TelecomWeb News Digest articles from August 2006

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from August 2006

Vonage Buys The Numbers - Do You?
August 1, 2006... VoIP house Vonage, now forced to reveal its innermost financial secrets because it's a publicly traded company, this morning churned out its first quarterly financial report - and nobody seemed to think the numbers were any good other than...

Hams Ready Yet Another BPL Assault.
August 1, 2006... U.S. amateur radio operators who have been fighting the emergence of broadband-over-power line (BPL) communication access services for years apparently are preparing yet another campaign to voice their BPL RF interference concerns. The...

Boston Wi-Fi Plan Eyes Non-Profit Muni Net Operator.
August 1, 2006... A special wireless task force for the City of Boston has proposed a nonprofit organization be formed to build and run a wholesale municipal Wi-Fi network that would recruit service-provider partners to offer low-cost Internet broadband...

Qwest Extends Turnaround To Two Quarters.
August 1, 2006... Qwest, the smallest surviving U.S. regional holding company, this morning reported a second-quarter profit - making it two quarters of profit in a row for the first time in years - crediting growth in broadband and just about every other...

DSL Stats: Tiscali Tops 2M Across Europe, Telefonica O2 Czech Tops 400K.
August 1, 2006... A pair of Europe's major telcos announced key broadband milestones: In the Czech Republic, Telefonica O2 Czech Republic broke the 400,000-subscriber barrier for ADSL customers, and pan-European ISP Tiscali said it topped two million DSL...

CDG Distributes CDMA2000 FAQ.
August 1, 2006... The CDMA Development Group (CDG), a trade association that fosters the worldwide development, implementation and use of CDMA technologies, has come up with a CDMA2000 FAQ providing the latest statistics outlining the various ways in which...

Time Warner's Gamble: The 'Free'ing Of AOL.
August 2, 2006... Time Warner's AOL unit today confirmed it is dropping all charges for its once-proprietary services, from e-mail to a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone number with free incoming calls, in a desperate gamble to salvage the...

EarthLink Wins Pasadena Wi-Fi Deal.
August 2, 2006... ISP EarthLink has added the City of Pasadena (Calif.) to its growing list of municipal Wi-Fi network wins, saying it was selected to build a wireless access system for commerce and government use covering some 23 square miles. About two...

Cablecos Navigate The Thorny World Of Quad Play.
August 2, 2006... Many independent cable operators struggle when deciding whether to roll out wireless offerings due to the cost/benefit convolution. "The economics of wireless stink," said Kevin Packingham, Sprint Nextel's vice president/ during a panel...

The Birth Of A CLEC Giant: Integra Buys ELI.
August 2, 2006... In further consolidation of the competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) market, Integra Telecom closed on the acquisition of Vancouver, Wash.-based Electric Lightwave (ELI) in a $247 million deal. That cash is buying Integra a...

FCC Loses Cellular Truth-In-Billing Case.
August 2, 2006... A federal appellate court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) erred and exceeded its authority last year in a truth-in- billing decision that preempted state regulators on what types of line-item details they can require or...

SingTel Suffers At Home, Shines Elsewhere.
August 2, 2006... SingTel, reaching for an impressive although mainly symbolic 100-million- subscriber milestone across its different wireless operations (those wholly and partially owned), has passed the 90 million mark - up 21 million in just a year. Despite...

TI Wins, Communications DSP Challenger StarCore Crashes.
August 3, 2006... StarCore LLC - the joint venture formed by Agere Systems (then Lucent Microelectronics) and Freescale Semiconductor (then Motorola Semiconductor) and later joined by Infineon (then Siemens Semiconductor) in an attempt to unseat Texas...

Nortel Struggles Through Another Quarter; UMTS Unit On The Block.
August 3, 2006... Nortel Networks, whose quarterly results remain under microscopic inspection whenever they are issued, today reported a profit for the quarter ended June 30. But the profit was due to litigation gains and the company, which really is still...

FCC Stands Firm While Straddling BPL Fence.
August 3, 2006... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today essentially stuck to its guns on a wide range of broadband over power line (BPL) technology and operational regulations and RF interference enforcement measures, rebuffing for the most part a...

ADSL2+ Comes To Denmark.
August 3, 2006... Leading Danish telco TDC launched its "next generation" of broadband services, in this case ADSL2+, in its home country. The operator, which has around 776,000 DSL customers in Denmark, said that, starting now, more than a million...

Tiny Alaska Celco Gets Hot Under The Collar.
August 3, 2006... An Alaskan wireless operator filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), charging Alaska Communication Systems (ACS) with violation of laws that prohibit deceptive advertising in claims made about quality-of-service...

Will Adelphia Buyout Spur Cable VOIP Availability, Adoption?
August 3, 2006... According to research house Strategy Analytics, the just-concluded deal for Comcast and Time Warner Cable to acquire Adelphia Communications' U.S. cable-TV systems will strengthen these top U.S. cable operators in the race to "out-bundle"...

Portugal Telecom: Another Trick To Wiggle Off The Hook.
August 4, 2006... Like a fish trying to escape the fisherman, Portugal Telecom (PT) says it's going to spin off its 58.43-percent interest in its cable-network subsidiary PT Multimedia as part of its latest defense against the $12.85 billion hostile-takeover...

DoJ Threatens Maine PUC Over NSA Inquiry.
August 4, 2006... The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has warned Maine regulators to back off from investigating Verizon Communications' alleged involvement in a controversial National Security Agency (NSA) telephone-call surveillance program, lest there be...

R&D Tax Credit Falls Victim To 'Trifecta' Stall.
August 4, 2006... U.S. legislation that would improve the research-and-development tax credit for telecom, computer and information technology businesses apparently has fallen victim to political wrangling in Congress that blocked a minimum-wage and...

Sprint Rushes 'Mobile DSL' Deployment.
August 4, 2006... Sprint has decided to move up the schedule for its rollout of EV-DO Revision A wireless broadband services - what it's touting as "mobile DSL" - with plans to start delivering service to customers during the fourth quarter. The decision,...

FastWeb Increases Contract Portfolio.
August 4, 2006... Italian telco FastWeb won a pair of major contracts this week, together worth more than $120 million, from Milan-based worldwide banking house Unicredit Group and from Italy's postal service. FastWeb will be Unicredit's "technological...

U.K. Broadband Growth Sets New Lows.
August 4, 2006... The second quarter of this year was the worst on record (at least during the past two years) for broadband growth in the United Kingdom, both because of and despite the near-maniacal market battle now taking place over so-called "free"...

Name Game: Lucatel Loses.
August 7, 2006... Lucatel, the name that's been widely used to describe the company that will result from the merger of Lucent and Alcatel, has lost out in the corporate name game. The two have decided to call their combined company.... ta da... are we...

Telstra Pulls The Plug On Its FTTN Plans.
August 7, 2006... Telstra has stopped its planning to build a new fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, the company said in a statement today, making good on a threat its been holding over the head of the Australian government for months of acrimonious...

Court To Revisit VoIP Wiretap Ruling.
August 7, 2006... A U.S. appellate court has decided to revisit sweeping government rules on surveillance, call monitoring and wiretap obligations of broadband, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and private network operators, although it had already ruled...

Tandberg Targets Internet TV.
August 7, 2006... Tandberg Television has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Zetools, a Los Angeles-based developer of software for the delivery of next-generation digital video services over the Internet. Zetools is the outfit that provided the...

Hedge Fund Stymies Sale Of The Last Piece Of Marconi.
August 7, 2006... The planned $660 million sale of Telent, the last known piece of the once mighty GEC-Marconi, fell through on Friday afternoon after a U.S. hedge fund managed to kill the deal insisting the price wasn't high enough, and hinting that perhaps...

Comcast And eBay Spar Over Net Neutrality.
August 7, 2006... Top executives of Comcast and eBay have become embroiled in a public email sparring match over whether stronger network neutrality measures should be incorporated into the communications reform legislation now pending in the U.S. Congress....

Sprint Bets Its 4G Life On 'mobile WiMax'.
August 8, 2006... Sprint Nextel today disclosed that it is going to use technology that conforms to IEEE 802.16e-2005 specifications - what has been dubbed mobile WiMax by the WiMAX Forum - to build a nationwide 4G network, plowing as much as $3 billion into...

NTL Wounded In The Broadband Battle Of Britain.
August 8, 2006... NTL, the U.K.'s premier cable operator and second only to BT in broadband, saw its total number of customers plunge for the first time in recent memory in the second quarter, in large part due to a massive decrease in new broadband...

ATIS Aims At Data Security/Privacy Standards.
August 8, 2006... The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) yesterday said it has formed an Information and Data Security (IDS) Committee to look at the development of potential security and privacy standards and best practices for the...

Deutsche Telekom VDSL Access Flap Flares.
August 8, 2006... A colossal flap appears to be starting in Germany over rival service providers' access to Deutsche Telekom's broadband network as the dominant domestic carrier resists opening its system and prepares for a major thrust into Internet Protocol...

Nortel IPTV Content Deal Targets Rural Telcos.
August 8, 2006... Nortel, continuing its assault on the U.S. IPTV market, is teaming up with content aggregator Broadstream Communications to craft a combined offering for rural telcos to better compete against both satellite and cable operators. The deal...

3 Hopes ITV Content Will Help Sell Tiny TV.
August 8, 2006... U.K. mobile operator '3' has signed an exclusive deal with ITV under which it will stream ITV1, ITV's flagship channels and one of the biggest channels in the U.K., to its customer base. The sign-up of ITV1 is said to be a coup for 3,...

And They're Off: Multi-Billion-Dollar 3G Sale Begins.
August 9, 2006... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today kicked off the first rounds of the long-awaited, multi-billion-dollar auction of RF spectrum that is being positioned by the industry as a launching pad for new third-generation (3G) wireless...

FiOS Fuels FTTH - But Where's Everyone Else?
August 9, 2006... The United States now ranks second in the world in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments - trailing only Japan - thanks almost entirely to Verizon and its FiOS project, according to new numbers compiled by research house Ovum-RHK. Outside...

Qualcomm Hit With New Patent Demands.
August 9, 2006... The multi-venue legal flap between Qualcomm and Nokia over wireless patents, contracts and royalties (TelecomWeb news break, July 10) took yet another twist today as the Finnish manufacturer asked a Delaware court to enforce the U.S. vendor's...

The 'Show Me" (The Money) State: Missouri Celcos Face Huge Tax Bill.
August 9, 2006... The Missouri Supreme Court yesterday struck down a controversial state law that barred cities in that state from trying to collect what could amount to half-a-billion dollars in back taxes from wireless operators. Some cities had been...

Nokia Gets Ready To 'Begin The Beguine'.
August 9, 2006... Nokia, jumping into the mobile-content business, is spending $60 million to buy digital-music-platform and media-distribution-services provider Loudeye. The deal gives Nokia a product line that spans a comprehensive "mobile music...

Who Will Succeed While Other U.S. MVNOs Fail?
August 9, 2006... According to Boston-based Strategy Analytics, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) like Helio and Mobile ESPN haven't lived up to their marketing hype. Despite promising to shake up the market, the big-name MVNOs have only attracted...

Investors Flee Deutsche Telekom As Forecast Tumbles.
August 10, 2006... Deutsche Telecom (DT), reporting a tough first six months of this year with sales and profits essentially flat, this morning adjusted its forecasts downward for the rest of the year, setting the stage for a sell-off not only of DT stock, but...

U.K. Post Office Looks To Put Its Stamp On Broadband.
August 10, 2006... As if the broadband battle of Britain weren't crazy enough, reports now are circulating that the U.K.'s Post Office is getting ready to enter the fray with an offering of its own. At least two news outlets in the U.K. this morning...

Access Charges: US LEC, Qwest Secretly Settle Suits.
August 10, 2006... Competitive local exchange carrier US LEC and incumbent Qwest Communications say they've settled their interexchange carrier access-revenue lawsuit dispute, ending the litigation on the matter between them. Terms of the agreement -...

Sprint Cries 'Play Ball' As Alltel Grooves To The Music.
August 10, 2006... Alltel reportedly has become the first cellular carrier in the United States to offer XM Satellite Radio on its cellphones - though, truth be told, under a deal with XM disclosed today, it's really radio coming over terrestrial cellular...

Muni Wi-Fi Goes Skiing In Vail.
August 10, 2006... CenturyTel and trendy ski resort the Town of Vail today said municipal approvals have been completed for the telco to build and operate a community- wide Wi-Fi network that will offer 60-minute windows of free Internet access at speeds as...

446M Mobile-TV Viewers By 2011: Who Makes These Numbers?
August 10, 2006... Claims for the future popularity and profitability of mobile TV just keep going higher and higher, while only a handful of people in the world even have this capability. So how is it IMS Research can predict a 50-percent year-on-year growth...

FCC Launches Sweeping Telecom-Regulation Review.
August 11, 2006... It sure doesn't look like beach reading. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) started its latest biennial review of telecom rules and regulations, seeking public input on a broad range of items that might be modified or repealed in...

New PT Takeover Twist: Carlos Slim Buys Into The Game.
August 11, 2006... Telefonos de Mexico SA (Telmex), the Mexican telecommunications giant controlled by multibillionaire Carlos Slim Helu, has notified Portugal Telecom (PT) that it now controls a 3.406-percent stake in the carrier. The move adds yet...

Death Of A Deal: ADC/Andrew - What Went Wrong.
August 11, 2006... ADC and Andrew Corp. are not going to merge after all, a decision that was disclosed late Wednesday. Now that the dust has had a day or so to settle, it's becoming clear that long-term business potential has been totally overwhelmed by...

APCO Backs Cyren Call Plan For National Emergency Network.
August 11, 2006... A major public-safety professional organization is supporting a unique proposal that would have some of the analog RF spectrum freed in two years by broadcasters' digital-television (DTV) transition used for a shared national commercial...

Poles Pick Ericsson To Run New 2G/3G Network.
August 11, 2006... Ericsson, enhancing its position in Eastern Europe with yet another contract win in Poland, signed a three-year managed services deal with wireless operator Polkomtel to manage the design, development, deployment and integration of a new...

New Research Examines 'Churn Burn'.
August 11, 2006... Which residential communications services suffer most from customer attrition? According to research house In-Stat and based on a telephone survey of more than 750 U.S. consumers, the majority of respondents are "very satisfied" with their...

U.K. Triple-Play Battle Heats Up As Tiscali Buys Into IPTV.
August 14, 2006... Another shot has been fired in the Broadband Battle of Britain as Tiscali U.K., the U.K.'s fourth-largest broadband provider, became the latest to jump into IPTV by trading 11.5 percent of its equity for the British operations of Video...

'Super-CLEC' Coming: Patec, LEC Ink Link.
August 14, 2006... Competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) Paetec Communications and LEC Corp. today disclosed a deal to combine the two companies in a transaction that envisions privately held Paetec essentially buying US LEC for about for about $450...

Universal Service Shakeup: 'Reverse Auction' Mooted.
August 14, 2006... In what could be one of the biggest policy shake-ups of the universal service fund (USF) in years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formally unveiled the possibility of using so-called "reverse auctions" to determine the...

Beijing Agency Cops Its First Mesh.
August 14, 2006... The first piece of what will eventually be a massive citywide Wi-Fi mesh has gone into service in Beijing, where the city's police department - the Public Security Bureau - deployed Strix hardware for both outdoor and indoor access. ...

First NFC Specs Released.
August 14, 2006... The NFC Forum today published its first four specifications for near- field-communications (NFC), a milestone in the standardization of the nascent technology. Although NFC applications have started to emerge during the past year, such...

Cisco WLAN Gear Gets NIST Nod.
August 14, 2006... Cisco Systems' unified wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers and access points received National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 2 validation of its IEEE 802.11i WLAN security...

Vodafone Dethroned As Cellular King.
August 15, 2006... Quietly, amazingly and without notice even by those investment analysts who pore over the minutiae of the stock market as they try to read the tea leaves, China Mobile Communications Corporation (China Mobile) has become the world's biggest...

Survey Sez: Rural Broadband Really Not That Bad.
August 15, 2006... A recently completed survey of independent rural telecom carriers suggests broadband deployment in such areas is relatively "widespread" and "comprehensive," given the costs and geographic challenges. Take-up rates reportedly are climbing...

BT Ramps Up Content As IPTV Launch Approaches.
August 15, 2006... BT, in the final countdown to the launch of its forthcoming "BT Vision" IPTV offering, inked another round of content deals, including four more Video- on-Demand (VoD) film, TV and music contracts with independent producers and distributors....

Optical Networking Market Hits A Four-Year High.
August 15, 2006... In the best showing in four years, the optical networking market reached $3 billion in the second quarter of this year, according to new estimates by research house Ovum-RHK. Total industry revenues for the quarter, at almost exactly $3...

India Mulls Additional 3G Spectrum Shift.
August 15, 2006... India's chief telecom regulator is contemplating a reallocation of some 800 MHz RF frequencies to third-generation (3G) code division multiple access (CDMA) technologies that already are being given similar channels. A letter to other...

Leap Bolsters Cricket Service With 3G Platform.
August 15, 2006... Looking to the future, San Diego-based Leap Wireless, parent of the flat- rate "all you can eat" Cricket local wireless service, is partnering with China's Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. for a 3G CDMA service platform with all the IP bells and...

Reseller Wins Order, Forces Sprint To Sell Part Of Nextel.
August 16, 2006... One of Sprint Nextel Corp.'s embattled resale affiliates, iPCS Inc., claimed an Illinois court victory against the wireless carrier, saying an order will be issued requiring the combined company to divest Nextel business in the iPCS service...

Gold Rush: Uganda Telecom Market Opens Up.
August 16, 2006... New players finally can get a crack at the Uganda communications sector, ending almost eight years of fixed-line duopoly rule by MTN and Uganda Telecom (utl) - a move that's come despite desperate attempts by the incumbent carriers to...

Canada's Shaw To Buy B.C. Rival.
August 16, 2006... Canadian multi-service operator (MSO) Shaw Communications Inc. is set to purchase Whistler Cable Television Ltd., a smaller British Columbia-based rival. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Calgary, Alberta- based Shaw -...

DT Loads German Public Broadcasters On The IPTV Bandwagon.
August 16, 2006... Deutsche Telekom (DT), in the throes of launching its Microsoft TV-based IPTV service in Germany, finally nailed down major content deals with two of Germany's public broadcasters: ARD and ZDF. The two reportedly had balked at providing...

MPEG-4 Heads For Latin America.
August 16, 2006... Year-old IPTV Americas today laid out its plans to start delivering MPEG- 4 IPTV video streams to telcos in Latin America, the first such service targeting that content with the highly compressed video signals. The company has ordered...

Boingo Wraps Venture Funding With $65M.
August 16, 2006... Wholesale network aggregator and Wi-Fi provider Boingo Wireless Inc., closed its Series C funding round - possibly the last it ever will need - ending up with $65 million raised from new and existing investors. The money already has been...

Breaking News: Detroit Judge Rules Against Warrantless Wiretapping.
August 17, 2006... A ruling earlier today by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit should stop the warrantless wiretapping program being conducted by the National Security Agency in its tracks (TelecomWeb news break, Aug. 4), but there is a chance it...

Boeing's Broadband Crashes.
August 17, 2006... Boeing this morning said it will shut down its in-flight broadband service, Connexion by Boeing, by the end of the year. The decision was not unexpected - Boeing previously disclosed it was reviewing the money-losing unit's future. Back in...

Bidders Line Up For Verizon's Leavings.
August 17, 2006... Reports surfacing yesterday and today say several telephone holding companies are interested in purchasing Verizon Communications' landline network assets in some New England and Midwest states, assets the incumbent carrier said in May would...

China's ZTE Hits North American Shores.
August 17, 2006... China's fast-growing ZTE has made it to North America, landing a contract from Telus, Canada's second-largest telecom operator, for an undisclosed amount of 3G end-user terminal equipment. ZTE says that, under the contract, it is...

Privacy Forum Slams AOL At FTC.
August 17, 2006... A national privacy activist group filed an unfair or deceptive business practices complaint at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Time Warner's AOL over the Internet access/online content company's release to academic researchers of...

More Work Needed ON Geneva 2006 Agreement.
August 17, 2006... In June, representatives from 101 national administrations in Europe, Africa and parts of Asia signed an international agreement regulating usage in the radio frequency (RF) bands reserved for broadcasting (VHF and UHF bands). When all was...

Cablecos Win: Mexico Opens VoIP Floodgates.
August 18, 2006... Mexico's second-largest cable-TV operator, Cablemas S.A. de C.V., disclosed that, back on July 31, it received fixed-telephony licenses covering 13 of Mexico's largest cities - a licensing landmark that could open the floodgates of...

British ISPs Forced To Help Customers Switch.
August 18, 2006... U.K. regulator Ofcom has proposed a set of rules that will force reluctant ISPs to cough up the needed information when customers decide to switch broadband service providers. The regulations come in response to horror stories told by some...

California Committee OKs State Video-Franchise Bill.
August 18, 2006... Another key California State Senate committee has approved a proposed statewide video-franchise measure, positioning the bill to be sent to the full body for a vote within two weeks or so (TelecomWeb news break, June 30). Assembly Bill...

RCN Waves Bye-Bye To The City By The Bay.
August 18, 2006... Multi-service operator RCN Corporation reached a definitive agreement to sell its San Francisco assets for $45 million in cash to Astound Broadband, a rival triple-play company with approximately 55,000 video, data and voice- telephony...

ATIS Aims To Create Communications Security Standards.
August 18, 2006... The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) set up a new standards committee chartered with the task of identifying and addressing information- and data-security topics specific to the communications industry. The new...

Healthcare Industry Set To Spend Big Bucks On Telecom.
August 18, 2006... Rising healthcare-industry costs and a shortage of skilled staff have created a lucrative opportunity for technology and service providers, as hospitals and other frontline healthcare providers look to adopt new technology to lower their...