TelecomWeb News Digest articles from March 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from March 2007

FCC Rules For Cableco In Interconnection Fracas.
March 1, 2007... A year ago, Time Warner Cable asked the FCC to affirm that "wholesale telecommunications carriers are entitled to obtain interconnection with incumbent LECs to provide wholesale telecommunications services to other service providers...

Axe To Fall, Strategy To Change As DT Financials Dive.
March 1, 2007... Deutsche Telekom (DT), in large part blaming the loss of more than two million landline customers in the past year, moved deep into the red, reporting a net loss of $1.2 billion in 4Q06 despite a 2.4-percent increase in sales to $20.93...

Markey's First Hearing: The Internet Moving Forward.
March 1, 2007... Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is back in the saddle again, chairing the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and The Internet and hosting the Internet's real father - Sir Timothy Berners-Lee of the World Wide Web Consortium and MIT - after 12...

Ultimate Embarrassment: Nortel Forced To Restate Again.
March 1, 2007... In what has to be a new low in corporate humiliation, Nortel this morning admitted it has to restate past financial results yet again. This makes so many restatements that most folks have lost count; it looks to be Number Four or Five in...

Six Years After 9/11: Capital District Gets New Public-Safety Radios.
March 1, 2007... Alcatel-Lucent and its U.S. government sales subsidiary LGS landed the highly coveted Regional Wireless Broadband Network (RWBN) equipment contract from the District of Columbia. The award is for an expected $100 million or more worth of...

BAE Systems Mobile Military Contract Tackles Phase Two.
March 1, 2007... The Slovak Ministry of Defense (MoD) awarded BAE Systems a $30 million contract for the second phase of an interoperable mobile military communications system known as "MOKYS." No financial details were disclosed. BAE, which was...

Breaking News: Sonae Loses PT Takeover Vote.
March 2, 2007... The $20 billion hostile bid by Sonae and its 60-percent-owned SonaeCom subsidiary to take over Portugal Telecom (PT) along with its cable and broadband subsidiary PT Multimedia (PTM) has hit a brick wall. PT shareholders, at a crucial...

Rumor Du Jour: Egypt's Orascom Wants To Samba.
March 2, 2007... Orascom Telecom has offered a secret bid for control of Brasil Telecom Participacoes, the latest twist in what's been a years-long battle between companies trying to get control of the once-government-owned telco. According to this...

Hughes Quits Sea Launch For Arianespace.
March 2, 2007... Arianespace will launch the Spaceway-3 communications satellite for Hughes Network Systems LLC. An August liftoff is scheduled aboard an Ariane 5 vehicle from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. Hughes will operate the Ka-band...

Missouri Courts Ponder Wireless-Taxation Filings.
March 2, 2007... Wireless carriers serving Missouri are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it anymore. Several of them are taking "hundreds" of the state's cities to court, citing wrongful taxation. Reports from local news organizations say that,...

New Acquisition Gives IPC VoIP Capabilities.
March 2, 2007... IPC, a provider of mission-critical communications solutions to global enterprises, is strengthening its public-safety product portfolio and customer base by purchasing Positron Public Safety Systems. No financial details were disclosed....

Report Details How To Get To Universal Broadband.
March 2, 2007... A new report finds that mandates to provide global "universal broadband" offer an unexpected market driver for mobile WiMAX, creating a fertile bed for competitive technologies to develop. The background: President Bush says we'll all be...

Babelgum Jousts With Joost: Italian FTTH King Targets VoD.
March 6, 2007... Details have begun to emerge of what until now has been a semi-stealth, Web-based, video-on-demand (VoD) IPTV project financed from the personal fortune of Italian fiber to the home (FTTH) magnate Silvio Scaglia, the founder of Italy's...

FCC's Video-Franchise Order Garners Mixed Reception.
March 6, 2007... The Federal Communications Commission adopted and released it Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding video franchising, and the fur has begun to fly. In the Order, the commission concludes that the current...

The Big Apple Inches Toward Big Broadband.
March 6, 2007... New York City, moving at what some folks might call a glacial pace, has set March 30 as the date for the first of what are to be at least five hearings held by its Broadband Advisory Committee this year. The committee, which is supposed...

Palo Alto Cautiously Backs Into FTTH.
March 6, 2007... After 10 years of debate and successful beta testing more than half-a- decade ago, the Palo Alto (Calif.) City Council last night finally voted to go ahead with a municipally backed fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network. For a string of...

AT&T Intros Mobile TV...Well, Sort Of.
March 6, 2007... Forgot to set your video recorder for "General Hospital" today? If you're an AT&T Homezone customer, you can do so via your cellphone or other wireless device. According to the carrier, Homezone customers can now view listings and...

First Turner & Hootch, Now Hammer & Coop.
March 6, 2007... Ad Infuse, a deliverer of personalized mobile-advertising solutions, earlier today launched a mobile marketing campaign for carmaker MINI USA as part of the "Hammer & Coop" Webisode campaign. "Hammer & Coop," developed by Butler Shine &...

Ericsson Gets The Nod For Tandberg Takeover.
March 7, 2007... Tandberg Television has embraced its new lover, accepting Ericsson's unexpected rival acquisition bid and spurning would-be suitor Arris. Investor hope for a continued bidding war for IPTV leader Tandberg, meanwhile, appears to fade...

Aussies Plow More Millions Into Bush Broadband Battle.
March 7, 2007... The government of Australia has allocated another $126 million to its attempt to provide 100-percent broadband availability to its population, money for a direct cash subsidy to ISPs to pay for the cost of bringing satellite, DSL or cable...

Sierra Wireless Inks Deal For AirLink.
March 7, 2007... Sierra Wireless Inc. inked a definitive agreement to acquire privately held AirLink Communications Inc., a developer and supplier of fixed, portable and wireless data solutions for industrial and public-safety applications. Sierra...

US Venture Houses Throw Cash At Chinese Web TV Leader.
March 7, 2007... There's nothing Mickey Mouse about this deal. A group of U.S. venture capitalists, including Disney's venture arm, has plowed $23.5 million into mainland Chinese Web-based video site UUSee, said to have grown to be the largest Internet-based...

Konka Teams With TTP For Mobile-TV Apps.
March 7, 2007... The Technology Partnership (TTP), a U.K.-based broadcast multimedia- technology-development and IP company, licensed its digital broadcast TV (DBTV), open-standards-based mobile-TV implementation to Chinese mobile-phone manufacturer Konka...

iBAHN Lets Road Warriors Put The Pedal To Metal.
March 7, 2007... Just as the autobahn in some parts of Europe allows drivers to choose their own speed limits, the iBAHN Speed Solution allows hotel guests to select the broadband bandwidth speed that best suits their specific needs. Broadband service...

Clearwire IPO Has WISP Grabbing The Brass Ring.
March 8, 2007... Intel-backed wireless Internet service provider (WISP) Clearwire this morning floated a $600 million initial public offering (IPO), coming in at the top of its expected price range amid reports that a massive number of institutional...

Talk Ain't Cheap As Skype Launches Calling Party Pays.
March 8, 2007... Skype, arguably now the most heavily used VoIP service on the Internet, has quietly (but hardly secretly) gone into beta with a new service that lets folks demand payment from people who are calling them. The new service, called "Skype...

Bidding Starts For Fourth French 3G License.
March 8, 2007... France's telecommunications regulator Autorite de Regulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes (ARCEP) today opened the auction for the country's fourth 3G license, setting a price of $812.8 million for the license and giving...

Watchdogs To FCC: 'Hang Up' On Anti-Consumer USF Plans.
March 8, 2007... A warning today for phone users in Massachusetts: Two consumer groups say you stand to be among the biggest losers in the United States under a widely criticized plan to shift the burden of who pays the federal Universal Service Fund (USF)...

Wirefly.com Says More U.S. Callers Use Smartphones.
March 8, 2007... According to a new report from Wirefly.com, an online, one-stop comparison shopper for cellphones and related service plans, the sale of multifunctional smartphones grew 70 percent from 3Q06 to 1Q07. Wirefly.com attributes this spike to two...

TriQuint Target Strategy Garners Millions Of Unit Sales.
March 8, 2007... Ore.-based TriQuint Semiconductor, a manufacturer of highly integrated RF front-end modules for wireless handsets, claims to have shipped more than 50 million of what it says are the world's smallest quad-band GSM/GPRS transmit modules to...

Investors Panic As Jury Convicts Vonage Of Patent Violations.
March 9, 2007... A U.S. District Court jury in Alexandria, Va., found Vonage guilty of violating a trio of patents owned by Verizon, ordering the VoIP provider to pay Verizon $58 million in damages and 5.5 percent of all of its future revenues. Despite...

Shareholders OK Hutch-Essar Sale; Rival's Stock Soars.
March 9, 2007... In rapid-fire action in the hot India cellular market, shareholders of Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL) today approved Vodafone's $11.08 billion bid for control of Hutchison-Essar, but the sale of HTIL's shares in...

Gov't, Healthcare Now Lead In Wireless-Data Adoption.
March 9, 2007... During the last 10 years, the use of wireless data in commercial applications reportedly has grown from $600 million in 1996 to $7.2 billion in 2006. According to market-research house In-Stat, the government and healthcare markets have...

AT&T Fills Bigger Shoes.
March 9, 2007... AT&T has a larger footprint now, adding 13,000 hot spots to its network. AT&T now runs more than 48,000 hot spots in 79 countries, including nearly 15,000 hot spots available to AT&T Remote Access customers in the United States. The new...

WiSOA Members Ink WiMAX Roaming Pact.
March 9, 2007... Members of the WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) signed what they say is the world's first WiMAX roaming agreement, forming a partnership with roaming-service providers MACH Sarl and Trustive BV. WiSOA says it's focused on "the...

OEM Deal Could Make House-Hunting Easier.
March 9, 2007... Mobile Airwaves signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Fla.- based Property Maps Inc., aimed at crafting an OEM agreement between the parties and making Mobile Airwaves the mobile-technology supplier enabling Property Maps to provide...

Swisscom Bids For Italy's Fastweb.
March 12, 2007... Swisscom, in a move to break out of the relatively low-growth Swiss market, this morning offered $4.87 billion for Italian broadband operator Fastweb, that nation's second-largest network operator. Within hours, the deal appeared to have...

U.K.'s Premiere ISP Goes On The Block.
March 12, 2007... British ISP Pipex - which claims historical honors as the U.K.'s first commercial ISP but which owes its current size to a string of acquisitions - is now on the market. The company this morning confirmed hiring investment bank UBS to...

Investors Trash Clearwire; Wall Street Asks 'WhyMAX'.
March 12, 2007... Wall Street's romance with Intel's super-hyped but still-mythical mobile WiMAX has turned out to be painfully brief. WiMAX poster child Clearwire's shares are off 20 percent from their superheated IPO level in barely two days of trading. ...

LCC Adds WFI To Company Soup.(Company overview)
March 12, 2007... LCC International is buying wireless network provider Wireless Facilities Inc.'s entire Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) business in a cash-for-stock transaction valued at $4 million. LCC International bills itself as being "a global...

Analyst Doubts Any AT&T Move for EchoStar.
March 12, 2007... In a new research note, Credit Suisse analyst Bryan Kraft considers an AT&T move for EchoStar less likely, due to the increasing ramp-up of AT&T's own TV service (TelecomWeb news break, Jan. 29). AT&T is launching its U-verse TV platform...

Russians Say 'Nyet' To Cellphone Talk, Texting.
March 12, 2007... According to executives with Russian wireless provider MTS, its average subscriber doesn't use his or her handset much. "Russians don't talk much and they don't send many messages or use the Internet a lot," MTS Marketing Director...

SEC Files First Charges In Nortel Accounting Scandal.
March 13, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken action on Nortel's long-running accounting scandal, charging four former Nortel executives, including ex-CEO Frank Dunn, with seven counts of accounting fraud aimed "to bridge gaps...

Vonage Attempts Penny Power Play.
March 13, 2007... Vonage, in what looks to be another shot at proving to consumers that the company is alive and kicking, has slashed its long-distance rates to all or parts of eight countries to just one penny per minute. The rate undercuts arch rival...

Verizon Leads World Telcos In Saudi Landline Stampede.
March 13, 2007... A crush of 10 companies and consortia from around the globe - from Verizon to China Telecom - have rushed in to bid for the right to build what will be Saudi Arabia's second landline phone company, breaking the monopoly held by...

Boeing Military Radios Pass Initial Muster.
March 13, 2007... Unlike its hapless and abandoned consumer air-to-ground broadband data program, Boeing's Joint Tactical Radio System Ground Mobile Radio (JTRS GMR) military program is focused, on cost and on schedule after a progress-packed year. GMR...

USA Mobility, Actsoft Team To Provide GPS Services.
March 13, 2007... USA Mobility Inc., a provider of wireless messaging and communications services, and Actsoft Inc., which develops and markets mobile-management and GPS location-tracking software, inked a sales-and-marketing agreement that gives each the...

Arkansas Poised For BPL Deployment.
March 13, 2007... The Arkansas state Senate is considering legislation that would allow electric utility companies to deploy broadband networks over power lines. House Bill 1589 would give Arkansas electric utility companies the nod to implement broadband...

HP Execs Evade State Pretexting Rap.
March 14, 2007... Former Hewlett-Packard Chair Patricia Dunn has unexpectedly gotten off scott-free on charges that she orchestrated the use of "pretexting" (the use of allegedly illegal techniques to obtain telephone records) to spy on fellow HP board...

Share Shortfall Forces Ericsson To Extend Tandberg Tender.
March 14, 2007... Ericsson's surprise $1.39 billion tender for Tandberg Television expired last night without the demanded 90 percent of Tandberg Television shares having been tendered - although it did get a majority - forcing it to extend the offer until...

U.K. Surfers SOL: Breathe Biscit Buy Battered.
March 14, 2007... Another round in the ongoing consolidation of the freewheeling ISP business in the United Kingdom - where 300 or so ISPs both big and small are trying to eat each other's lunch, dinner and biscuits - has hit a brick wall. Breathe Networks...

Reding: Europe Close To Roaming Reform.
March 14, 2007... The European Commission (EC) is touting its prediction that a new regulation capping roaming charges should be in place before the summer. The EC's Web site says a further round of fine tuning on this issue is set for tomorrow during an...

Senate Bill Backs Public-Safety Needs.
March 14, 2007... Last night, the U.S. Senate passed the "Improving America's Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007" (S.4). The bill includes three provisions authored and unanimously approved by the Senate...

Pirelli Mulls Telecom Italia Share Sale.
March 14, 2007... Reports out of Italy say business conglomerate Pirelli may be readying the sale of its controlling interest in Telecom Italia following the blessing of Pirelli's board to do so. Pirelli owns 80 percent of Olimpia, the holding company that...

Essar Holds Hutch, Vodafone Wallets To The Fire.
March 15, 2007... India's Essar Group has cajoled Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited (HTIL) into paying it $415 million of the $11.1 billion HTIL is getting from Vodafone for its controlling stake in Hutchison-Essar in order to drop its "right...

Irish Eyes Are Smiling: Cellular For Landline Rates.
March 15, 2007... The Irish regulator Commission For Communications Regulation (ComReg) has issued new rules allowing cellular operators to offer plans under which folks can make wireless calls from in and around their homes for the same price they would pay...

InfoTrack Report Has Microsoft Predicting Huge VoIP Cost Drop.
March 15, 2007... In his keynote address last week at VoiceCon Spring 2007, Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division, said that in three years, the typical Voice over IP (VoIP) solution for business would cost half what it does today, primarily...

Cellphones Now Ready For Prime Time.
March 15, 2007... NBC Universal (NBCU) inked a deal with MobiTV under which full episodes of prime-time NBC shows - including "Heroes," "Friday Night Lights," "The Office," "Monk," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Work Out" - will be broadcast to cellphone...

Siemens, Nokia Team For Wireless Enterprise Interop.
March 15, 2007... A new agreement between Siemens Communications and Nokia's Enterprise Solutions business group has the two working together to help ensure interoperability between the Siemens HiPath MobileConnect Enterprise Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)...

It Takes Two: TRAQ Wireless Tangoes.
March 15, 2007... Telecom expense-management-solutions provider Tangoe Inc. and mobile lifestyle manager TRAQ Wireless Inc. have merged, deciding to keep the name Tangoe as the combined companies move forward to offer technology-based software and service...

Disgruntled Alcatel-Lucent Workers Converge In Paris.
March 16, 2007... Thousands of European Alcatel-Lucent workers marched through Paris yesterday to protest the company's restructuring plan, which calls for thousands of job losses on the continent (TelecomWeb news break, Feb. 9). Job losses and job...

Wireless Cable Broadband House Arcwave Waves Goodbye.
March 16, 2007... Arcwave, which fancied itself the "undisputed leader" in wireless plant extension for the cable industry - dishing up DOCSIS-based wireless Ethernet broadband service to the small- to medium-business (SMB market where cable industry most...

EC Bewails Lack Of Progress On Mobile TV Standard.
March 16, 2007... The European Commission (EC) today took aim at the the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC), and its failure to make progress on establishing a single standard for mobile TV throughout the EU. In a speech at the European Commission...

Cisco's $3.2B WebEx Move Cements Social-Networking Plans.
March 16, 2007... Cisco Systems has agreed to acquire the online meeting company WebEx Communications for some $3.2 billion in cash, a bit of a stretch for Cisco but one that could solidify its position in the business-communications arena. WebEx claims...

Cingular Blinks In CPUC Refund Case.
March 16, 2007... A California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) settlement agreement now has Cingular Wireless (new name: AT&T Mobility) refunding early-termination fees (ETFs) collected from its former customers, ending lengthy litigation arising from the...

Malaysian Surprise: Unknowns Win Wireless Broadband Licenses.
March 16, 2007... In a surprise move the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has awarded 2.3 GHz licenses for 802.16 wireless broadband - WiMAX if you will - to four small, emerging and basically unknown companies in the market,...

BT Plays The Hero In Biscit Bankruptcy.
March 19, 2007... BT, in a move that's clearly designed to garner it loads of goodwill publicity, this morning started handing out the precious codes that subscribers to failed British ISP Biscit need in order to move to a new broadband service provider. ...

Newborn Trade Group Seeks IPTV Standards.
March 19, 2007... A group of nine companies, including both carriers - AT&T, France Telecom and Telecom Italia - and manufacturers have banded together to create a trade group with the goal of standardizing IPTV. A key goal of the new outfit, which is calling...

Glu Mobile Set To IPO This Week.
March 19, 2007... If all goes well, wireless games-maker Glu Mobile will garner nearly $72 million from going public sometime this week. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company, which plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol "GLUU," says it's "developed...

Revol, Mobile Posse Team For Cellphone Marketing Trial.
March 19, 2007... Wireless subscribers of Ohio-based wireless carrier Revol, which looks like it caters to the Gen X and Y set, began testing a mobile advertising solution from Mobile Posse that allows subscribers to receive content, advertising and...

Ericsson Snags Tandberg Television.
March 19, 2007... Ericsson said this morning that it had fallen slightly short of the 90 percent tender requirement in its surprise $1.39 billion takeover bid for Tandberg Television, but that it has decided to waive the requirement and buy out Tandberg as...

Personalization, Entertainment Drive Premium Wireless Content.
March 19, 2007... Driven by a growing consumer appetite for personalization and entertainment content on wireless handsets, a new report says companies that provide platforms delivering premium content to mobile phones reaped a $4.2 billion share of the $16.3...

EC Antitrust Sleuths Probe SFR-Tele2 Deal.
March 20, 2007... The European Commission (EC), citing fears that the deal will chill competition in the TV over broadband market, this morning opened an "in depth" investigation of France's Societe Francaise de Radiotelephone (SFR) plans to buy the French...

Qwest Competitors Combine As Integra Buys Eschelon.
March 20, 2007... Integra Telecom, a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) that's been eating Qwest's lunch, is buying rival business CLEC Eschelon Telecom in a $710 million deal that will create one of the nation's largest CLECS with revenues of more...

Essar Buys Virgin's Help In $1B Cellphone Store Scheme.
March 20, 2007... India's Essar Group said this morning that it has hired the U.K.'s Virgin Group to help it with an ambitious plan to build a massive chain of cellphone retail stores that Essar hopes will be doing $1 billion in business in just 36 months....

MSS Providers Must Partner To Prosper.
March 20, 2007... Mobile satellite services (MSS) consulting firm Telecom, Media and Finance Associates Inc. (TMF Associates) says Globalstar's recently announced system problems (TelecomWeb news break, Feb. 7) will impact growth prospects across the handheld...

WFI Under Fire For Alleged Securities Violations.
March 20, 2007... Vermont-based litigators Johnson & Perkinson filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a plaintiff and a proposed class of purchasers of securities of wireless network provider Wireless Facilities Inc. during the period March 29, 2001 to...

Detroit Operation Buys Sunshine State Wireless Stores.
March 20, 2007... Some 30 Beepers 'n Phones retail stores and kiosks in Florida are readying for a new name and new identity, the takeover target of Detroit-based Wireless Toyz. According to local news reports, the franchise-oriented Wireless Toyz is...

BT, Virgin Said Bidding As Pipex Price Soars.
March 21, 2007... Virgin Media and BT have emerged as the two top bidders for British ISP Pipex, according to reports out of London, with Virgin said to have the most to win and thus possibly willing to bid higher. With those reports circulating, investors...

Broadband Beams Down From WildBlue's New Satellite.
March 21, 2007... Satellite broadband provider WildBlue said that it began offering Ka-band service from its new WildBlue-1 satellite yesterday, beating its original plan to go live in the middle of April by at least several weeks. WildBlue is rushing to beef...

India's Idea Turns To Big Blue.
March 21, 2007... IBM has landed a ten-year IT outsourcing contract worth an estimated $600-$800 million from Idea Cellular, India's fifth largest cellular carrier. The exact value is based on Idea revenues, and could potentially grow into the billion dollar...

3G Network Deployment Spikes Monitoring-Services Takeup.
March 21, 2007... Increasing implementation rates of 3G wireless networks and their associated high-bandwidth services reportedly have done much to drive the demand for wireless network monitoring services. According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, many...

Network2 Asks FCC To Leave Internet Video Alone.
March 21, 2007... Network2, which bills itself as "a guide, curator and aggregator of Internet video content," filed paperwork at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), asking that agency not to regulate the nascent technology in the same way it does...

Texas TIF Could Go The Way Of U.S. FET.
March 21, 2007... In a unanimous vote yesterday, the Texas House of Representatives took the first step to eliminate one of the taxes state telecom subscribers have been paying as a line item on their monthly wireline and wireless bills for more than a...