MetroPCS Communications Inc urged shareholders to support its proposed merger with Deutsche Telekom AG unit T-Mobile USA Inc after two proxy advisory firms recommended that shareholders vote against the deal.

Proxy advisers Glass Lewis (San Francisco, CA, USA) and ISS have backed efforts by two key activist investors to block the deal.

MetroPCS (Richardson, TX, India) said in a letter to shareholders on Monday there could be no assurance that it would be able to deliver better shareholder value as a stand-alone wireless company.

Wireless service provider Clearwire Corp said it would draw on $80 million in financing from Sprint Nextel Corp , which is seeking to buy it, reducing the chances for rival bidder Dish Network Corp.

Clearwire (Bellevue, WA, USA), which is already majority owned by Sprint (Overland Park, KS, USA), said on Wednesday that it would continue talks with Dish (Meridian, CO, USA) but that it has not changed its recommendation in favor of its agreement with No. 3 U.S. mobile provider Sprint.

California:

The Autotech Council opens its doors to non-members a few times each year to take a deep dive into a segment of the auto industry that is attracting large amounts of innovation and investment. These ½ day, executive-format agendas highlight a few larger vendors who are leading the segment forward and bring dozens of undiscovered companies to the stage as well. These agendas always include plenty of time for networking, business discussions, and an interactive format that promotes relationships between member and non-member companies.

California:

2013 is shaping up to be the year when HetNets gets real. Join the Telecom Council and up to 100 executives for a ½ day executive-format meeting to discuss the state of HetNets, what the big vendors are offering, what the carriers are doing, and what the startups and innovators are up to. This meeting features major companies, dozens of startups in the segment, plenty of demos, and lots of time for networking with the participants and speakers.

California:

Join 100 SDN specialists as we dig into the modernization of data networks that separate the control plane from the data plane - Software Defined Networks. Similar to what virtualization represents in computing power, SDN brings similar virtualization to lower layer networking. While this topic may seem somewhat technical for a business meeting, it actually opens up a wealth of innovation opportunities for Silicon Valley companies, as well as cost and operational savings for network operators

T-Mobile USA said on Tuesday that it will start selling Apple Inc's iPhone on April 12, making it the last of the big national U.S. operators to sell the popular smartphone.

The No. 4 U.S. mobile provider, which is seeking to merge with smaller rival MetroPCS Communications (Richardson, TX, USA), is hoping the device can help stem customer losses. The launch follows a marketing overhaul that eliminates device subsidies and two-year service contracts favored by its bigger rivals.

M2M specialist Numerex has announced that its customer base has surpassed the 2 million mark, with surging growth providing evidence of the current momentum in the M2M industry.

The company, which provides M2M services and technology for enterprise and government customers worldwide, says that it took several years to reach the 1 million mark but only two years to double its customer base from that level.

Visa Inc has no plans to implement a "digital wallet" fee at this point, Jim McCarthy, global head of product at the payment network, said on Thursday.

The comment came amid concern Visa (Foster City, CA, USA) might follow MasterCard Inc's recent move to impose a new fee on operators of digital wallets, such as PayPal, owned by eBay Inc (San Jose, CA, USA).

Speculation about a Vodafone withdrawal from the US is once again mounting after a report in the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper claimed the UK operator is preparing to sell its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless in a deal that could raise as much as $135 billion.

Without saying where it had obtained the information, the Sunday Times said Vodafone (Newbury, UK) was in discussions with joint venture partner Verizon Communications (New York City, NY, USA) and that a sale could happen by the summer.

Julius Genachowski said on Friday he will step down as chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in the coming weeks after four years on the job, and touted his record of working to expand broadband Internet service to Americans.