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By Katie Marsal Published: 09:00 AM EST A group of U.S. senators this week asked the Federal Communications Commission to step in and examine whether exclusive relationships between wireless carriers and handset makers are in the best interest of customers. Four members of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet fired off a letter to FCC chairman Michael Copps on Monday, expressing their growing concern over the deals, like the one in place between Apple and AT&T regarding the iPhone. Their request actually stems from a petition filed last month by the Rural Cellular Association, a group of smaller tier II and tier III wireless carriers that provide service to parts of the U.S. where tier I brands like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile do not. They argue that their inability to provide their customers with some of the most popular mobile handsets and smartphones makes it difficult for them to compete, especially in markets where their coverage does overlap with some of the big tier I operators. In their letter to the FCC, the senators asked the commission to examine five specific issues carefully and act expeditiously should they find that exclusivity agreements unfairly restrict consumer choice or adversely impact competition in the commercial wireless marketplace. Specifically, they request a determination on whether exclusivity agreements are becoming increasingly prevalent between dominant wireless carriers and handset manufacturers, and whether these agreements are restricting consumer choice, particularly for those living in rural America. The senators also asked the commission to decide whether the agreements place limitations on a consumer’s ability to take full advantage of handset technologies, such as the ability to send multimedia messages (MMS) or the ability to "tether" a device to a computer for internet use. This particular requests comes amid word that AT&T, despite the hefty service and data fees it charges iPhone customers, won't be able to provide iPhone 3G S customers with those two services from the onset of their new wireless contracts. Among the other topics up for debate are whether the ability for a dominant carrier to reach an exclusive agreement with a handset manufacturer is inhibiting the ability of smaller, more regional carriers to compete; and whether exclusivity agreements play a role in encouraging or discouraging innovation within the handset marketplace. The letter -- signed by senators John Kerry (Dem. from Mass.), Roger Wicker (Rep. from Miss.), Amy Klobuchar (Dem. from Minn) and Byron Dorgan (Dem. from N.D.) -- precedes a hearing by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the matter set for Wednesday to help determine whether legislative action is necessary.

By Katie Marsal Published: 01:00 PM EST Apple's new iPhone 3G S hasn't hit store shelves yet but already there's talk of next year's models, which are expected to leverage ARM's multi-core processor designs in giving the touchscreen handset a significant performance boost while simultaneously increasing battery life once again. Like Palm's new Pre device, the iPhone 3G S is believed to be powered by a single-core ARM Cortex-A8 running at roughly 600MHz. It may be the last of its breed, however. Future embedded processors from the world's leading mobile chip designer are expected to follow a path similar to those for conventional PCs, by which performance gains are achieved by scaling up the number of available processor cores. Reference designs for ARM's next-generation Cortex-A9 call for versions with either two or four cores, with dual-core versions "definitely" slated to turn up in smartphones that will ship sometime in 2010, James Bruce, wireless segment manager for ARM, told CNet News.com in a phone interview earlier this week. "What we've done on the A9 is actually make it more power efficient than the A8," he said. "The dual-core A9 will be coming out on 45-nanometer rather than the (current) 65-nanometer process." The smaller, more precise design of the A9 will signal a faster, more power-efficient chip. And although power consumption will increase some 10 to 20 percent at peak performance when compared to the A8, Bruce noted that smartphones based off the new design will actually see better battery life in real-world usage situations. That's because, like the A8 in the iPhone 3G S , the A9 will process instructions in larger batches more efficiently than its predecessor, which means that computations will happen more rapidly and processes will take less time, leaving the battery in future iPhones with more juice for browsing the web, sending email, and uploading video files. The A9 also sports some out-of-order processing characteristics, letting the chip make use of processor cycles that would otherwise be wasted by current chip designs. "You're getting a 2X increase (over the previous ARM design)," Brunce said of the A8 in the upcoming iPhone 3G S. "And actually the A9 takes that even further. It's a superscalar design but it's also an out-of-order design as well. There is some out-of-order aspects with the A8 but the A9 is a very aggressive out-of-order processor." In addition to these enhancements, Apple is expected to build some of its own proprietary technologies into future iPhone chips based off ARM's A9 reference designs with the help of resources acquired last year in the purchase of fabless chip designer P.A. Semi...