Phone companies have known for some time now that their industry’s carbon footprint and energy use will continue to grow due to the growth of always-on mobile devices, from cell phones to tablets to electric cars to smart meters. Verizon decided that it could use some help and announced Wednesday it will turn to a national lab to figure out how to cut its own emissions and come up with marketable energy-saving technologies.

Verizon has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory which, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy, more often works with clean power developers in solar and wind. NREL has done some work on software for modeling and analyzing a building’s energy use since energy efficiency improvement is a major goal of the DOE.

The phone company said it wants to work with NREL on two key areas: running its operations, including data centers, in more energy-efficient ways, and developing technologies that make use of Verizon’s communications network to cut energy use at homes and businesses.

We will be interested to know what this collaboration will come up with and whether it will help to promote segments of the smart grid market that haven’t seen as much traction as some companies and their investors have hoped. One area that has struggled has been home energy management tools. Google and Microsoft made headlines last month when both ditched their once-heralded energy-management software and portals that were designed for consumer use. They are hardly alone. Some startups in this sector also have found lackluster interest from their intended customers, be they utilities or consumers.

Now telcos such as Verizon and AT&T probably think they can create better tools than utilities, and can use their weight to get tools into the market faster than some of the startups focused on this. At the very least, they can work with all these players to test what business models make sense in the new smart grid market. Telecom companies already have the communications networks and some insight into people’s use of gadgets and data.

Verizon began running a home energy management pilot project in New Jersey earlier this year. The company also joined a $17.7 million round for Consert, a startup with a home energy product that connects via Verizon’s cellular network.

Finding ways to cut its own carbon emissions also is a smart thing to do for Verizon and other wireless and cable service providers, even though there is no government policy in the U.S. mandating such reporting. The information and communication technology (ITC) industry accounted for 2 percent of the global carbon emissions in 2007. The SMART 2020 report by The Climate Group said the ITC industry contributed 0.53 billion tons of emissions in 2002 and will likely put out 1.43 gigatons in 2020 if no special actions are taken (business as usual scenario). Through measures such as the use of smart grid technologies, the industry can reduce the overall, worldwide emissions in 2020 by 7.8 gigatons.

Verizon Wireless will redouble its Long Term Evolution (LTE) efforts in 2011 as it reveals that its first 4G smartphone — the High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) (Taiwan: 2498) Thunderbolt — was a best seller in the first quarter of 2010. (See Verizon Reports Q1.)

The carrier plans to cover more than 185 million potential subscribers with its LTE deployment by the end of the year. The network already offers consumers average download speeds of 5 Mbit/s to 12 Mbit/s over the air in many major U.S. cities.

“By the end of the year we plan to be in about 175 markets,” Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) CFO Fran Shammo said in the first-quarter earnings call. Verizon had previously said that it expects to be in around 147 metropolitan markets by the end of the year. (See Verizon Sets More LTE Launches.)

One of the motivating factors may be the success of the operator’s first 4G phone, the HTC Thunderbolt. The company sold 260,000 Thunderbolts in two weeks when it went on sale, with more than 500,000 4G devices, such as data cards, activated overall during the quarter.

Verizon sold 2.2 million Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone 4s for the two months it was available on the Verizon network during the first quarter. Rival AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) activated 3.6 million iPhones in the first quarter, 33 percent more than this time last year. (See AT&T’s iPhone Growth Continues.)

Overall, Verizon added 1.8 million total new connections, including 906,000 retail customers on monthly contracts and 897,000 wholesale and other connections. The operator now has 88.4 million retail customers and 15.6 million wholesale and other connections in total, including machine-to-machine (M2M) links.

The influx of new smartphones onto the Verizon network has once again boosted its wireless data revenues. Data revenues for the quarter were US$5.5 billion, up $1 billion or 22.3 percent year-on-year, which represents 38.1 percent of all service revenues. Total wireless revenues were $16.9 billion, up 10.2 percent year-on-year.

Verizon Wireless stopped orders for the iPhone after selling through its initial inventory.
Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, sold through its initial inventory of Apple Inc. iPhones in less than a day after starting to offer the device to its current customers.

The preorders were halted at 8:10 p.m. New York time yesterday, about 17 hours after they began, Verizon said today in a statement. All potential buyers can order online on Feb. 9, and the devices will be in stores on Feb. 10, according to the company’s website.

The touch-screen smartphone broke Verizon’s first-day sales records in its first two hours, Dan Mead, chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, said in the statement. Verizon said last week the iPhone may help drive sales and profit up as much as 8 percent this year, if the company can sell 11 million of the phones.

“Verizon rolled out a very targeted campaign toward their own base to upgrade the device,” Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst at Wells Fargo & Co. in Chicago, said in a note to investors today. “We note both companies had said that inventory would be limited.”

Verizon isn’t disclosing how many phones were sold, spokeswoman Brenda Raney said.

Previously, U.S. customers could only get the iPhone on the network of AT&T Inc., the country’s second-largest wireless carrier.

Verizon Communications Inc., which co-owns the wireless company with Vodafone Group Plc, fell 3 cents to $36.35 in trading before U.S. exchanges opened, after closing at $36.38 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Apple gained 56 cents to $344 in early trading, after closing at $343.44 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Wednesday that it would kick off online sales of the Verizon Wireless iPhone on Feb. 9, a day before the device hits its store shelves.

Apple’s web sales launch of the highly-anticipated phone will follow Verizon’s online sales of a limited number of iPhones to its existing mobile customers starting at 3 a.m. ET Feb. 3 for delivery on or before Feb. 10.

Apple said people ordering the phone on Feb. 9 can have it delivered or reserve it for an in-store pickup Feb. 10, when both companies plan to start offering the phone in their stores a 7 a.m. local time. Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).

It will be the second U.S. operator to offer iPhone after AT&T Inc (T.N) more than three years of exclusive rights to the popular device.

Verizon Communications Inc. will pay $1.4 billion to acquire Terremark Worldwide Inc., an operator of data centers, in a move aimed at selling more computing services to business customers.

The deal, Verizon’s largest since its $6.8 billion purchase of MCI in 2005, comes as telecom operators are moving deeper into selling processing power, data storage and software hosting services over the Internet as their landline businesses shrink.

The acquisition could help the company secure more deals for such services—collectively known as “cloud computing”—and compete with companies like Amazon.com Inc., which runs a cloud-services business alongside its giant online store.

Kerry Bailey, Verizon business group president of cloud services, said the carrier has made cloud computing a key part of its growth strategy, in addition to the wireless business it runs with Vodafone Group PLC.

Verizon already operates more than 220 data centers in 23 countries. The deal for the Miami-based company would bring another 13 in the U.S., Europe and Latin America, as well as a strong position in federal government work.

Verizon said it plans to keep the Terremark brand and operate the new unit with its current management team as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Terremark’s clients include the Federal Communications Commission and the Library of Congress, a Terremark spokesman said. The federal government accounts for 21% of Terremark’s revenue, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick.

As revenue growth slows in the traditional phone business, it makes sense for telecom companies that serve business customers, such as Verizon, to “creep deeper into the information-technology environment,” said Steve Hilton, an analyst at research firm Analysys Mason.

Verizon is paying $19 a share in cash, a 35% premium to Terremark’s stock, which was up 35 cents at $14.05 on Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Verizon said it expects to close the deal late in the first quarter.

Application hosting, in particular, is a rapidly growing market. Increasingly, “this is the way people are going to consume” computing resources, rather than building their own data centers, said Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer at Rackspace Hosting Inc., another data center operator.

The deal reflects the long, slow rebound of the data-center business, an industry burned by the dot-com bust. Demand for the facilities housing thousands of computers has exploded in recent years, as Web traffic grows and companies look to centralize storage and computing power.

The HTC ThunderBolt, poised to soon storm Verizon’s new LTE network, may be the first smartphone to allow simultaneous voice and data use on the network. In a Q&A session at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, the operator said that some, but not all, 4G phones launched in the first half of 2011 would offer this feature. News of this feature on the ThunderBolt was found by Android Central in an alleged leaked slide for Verizon employee training on this particular phone. But how would it work?

Using a Verizon handset for voice and web surfing at the same time hasn’t been possible in the past because Verizon uses one network for both voice and data. So current CDMA handsets on Verizon must pause their cellular data connection in order to use the network for voice. If the leaked training slide is accurate, Verizon and HTC have come up with a solution for that limitation. While it could be some type of VoIP offering over LTE such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE), I suspect it isn’t, for a few reasons.

The GSMA, the governing body of GSM telecommunications systems, only last year launched a VoLTE initiative. The intent is to create a set of standards for voice communication over LTE networks, which unlike current 3G networks, are completely IP-based. It’s going to take time for those standards to evolve and I simply don’t see Verizon trying to set the standard for the rest of the world; especially since the operator is just now beginning to adopt GSM technologies.

Adding to that challenge is the lack of LTE network coverage: Verizon’s next-generation network currently covers 38 markets and about one-third of the U.S. population. The carrier expects to cover 140 additional markets by the end of 2011. How would a VoLTE-capable phone handle a voice call when leaving a 4G coverage area? The digital call would have to seamlessly route over to the analog network and that’s simply too complicated. As it is today, available LTE data sticks take time to switch back and forth from 4G to 3G, for example, and any delay would create a poor voice experience.

More likely to me is the idea of managing voice and data through completely separate radios within a handset such as the ThunderBolt. In an LTE coverage area, the data connection would be handled on the faster 4G network and voice would simply be handled as it is today: on the CDMA network. Through software management and multiple radios, this solution seems most likely to me in the short term to provide simultaneous voice and data on Verizon’s network. It’s worth noting that among the new LTE handsets, only the ThunderBolt is using Qualcomm’s new silicon, combining a Snapdragon system-on-a-chip with a Gobi-enabled LTE modem.

We should know soon if indeed the ThunderBolt will handle voice and data at the same time because my sources say that among the four new LTE handsets Verizon will launch in the first half of 2011, the ThunderBolt is the most likely one to launch first. That makes sense because aside from Motorola, no other smartphone vendor has partnered as much with Verizon than HTC in the past year or two. The other two LTE handsets expected by June are coming from LG and Samsung, which don’t have as much of a smartphone history with Verizon.

It’s possible that some early standard of VoLTE will appear on the ThunderBolt, but my money is on a multiple radio solution that totally separates voice and data to handle simultaneous use. And if I’m correct that means you’ll only be able to talk and surf on such devices where you have both 3G and LTE coverage. Consider it a stop-gap measure until a true VoLTE standard evolves, which gives Verizon more time to build out its LTE network.

Verizon Wireless has strengthened its 3G network in the New York metro area, perhaps anticipating an influx of new 3G subscribers following its iPhone 4 announcement yesterday.

Today, Verizon flipped the switch on 16 new cell towers around the state, including New York City, Palisades, Yonkers, Medford, and a dozen other sites.

For the full list, see Verizon’s press release.

“The iPhone is a great and exciting addition to our large portfolio of 3G smartphones,” Verizon spokesman David Samberg told PCMag. “To support the increasing sales and usage of all our 3G products, we continue to invest in the 3G network and expand both coverage and capacity. We like to stay ahead of demand, not play catch up.”

According to Verizon’s statement, the cell towers will boost reception and lead to fewer dropped calls, faster download speeds, and high-quality viewing of videos and VZ Navigator’s turn-by-turn directions.

“As it stands now, the 3G network is what most of our customers are using now. While many will eventually cross over to 4G for business applications and heavier data usage, a good percentage will find that our 3G network will continue to suit their needs very well for the foreseeable future,” said Pat Devlin, New York Metro region president for Verizon Wireless, in the statement.

It remains to be seen how the new cell towers will affect Verizon’s performance in New York. In PCMag’s search for the Fastest Mobile Networks 2010, our analysts found that AT&T actually performed faster than Verizon in New York, though Verizon’s reception was more reliable. The test did not include Verizon’s month-old 4G LTE network, which many expect will carry the iPhone in the future.

Verizon representative Carlos Fonte cleans the screens of the Apple iPads displayed at a Verizon store in Coral Gables, Florida.

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — Daniel Mead, chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, talks about the company’s plans to start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone early next month, ending rival AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the device in the U.S. and more than doubling the potential customer base for the touch-screen smartphone. Mead speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — Ted Moore, a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, and Bill Whyman, head of technology research at ISI Group, discuss the outlook for AT&T Inc. following Verizon Wireless’s agreement to sell Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Moore says three million of AT&T’s iPhone subscribers may move to Verizon in the first year. The iPhone will be available on Verizon’s network on Feb. 10 with preorders for existing customers starting online Feb. 3, the company said in a statement today. They speak with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Verizon Wireless will sell a version of Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer that can connect directly to its network, posing another challenge to AT&T Inc. as the carrier’s exclusive hold on the iPhone draws to a close.

Verizon will get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network, Francis Shammo, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc., the parent of the wireless unit, said today in an interview in New York. IPad users currently need an extra device to connect to Verizon’s network. Shammo declined to say when the change may happen.

Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, began selling the iPad in its stores in a package with its credit card-sized Wi-Fi device in October for $629.99 to $829.99. Apple, which introduced the iPad in April, offers versions of the tablet that connect directly to AT&T’s network.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, sold about 7.5 million iPads through September and, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., may sell more than 37 million of the devices this year.

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, said today it will begin selling the iPhone on its network to all customers on Feb. 10. AT&T, based in Dallas, had been the exclusive carrier of the smartphone since 2007.

Verizon Communications, which co-owns the wireless unit with Vodafone Group Plc, fell 56 cents to $35.36 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. AT&T declined 43 cents to $27.91. Verizon has lost 1.2 percent this year and AT&T has declined 5 percent.

After months of speculation, Verizon Wireless said Tuesday that it will make Apple’s wildly popular iPhone available on its cellular network.

The announcement, which has been widely anticipated because of problems with AT&T’s network, is also good news for Qualcomm. Analysts believe the San Diego wireless giant will be the supplier of radio chips for the new iPhone. Qualcomm declined to comment.

AT&T has had an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone since the device was introduced in 2007. The iPhone led the way for consumers to download applications and connect wirelessly to the Internet.

But all that data traffic — which exceeded AT&T’s expectations — sometimes overwhelmed the company’s capacity.

Verizon’s main sales pitch has been the strength and coverage of its network. That strength could be tested if the iPhone becomes a runaway hit with its subscribers.

In a news conference in New York, Verizon Wireless said it will begin selling the iPhone 4 at its stores Feb. 10. Prices range from $200 for 16 gigabytes of memory and $300 for 32 gigabytes of memory with a two-year contract. It did not give details on its data plans for the iPhone.

For Qualcomm, the iPhone coming to Verizon most likely means that the San Diego wireless giant will have a baseband radio chip — the modem for data and voice — in the phone.

Today, Qualcomm doesn’t have a chip in the iPhone. AT&T’s 3G network is based on a technology standard for which several companies make baseband modem chips. Apple uses one of Qualcomm’s competitors.

Verizon’s 3G network, however, runs on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technology pioneered by Qualcomm, and the San Diego company dominates the market for radio chips that work on the most advanced CDMA networks and devices.

“It should be good because incremental volume (in chip sales) increases for Qualcomm, but there also could be some cannibalization,” said Vijay Rakesh, managing director of investment firm Stern Agee in Chicago. “But it’s a net positive because volume is always positive.”

Consumers may choose to buy the iPhone 4 instead of some competing brand of smart phone that uses Qualcomm chips, hence the potential for ”cannibalization.”

But analysts also think the biggest potential market for the iPhone 4 is existing Verizon customers who want to trade up from basic phones to smart phones, which can access the Internet and download applications.

In addition, analysts don’t forecast a large migration of AT&T iPhone users to Verizon, in part because they still have months or years remaining on their wireless service contracts.

“I think a majority of iPhone volumes for Verizon are going to be internal to Verizon,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless communications for IHS iSuppli, an industry research firm. “From Qualcomm’s perspective, that’s actually a good thing.”

There also is potential for growth internationally, Sideco said. Now that an iPhone is available on a CDMA network in the U.S., overseas wireless operators with CDMA networks could soon begin selling the device as well.

“We believe that at some point in the year, probably China Telecom in China, or may one of the other global CDMA guys, will take advantage of this version of the iPhone.”

iSuppli forecasts that Apple will ship 12.1 million CDMA iPhones through Verizon and other global carriers in 2011. That will help boost total iPhone shipments 24.5 percent this year compared with 2010.

Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said in a research note to clients in November that Qualcomm may be developing a stronger business relationship with Apple.

He said that Qualcomm chips could ship in all iPhones and iPads by mid 2011, including those on non-CDMA networks like AT&T’s.

In that case, Qualcomm would replace the existing radio chip supplier Infineon, which is selling its wireless chip business to Intel. Berger recently raised the price target for Qualcomm’s stock from $52 to $55 a share.

Apple Inc. watchers are already doing rough calculations and think Verizon Wireless could generate sales of millions of iPhones this year.

Verizon has invited reporters to a press event where it is expected the wireless carrier will announce it will carry the iPhone. At the Consumer Electronics Show, conference goers weighed in on the news.
.Sales estimates vary, but many analysts agree Apple will likely sell 9 million to 12 million iPhones on Verizon’s network this year, a huge boost in the iconic phone’s most important market.

To put that into perspective, AT&T Inc. sold 11.1 million iPhones in the first nine months of 2010. Piper Jaffray & Co. estimates a full-year total of 14.5 million iPhones for AT&T, accounting for 12% of Apple’s overall revenue and 30% of its iPhone sales. In its fiscal year, ended September, Apple reported revenue of $20.34 billion.

Verizon, the country’s largest wireless carrier, will have the phone available in stores around the end of the month, a person familiar with the matter says.

.Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said Wall Street is expecting sales of the new Verizon iPhone to boost Apple’s overall sales by 5%, though he believes it could have as much as twice that effect if Verizon lures enough new customers to the phone — as opposed to those it steals from AT&T.

“There’s so much pent up demand,” said Mr. Munster, who himself has set a conservative sales estimate of 9 million iPhones via Verizon in the current year.

Some see an even bigger impact. Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co., said he believes the iPhone could capture 5% of Verizon’s customers in its first quarter on sale, a faster rate than when it launched through AT&T in June 2007.

“There’s probably around 17 million subscribers on AT&T that use the iPhone cumulatively — I think over time Verizon could be even bigger than that,” said Mr. Marshall, who has set a 2011 sales estimate of 12 million units.

Verizon had 93.2 million subscribers at the end of September. The company not only stands to win new subscribers, but also to increase the percentage of its customers who pay for data service each month. Carriers are looking to data to drive sales growth and offset declining voice revenue.

Heavy demand for the iPhone could put pressure on Verizon’s current suppliers of high-end smartphones.

Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., which spun off from Motorola early this month, stemmed years of losses last year by focusing on selling smartphones based on Google Inc. software to Verizon, which needed an answer to AT&T’s exclusive hold on the iPhone.

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha acknowledged in an interview last month that a Verizon iPhone could widen his company’s losses in the first quarter, but he believes Motorola can still compete, in part by focusing on phones that work on Verizon’s new 4G network.

HTC Corp., another big supplier of smartphones to Verizon, says its devices remain competitive.

Opinions are split on how many iPhone customers Verizon could take away from AT&T. Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research said he believes initial sales will mostly involve existing Verizon customers who want to upgrade to the iPhone and Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA customers who weren’t willing to switch to AT&T because of its poor network reputation.

AT&T made it easier for its subscribers to upgrade to the iPhone 4 last summer, in the process locking them into fresh two-year contracts. Many other iPhone owners are on the carrier’s family or business plans, making it trickier to switch.

Last week, the carrier also cut the price of an older model of the iPhone, the 3GS, to $49 from $99.

“The percentage that will come from AT&T escapees is going to be relatively small because of the heavy promotion that AT&T did to lock customers to contracts,” said Mr. Golvin. While Verizon could offer to help offset the costs of switching to its network from AT&T, that would be an expensive endeavor, he said.

Kuo Ming-Chi, an analyst for Concord Securities in Taiwan, estimates that Apple’s manufacturing partners in China will ship 7.1 million iPhones compatible with Verizon’s CDMA network in the first quarter. It isn’t clear whether some of those phones could be headed for CDMA carriers in other countries like China or India.