Device Arena

AT&T, which operates the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network with more than 20,000 U.S. hotspots, today reported a significant second-quarter increase in the number of Wi-Fi connections on the AT&T network, fueled by the rising number of customers with Wi-Fi enabled smartphones.

In the second quarter, AT&T handled nearly 15 million Wi-Fi connections on its network — a 41 percent increase over the first quarter. With approximately 25.6 million connections so far in 2009, AT&T Wi-Fi connections this year have already surpassed the 20 million connections seen in all of 2008.

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Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest bookseller, announced today a strategic agreement with AT&T that will provide complimentary in-store Wi-Fi to any customer that visits a Barnes & Noble bookstore nationwide. All customers shopping in Barnes & Noble stores can now freely download and preview any of the over 700,000 eBook titles with hundreds of thousands of public domain titles available from Google. The company said its number of eBook titles is expanding everyday and expects to hit the one million mark soon.

“Barnes & Noble pioneered the concept of retail stores as community centers,” said Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “By providing no-fee Wi-Fi access, we are not only meeting our customers’ needs, but extending the sense of community that has always been in our stores.”

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AT&T* today accepted the keys to its new all-electric cargo truck. AT&T, along with three other companies, received one of six trucks delivered by Smith Electric on Capitol Hill today – the first in a series of next-generation, all-electric commercial vehicles entering service across the United States. The vehicle, known as the Smith Newton, is the world’s largest electric battery-powered truck and the first commercial all-electric truck to achieve new vehicle emissions certification in California. Acceptance of the vehicle comes on the heels of AT&T’s announcement in March of a 10-year, $565 million commitment to deploy more than 15,000 alternative fuel vehicles in its fleet.

“AT&T is committed to minimizing dependence on imported sources of fuel and exploring new automotive technologies to reduce our environmental impact,” said Jerome Webber, Vice President of Fleet Operations. “This type of truck can help us accomplish both by further decreasing our emissions and increasing our fuel savings.”

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AT&T announced today the panel of judges for its 2009 Big Mobile on Campus (BMOC) challenge, an annual contest that recognizes innovative mobile applications that enhance academic performance, build campus community and help to improve campus operations. This year’s judges have been selected based on their extensive experience in higher education and knowledge of current and emerging technologies specifically related to the wireless industry.

The AT&T Big Mobile on Campus Challenge is open to all full-time students and full- or part-time staff at higher education institutions, accredited or degree-issuing colleges or universities in the continental United States. Entrants must be 18 years old or older at the time of entry and legal residents of the continental U.S. Individual and team entries of no more than four (4) persons will be accepted.

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Following the outcome of the auction for the CDMA and Long Term Evolution (LTE) assets of Nortel, Nokia Siemens Networks remains focused on maintaining its leadership in the global wireless infrastructure industry and sustaining its recent momentum in the North American market,

“Our final offer for Nortel’s assets represented a fair price, and we did not enter this process with a win-at-any-cost mindset,” said Bosco Novak, Chief Markets Operations Officer, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Ours was an opportunistic bid aimed at supporting the great progress we’ve made in North America in the past 18 months, and we are very confident that momentum will continue to grow.”

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