TelecomWeb News Digest articles from January 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from January 2007

Alcatel-Lucent Wraps Nortel UMTS Buy.
January 2, 2007... Some 1,700 Nortel employees now are on the Alcatel-Lucent payroll as a result of the newly merged company's $320 million purchase of Nortel's UMTS technology unit, related patents, intellectual property and customer contracts. Mary Chan,...

Pac Rim Undersea Lines Recover From Earthquake.
January 2, 2007... Following a Dec. 26 earthquake registering anywhere from 6.5 to 7.1 on the Richter scale, telecom carriers in the area are implementing their disaster- recovery contingency plans to restore essential communications bridging countries in the...

Vodafone May Hike Hutch-Essar Bid.
January 2, 2007... As the fight for India's Hutchison Essar Company heats up (TelecomWeb news break, Dec. 18, 2006), Vodafone Group plc is reconsidering its purchase offer, perhaps planning to forward a new, $19 billion bid. Even with an enhanced offer,...

Mobile Managed Network Services Set For 5-Year Spike.
January 2, 2007... Managed network services provide continued opportunities for mobile communications service providers to offload network-operation tasks to third parties. Additionally, these services allow infrastructure vendors to secure new revenue...

BT Heralds Doubled Broadband Prediction.
January 2, 2007... Sometime this week, BT will announce its 10-millionth U.K. broadband connection, twice its initial target of five million by the end of 2006. Of course, the carrier predicted that five million in April 2002, when there were fewer than...

Survey Sez: 3D Mobile Games Will Drive Growth.
January 2, 2007... It's no secret mobile gaming has provided new revenue opportunities for game developers, network operators, service providers, handset manufacturers and other players, but what will really drive the thumbers to spend more is the advent of 3D...

DHS: First-Responder Interop Still Needs Tweaking.
January 3, 2007... Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released results of its National Baseline Survey on Interoperability, saying more than two-thirds of U.S. emergency-response agencies use interoperable communications at varying levels....

Speculators Bet On Sonae's PT Bid Sweetener.
January 3, 2007... Shares in Portugal Telecom (PT) were trading a touch higher than $13 today, leaving speculators scratching their heads over just what Sonae may have up its sleeve as its next trick in a now year-long $14.8 billion hostile attempt to take...

Lawyer Cites Telecom Act In Cost-Control Appeal.
January 3, 2007... Fishkill, N.Y.-based attorney Michael S. Pascazi believes mandated wages paid to New York workers are excessive, and stand in the way of network and services proliferation. As such, he's filed papers with the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

Intellon Claims A Dozen Wins For IPTV Over BPL.
January 3, 2007... Intellon boasts 12 carriers in Europe and Asia now are using products based on its broadband over power line (BPL) semiconductors and "HomePlug" technology to distribute IPTV within consumers' homes. Carriers now deploying Intellon's ICs...

New IPO Could Sweeten Spice Telecom's Value.
January 3, 2007... India's Spice Telecom, the seventh-largest cellular carrier in that country's booming wireless market, has divulged plans to launch an IPO worth between $135 million and $150 million to fund company expansion. The IPO will represent an...

WRF Sues Goliaths Over Bluetooth Patents.
January 3, 2007... The Washington Research Foundation is suing Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and Nokia in a patent altercation surrounding Bluetooth technology. The suit, filed in a Seattle federal court, cites the three majors...

US Wireless Finally Gets Some New Hope.
January 4, 2007... Wireless ISP (WISP) US Wireless Online (USWO), after nearly a year of struggling to find a way out of its financial problems, finally has been taken over in a curious three-way deal involving an investment intermediary. The deal...

Cisco Pays Big Bucks For E-Mail Security Vendor.
January 4, 2007... Cisco is buying security appliance vendor IronPort Systems for $830 million in cash and stock. Its acquisition of this vendor of systems focusing on enterprise spam and spyware protection is seen as representing a significant broadening...

Maine Dead-Zone Tracking Aids Regulators, Users.
January 4, 2007... Look out, wireless carriers serving the great state of Maine. That state's Office of the Public Advocate is mapping your dead spots, with regulators and consumers using the data to make educated wireless choices. Reports out of the state...

JDSU Gobbles Up Wireless Test House.
January 4, 2007... JDSU just inked an agreement to purchase Casabyte Inc., a provider of service-quality monitoring solutions for mobile network operators. The move expands JDSU's capabilities into quadruple-play, convergence- quality service (QoS) test...

Groove Mobile Music Sales Spike Last Quarter.
January 4, 2007... Groove Mobile, which claims to be "the world's leading mobile-music commerce platform," says mobile music downloads on its dozen-plus carriers in North America, the U.K., Europe and Australasia topped 7.5 million tracks during 4Q06. The...

LatAm Wireless Providers Jump On Messaging Bandwagon.
January 4, 2007... Latin American wireless carriers are beginning to cash in on messaging services, with new research saying their content strategy includes promoting messaging not only as a communications tool but as entertainment. A report from Frost &...

GOP Senators Dish Up New Telecom Bills.
January 5, 2007... It didn't take congressional minority players long to start introducing (or re-introducing, in some cases) telecom legislation, starting with The Cell Phone Tax Freedom Act of 2007, the 911 Modernization Act and the Universal Service for...

New Skirmishes Surround Sonae's PT Bid.
January 5, 2007... A series of last-minute skirmishes has broken out surrounding Sonae's attempted $18 billion hostile takeover of Portugal Telecom (PT) - $14.8 billion for PT itself and the rest for PT's cable subsidiary PT Multimedia - including a somewhat...

Motorola Reveals Handset-Sales Shortfall.
January 5, 2007... Motorola this morning disclosed disappointing preliminary fourth-quarter financial results, blaming a massive shortfall in cellular-phone revenues despite soaring volumes being sold. The world's second-largest mobile-phone maker is the...

Japanese MSO To Launch 160 Mb/s Broadband Service.
January 5, 2007... Earlier today, Japanese multiple system operator (MSO) Jupiter Telecommunications Co. Ltd disclosed plans to offer a 160 Mb/s downstream broadband service starting in April. The offering makes J:Com one of the first in the world to offer...

In-Flight Biz Comms Providers Tapped By ARINC.
January 5, 2007... SkyLogic, Eutelsat's broadband affiliate, is working with satellite-and- wireless innovator ViaSat to provide in-flight communications to business jets flying over Europe, and ARINC appears to be one of its first customers. The...

Virgin Mobile's Subscriber Growth: Not All Talk.
January 5, 2007... Who would have thought such services as "SugarMama" and "Penny Texting" would provide mobile virtual network operator Virgin Mobile USA with some 4.6 million customers, adding more than 600,000 subscribers since April 2006? And it's not...

Live From Las Vegas: CES, Day Zero.
January 8, 2007... The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which these days is the largest U.S. trade show in the computer industry as well as one of the biggest for entertainment moguls, "officially" opens today. But the truth is, it opened a day earlier, or...

Microsoft Unveils Windows Home Server.
January 8, 2007... Microsoft yesterday took the wraps off of a consumer version of a server implementation of Windows. At the packed launch announcement at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, an announcement made by the world's richest man, Bill Gates,...

Texting For Product Lures The Mommy Track.
January 8, 2007... Who knew that soccer moms were ready to embrace that notoriously youthful pursuit of text-messaging by phone? According to the popular consumer publication "Real Simple," that's exactly what's happening. "We have gotten a really great...

EC To Luxembourg: Open Up Those Networks.
January 8, 2007... The European Commission has given Luxembourg just two more months to comply with a June 2003 Court of Justice ruling regarding access to its telecommunications markets. Nearly three years ago, the Court confirmed that tiny Luxembourg had...

Korea Telecom Expands FTTH In Seoul.
January 8, 2007... Broadband communications and storage semiconductor provider PMC-Sierra Inc. is teaming with South Korea's Dasan Networks Inc. to deploy more fiber-to- the-home (FTTH) gear in Korea Telecom's greater metropolitan Seoul market. No financial...

Survey Sez: 10% Of U.S. Wireless Handsets Play Music.
January 8, 2007... Research firm Telephia says there are 23.5 million U.S. mobile subscribers now using phones with integrated music players. Mobile phones with integrated music players have been part of the U.S. market for more than two years, the firm...

Live From Las Vegas: CES, Day One.
January 9, 2007... Compared with most trade events, the annual Consumer Electronics Show is "fun," known for occasional stunts like a company president arriving in a helicopter and then rappelling down to the show from the chopper. This year, Motorola CEO Ed...

More CES: Cablecos, Telcos Spar Over Telco TV.
January 9, 2007... Also in Las Vegas yesterday, Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, managed to get some natural enemies to participate in a panel discussion regarding the future of converging technologies, including telco TV....

EarthLink's New Muni Wireless Broadband Reseller: Vonage.
January 9, 2007... VoIP mogul Vonage, in a move that surprised most observers, signed a three-year pact with ISP EarthLink under which it will resell EarthLink municipal Wi-Fi services under the Vonage brand name. In effect, to a least a limited extent...

Senate Girds For Coming Telecom Action.
January 9, 2007... Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the new chair of that body's Commerce Committee, will host a hearing delving into the Federal Communications Commission's views on the current state of the marketplace. The oversight hearing is set for Feb....

Sprint Nextel Struggles With 4Q Figures, Still Counts On WiMAX.
January 9, 2007... After the market closed yesterday, Sprint Nextel Corp. updated its financial outlook and detailed its plans to improve its operational performance and to drive long-term shareholder value. However, job cuts are coming. During 4Q06, the...

Viva The Revolution: Chavez Vows Telecom Nationalization.
January 9, 2007... In what is being viewed as a grab for more power, following his inauguration for a second term as president of Venezuela tomorrow, Hugo Chavez promises to nationalize the country's telecom networks. "We're moving toward a socialist republic...

Live From Las Vegas: CES Day Two.
January 10, 2007... Tuesday technically was the second day of the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but it felt to many like more like a week already had gone by as fatigue set in just trying to make the hike from one exhibit hall to the...

At CES: Cisco's Chambers Touts The 'Human Network'.
January 10, 2007... Forget the Internet. The future belongs to what Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers, in a presentation at this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, is calling the "human network," of which the Internet is but a small part....

Will Lower Royalty Rates Push WCDMA?
January 10, 2007... Are high average handset technology royalty rates - particularly for WCDMA - preventing such markets from reaching their full potential? One research firm thinks so. According to ABI Research, "royalties continue to form a significant...

On The Hill: Net Neutrality, Round Two.
January 10, 2007... It didn't take Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) long to reintroduce network-neutrality legislation. How much momentum it picks up remains to be seen, though the net-neutrality champions were quick to get on board. ...

GSA Now Accepting Federal Telecom RFPs.
January 10, 2007... The window now is open for those interested in submitting proposals for the Washington Interagency Telecommunications System 3 (WITS 3). According to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), WITS 3 will replace the existing...

Rogers Sets Date To Shut Down TDMA, Analog Networks.
January 10, 2007... Time is getting short for Rogers Wireless customers who have not transitioned to the carrier's GSM network. Rogers says it will be shutting down its older TDMA and analog networks May 31, and those customers automatically will be upgraded to...

Live From Las Vegas: CES, Day Three.
January 11, 2007... It is hard to believe that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is woefully unfamiliar with the details of the well-known "Carterphone" case that shaped today's telecommunications industry. But there was hardly a...

Cisco Bites The Apple.
January 11, 2007... Cisco this morning went to court, charging Apple with trampling its trademark rights to the name "iPhone" - the moniker Apple chose for its flashy new cross between an iPod and a cellphone unveiled earlier this week (TelecomWeb news break,...

Global Mobile LNP Slow; Incentives Needed.
January 11, 2007... While mobile local-number portability (MLNP) may be a success here in the States, flawed implementation has led to extremely low take-up elsewhere in the world. "One of the biggest barriers to (MNLP) is that customers do not realize...

Mobile-TV Pricing: How It's Working.
January 11, 2007... After a somewhat lackluster start, mobile TV is generating greater interest in the world of communications. However, the first wave of such services has presented a number of challenges to mass-market adoption. First, before TV enthusiasts...

Will Laptop Cards Replace Spectrum Analyzers?
January 11, 2007... Net Star Telecommunications used a Cognio wireless network analysis tool to save one of its clients from having to rip out and replace dozens of wireless network access points, a move that would have resulted in many thousands of wasted...

Sonae's PT Bid 'Imminent'...Again.
January 11, 2007... Sonae's hostile takeover bid for Portugal Telecom (PT) may finally get off the ground tomorrow, according to the latest reports out of Portugal. Sonae is said to have filed a final, amended takeover prospectus earlier today with...

Sonae Gets Green Light To Launch PT Takeover Bid.
January 12, 2007... Portuguese stock-market regulator Comissao do Mercado de Valores Mobiliarios (CMVM) has given Sonae the go-ahead to move forward on its hostile takeover bid for Portugal Telecom (PT), just hours after PT this morning issued a statement that...

So Long, Cingular.
January 12, 2007... It's back to Ma Bell as AT&T, the new owner of BellSouth and the entire Cingular Wireless brand, begins killing off the six year-old Cingular Wireless name next Monday. On that day, AT&T says it will launch a new multi-media campaign to...

Reliance Ready To Raise The IPO Flag.
January 12, 2007... Indian conglomerate Reliance Communications is planning an initial public offering (IPO) for its now wholly owned Flag Telecom submarine cable subsidiary. Reliance reportedly expects to raise at least $500 million in the IPO on the...

Nigeria Sells Wireless License To Abu Dhabi Gov't.
January 12, 2007... The Nigerian government has awarded what will be the country's fifth, and final, GSM license to an investment company owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. Nigeria is charging $400 million for the license as part of a bilateral...

Upstream Bandwidth And The 'Generation Y' Effect.
January 12, 2007... Until recently, the biggest focus on broadband service has been downstream speed. That's changing, though, as more and more end-user-generated content finds its way onto the Web. In a feature now appearing in TelecomWeb news break's sister...

BuzzCity, Greystripe Team For Global Gaming, Ad Opps.
January 12, 2007... Greystripe continues to push the wireless in-game advertising envelope by signing BuzzCity to its AdWRAP Catalog Program. Greystripe, which bills itself as the leading mobile in-game advertising network and the creator of ad-supported...

Sonae/PT: Has The Hunter Become The Hunted?
January 16, 2007... In an unexpected turnabout, Portugal Telecom executives reportedly are considering a hostile takeover bid for SonaeCom should Sonae fail in its $18 billion play for PT and its cable subsidiary, PT Multimedia (PTM). The takeover bid...

Update: Pac Rim Cable Damage Defies Repair.
January 16, 2007... Despite optimistic estimates that it would take only three weeks to repair the massive damage done to what are now said to be eight submarine cables by the Dec. 26, 2006, magnitude-6.7 earthquake near Taiwan, reports today indicate that not...

Lieberman Wants More 9/11 Reform Legislation.
January 16, 2007... Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, hopes that group will produce legislation this month aimed at approving some of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations that...

Vast Chinese Market Promises More WVAS Take-Up.
January 16, 2007... The more than 430 million wireless subscribers in China probably will translate into big-bucks new contracts for wireless value-added services (WVAS)...if regulators get on board. According to research house Ovum, with data contributing...

Now Available: Wireless ePay For Windows Mobile.
January 16, 2007... USA ePay is marketing a new version of its Wireless ePay for Windows Mobile, this time designed for Pocket PCs, smartphones and other mobile devices using the Windows Mobile operating system. Los Angeles-based USA ePay, a PCI-compliant...

Survey Sez: Maintenance Service Providers Leave Money On The Table.
January 16, 2007... According to a new study, maintenance service providers apparently aren't leveraging their presence when it comes to voice-communications support, thus missing out on lucrative new service contracts. The just-published InfoTrack for...

Skype Founders Juice Up IPTV.
January 17, 2007... The guys who crafted VoIP offering Skype (and who eventually walked away with billions of dollars of eBay's money in their pockets) took the wraps off their latest project: a free IPTV service called "Joost" (pronounced "juiced"). The...

Hutchison Wireless Launches In Vietnam.
January 17, 2007... HT Mobile has launched mobile services in Vietnam, formally cutting the ribbon on a $655 million CDMA2000 1XEV-DO network and predicting the unit will start showing a profit after only two years of operation. It also predicts it will...

Enterprise M-Messaging Grows, But Better Platforms Needed.
January 17, 2007... A recent benchmark report confirms enterprises are moving beyond e-mail for more effective enterprise mobile messaging, with 68 percent of organizations surveyed having two or more mobile-messaging applications in place and 30 percent having...

Tiny TV Comes To Bollywood.
January 17, 2007... The GSM Association (GSMA), content aggregator Hungama Mobile and global roaming-solutions provider Roamware have banded together to created the "Mobile Bollywood Initiative" to promote the creation of short movies tailored for mobile...

Survey Sez: T-Mobile Gains Points For Call Completion.
January 17, 2007... According to the newest edition of its quarterly "SectorPulse" study on the quality of customer service among the largest U.S. wireless carriers, Vocal Laboratories Inc. says that for the three months ending Dec. 31, 2006, T-Mobile dropped...

Contact-Center Shipments Surpass Predictions.
January 17, 2007... TelecomWeb's new InfoTrack for Converged Applications "First-Half 2006 Contact Center Report" says global contact-center shipments for that period yielded worldwide manufacturer revenues of $1.45 billion, with agent-seat shipments (new and...

EC Seeks Feedback On Network Disaster Report.
January 18, 2007... The European Commission (EC) today issued a call for comments from all quarters on recommendations of how to protect the European Union's communications infrastructure from failure in cases of attack or natural disaster. The call came...

Alltel Touts Free Wireless-Info Management Tool.
January 18, 2007... First the desktop, then the set-top and now the Celltop, a new, patent- pending technology from Alltel Wireless that allows selected subscribers today (and more by the end of the year) to better manage the information sent and received on...

Survey Sez: Broadband Internet Electoral Influence Grows.
January 18, 2007... Roughly 15 percent of Americans used the Internet as their "primary" source of news during the recent midterm elections, more than double the 7 percent reported four years ago. According to a newly released study by the Pew Internet &...

Verizon Virginia Applies For Regulatory Relief.
January 18, 2007... Because of what it characterizes as the state's "highly competitive telecom market," Verizon has asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) to reconsider its regulation of the carrier's retail services. According to the...

Research: Gear Providers Address Growing Enterprise Market.
January 18, 2007... A look back at business-telephony-system introductions in 2006 indicates that leading telecom manufacturers are tweaking their telephony-system portfolios to focus on growing businesses. Very small offices, mid-size enterprises and larger...

U.S. Healthcare Industry Loves RFID, WLANs, Zigbee.
January 18, 2007... With a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) projected at 33 percent, the market for wireless technologies targeting U.S. healthcare, valued at $1.8 billion in 2005, is expected to soar to more than $7 billion in 2010. Says...

Motorola Slashes Workforce As Profits Plunge.
January 19, 2007... Earlier today, Motorola disclosed it will eliminate 3,500 jobs - about 5 percent of its total workface - in a move to save $400 million during the next two years. The layoffs come in the wake of Motorola's fourth-quarter financial that,...

The New 'New' AT&T Makes Its First Double Play.
January 19, 2007... America's biggest phone company, AT&T - the 'new' AT&T if you will, or perhaps now it's the "newest" AT&T - today unveiled its first major marketing initiative since its takeover of SBC and BellSouth (both of which, of course, were once...

FCC Releases 'Call Home Act' Order.
January 19, 2007... The Federal Communications Commission once again has acted to reduce the costs for family calls made to military people deployed to the Middle East and other postings. In an order adopted Jan. 8 but not released until yesterday, the FCC...

Sonae Readies Drive To Shake Loose PT Shares.
January 19, 2007... Sonae and its SonaeCom subsidiary, which formally launched a $18 billion hostile bid for Portugal Telecom (PT) and its cable subsidiary earlier this week (TelecomWeb news break, Jan. 16), will begin a transatlantic roadshow to try to...

LTI DataComm Partnership Wins Army Wireless Contract.
January 19, 2007... Sterling, Va.-based integrator LTI DataComm won a three-year, wireless Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) in support of the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command Enterprise Systems Technology Activity (NETCOM-ESTA). The...

LSI/Agere Merger Soon To Conclude.
January 19, 2007... Now that the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period is over, the proposed melding of LSI Logic Corp. and Agere Systems Inc., announced last month, can move forward, closing this quarter. On Dec. 4, 2006, the two inked a definitive merger...

Chavez Says Verizon Will Be Paid, But When?
January 22, 2007... Reports out of Venezuela say President Hugo Chavez has made good on his plan to nationalize telco CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV), and partner Verizon may have a difficult time recouping its investment. The Chavez government...

Millicom Unloads Pakistani Cell Unit.
January 22, 2007... China Mobile Communications Corp - arguably now the world's largest cellular carrier based on number of users - is buying Millicom International Cellular's 88.86-percent stake in troubled Pakistani mobile operator Paktel Ltd. Millicom...

TWT White Paper Pushes Pole-Attachment Parity.
January 22, 2007... According to Time Warner Telecom, current FCC pricing rules allow utilities to charge "telecommunications carrier" broadband providers like itself as much as 272 percent more than non-telecom carrier competitors to deploy fiber-optic...

IM Your Colleagues, Save A Tree.
January 22, 2007... Widespread adoption of secure instant messaging (IMing) could reduce carbon emissions in the U.K. by a staggering 14.2 billion pounds of CO2 - the equivalent to planting 713.5 million new trees annually. According to new research from...

Survey Sez: Most Companies Still Don't Prohibit Pretexting.
January 22, 2007... Despite all the scandal surrounding HP's use of pretexting (the use of allegedly illegal techniques to obtain telephone records), executives at a whopping 87 percent of U.S. companies either still don't have any rules against the use of such...

Actelis, Cambridge Rake In Piles Of New Cash.
January 22, 2007... In new investments on both sides of the Atlantic, venture capitalists have plowed $22.5 million into British broadband-wireless access and cellular- backhaul-equipment developer Cambridge Broadband Limited and $22 million into...