TelecomWeb News Digest articles from April 2006

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from April 2006

'Lucatel:' It's A Good Thing.
April 3, 2006... It's been about 24 hours since the announcement of a real Alcatel/Lucent merger hit the United States (TelecomWeb news break, April 2), and already the buzz is loud and rampant. Surprisingly, it appears no one believes this is a bad thing....

India's Cellphone Industry And The Sticky Wicket.
April 3, 2006... The cellular industry serving India's subcontinent and the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) have come to blows over the massive revenue generated by sending cricket scores and game updates via short message service (SMS). Forget...

EU Subs Eagerly Await Cheaper Roaming.
April 3, 2006... The European Commission (EC) today began its second and final round of deliberations on a wireless roaming charge cap for those traveling around the 25-nation European Union - a cap the industry fears will trim industry-wide profits by 6.4...

Off The Block: Verizon's Offshore Activities.
April 3, 2006... Verizon Communications today disclosed signing agreements to sell its Caribbean and Latin American telecom interests to America Movil SA in three separate deals valued at a total of approximately $3.7 billion in cash. The U.S. carrier...

AT&T Seeks FCC, DoJ Merger Nods.
April 3, 2006... Late last Friday, AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular Wireless filed formal license/asset transfer and antitrust clearance applications with two federal agencies, seeking approvals for their super merger that clearly eclipses last year's AT&T/SBC...

IEEE Aims To Help Wireless Networks Just Get Along.
April 3, 2006... The IEEE 802.19 Wireless Coexistence Technical Advisory Group (TAG) has begun the development of a recommended practice defining the methods for assessing the coexistence of wireless networks - an effort the group hopes will ease the...

EC Ultimatum Turns 'Gold' To Lead.
April 4, 2006... The European Commission (EC) has given the government of Portugal 60 days to abandon its so-called "golden share" in Portugal Telecom (PT) or face the possibility of charges being filed in the European Court of Justice. The "golden...

Virgin Mobile's White Wedding With NTL.
April 4, 2006... With its Telewest Global merger barely a month old, U.K. cable/telecom operator NTL Incorporated today won Virgin Mobile Holdings (UK) in a cash-and- stock offer that was sweetened by 15 percent earlier this year to nearly $1.7 billion...

ADC, Aperto Team For Worldwide WiMAX.
April 4, 2006... ADC and Aperto Networks entered a partnership agreement to market, sell and install carrier-grade WiMAX broadband systems and solutions for potential service-provider buyers on a global basis. Under an original equipment manufacturer...

Boeing Inks $57M MSV Backbone Deal.
April 4, 2006... Boeing Satellite Systems International today handed out a $57 million contract to ViaSat Inc. for a ground-based beam-forming (GBBF) system that will be used with the mobile network satellite system the aerospace company is building for...

BlackBerries In The Snow: Dobson Lets You Roam In Nome.
April 4, 2006... Dobson Communications subsidiary Dobson Cellular Systems is buying the wireless assets in Kodiak, Alaska, of New Horizons Telecom and Kodiak Electric Association along with the wireless assets in Nome, Alaska, of Sitnasuak Native Corporation...

Live From MIPTV: AOL Talks Up Ad-Sponsored IPTV Model.
April 4, 2006... In a speech given at the MIPTV show earlier today in Cannes, France, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller told a packed conference that the Internet will be a key distribution platform for video going forward. He also revealed that he believes the...

Live From CTIA 2006: Mobile Music Downloads Beat Expectations.
April 5, 2006... Even as many speakers at CTIA 2006 this week in Las Vegas were wringing their hands over the limited take-up of mobile data in the U.S. market, Sprint Nextel and Verizon executives offhandedly dropped some encouraging tidbits about their...

Video-Franchising Fireworks: House Lights Fuse.
April 5, 2006... Remember the days when telecom issues were non-partisan? Those days are about to end with a thud in the coming weeks as congressional Democrats rally around the red-lining and net-neutrality issues in Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas)...

'Lucatel' Satellite Deal Keeps Everyone In The Dark.
April 5, 2006... More pieces of the proposed Lucent-Alcatel merger fell into place today as Alcatel released details of the sale of its satellite unit to Thales, a move designed to keep French military secrets away from prying American eyes. Even as...

PMC-Sierra Gobbles Up Passave.
April 5, 2006... PMC-Sierra took over Israeli passive optical network (PON) chip pioneer Passave for a healthy $300 million in common stock, a move that launches PMC- Sierra into the fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) business. The $300 million in shares...

Korean Trust-Busters Raid Qualcomm Office.
April 5, 2006... South Korean antitrust regulators yesterday, without any advance warning, raided the local offices of Qualcomm in an apparent investigation of allegations that the company has violated South Korean antitrust rules as a result of its...

No Shades Of Gray On Higher USF Taxes.
April 5, 2006... A senior-citizen group has blasted potential changes in the universal service fund (USF) subsidiary program, believing such changes could significantly raise the USF tax carriers add to telephone bills under federal auspices. The...

San Fran Gives Its Wi-Fi Heart To Google/EarthLink.
April 6, 2006... The team of Google and Earthlink have defeated a host of competitors for the right to blanket the city of San Francisco with a Wi-Fi mesh, following a six week evaluation of proposals by a city team. The pair, which must now negotiate a...

Italian Streaker: FastWeb DSL Runs Fast And Naked.
April 6, 2006... Italian operator FastWeb, running fast and ramping up the pressure on Telecom Italia (TI), this week has unleashed its expected (TelecomWeb new break, March 28) series of new initiatives aimed at a wide range of broadband users: "naked DSL,"...

FCC Just Sneaks Under Junk Fax Rule Time Limit.
April 6, 2006... The Federal Communications Commission yesterday adopted a set of more stringent rules against unsolicited facsimile advertisements (a.k.a. junk faxes), just in time to meet a U.S. Congress legislative deadline of April 5 to implement the...

House Subcommittee Revamps IPTV Franchise Bill.
April 6, 2006... A key House of Representatives subcommittee yesterday revamped a controversial proposed video franchising measure that would create a national system for telcos to enter Internet Protocol television (IPTV) activities, yet would allow cablecos...

FDA Takes On Cellphone Cancer Risks.
April 6, 2006... As a result of "numerous media inquiries" regarding recent European studies of cellphone emissions and personal health, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, which has been monitoring all studies pertaining to possible cellphone-related...

NGNs Come To Siberia.
April 6, 2006... While people in most of the developed world are still waiting to see next generation networks (NGNs) roll into their neighborhoods, the wait for many people in the Siberian cities of Omsk and Novokuznetsk is over: NGN's have come to the...

Nortel Acct'ing Mess Worsens; Divisions On The Block?
April 7, 2006... Oh, brother. Just when everyone thought it couldn't get worse, Nortel disclosed it's made yet more mistakes in accounting and will shift an additional unknown amount of previously reported revenue into future quarters - resulting in even...

U.S. Trade Rep Slaps International Rascals.
April 7, 2006... Ambassador Rob Portman of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) office issued a review of telecom trade agreements that lists a series of alleged barriers facing American businesses in China, Egypt, Germany, India, Jamaica, Japan,...

FT Gets 'Connexion'd'.
April 7, 2006... According to service developer Boeing, France Telecom (FT) Mobile Satellite Communications is the first sales associate to offer the "Connexion by Boeing" maritime high-speed connectivity service to the commercial shipping industry. ...

Postponed: Task Force Telecom-Rewrite Meeting.
April 7, 2006... Blame it on the rain. Blame it on the last of the cherry blossoms. Earlier today, and citing no particular reason, the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Telecom and Antitrust postponed "until further notice" its oversight hearing on...

GOP: Dems Will Vet Video-Franchise Bill.
April 7, 2006... House Republicans are saying rank-and-file Democrats in the full House will support pending video-franchising legislation introduced by Joe Barton (R- Texas), even though John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have expressed their...

Orca Wins Whale Of A Spanish IPTV Deal.
April 7, 2006... Telco IPTV middleware supplier Orca Interactive snagged a deal from emerging Spanish telecom operator Jazztel to provide its RiGHTv IPTV offering in what is described as a multi-million-euro pact. No explanation was given as to why...

Global Crossing, Sprint Nextel Eye VoIP Pushes.
April 10, 2006... Global Crossing and Sprint Nextel separately disclosed plans for additional expansions of their Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) businesses targeting international and domestic markets, respectively, highlighting a growing incursion of...

Live From NCTA: Competition? What Competition?
April 10, 2006... Warning: The following statements were made by cable guys. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NTCA) National Show started with a bang yesterday in Atlanta with Cablevision CFO Michael Huseby saying not only will cable beat...

Suppliers Stampede For India Wireless Biz.
April 10, 2006... A reported 18 telecom and IT suppliers have set their sites on a massive cellular infrastructure order about to be placed by India's state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The order calls for the installation of capacity for...

PDA Transmits Data In A Heartbeat.
April 10, 2006... If there was ever any doubt about mobile medicine being the next big thing, at least two new companies are ready to take on the naysayers. Orlando's Telzuit Medical Technologies Inc. just signed an agreement with Cingular Wireless for the...

Comverse Snaps Up VoIP Leader Netcentrex.
April 10, 2006... In what's being seen as an indication of just how hot the VoIP industry has become, Comverse Technology agreed to pay $164 million, and possibly more, for VoIP application house Netcentrex. The goal is to create a combined triple play and...

Telefonica Bests CANTV For Colombia Telecom.
April 10, 2006... Spain's Telefonica Group outbid Venezuela's CANTV to win control of state-owned, fixed-line incumbent Colombia Telecom in a cash deal estimated to be worth between $368 million and $370 million. The auction contest for Colombia Telecom...

The Newest Firestorm Over Britain.
April 11, 2006... In a move sure to spark a price war in the U.K. broadband market, Carphone Warehouse (CW) today unveiled a pricing strategy it claims will cut "more than 60 percent" off the cost of the average U.K. residential telephony and broadband bill....

eBay Buys Skype A Present.
April 11, 2006... eBay is buying Sonorit Holding AS of Luxembourg and its U.S. subsidiary Camino Networks Inc. in order to get its hands on the startup's voice technology team, which will become a part of eBay subsidiary Skype. The deal is being presented...

No Joke: Congress Targets Caller-ID Spoofing.
April 11, 2006... After the U.S. Congress reconvenes in about two weeks, federal lawmakers are expected to start looking into prohibitions against caller-ID spoofing, a practice that currently includes online services and portable cards that allow users to...

IDC: Targeted Mobile Ads Will Be Tolerated.
April 11, 2006... Advertising is making its way into the mobile industry, following in the footsteps of mobile marketing, according to a recent IDC study. Mobile operators will have to embrace mobile advertising, which is key in their strategies for the...

FiberNet Opens VoIP Peering 'Clearinghouse'.
April 11, 2006... Interconnection/local-access service provider FiberNet Telecom Group today said it is starting a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) clearinghouse business that allows carriers and service providers to directly buy and sell the origination...

FET Fit: New Petition Hits D.C. Court.
April 11, 2006... In a follow-up to a March 15 lawsuit in the same court against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding a highly disputed 3-percent levy, individual telephone users today petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for...

One 'Idea' Ends $1B India Wireless Feud.
April 12, 2006... India's Tata Group has agreed to sell its 48.14-percent stake in Idea Cellular - the country's fifth largest of the nine cellular companies serving the subcontinent - to its joint venture partner the Aditya Birla Group for nearly $1 billion,...

Unions Want Say In Puerto Rico Tel Deal.
April 12, 2006... Unions from the United States and Mexico want their input heard on America Movil S.A.'s proposed purchase of Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico, Inc. (Puerto Rico Telephone) that is part of a larger $3.7 billion cash deal to acquire Verizon...

FCC Sets Rules For AWS Auction.
April 12, 2006... At its monthly open meeting earlier today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved plans to reallocate spectrum below 3 GHz now earmarked for new Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) and to set into motion a June 29 auction of the...

U.S.-China Pact May Ease Trade Tensions.
April 12, 2006... The United States and the People's Republic of China have reached preliminary agreements to ease trade tensions between the two countries, including the formation of a high-tech body to work on removing barriers to trade (TelecomWeb news...

OECD Broadband Survey: Iceland Hot, U.S. Lukewarm.
April 12, 2006... The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released updated broadband statistics and analysis that place Iceland as the country with the highest penetration rate globally for broadband, stealing the honors away...

Globevision IPTV Targets U.S. Ethnic Groups.
April 12, 2006... Globevision, with offices in Los Angeles and in Seoul, South Korea, is launching its ethnic IPTV service in the United States this year, and it ultimately will target Korean, Chinese and Indian communities in the United States, starting by...

FCC Tells Bird Lovers To Stuff It (For Now).
April 13, 2006... Although the item was deleted from yesterday's open-meeting agenda, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) nevertheless disclosed it has rejected a nearly-four-year-old petition seeking to bar the construction of communication towers in...

CRTC Tunes Out Mobile TV.
April 13, 2006... Canadian regulators yesterday proposed exempting from regulation the emerging business phenomenon that converges wireless communications with television broadcast entertainment services, generally known as mobile TV. In a public notice,...

Portland Gets 'MetroFi'ed.
April 13, 2006... MetroFi, which is involved in several municipal network-services projects, was selected by the City of Portland (Ore.) to provide wireless Internet access in a two-tier scheme: one that would be free to users who are willing to tolerate...

Fibernet Chalks Up Another Network Cutover.
April 13, 2006... Opal Telecom's national network in the U.K., which has been undergoing the process of upgrading from SDH to 10 GB Ethernet, has now gone live. The new network is the result of a $3.9 million deal inked late last year between the carrier...

Globalstar Weighs LEO/GEO Pros And Cons.
April 13, 2006... LEO or GEO? That's the question being pondered by Globalstar as its first-generation fleet of 40 low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites ages. With the fleet designed to last into 2010, "we believe that now is the time to get moving on its...

TeliaSonera Tweaks 3G Pricing Model.
April 13, 2006... TeliaSonera finally has jumped on the same bandwagon as its competitors, launching its own pricing models for bundled 3G services. The new packages include a tariff plan with free minute bundles as well as 3G handsets. The new packages...

EarthLink Gets A 'New Edge'.
April 14, 2006... EarthLink just completed the purchase of privately held service provider New Edge Networks, putting the Atlanta-based Internet access company into the nationwide competition for virtual private networks (VPNs) and multi-site managed data...

Ofcom Tackles Broadband Portability Issues.
April 14, 2006... As the broadband market in the U.K. enters a new phase of growth - with greater diversity regarding services, providers and pricing - regulator Ofcom believes providers will step up their marketing efforts both to keep the customers they...

Intelsat Unveils IPTV Video Service.
April 14, 2006... Intelsat is touting a new satellite-based content-delivery and - management service targeting telcos looking to enter the Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) markets. Dubbed "Ampiage," the service originates from Intelsat's Video Operations...

Update: Cesky Telecom's Speed Boost.
April 14, 2006... The Information Superhighway in the Czech Republic has a new speed limit as Cesky Telecom continues to ramp up its broadband velocity as promised in February, when the carrier announced it would quadruple the upload/download rates of its...

Helio Couples With Yahoo! For Web Surfing.
April 14, 2006... Helio LLC, the youth market-oriented mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) joint venture between EarthLink and South Korea operator SK Telecom, is partnering with Yahoo! to offer mobile access to Internet services, including an integration...

BT Taps fastmobile For Next-Gen IM.
April 14, 2006... fastmobile, a Chicago-based mobile-integrated-messaging and content- solutions provider, is crossing the pond to work with BT in the U.K. as that carrier begins its move into its next generation of mobile value-added services. Later this...

Rumor Du Jour: Motorola Eyes Siemens Possession.
April 17, 2006... Motorola and Siemens are in talks about the possible acquisition of Siemens Communications (Siemens Com) by Motorola, according to rumors in yesterday's edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The German daily, which did not...

Sprint Nextel's Wallet Opens Again.
April 17, 2006... Sprint Nextel may be forced to buy yet another of the string of companies that resold either Sprint or Nextel cellular services before Sprint's acquisition of Nextel. Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel) said it's in talks to...

CompTel Petition Cites 'Pro Telco' FCC Stance.
April 17, 2006... Late last Friday, Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel) dissatisfaction with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its perceived pro-telco leanings (Telecom Policy Report, March 27, p. 1) boiled over into a 78-page...

Singapore Carrier Waves Bye-Bye To High 3G Costs.
April 17, 2006... Surf's up and prices are down. Singapore's M1 slashed the cost of surfing the Internet and accessing e-mail wirelessly in a move to align the benefits of 3G mobility with those of fixed-line broadband. M1's premium 3G SunSurf 100 data...

White Paper: USF Still Needed, But With Reforms.
April 17, 2006... A new white paper, "Universal Service: Rural Infrastructure at Risk," written by McLean & Brown, a consulting firm in Phoenix, says that without adequate universal service fund (USF) support, consumer rates will become unaffordable. The...

Celtel Beats Vodacom For Nigeria Celco.
April 17, 2006... Fast-growing Celtel, already the third-largest wireless carrier in Africa, signed a conditional agreement to buy 65 percent of Nigerian cellular company Vmobile for $1 billion. The condition is said to be that Celtel parent MTC of Kuwait -...

Brits Stampede To 'Free' Broadband.
April 18, 2006... Reports out of the U.K. suggest Carphone Warehouse has been inundated with orders for its new so-called "free" broadband offer - actually a cheap bundle of broadband and phone services - with at least five times as many customers signing up...

Swisscom Slashes DVR Prices, Readies IPTV.
April 18, 2006... Swisscom has cut the price of its Bluewin TV 300 time-shift service - an offering akin to TiVo - in a move that may be in preparation for its long- delayed entry into IPTV. The Swiss operator also released details of its consumer-behaviour...

Motorola Makes Piping Hot Fixed-Wireless Buy.
April 18, 2006... Motorola is purchasing fixed-wireless house Orthogon Systems, known for its software-defined wireless Ethernet bridges, in which it already holds a minority stake. It also is a distributor of Orthogon products. Terms of the...

Saudis Benefit From Cisco IT Plans.
April 18, 2006... Cisco Systems today says it plans to sink more than $265 million into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) networking and information technology (IT) market during the next five years, with a wide range of investment targets embracing...

Intellon Fires Broadside In BPL Battle.
April 18, 2006... Broadband over powerline (BPL) chip house Intellon says it's just passed the five-million-chips-shipped milestone for its HomePlug Powerline Alliance specification-compliant silicon along with hitting a production rate of one million chips...

ITTA, APCO Name New Top Guns.
April 18, 2006... Both the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International will have new executive directors as of May 1. At ITTA, Lisa Zaina, former CEO of the...

AEA: U.S. Communications Employment Down.
April 19, 2006... Besides reporting on high-technology exports and imports, the American Electronics Association (AEA) today said high-tech industry employment edged upward in 2005. However, out of the four broad segments monitored, communications services...

Changing The Guard At USTR.
April 19, 2006... Telecom and high-tech businesses were buzzing following yesterday's disclosure of a prospective management change-up at the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). President George Bush plans to nominate USTR Deputy Susan...

EarthLink Moves To Next 'Level' For VoIP/DSL.
April 19, 2006... EarthLink's current drive to move into telephony and long-haul networking today included selection of Level 3 Communications to serve as the underlying carrier for the ISP's new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and digital subscriber line...

UPC Broadband Ramps Up VoIP Rollouts.
April 19, 2006... Denver-based Liberty Global, which owns a series of cable assets throughout Europe, is stepping up its plans to launch Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services throughout Europe via its UPC Broadband division. UPC Broadband plans to...

Glocalnet Lures Biz Subs With Cheap Broadband.
April 19, 2006... Sweden's alternative telecom operator Glocalnet is telling small enterprise they can save as much as $800 per year on broadband services if they switch their contracts from rival Telia to Glocalnet. Glocalnet offers three speed options...

Alphabet Soup: KT Picks AON For I-WDM.
April 19, 2006... KT Corp. (the former Korea Telecom), which claims to be the largest provider of communication services in South Korea, is working with Canada's Meriton Networks Inc., specialists in agile optical networking, to build out KT's next-generation...

Arbinet Miami-Bound For LatAm Traffic.
April 20, 2006... Communications traffic arbitrager Arbinet-thexchange Inc. is cutting over a new minutes-exchange facility to handle increased demand in Latin American markets that reflects the latest expansion in its market for trading, routing and settling...

Comtech Wins Huawei 3G Design Contest.
April 20, 2006... Comtech Group is lauding its major design win from Huawei Technologies to supply customized third-generation cellular-telephone modules for use in the 3G handsets the Chinese manufacturer will be making for Vodafone. Last February,...

Thai IPTV Plans Shape Up.
April 20, 2006... PCCW, leveraging its role as an IPTV pioneer in Hong Kong, is playing a key part in developing the IPTV market in Thailand. The operator's wholly owned subsidiary Cascade has completed the buildout and installation of an IPTV system for True...

Research: 400M+ Broadband Subs By 2010.
April 20, 2006... The number of broadband subscribers around the globe is expected to reach 413 million by 2010, driven in part by increased use of satellite broadband services. According to In-Stat analyst Mike Paxton, "There are several reasons behind...

KPN Continues To Feed Its Need For Speed.
April 20, 2006... KPN in the Netherlands today tapped Lucent Technologies to supply network equipment, software and services that support the rollout of Ethernet-based services to KPN's Dutch enterprise customers. The Ethernet equipment for the deployment...

UbiquiTel Joins Sprint Nextel's Fold.
April 20, 2006... The Sprint Nextel combo today agreed to acquire reseller UbiquiTel for approximately $1.3 billion, the newest deal in a series of affiliate purchases the wireless company has made following the merger last year (TelecomWeb news break, Dec....