TelecomWeb News Digest articles from November 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from November 2007

Sprint Quarter Horrid As Subscribers Flee; Wherefore WiMAX?
November 1, 2007... Sprint Nextel, hit by a continuing exodus of wireless subscribers, reported yet another dismal quarter, with sales off 4 percent and profits down 78 percent. Of particular note, spending on its nascent nationwide "Xohm" wirelessMAN...

It's Verizon Vs. AT&T In India Enterprise Market.
November 1, 2007... Verizon won a license to sell long-distance services to multinational corporations in India, setting the stage for a face-off between Verizon Business and AT&T Global Services. Meanwhile AT&T, in a pre-emptive strike emphasizing the Indian...

F5 Networks Ramps Up Microsoft Enterprise Offering.
November 1, 2007... F5 Networks Inc., a specialist in application delivery networking, has expanded its "Application Ready Network for Microsoft" to include Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. According to the Seattle-based company, the Application...

Wireless, Cable Carriers Continue Wireline Rout.
November 1, 2007... While industry consolidation has wrought major changes in the U.S. telecom industry service provider segments, wireless carriers stand out as clear winners, though all segments continue to add new subscribers. According to a new report...

Want To Test Drive A BlackBerry IT Management Tool For Free?
November 1, 2007... Canada's Vettro has an offer you can't refuse. It's launched a free trial program to allow IT field service organizations to test IT service management (ITSM) mobile solutions for the BMC Software Remedy Action Request System (ARS) on a...

FCC Release Another Broadband Report: Too Little Too Late.
November 1, 2007... The FCC has released its semi-annual report on broadband penetration in the United States, mostly to the guffaws of an industry that by now either totally ignores or seriously criticizes the agency's concepts of how to do such a job. As...

Conexant Bails Out Of Wireless Broadband.
November 2, 2007... Communications chip house Conexant Systems has called an immediate halt to all development work in its standalone wireless local area network (LAN) product line, and it axed yet another 140 workers after reporting another quarter deep in the...

Alcatel-Lucent Joins IBM In Unified-Communications Assault.
November 2, 2007... Alcatel-Lucent has joined forces with IBM in a unified communications (UC) thrust that mates IBM's Lotus Sametime and Alcatel-Lucent's OmniTouch contact center product. The result is a solution, descriptively but somewhat clumsily named...

HP Sharpens Its Blades With UC 'Solution Blocks'.
November 2, 2007... HP has gone to market with a pair of what it's calling unified communications (UC) "Solution Blocks" for its BladeSystem hardware platforms. The blocks, HP says, let users host, integrate and manage e-mail, messaging, presence,...

AT&T Wraps Interwise Buy, Intros AT&T Connect.
November 2, 2007... Interwise, a global provider of IP-based voice-, Web- and video- conferencing services, now is a part of AT&T. In tandem, AT&T launched AT&T Connect, the first in a planned series of converged AT&T-branded voice-, video- and Web-conferencing...

Free Beta Testing Set For Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
November 2, 2007... Ky.-based MaximumASP, a Microsoft Gold Certified Provider of Web-hosting services, now claims to be Microsoft's first partner to provide free beta-test accounts featuring Microsoft SQL Server 2008. This new technology release will be...

Digium Unveils Switchvox Free Edition For SMBs.
November 2, 2007... One month after its acquisition of Switchvox, a provider of IP PBX phone systems for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) (TelecomTactics Insider, Oct. 15), Digium Inc. announced the immediate availability of Switchvox Free Edition. ...

Google Maintains The Surprise, Unveiling Platform But No Phone.
November 5, 2007... Following a weekend full of speculation regarding how Google would make its entree into the wireless arena, its plans have been unveiled, and they don't include a "Googlephone," as many had thought. Earlier this morning, an alliance of...

ERF Shops Again, Now The Biggest Texas WISP.
November 5, 2007... ERF Wireless, whose avowed plan is to some day grow to be a nationwide enterprise-class wireless broadband provider targeting the banking industry in particular, has bought its second Texas-based wireless Internet service provider (WISP) in...

Cisco Targets SMBs With UC Offers, Upgrades.
November 5, 2007... Cisco, targeting small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), has beefed up its Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) offering with new technical services, the tripling of unified communications (UC) capabilities to as many as 48 users,...

RIM Targets SMBs With Scaled-Down Software Package.
November 5, 2007... BlackBerry parent Research In Motion (RIM) now is offering BlackBerry Professional Software, a wireless communications and collaboration solution compatible with current e-mail servers, and specifically designed and priced for small and...

Fonality Pursues Phone/CRM System, Buys Insightful To Help.
November 5, 2007... Business-phone-system maker Fonality says it's in the process of creating the industry's first phone system that unifies telephony and customer relationship management (CRM) for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). As part of the...

Aruba Unveils Unified Mobile Networks Offering.
November 5, 2007... Aruba Networks has gone to market with a new generation of its ultra- high-performance Multi-Service Mobility Controllers and 802.11n Access Points. The new products, it says, converge 802.11n wireless LANs, firewall- enforced user access...

Nortel Creeps Back Into The Black.
November 6, 2007... Nortel today reported a small quarterly profit, its first real one since plunging deep into the red as a result of the accounting scandal that rocked the company in 2004. While one quarter of profit does not necessarily a turnaround make...

Open Architecture Key To Siemens' Global Enterprise Strategy.
November 6, 2007... Siemens kicked off its world tour of client and prospect briefings yesterday in New York City in front of a crowd of 60 industry executives. The global show includes five U.S. cities before it heads to Beijing Shanghai and London,...

Stealth Startup Unveils 10 GigE Switch.
November 6, 2007... Arastra, operating under the radar since being birthed by Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, has taken off some of the wraps and gone to market with what it's claiming as "the industry's highest density 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) switching...

Apptix Offers SMBs Financial Lures To Try Hosted VoIP.
November 6, 2007... Apptix, a specialist in "on demand" business communications solutions for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), fielded a pair of financial lures in hopes of attracting SMBs to its nascent hosted VoIP PBX services - which it touts as...

Moonwalk Protects Files Even If System Craters.
November 6, 2007... Australia's Moonwalk Inc., developer of all-inclusive data management and protection software, says its new Moonwalk Universal File Area Network (FAN) supports all major existing hardware and operating systems platforms, thus improving...

Managed Services Go Competitive, Continue To Target Large Enterprises, SMBs.
November 6, 2007... According to new research from TelecomWeb news break's sister program "InfoTrack for Enterprise Services (IES)," large systems integrators and managed-service providers are beginning to move below the first tier of medium business, and they...

WiMAX Killer? 100 MB/s LTE Mobile Wireless Passes Key Test.
November 7, 2007... The wireless industry is on track to launch the world's first 100 Mb/s mobile broadband service within the next 24 to 36 months - and it won't be the stuff being called "mobile WiMAX." Initial trials of Long Term Evolution/System...

Visto Morphs The iPhone Into A BlackBerry.
November 7, 2007... Mobile e-mail specialist Visto released a push e-mail service it says in essence turns Apple's iPhone into a BlackBerry challenger for enterprise users. "For business users whose personal requirements and tastes extend beyond the...

Contact Centers Get 'On-Demand' Consulting Service.
November 7, 2007... International contact-center consulting house The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (TRG) is offering an "on-demand" consulting service for call-center operators. The scheme calls for center managers to meet with TRG monthly for a sort of "check up"...

HP Platform Helps Carriers Go Web 2.0.
November 7, 2007... Earlier today, HP unveiled its HP Service Delivery Platform (SDP) 2.0, aimed at enabling service providers to offer their customers greater access to convergent, multimedia and "Web 2.0" services on their mobile devices. HP says the...

XI Enterprise Suite Works With Major Search-Engine Vendors.
November 7, 2007... X1 Technologies Inc., a provider of user-centric enterprise search solutions, is marketing the "X1 Enterprise Search Suite v6," a product line it says can integrate critical business systems by "providing secure, unified access to personal...

Smartphones Replace Pagers As Normal Doctor Gear.(Clinical report)
November 7, 2007... OpusMobility, a new product from Texas-based clinical information systems provider Opus Healthcare Solutions Inc., helps physicians to continue monitoring their patients' lab results and diagnostic reports outside of the hospital via Wi-Fi...

TelecomWeb news break Exclusive: Meet The Newest 'Phone' Company.
November 8, 2007... As the Bard wrote: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." And that which we call a phone? Well, a new player is about to emerge on the VoIP phone scene, and it doesn't go by another name. Its...

RIM Stages Another Black Attack.
November 8, 2007... Research in Motion (RIM), in yet another attempt to lay exclusive claim to the color black as its hallmark, filed suit against LG Electronics, claiming its "Black Label Series" of "Chocolate" cellphones and, in particular, the Black Cherry...

Survey Sez: Wi-Fi Piggybackers Don't Mind Hogging Your Network.
November 8, 2007... According to a poll taken by networking software provider Pure Networks Inc., 49 percent of respondents don't consider using someone else's Wi-Fi network to be stealing, highlighting the importance of securing such networks, especially those...

Aruba Hits The Road With 'Cut The Cord' Campaign.
November 8, 2007... Aruba Networks Inc. has mounted a wireless-workplace evangelism tour, with initial stops next week in Orlando and Chicago. On Nov. 12, Aruba, with its distribution partner Catalyst Telecom, an international distributor of converged...

Enterprise Mobility Using Handsets You Already Own.
November 8, 2007... Want to turn your smartphone or your dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellphone into a full-featured business-communications device? FirstHand Technologies says its Enterprise Mobility Solution UC (unified communications) product is designed to work with...

Vonage Swims In Legal Red Ink, Agrees To Pay Off AT&T.
November 8, 2007... Vonage, reporting a massive $161.8 million quarterly loss because of the fortune it's had to pay Verizon and Sprint Nextel in lawsuit settlements, has reached a tentative settlement with AT&T on that carrier's recently filed patent suit - a...

Sprint-Clearwire WiMAX Deal Dies.
November 9, 2007... Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire this morning said that they have "mutually agreed" to terminate the deal under which they were going to build a joint nationwide wireless broadband network using so-called "mobile WiMAX," the stuff based on IEEE...

Acquisitions Signal Contact Center Solutions Market Consolidation.
November 9, 2007... In almost instant consolidation of the call center software and solutions industry, Atlanta-based Noble Systems Corporation, has acquired Oklahoma-based AMCAT and its subsidiaries AMCAT UK LTD and AMCAT Germany GmbH. Almost simultaneously,...

SK Telecom Takes Control Of Helio.
November 9, 2007... Korea's SK Telecom this morning said that it has taken over operating control of Helio, its faltering mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) cellular venture with Earthlink. The event had been expected, following SK's decision to plow as...

Contact Centers Spend Less For All-In-One Solutions.
November 9, 2007... Indianapolis-based research firm BenchmarkPortal Inc., a specialist in contact-center best practices, says the total annualized cost per agent for all- in-one solutions averages less than half that of multi-point solutions. ...

Veracity Adds STS Telecom Services To SMB Product Mix.
November 9, 2007... Veracity Management Group and STS Telecom say their new strategic partnership will expand Veracity's product offerings to include small-business hosting services and integrated VoIP telephony. STS Telecom is a Fla.-based nationwide VoIP...

CIOs Say Carriers Need To Help More With Mobile Device Management.
November 9, 2007... A recent survey says CIOs now are looking to their wireless carrier partners to provide tools and services to help them control, secure and manage mobile devices in the same way they manage other IT assets. N.J.-based Mformation...

With An Outstanding First Half, Is Vodafone Vindicated?
November 13, 2007... Vodafone, in what's being seen as a justification of the controversial strategies of CEO Arun Sarin, today reported stellar half-year results, buoyed by a 48.8-percent increase in data revenues to just shy of $2.1 billion as well as by the...

Unified Communications House Ensim Goes SaaS.
November 13, 2007... Unified communications (UC) infrastructure management software provider Ensim Corporation launched itself into the software as a service (SaaS) market with a SaaS software development kit (SDK) for independent software vendors (ISVs) and...

Siemens Upgrades HiPath WLAN Offerings.
November 13, 2007... Siemens Communications went to market with a pair of wireless outdoor access points (OAPs) for its HiPath enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) offering along with a new version of its HiPath wireless convergence software. The new offerings,...

Voltaire, HP Team For 'High Performance' Computing.
November 13, 2007... Voltaire Ltd., a provider of grid backbone solutions for the data center, says its InfiniBand solutions are available for the new HP Cluster Platform Workgroup System. According to the company, the solution is suitable for workgroup and...

Formica Taps AT&T For Enhanced Global VoIP Network.
November 13, 2007... AT&T inked a three-year, $1.4 million contract to provide managed network solutions to Formica Corporation's North American and European operations. Under the agreement, AT&T will provide its Virtual Private Network (VPN) and...

Another Enterprise App For The iPhone.
November 13, 2007... Maybe we were wrong, and the iPhone will be an enterprise player after all. 1stWorks, a real-time communications software company with solutions for secure multimedia conferencing, collaboration and content delivery, now is offering...

Comcast & Microsoft Team To Target Telcos & Google.
November 14, 2007... Cable giant Comcast, in a major move to break into the small- to medium- sized business (SMB) market and lure customers away from rival Telcos, has teamed up with Microsoft to offer broadband business customers a free web-based suite of...

Nortel Uses SOA To Marry Unified Comms And Applications.
November 14, 2007... Nortel has unveiled what it calls a "comprehensive communications enablement strategy" to link unified communications (UC) with business process, using so-called "Service-Oriented Architecture" (SOA) and Web Services technologies. It's also...

Verizon Business Upgrades To 40 Gb/s Backbone.
November 14, 2007... Verizon Business has gone live with 40 Gb/s service on two of its backbone network circuits, with more to follow, using Juniper T-series routers. Verizon said that the first two circuits to get the speed upgrade, from what had been 10...

Watchdog Groups Seek To Protect Small Biz From Telco Dereg.
November 14, 2007... Eight public-interest and consumer groups say "significant rate increases" to small business will result if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) further deregulates incumbent telcos. In a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin...

The Next Big Thing: VoIPo3G.
November 14, 2007... A new research study believes the evolution of mobile VoIP will eclipse voice over Wi-Fi to become a mainstream form of communication. London-based Disruptive Analysis predicts the number of "VoIPo3G" users could grow from virtually zero...

Will SOA Be The Next Collaboration Enabler?
November 14, 2007... Many enterprises reportedly are experimenting with Web 2.0 tools and service-oriented technologies to expand the collaborative reach of the organization, according to results of a pulse survey of more than 100 participants attending an...

EC Unveils Streamlined Telecom Reforms For All Member States.
November 15, 2007... Yesterday, the European Commission adopted proposals to reform European Union telecom rules to better enable people, wherever they live and wherever they travel in the EU, to benefit from more and cheaper communication services, whether they...

Cox Makes New Thrust Into The Business Telephony Market.
November 15, 2007... Cox Business, which has already been making inroads into Business Ethernet and VoIP, has launched a managed IP telephony offering aimed at the businesses of all sizes, becoming the second top-tier cable company in as many days to mount a...

IP Telephony Revenues Show Fourfold Increase.
November 15, 2007... Worldwide IP telephony revenues topped $6.9 billion last year, according to a new study by London-based analyst Point Topic, almost four times the $1.834 billion generated just a year earlier. Leading the pace in both total revenues and...

Intel Powers Collaboration Suite.
November 15, 2007... SpikeSource, a provider of business-ready enterprise solutions, is marketing the SuiteTwo Appliance powered by Intel, bundling SuiteTwo collaboration software into an integrated plug-and-play turnkey solution. Suitable for small and...

Enterprises See Mobile Messaging As A Mixed Blessing.
November 15, 2007... During the first half of this year, 15 percent of the workforces in mid- size and large companies had employer-supplied and supported mobile devices. New research projects 28 percent of workers will have mobile messaging devices by 2009,...

Nortel Lands Verizon Business European Network Contract.
November 15, 2007... Nortel has snagged a major contract from Verizon Business to supply the hardware for an ultra long haul (ULH) optical network that will span the European continent. Financial terms of the contract to build the network, which will span...

Dell Buys Into SaaS.
November 16, 2007... Dell, buying its was into the software as a service (SaaS) market, has reached an agreement to acquire privately-held Everdream, a specialist in SaaS solutions for remote-service management. The deal follows a similar one earlier this year...

BT Survey Shows Unified Comms 'Implementation Gap'.
November 16, 2007... Business executives strongly believe that unified communications (UC) technology can help global enterprises address challenges they face, but more than half of those executives see the cost and complexity of UC as barriers to...

Zayo Gets Into Managed Services & VoIP.
November 16, 2007... It looks like wholesale bandwidth startup Zayo Bandwidth has come up with bigger ideas than just selling broadband capacity - the Louisville, Colorado startup this morning unveiled a new managed services business unit and has gone out and...

Debt Clock Ticks As Vonage Loses Again.
November 16, 2007... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday denied Vonage's attempt to get it to review its decision in the Verizon patent case - a decision that instantly costs Vonage $40 million. Meanwhile, industry attention has started...

Go Daddy Goes BlackBerry Picking.
November 16, 2007... As e-mail becomes more vital to business success, enterprises and their employees are taking matters into their own hands, literally. With recent research saying the small to mid-size business (SMB) segment using smartphones for e-mail...

How To Survive A VoIP Outage.
November 16, 2007... Just in time for the holidays, Edgewater Networks Inc. will release an extension of its EdgeMarc VoIP survivability feature that will include Wide Area Network (WAN) link redundancy, allowing enterprise and service-provider customers to take...

Earthlink Muni Wi-Fi For Sale; Philly, Houston Projects Endangered.
November 19, 2007... Earthlink has put the little that's left of its municipal wireless unit on the block, in a move that both jeapordizes the once-vaunted Wireless Philadelphia project and adds new doubt to the viability of large-scale municipal Wi-Fi mesh...

Verizon & Vodafone Offer Enterprises Global Wireless Contracts.
November 19, 2007... Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, which owns a 40 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, have put their heads together and come up with a single contract plan for global business customers. The new scheme promises enterprise customers what the...

Canadian WiMAX Pioneer Files For Bankruptcy Protection.
November 19, 2007... Canadian WiMAX pioneer SR Telecom, one of only 14 companies in the world actually certified as having WiMAX products, has filed for creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) - the Canadian equivalent of...

Mitel Continues to Leverage Microsoft UC Software.
November 19, 2007... Mitel pledges a continued commitment to integrate its flagship 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) with Microsoft's unified communications (UC) software, announcing support for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (the next...

U.K. Company Touts Cost-Effective Hosted VoIP Offering.
November 19, 2007... London-based Coms Plc, a provider of VoIP business telephony solutions, now is offering Coms.Net, a hosted VoIP service for enterprise that allows customers with a fully featured, scalable, configurable and "low-cost, state-of- the-art VoIP...

Satellite Industry Success At WRC In Protecting C-Band Services.
November 19, 2007... Following the just concluded 2007 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07) conference in Geneva, the global satellite industry says it emerged from four weeks of successful negotiations to protect the users of its C-band spectrum from...

Is AT&T Eyeing Dish Again?
November 20, 2007... AT&T, playing dialing for deals, said it is buying pay-per-call online advertising company Ingenio but left the world guessing about whether it is going to, or perhaps already has, made a bid for satellite direct to home (DTH) video provider...

IBM Upgrades Its UC Portfolio.
November 20, 2007... IBM has beefed up its Rational, WebSphere and Tivoli products, coming up with a set of offerings it says will let telecommunications carriers, equipment providers and application developers use service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0...

VoIP Houses 8x8 & JaJah Do Long Distance Dial-Around.
November 20, 2007... They say there's nothing new under the sun and, though they don't put it that way, VoIP houses 8x8 and JaJah have both gone to market with what are essentially new IP-based versions of the old tried and true dial-around technique of...

Czech Republic Dominates CEE Enterprise ICT Industry.
November 20, 2007... Due to the vast end-user base, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) information and communication technology (ICT) industry has not managed to keep pace with customer demand despite its rapid development since 2002. However, according to...

Hospital Campus Taps Siemens For Internal WLAN Systems.
November 20, 2007... "Efficient, effective and highly responsive patient care" is the primary architectural design goal for the soon-to-open, revamped McCune-Brooks Hospital in Carthage, Mo. As such, the hospital will install a secure, IP-based wireless voice...

ShoreTel Vets Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi Technology.
November 20, 2007... Ruckus Wireless, a Calif.-based supplier of smart wireless LAN systems ("Smart Wi-Fi") (Wireless Business Forecast, May 31), has completed ShoreTel's Technology Partner Program (TPP) certification, helping to ensure interoperability with...

SiriCOMM Falls From Orbit.
November 21, 2007... Satellite broadband provider ViaSat has turned off its service to SiriCOMM, claimed to be the United States' largest providers of Wi-Fi services to the transportation industry, for what looks to be a simple reason: SiriCOMM didn't and...

Metaswitch Offers Telcos Outsourced NOC Management.
November 21, 2007... Softswitch and applications solutions house MetaSwitch and Network Insight have teamed up to provide an outsourced network operations center (NOC) management function for service providers. The new service, branded as OmniPulse, will be...

Verizon Trumpets 100 Gb/s Backbone Test Success.
November 21, 2007... Verizon this week said that it had successfully concluded the industry's first field test of 100 Gb/s optical transmission on a live in-service network. The 100 Gb/s test covered a 312-mile network route between Tampa, Fla., and Miami,...

Use Podcasting To Monitor Customer-Service Calls.
November 21, 2007... FreedomVOICE Systems, a telecom carrier specializing in virtual-office and hosted-telephone solutions for small businesses, says it uses "its own unique technology products," including a podcasting offshoot, to guarantee a high standard for...

Symantec Product Protects Smartphones.
November 21, 2007... Symantec Corp. is touting what it says is the first smartphone security offering to provide a solution for both Windows Mobile and Symbian OS in one product. Norton Smartphone Security features Norton AntiVirus technology as well as a...

WAN Optimization Tool Detects, Busts Work-Time P2P Playing.
November 21, 2007... Plagued by workers playing video games and posting personal IMs on company time? Boston-based Exinda has a solution it says helps control a broad range of recreational Internet traffic that significantly slows business applications on...