cellular networks

Comcast Corp. said Tuesday that its investment in a joint venture to offer mobile Internet access to subscribers could be finalized by the end of the year.

Steve Burke, president of Philadelphia-based Comcast, said the new service would let cable companies offer "wireless data speeds that Verizon and AT&T can't match."

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV operator, in May joined Time Warner Cable Inc., Intel Corp., Google Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp., Clearwire Corp. and other partners to form a $14.55 billion communications company that will offer high-speed mobile Internet access.

To counter recent blog reports predicting that its Xperia 1 smartphone would miss this year's holiday shopping season, Sony Ericsson told media outlets this week that its first-ever Windows Mobile device will be released in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The new multimedia handset, which will feature a three-inch color display, slide-out Qwerty keyboard, Wi-Fi radio and GPS-based navigation, will be available for use on selected high-speed (HSDPA/HSUPA) cellular networks worldwide before the end of this year, the company said.

A new application enabling Apple's iPhone to share EDGE or 3G Internet connections with other wireless devices briefly appeared in Apple's App Store, only to be pulled minutes later.

The Netshare app by Nullriver is based on SOCKS -- an Internet protocol that enables client-server applications to transparently employ the services of a network firewall. Netshare essentially converts any iPhone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, with all Wi-Fi-enabled devices able to share a broadband Internet connection wherever a cellular signal is available.