NEW YORK, May 23 (Reuters) – The top executive of chip maker STMicroelectronics NV sees profit and revenue improvements in coming quarters as orders are increasing and joint venture ST-Ericsson is set to halve its quarterly loss by the fourth quarter.

In late April ST-Ericsson, the 50-50 wireless chip venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, announced a strategy revamp aimed at cutting costs and improving revenue.

As a result STMicroelectronics Chief Executive Carlo Bozotti said on Wednesday that he now sees the revamp cutting ST-Ericsson’s loss to about $140 million in the fourth quarter from about $280 million in the first quarter, improving STMicro’s bottom line by about $70 million in the fourth quarter.

STMicroelectronics posted a GAAP net loss of $176 million in their last quarterly report for the first quarter.

“The improvement this year will be very significant,” Bozotti told Reuters in an interview after the company’s investor day in New York. “It’s very urgent for us to make sure this business does not sink any cash. It needs to be self-sustaining from a cash perspective very rapidly.”

ST-Ericsson represented 16 percent of STMicroelectronics revenue in 2011, the company said.

On top of improvements at ST-Ericsson, Bozotti said STMicroelectronics itself was seeing strong orders for its own chips that are used in products ranging from cellphones to cars.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Verizon Wireless plans to make its data-hungry customers pay a lot more, either in service fees or smartphone prices, as it tries to cut costs and boost revenue from data services.

The No. 1 U.S. mobile provider said it will eliminate unlimited data plans for all customers who upgrade their cellphone at a discounted rate, potentially driving more business to its smaller rival Sprint Nextel (S.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Only customers who pay full price for their cellphones will be able to keep unlimited data service plans for a flat monthly fee of $30 a month.

Spokeswoman Brenda Raney explained the new policy a day after a top company told an investor conference that customers moving to Verizon’s high-speed network would have to give up their unlimited data plans.

To convince customers to sign a 2-year contract, Verizon typically shoulders some of the cost of their smartphone in the form of a subsidy it pays to the handset vendor. Today customers who want to keep their unlimited data plan can still get the handset discount.

But when the company kicks off a new shared data plan this summer, any customers upgrading to a discounted handset will have to change from an unlimited plan to a shared data plan whose fees increase with data usage.

This will affect customers on both Verizon’s older third generation network and those on its fastest fourth generation service, according to Raney.

NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. telecommunications regulator on Thursday announced plans to set aside a chunk of spectrum for connecting wireless medical devices to allow for more convenient and cost-effective health monitoring.

The allocation of spectrum for so-called Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) is part of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s push to free up unused spectrum and will be up for a vote at the FCC’s May 24 meeting.

The idea, which the FCC has been working on for about two years, is that doctors could monitor a patient’s vital signs at home or in the hospital via low-cost wearable sensors that are attached to the patient’s body and wirelessly connected to the machines that process and display the data for doctors.

Currently, such sensors have to be attached directly to machines by wires, making it difficult for patients to leave their beds.

The masses of wires connected to a patient also make it more difficult to care for them and potentially increases the chances of hospital errors and impedes infection control, Michael Harsh, chief technology officer of GE Healthcare, said during a webcast of a press event where the plan was announced.

As well as allowing for better healthcare, Anthony Jones, chief marketing officer for Philips Healthcare, said the wireless devices would reduce costs as patients may not have to stay in a hospital for so long to be monitored.

“The cost of monitoring beyond the hospital has been too expensive. What MBANs does is changes this equation dramatically,” Jones said.

May 14 (Reuters) – Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone’s dream of bringing another wireless network to the United States appeared to collapse on Monday when LightSquared Inc, the ailing telecommunications company he bankrolled, filed for bankruptcy protection.

LightSquared and many affiliates filed for protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan in a move that had been widely expected for weeks as Falcone, one of the hedge fund industry’s most powerful players, and LightSquared’s creditors failed to reach an agreement.

One of the issues both sides haggled over was what role Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners owned 96 percent of LightSquared, would have going forward, people familiar with the matter said.

Creditors no longer wanted Falcone to be the public face of LightSquared and they wanted to cut Harbinger’s ownership stake to 50 percent with bondholders getting the other half, people familiar with the matter said.

Creditors, including hedge fund titan David Tepper, had extended their deadline twice already even after LightSquared had violated the terms of its debt. But by Monday it was clear that no last minute deal could be worked out even after lengthy meetings.

LightSquared’s future has been in doubt since February when the U.S. government effectively told the company to stop building its network.

In its filing with the court, the Reston, Virginia-based company said it has more than $1 billion of both assets and liabilities, according to the bankruptcy petition.

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Sinead Carew

(Reuters) – LightSquared Inc MOSAV.UL, the startup telecommunications company bankrolled by hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, is expected to file for bankruptcy protection in the next hours, sources familiar with the matter said.

Falcone has until Monday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) to reach an agreement or face a default on a $1.6 billion loan, sources said. While the parties still have a few hours left to negotiate, the sources suggested that a last minute deal is highly unlikely and that the filing is imminent.

A representative for Falcone was not available for comment.

Creditors have been negotiating to restructure LightSquared’s 96 percent ownership by Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners.

“The bondholders are asking for conditions they know Harbinger and Phil cannot agree to,” a source close to the situation said on Sunday.

Falcone, once one of the hedge fund industry’s biggest stars, had already been given a reprieve twice before when debt holders extended the original April 30 deadline two times.

May 13 (Reuters) – Philip Falcone’s telecom start-up LightSquared edged closer to a bankruptcy filing o n Su nday as the hedge fund manager was far from an agreement with creditors, sources familiar with the matter said.

Falcone has until Monday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) to reach an agreement or face a default on a $1.6 billion loan, sources said.

Creditors have been negotiating to restructure LightSquared’s 96 percent ownership by Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners.

“The bondholders are asking for conditions they know Harbinger and Phil cannot agree to,” said a source close to the situation.

Falcone did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Harbinger and LightSquared declined to comment on Sunday.

Debt holders could have declared a default on the loan, which would have forced a bankruptcy, if there was no agreement by April 30. The deadline has been extended twice.

LightSquared’s future was thrown into doubt in February when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it would revoke its permission to build a high-speed wireless network as tests found risks of interference with Global Positioning Systems.