail tag reaches zero. The service also allows consumers to locate featured merchandise, monitor dropping prices and make purchases. To participate, consumers enter http://mporia.mobi on their mobile phone browsers to access the service.  Once there, they will find a current featured item and associated discount pricing that they can monitor throughout the day.

• Optus has selected Andrew Wireless Solutions to design, install and commission an in-building wireless mobile communication infrastructure system at its new head office in Macquarie Park, Sydney. The system uses the Andrew Intelligent Optical Network (ION) series, an optical distribution system for carrying radio signals loss-free over fiber optics.  The ION-B system is designed to include 75 dual-band remote units to extend and enhance coverage across a total building area of 84,000 square meters at the new campus. The system has 14 UMTS sectors running high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) and six GSM sectors to cover the wide and densely populated area and address any multiband, multicarrier applications. The system is also capable of transporting frequencies from 800 MHz to 2500 MHz regardless of protocol and modulation.

• Neural Technologies has successfully implemented a fraud management solution that accepts near real-time roaming data (NRTRDE). TDC Denmark has been using Neural Technologies' Minotaur Fraud & Credit Management Solution since 2005 to manage its customer exposure. TDC recognized that Minotaur's architecture was capable of supporting the NRTRDE standard and worked closely with Neural Technologies to define and implement a set of rules within Minotaur to use the new format of roaming data received from its roaming partners. Until recently, roaming fraud has been a huge headache for wireless operators.  The lengthy delays in transferring call detail records between roaming partners has created a window of opportunity for fraudsters. To tackle this problem, the GSMA has encouraged its member operators to migrate from the existing High Usage Report (HUR) process to a defined NRTRDE method which reduces the delivery of fraud-related roaming information from 36 hours to a maximum of 4 hours.

• Rohde & Schwarz has introduced an option for its high-performance RF and baseband signal generators that allows the instruments to generate signals in conformance with Rel. 0 and Rev. A of the CDMA 1X EV-DO standard. The new capability is available as Option R&S SMx-K47 for the R&S SMU200A, R&S SMJ100A and R&S SMATE200A vector signal generators, as well as the R&S AMU200A baseband signal generator/fading simulator and as R&SAFQ-K247 for the R&S AFQ100A IQ modulation generator. Current owners of these instruments can add the option as well.