TelecomWeb News Digest articles from July 2006

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from July 2006

Egyptian Cell License Bidding Goes Sky High.
July 5, 2006... Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (Etisalat) has won Egypt's third mobile license with an unexpectedly high bid of $2.89 billion plus 6 percent of gross revenues - a sum that more than hints at how lucrative that market may be. At the same...

Vonage Gets Put On Hold.
July 5, 2006... Citigroup, Vonage's lead underwriter in its disastrous IPO, over the long July 4 weekend initiated coverage of the company - with a rating of hold. Underwriters, of course, are supposed to comprise a stock's biggest fan club. Investors...

It Ain't Over Yet: Post-Merger Challengers Brace For Court.
July 5, 2006... A federal court next week will hold a hearing on legal challenges to last year's SBC Communications/AT&T and Verizon Communications/MCI mega mergers as part of the formal Tunney Act review of the consent decrees that were negotiated by the...

U.K. Virgin Quad Play On The Way.
July 5, 2006... The era of the quadruple play has arrived in the U.K.; cable operator ntl has completed its acquisition of Virgin Mobile. Closing of the acquisition, which was announced in April (TelecomWeb news break, April 4), sees Virgin Mobile's...

Homeland Security NIPP's At Telecom.
July 5, 2006... The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a sweeping, 196-page report on implementing a nationwide national infrastructure protection plan (NIPP), with telecom networks, cyber security and information technology (IT)...

Inter-Tel, NEC Booted From USF.
July 5, 2006... The Federal Communications Commission last Friday banned Inter-Tel Technologies, Inc. and NEC Business Network Solutions, Inc. from participating in the universal service fund (USF) program for 12 and six months, respectively, due to their...

Intel & Motorola Bet A Billion On 'Mobile WiMax'.
July 6, 2006... Intel and Motorola have plowed $900 million into wireless broadband service provider Clearwire Corp., the latest brainchild of wireless industry pioneer Craig McCaw, with $600 million of the cash coming from Intel Capital and the rest from...

Will 'Free' Save AOL?
July 6, 2006... AOL is reportedly considering a scheme under which its now-proprietary services would be free to all comers, rather than available just to those who pay for AOL portal services along with their Internet access - a move that could cost the...

Communications Reform Bill Gets Fast Tracked.
July 6, 2006... In a rarely seen legislative maneuver, the sweeping communications reform bill recently approved by a key Senate committee (TelecomWeb news break, June 30) has been re-designated as a House of Representatives proposal, ostensibly to...

Pennsylvania Tunes In To Video Franchise Reform.
July 6, 2006... Pennsylvania's General Assembly has become the latest legislative body to be considering proposed bills that would bypass local cable TV franchise authorities and allow a state-wide video franchising system for such new entries as major...

Sonus Eyes Russian VoIP Market.
July 6, 2006... Sonus Networks, in its first partnership pact aiming at the Russian Voice over IP (VoIP) market, has signed an agreement with Russian systems integrator the NVision Group. The deal calls for cooperative marketing and bid teaming arrangements...

Chinese Province Tags Nokia For GSM Upgrade.
July 6, 2006... Nokia has snagged a $150 million GSM upgrade deal in China, as well as announced details of the first High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) deployment in Belgium. The company has signed a deal worth $150 million with Henan Mobile...

Cingular Slapped With Deceptive Practices Lawsuit.
July 7, 2006... Cingular Wireless yesterday was hit with a federal class action lawsuit accusing the mobile operator of a series of deceptive practices and contract upgrade tricks against AT&T Wireless Services subscribers after it purchased the rival two...

IRS Rebuked: Little Guys Blast Federal Excise Tax Refund Rules.
July 7, 2006... Just when everyone probably thought the U.S. Department of the Treasury decision to quit the federal excise tax (FET) on phone bills would end the matter (TelecomWeb news break, May 25), small taxpayers apparently have begun complaining that...

Indian Carriers Win Government Fee Battle.
July 7, 2006... A special government panel in India today gave private carriers a break on their operating license fee requirements and obligations, ruling that such payments to the government should be based only on the companies' telecom service related...

Bouygues Tunes In To Microsoft.
July 7, 2006... French wireless operator Bouygues Telecom has signed an agreement with Microsoft under which it will collaborate with the software giant on a next- generation mobile music offering which will be based on Microsoft's Windows Media...

Pittsburgh Steels For Wi-Fi.
July 7, 2006... Work began yesterday on the nation's latest municipal Wi-Fi mesh, an installation in downtown Pittsburgh scheduled to begin live service in September. The Pittsburgh system may have been the landmark 250th municipal mesh in the U.S. - it...

Subway Cell Test Starts In The Windy City.
July 7, 2006... Regional cellular operator U.S. Cellular has begun testing the delivery of cell phone service to riders on Chicago's subways - one of only a few such systems known to be planned in the United States so far. U.S. Cellular in December...

AT&T To FCC: Erase 'Ma Bell Breakup' Requirements.
July 10, 2006... AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to eliminate the regulatory requirements for separate digital subscriber line (DSL) wholesale subsidiaries - requirements that grew out of those originally imposed as a result of the...

Aussie 'Gang Of Nine' Touts NGN Alternative.
July 10, 2006... A group that now numbers nine rivals to Australia's Telstra this morning released a report outlining its proposal to kick in $3.1 billion to help Telstra build a planned nationwide fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network - an offer...

Research: Japan, U.S. First In Line For Tiny-TV Revenues.
July 10, 2006... Despite all the naysayers who continue to knock mobile TV, a new white paper from U.K.-based Juniper Research predicts the entertainment medium will rake in $11.7 billion worldwide by 2011, with early-adopter Japan leading the way and the...

Competitors, Investors Trash Vonage Again & Again & Again.
July 10, 2006... As Vonage shares plummeted to new lows yet again this morning, the VoIP provider was hit by a $180 million patent lawsuit regarding its VoIP voicemail; saw deadly enemy eBay's Skype go to market with a little plug-in widget to counter the...

ntl Calls On Ericsson For VoIP Help.
July 10, 2006... Cable operator ntl signed a key five-year deal with Ericsson under which the Nordic telecom manufacturer will become ntl's technology-and-services partner to help it develop its telephone network using VoIP technology. ntl, which just...

The ITC Takes Up Qualcomm/Nokia Beef.
July 10, 2006... The International Trade Commission (ITC) late last Friday voted to start an investigation into the month-old Qualcomm Incorporated complaint that Nokia is violating its patents on wireless handsets, wireless communication devices and...

Tiny TV, Mobile Data Red-Carded By The World Cup.
July 11, 2006... Nearly half of the British mobile-phone users who signed up for mobile- data services for the first time during the recent World Cup games were so disenchanted with the service that they don't plan to use it again. In addition, only a tiny 11...

AT&T Pays To End Customer Call-Data Investigation.
July 11, 2006... The nationwide flap over online brokers accessing customer calling data took a sudden twist late yesterday as the Federal Communications Commission and AT&T signed a consent decree that will cost the former Ma Bell about $550,000 to put to...

Exclusive MDU Contracts Under Fire Again.
July 11, 2006... It seems that exclusive communications contracts for apartments and other multiple-dwelling units (MDUs) are near the top of the telco hit list. According to TelecomWeb's sister publication CableFAX Daily, BellSouth is warning builders...

Like Christo, Long Island Plans To Mesh Two Counties.
July 11, 2006... The two large counties on New York's Long Island that are not part of New York City issued a request for information and comment (RFI/C) from vendors and service providers regarding building and operating a massive bi-county broadband Wi-Fi...

Place Your Bets: Will House Vote To Ban Internet Wagers?
July 11, 2006... The U.S. House of Representatives today or tomorrow could put their cards on the table, facilitating a full-floor vote on a bill pending since last year that would prohibit various forms of online gambling by preventing the use of credit...

Singapore Catches Up: HSPA Contract Signed.
July 11, 2006... Nokia is touting its new $30 million High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) contract from MobileOne (M1), one of the leading mobile operators in Asia, that it says will bring HSPA technology to Singapore for the first time. In addition to...

No Foreigners Need Apply: PCCW Remains Chinese.
July 12, 2006... The Chinese government successfully put the kibosh on the sale of a major stake in Hong Kong's largest telecommunications provider, PCCW, to non-Chinese interests. Walking away from offers from American and Australian investors rumored...

Vodafone Cobbles Together SME Convergence Offering.
July 12, 2006... Vodafone, refocusing its efforts on the small- to medium-size enterprise (SME) sector in the U.K., has unveiled a set of services it's dubbed "Mobility Solutions for Business," combining fixed and mobile services in one package to support...

Testing, Testing: Gov't Emergency Alerts By Phone, E-Mail.
July 12, 2006... U.S. broadcasters and government agencies have begun testing an emergency-and-disaster alert system that leverages digital television (DTV) transmissions to ultimately sent messages to wireline and wireless handsets, pagers, Internet e-mail...

Georgia's On VimpelCom's Mind.
July 12, 2006... Fast-growing Russian wireless carrier Vimpel Communications (VimpelCom) has bought its way into yet another cellular market, paying $12.6 million to buy 51 percent of Georgian cellular company Mobitel in a deal that gives VimpelCom a call...

New Shooter: House Passes Online Gambling Dice To Senate.
July 12, 2006... Federal legislation banning online gambling transactions was passed yesterday by the House of Representatives, and it now takes its chances in the Senate, where Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) says he plans to pursue passage of the proposed bill...

WiMAX Forum Puts Its Trust In VeriSign.
July 12, 2006... If a Web site is secured by VeriSign, there's little reason to worry, and that's perhaps why the WiMAX Forum chose the company to provide public key infrastructure-related services to all WiMAX Forum Certified solutions based on IEEE...

EC Imposes Roaming Charge Cap, Wireless Carriers Pledge Battle.
July 13, 2006... The European Commission has released its long-expected regulations slashing roaming charges for wireless users by as much as 70 percent. This set off what is expected to be a political firestorm as rattled carriers lobby the European...

Cableco VoIP Tops Telco TDM In Customer Satisfaction.
July 13, 2006... Consumers who now get their phone service from a cable company - which means VoIP - are far more satisfied than those who are getting phone service from traditional local exchange carriers (LECs), according to a new study by J.D. Power and...

Blanco Kills IPTV-In-The-Bayou Bill.
July 13, 2006... Louisiana's governor vetoed a video-franchise bill that would have made it easier for telephone companies to offer Internet Protocol digital television (IPTV) services in competition with cable operators via a statewide system. Gov....

Lack Of Green Means Wireless E911 Funding Blues.
July 13, 2006... The public-safety community and sympathetic legislators got together again yesterday to urge the U.S. Congress to fund enhanced 911 wireless systems and software for use by the many financially-hard-pressed government agencies responsible...

NEC's Euro Chip Unit Taps BT For New Network.
July 13, 2006... BT won a key five-year data-networking contract with semiconductor supplier NEC Electronics Europe that will allow the carrier to upgrade its European data network to a modern MPLS-based WAN. BT also will take responsibility for the...

CTDI Adds GoDigital To Strengthen DSL Biz.
July 13, 2006... Communications Test Design Inc. (CTDI), an independent global telecom repair and logistics provider, wrapped its purchase of all assets belonging to GoDigital Networks, a supplier of line-powered broadband network access products in North...

CEO Forced Out As South Korea Cancels 3G License.
July 14, 2006... South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication this morning stripped LG Telecom (LGT), the country's smallest wireless carrier, of the 3G spectrum license in the 2 GHz band for which it paid $1.16 billion back in 2001, in response...

Not So Fast: Analysts Diss Fastweb Results:.
July 14, 2006... Things are not always what they seem. Industry watchers are taking a good, hard look at Italian telco Fastweb and the ho-hum flavor of its recent six-month report. Fastweb said it added some 160,000 customers in the first half of this...

FCC Slaps Call Broker With Top-Dollar Fine.
July 14, 2006... One of the online brokers under investigation by federal agencies and the U.S. Congress over the marketing and sale of consumers' private telephone- calling records was slapped with a maximum $97,500 fine by the Federal Communications...

TelecomWeb's Believe It Or Not: The Water-Powered Cellphone.
July 14, 2006... Japan's NTT DoCoMo, working with a previously-unheard-of company called Aquafairy Co., says that the two have jointly developed a water-powered micro- fuel cell for use with 3G FOMA handsets. The fuel cell, which NTT DoCoMo plans to show...

FCC Takes Medical Treatment To Heart.
July 14, 2006... At its monthly open meeting yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it will start looking into services for advanced medical RF (MedRadio) devices in order to leverage the expanding numbers of treatment technology...

Study: Telco TV Could Spur Private-Line Rebirth.
July 14, 2006... After years of contraction, one researcher believes the market for private-line services has begun growing again this year, perhaps signaling the start of a long-anticipated recovery in this $36 billion telecommunications segment. ...

BSkyB To Enter U.K. 'Free' Fray As Talktalk Outfoxes Challengers.
July 17, 2006... Speculation is rampant in the U.K. that when BSkyB, the country's largest satellite pay-TV operator, unveils its long-expected broadband offering tomorrow, it will join the growing ranks of "free" broadband providers. Such a move will...

Decision Day: BellSouth Shareholders Vote On AT&T Bid.
July 17, 2006... A moment of truth is approaching this week for BellSouth shareholders who will be asked to approve the $67.1 billion purchase offer from AT&T and to incorporate the Cingular Wireless joint venture into the combined carrier company...

Telecom Italia Gives Turk Telecom The Reins At Avea.
July 17, 2006... Telecom Italia (TI) and its Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) unit, in a strategic move in Turkey, sold their 40.5-percent stake in Turkish mobile operator Avea to partner Turk Telecom (TT) for $500 million, in return plowing half of that into Oger...

Increasing Problem: 'Bot Storming,' 'Google Hacking' Hit Web Apps.
July 17, 2006... Cyber-security vendor Fortify Software Inc. says it's completed a research and survey study on Internet vulnerability risks, detailing an increasing series of new and emerging attacks specifically targeting Web-based applications. The...

Rural Telcos Raise A 'Ruckus' For IPTV Gear.
July 17, 2006... In what observers are calling a stunning win, Wi-Fi startup Ruckus Wireless this morning disclosed it has signed contracts with 16 mostly rural U.S. telcos that are going to use its Wi-Fi equipment to distribute their triple-play offerings...

HP's New Wireless Chip: Rice Is Nice.
July 17, 2006... Hewlett-Packard researchers aren't taking their wireless-data duties with a grain of salt. Rather, they're putting information on a new chip about the size of a grain of rice. The miniature experimental wireless-data chip, developed by...

Telephony Under Fire: Lebanese Gov't Forgives Late Phone Bills.
July 18, 2006... The Lebanese Telecommunications Ministry reportedly has ordered the operators of the country's cellular and landline companies not to cut off the service of those folks who can't pay their bills right now - assuming, of course, that their...

BSkyB Surprises All With Scale Of Broadband Ambition.
July 18, 2006... BSkyB this morning unveiled its broadband plans in a blaze of publicity, and the direct-to-home (DTH) satellite-TV operator threw in the odd surprise for good measure. The biggest perhaps was the sheer depth of BSkyB's broadband ambition and...

Nortel VoIPs Microsoft.
July 18, 2006... With a major flourish, Microsoft and Nortel this morning disclosed the full details of just how the two plan to work together to implement the broad "unified-communications" strategy Microsoft unveiled last month. Buried among the pile...

Old-Agers Attack USF's 'Gold-Plated Waste'.
July 18, 2006... A senior-citizens group is preparing to release a report detailing how certain carriers in rural states are overly enjoying universal service fund (USF) outlays and effectively perpetrating a large taxpayer rip-off. The Seniors Coalition...

Antitrust Think Tank Offers Court Mega-Merger Review Aid.
July 18, 2006... The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) think tank has asked to intervene in a federal court's review of last year's SBC Communications/AT&T and Verizon Communications/MCI mega mergers, saying the bench doesn't yet have enough information to...

Research: IP Telephony Dominates BizComm Marketplace.
July 18, 2006... According to new data collected by InfoTech's InfoTrack for Enterprise Communications (IEC) 1Q North America Report, IP telephony continues to dominate business-communication line shipments. During the first quarter of this year, 63...

EC Scotches Dutch City's FTTH Dreams.
July 19, 2006... The European Commission (EC) has, for the first time ever, prohibited a municipally funded broadband deployment. In a ruling handed down this morning, the EC said the Dutch town of Appingedam didn't have the right to partially fund a...

U.S. Top Cop Says Bush Aborted NSA Wiretap Inquiry.
July 19, 2006... The U.S. attorney general yesterday told a Senate committee that President Bush blocked official inquiries into the National Security Agency (NSA) program of wiretapping and surveillance of telephone call traffic without warrants (Telecom...

Verizon Bashes Cablevision With Broadband Speed Upgrade.
July 19, 2006... Verizon has started offering 50 Mb/s downstream/10 Mb/s upstream broadband over its vaunted FiOS fiber network in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas in a move seen as being aimed directly at one-upping cable house Cablevision. ...

Telefonica And Its Czech IPTV Trial.
July 19, 2006... Telefonica O2 Czech Republic has moved a step closer to offering IPTV services in the Czech Republic with an IPTV trial, initially available only to the carrier's employees. During the first phase of the trial, which starts today,...

Airport Concourse Wi-Fi Goes Boingo.
July 19, 2006... Wi-Fi network aggregator Boingo Wireless completed its acquisition of airport Wi-Fi and cellular specialist Concourse Communications Group LLC, reflecting Boingo's first-ever infrastructure purchase (Wireless Business Forecast, June 1;...

Mobile Content Delivery And The New Wild West.
July 19, 2006... According to ABI Research principal analyst Ken Hyers, "The mobile- content marketplace is currently something of a Wild West frontier, especially for off-portal sales. As operators increasingly move to off-portal content sales (an...

Could 2006 Be The First Billion-Handset Year?
July 20, 2006... Even though mobile-phone shipments in the current year are soaring, they will come up just short of the magic billion-handset milestone, according to estimates released today by research house IDC. A near-record 237.8 million mobile...

EC Gets Tough: France Told To Pay What France Telecom Won't.
July 20, 2006... The European Commission, in a threat handed down just before the European Union's 25 commissioners begin their six-week summer vacations, said it's going to sue France for refusing to demand that France Telecom return to the French...

No Llame: Verizon Wireless Claims Anti-Telemarketing Victory.
July 20, 2006... Verizon Wireless won a permanent court injunction to stop telemarketing calls to its customers by a Florida vacation company. The settlement agreement calls on the defendant to pay $5,000 in damages, which wireless carrier says it will...

AT&T, Qwest Ask FCC For Broadband Freedom.
July 20, 2006... AT&T Inc. and Qwest Corp. are seeking government approval to free a wide range of their broadband telecom activities from regulatory restrictions originally designed to control and restrict former Bell company practices, according to the...

In Belgium: 'Quad Play' With 'Free' Cellular.
July 20, 2006... Belgian cable operator Telenet, increasing its pressure on Belgacom, today became a "quad play" operator with the launch of "Telenet Mobile," a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service that's the first in the country with a monthly...

Driver, Turn (The Dial) A Little To The Left.
July 20, 2006... Later this month, Tokyo-based Mobile Broadcasting Corporation and Sapporo-based taxi company Daikoku Kotsu will deploy the carrier's MobaHO! satellite digital multimedia broadcasting service in the hacks for the enjoyment of Japanese taxi...

Shock At The Shack: Cellular Sales Slump Slams Reseller Retailer.
July 21, 2006... Radio Shack - which earns a massive 35 percent of its income from cellular sales these days - plunged into the red in the quarter ended June 30 as it struggles both with its switch from selling Verizon service to being a Cingular agent and...

Telenor Mobile Hopes There's No Place Like Home.
July 21, 2006... Telenor, announcing its latest quarterly results today, reported strong growth in its mobile-subscriber numbers in most of the markets where it is present - except for its home market of Norway. In the second quarter, Telenor Mobile -...

Governors To Congress: Telecom-Reform Act Snubs States' Rights.
July 21, 2006... The nation's governors and other non-federal officials have resumed pressing their case in the U.S. Congress that pending communications-reform legislation severely pre-empts state, county and local authorities and powers. They want the...

SingTel CEO Sings His Swan Song.
July 21, 2006... Earlier today, Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) CEO Lee Hsien Yang said he is resigning after a dozen years at the helm of what is Southeast Asia's largest phone company. "Twelve years is a long time in the tenure of any CEO,'' Lee...

Level 3 Sells B2B IT Unit.
July 21, 2006... Level 3 Communications signed a definitive agreement to sell Software Spectrum - a wholly owned B2B-oriented information technology (IT) services subsidiary it has run for about four years - for approximately $287 million in cash. The...

Court Taps Wireless Matrix As MobileAria Winner.
July 21, 2006... Wireless Matrix Corporation successfully bid for and entered into an amended and restated asset sale and purchase agreement dated July 20, 2006, to acquire substantially all the assets of Mountain View, Calif.-based MobileAria Inc. The...

France Telecom Falls Out Of Orbit.
July 24, 2006... France Telecom is getting out of the satellite communications business, selling off its France Telecom Mobile Satellite Communications SA (FTMSC) to an investment group at what looks to be a bargain-basement price. In a terse statement...

EarthLink Captures A Dragon.
July 24, 2006... EarthLink named Canadian fixed-wireless broadband house DragonWave, a six-year-old startup, as a wireless backhaul supplier for its municipal mesh projects, including the highly controversial and closely watched project in Philadelphia. ...

Internet2 Inks Photonic Relationship With Infinera.
July 24, 2006... The Internet2 academic network today disclosed it will be working with photonic semiconductor device vendor Infinera on next-generation technologies for high-speed communications, following by about one month a pact with Level 3...

House Bills Target Broader Emergency Communications.
July 24, 2006... The U.S. House of Representatives is examining two bills that would establish new national emergency and disaster communications-alert systems aimed at sending such special messages via a variety of media, including broadcast channels as well...

Telekom Austria: We're Alcatel-Powered.
July 24, 2006... Telekom Austria disclosed today that it had selected Alcatel as its "technology partner" - a fancy way to say equipment supplier - for the delivery of triple-play services, including IPTV, IP telephony (VoIP) and higher-speed Internet...

Quarterly Reports: VoIP Dominates Cable Numbers.
July 24, 2006... Once again, it's hell month for public companies as they prepare to release their second-quarter financials. However, voice and data services are pushing some cable providers ahead of the pack. According to TelecomWeb's sister publication...