Update on March 19, 2013 7:30 a.m.: Vasona Networks’ funding has been confirmed, with $22 million in total raised.

Vasona Networks has raised $12 million in fresh funding to help it continue to fix bandwidth problems plaguing mobile networks and smartphone owners, according to a Form D filed today with the SEC.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vasona Networks was founded in 2010, but it only came out of stealth mode in January. The company’s focus is on developing devices and software that enables mobile network operators (like AT&T and Verizon Wireless) to fine-tune all the traffic happening on their networks, down to each cell.

The company’s recently introduced SmartAir1000 edge application controller allocates bandwidth on mobile networks based on where it needs to go. So, for example, if someone is watching Netflix over LTE 4G, the SmartAir1000 gives that person more bandwidth that isn’t being used by the text-messaging teen down the street.

“We understand the nature of the cell, and we understand the capacity of the cell,” Vasona CEO Biren Sood told GigaOM in January. “With that understanding, we can get the right bits to the right applications in the most efficient way.”

The new funding was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation by New Venture Partners and Vodafone Ventures.

Top photo via Vasona Networks

For AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, there’s no place more interesting than New York City.

“We always hear that New York is the city that never sleeps, and if you want to know what you’re doing when you’re not sleeping, come look at our traffic and I’ll tell you what you’re doing, “Stephenson said at a breakfast event this morning sponsored by the Association for a Better New York.

While the rise of the smartphone has meant more cash and customers for AT&T, it’s also meant a lot more network traffic, and in turn, big engineering challenges. This has been especially true for New York City, which Stephenson says has challenged AT&T’s network in unprecedented ways.

“There is an unbelievable concentration of very sophisticated mobile data users in this city,” Stephenson said.

The really interesting thing about that concentration, however, is that it’s mostly vertical. Most New Yorkers live in apartment buildings, after all.

Not only has that forced AT&T to rethink the way it builds its network in the city, but it’s also allowed it to take what it’s learned in New York and apply it to urban areas in China and India.

“This city is a living laboratory for telecom engineers,” Stephenson said.

At the core of AT&T’s future network buildouts are things like Distributed Antenna systems, which are installed inside buildings in an effort to improve and extend connectivity. AT&T plans to spend $14 billion building out its network over the next three years. It’s no small undertaking, but Stephenson is convinced that it will be worth it.

“Wireless networks will be the railroads and highways of the digital age,” he said.

Photo: Ricardo Bilton/VentureBeat

Despite selling 1.5 million iPhones and 1 million other phones, Sprint posted a net loss of $767 million — more than twice what it lost during the same period last year. Much of the loss was due to the ongoing termination of its Nextel network and the rollout of its 4G LTE network.

It’s also worth noting that while those iPhone numbers are pretty good, they’re far behind those of AT&T and Verizon, which sold 4.7 million and 3.1 million iPhones respectively. (1.5 million is also the same number of iPhones Sprint has sold for the past two quarters, for what its worth.)

Revenue, notably, increased six percent year-over-year to $7.3 billion.

Subscriber churn was negative this time around, due, again, to Sprint’s Nextel network shutdown. As a result, while the company added 410,000 new subscribers, it lost 456,000 in total. (Notably, 59 percent of Nextel customers decided to stay Sprint customers.)

The Softbank factor is also important here, as today’s numbers come the week after Softbank announced it was buying 70 percent of Sprint for $20.1 billion. It’s likely that the company’s next set of financials will be the real ones to watch, and will be largely positive.

Sprint’s shares are flat on the earnings news, although the stock value has increased by over 11 percent since Sprint announced the Softbank news.

Photo: Flickr/Consumerist