TelecomWeb News Digest articles from September 2007

TelecomWeb News Digest archives from September 2007

Small Businesses Make Hay With E-Commerce.
September 4, 2007... According to results of a poll taken by the Small Business Research Board (SBRB), the largest and smallest of small businesses are most bullish about the impact the Internet will have on their businesses during the next 12 to 24 months. ...

Accenture Wins KPN CRM Suite Project.
September 4, 2007... Dutch telecom provider KPN tapped Accenture to be its lead systems integrator as the carrier transitions to a new customer relationship management (CRM) system serving its businesses in the Netherlands. No financial details were disclosed....

Siemens, Intecon Team For More Federal Business.
September 4, 2007... Siemens Communications Inc. and Intecon LLC are partnering to better serve their public- and private-sector customers, particularly those in the Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) arena. Colo.-based Intecon provides...

MetroPCS/Leap Deal Could Create Huge Prepaid Player.
September 4, 2007... Discount wireless provider MetroPCS Communications Inc. has offered more than $5 billion in stock to buy Leap Wireless International Inc. MetroPCS also would assume or refinance $2 billion of Leap's debt as part of the deal. Leap...

Oracle Buys Irish Firm To Spur Next-Gen Services, Profits.
September 4, 2007... Enterprise software giant Oracle is buying Ireland-based Netsure Telecom Limited, a provider of network intelligence, analytics and network data integrity software, as part of its plan to help customers launch and then profit from...

Sony Ericsson Mobile Tweaks Management Team.(Company overview)
September 4, 2007... Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, has decided to leave his position and to devote himself to new opportunities. Effective Nov. 1, Hideki "Dick" Komiyama, the current chairman of Sony Electronics Inc. USA and...

Sprint Demands Big Bucks As Another Vonage Trial Starts.
September 5, 2007... Sprint wants Vonage to pay $103 million in cash for past patent violations, and Sprint lawyers told a jury during opening arguments in yet another trial that the largest U.S. "pure play" VoIP provider would be out of business without its...

Utilities Stingy On New Fiber Buys.
September 5, 2007... Although fiber-optic technology is in widespread use throughout U.S. utilities, utility investment in fiber is focused currently on "capital deepening" rather than on expansion of fiber networks. According to a new report soon to be...

House Bill Pushes Minority Digital, Wireless Education Program.
September 5, 2007... Congress is back in town and, last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that, if signed, will direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish a "Minority Serving Institution Digital and Wireless Technology Opportunity Program"...

Survey Sez: Mobilized Enterprises Will Drive Modem Sales.
September 5, 2007... In a recent survey of mobile business users, employees of consulting, law, information-technology and field-engineering firms along with workers in companies of greater than 1,000 employees are the most interested in purchasing cellular...

Frost & Sullivan Sponsors Singapore UC Gathering.
September 5, 2007... Recent years have seen staggering developments in IP-based telephony, unified messaging and wireless solutions that are transforming the way businesses communicate. As such, unified communications (UC) - the integration of telephony, e-mail,...

Alltel Wireless Beefs Up Small-Business App Portfolio.
September 5, 2007... Alltel Wireless now is offering myServiceForce.com's "FieldMasterPro" to its small-business customers who use Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones. According to the carrier, the FieldMasterPro application offers "a complete work-order...

Will Your BlackBerry Replace Your Office Phone?
September 6, 2007... Earlier today at an analyst meeting at Research in Motion's (RIM's) Waterloo, Ontario, headquarters, President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis began promoting the BlackBerry combined with VoIP and Wi-Fi as the means of replacing the traditional...

PowerPlatform IPT Solution Goes Global.
September 6, 2007... Utah-based Alianza Inc., an integrated provider of hosted IP Telephony technology, is taking on the world, building on the success it's had in the Latin American marketplace with its PowerPlatform solution. PowerPlatform reportedly...

ATCA Adoption Rate Slow, But Steady.
September 6, 2007... Although advanced telecommunications computer architecture (ATCA) technology remains a key influencer of next-gen telecom equipment being developed by server vendors, systems integrators and network equipment providers (NEPs), its adoption...

Birth Pangs: New Bandwidth Provider Emerges.
September 6, 2007... A pair of former Level 3 veterans, armed with an acquisition war chest of almost a quarter of a billion dollars, has begun buying up small bandwidth providers around the country, melding them into a new, larger company they've christened...

Mindspeed Buys Bankrupt Ethernet MAC House.
September 6, 2007... Mindspeed Technologies is purchasing the product portfolio and intellectual-property assets of failed Ethernet media access controller (MAC) house Ample Communications, paying $4.6 million to Ample's senior creditor in a private foreclosure...

Trio Tapped For International Broadband-On-Rails Service.
September 6, 2007... A consortium of Nokia Siemens Networks, 21Net and Telenet has been chosen by high-speed-train operator Thalys to provision and run the first international broadband-on-rails service across European borders. Terms of the deal, under which...

Analysis: Why The iPhone Won't Replace The BlackBerry.
September 7, 2007... The latest data from iSuppli claims Apple iPhone sales eclipsed all other smartphones in July, so this is a good time to re-visit the device's real smart strengths...and considerable weaknesses. The iSuppli report is based on "squishy...

SMBs Invited To Test New Productivity Software.
September 7, 2007... Calif.-based Zoho, which is in the process of creating a suite of online productivity tools aimed at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), just launched "Zoho Business," which it says integrates an array of office- productivity...

Credit-Card Servicer Taps Software Developer For PBX Upgrade.
September 7, 2007... Capital Card Services Inc., which services more than 500,000 MasterCard and Visa accounts for institutions nationwide, will use IP-based business communications software from Interactive Intelligence Inc. to replace its existing PBX and...

TNZ Customer-Service Software Snafu Leaves Aussies Fuming.
September 7, 2007... Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) apparently has flubbed the launch of a fancy new custom call-center software system it spent two years and $75 million developing in house - leaving customers at its Australian subsidiary fuming and telling tales of...

Bidders Boycott Turkey 3G Auction.
September 7, 2007... The world's wireless operators have snubbed what was to have been a $2 billion auction for 3G licenses in Turkey, surprising a government that had expected to see three or four bidders and such lively action that the auction was to be...

Alcatel-Lucent Wins UAE NGN Contract.
September 7, 2007... UAE incumbent Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) has turned to Alcatel-Lucent to supply the IP/Ethernet hardware for a massive convergence project designed to migrate the carrier to an all-IP next-generation network (NGN). ...

Analog Devices Sheds Its Cellphone Chip Business.
September 10, 2007... Earlier today, Taiwan's largest fabless semiconductor house, MediaTek, said it cut a deal to buy the cellular chip assets of Mass.-based Analog Devices Inc (ADI) for $350 million in a move to enter the emerging Chinese 3G market. Analog...

Microsoft Adds Business IM To Its Office Mix.
September 10, 2007... Making the point that group chat isn't only for the kids, Microsoft is buying Chicago-based Parlano, maker of the "MindAlign" application for enterprise group chat, aiming to add that functionality to its Office Communications Server and...

India Company Buys Scotland's Largest Contact Center.
September 10, 2007... India's Hero Group has taken over the largest call center in Scotland, the 3,000-seat Telecom Service Centres (TSC), in a deal valued at $81 million. Impetus for the deal was said to be growing indications that companies utilizing...

Telanetix Adds Hosted SMB VoIP Provider To Company Stable.
September 10, 2007... Telanetix Inc., a San Diego-based developer of telepresence solutions, inked a definitive agreement to acquire AccessLine Communications, a provider of hosted VoIP services to the small-and-medium business (SMB) marketplace, for what could...

Ericsson Salvages Indian Wireless Win.
September 10, 2007... Ericsson has managed to keep a $1.3 billion chunk of the $3 billion contract it thought it had won as part of what was once to have been a 63.4- million-line GSM expansion by India's state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) that would cost...

Readiness Assessment Services Target Managed-Services, SaaS Providers.
September 10, 2007... THINKstrategies Inc., a market-analysis and consulting firm focused on the business implications of on-demand services, has a new set of packaged services aimed at helping software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and managed- service providers...

Chinese Bribery Charged, Philippine Broadband Halted.
September 11, 2007... The Philippine Supreme Court this morning issued a temporary restraining order stopping all work on a controversial $330 million government broadband project, following charges that China's Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment (ZTE) Corp...

Global Telecom Capex Up Now, But Will Decrease By 2010.
September 11, 2007... Telecom service providers worldwide are spending more, driven by carrier network transformation and migration projects; the burgeoning number of mobile and broadband subscribers; and increasing demand for personal broadband services and such...

Telephony2 Doubles CallButler SMB Functionality.
September 11, 2007... Telephony2, a provider of Internet-based communications solutions, has updated its flagship CallButler Internet telephony system to better serve small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs). According to the Redmond, Wash.-based company,...

Etisalat Enters UAE Managed Services Market.
September 11, 2007... United Arab Emirates incumbent Etisalat has decided to enter the managed- services market, up until now the province of competitors -- many of which were delivering their services over Etisalat-owned lines. In disclosing its move, Etisalat...

Simicomm Adds snom Phones To EasySpeak Roster.
September 11, 2007... Enterprise VoIP and auto-provisioning provider Simicomm has added snom IP phones to its list of EasySpeak-compatible plug-and-play office phones. EasySpeak is the company's newest product, a 15-minute phone system Simicomm claims removes...

Wave7 Equips Paris Fiber-To-The-Business Net.
September 11, 2007... Wave7 Optics and IT services house SPIE Communications are building the first fiber-to-the-business (FTTB) Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) in the Paris region - a massive net that will reach commercial and industrial customers in 147...

NTP On The Warpath Again; Celcos Targeted.
September 12, 2007... Research in Motion (RIM) nemesis NTP, no doubt hoping to replicate its $612.5 million victory last year, has sued AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA unit, alleging violations of eight patents,...

NeoPhonetics Unified-Messaging Works With Major PBX Systems.
September 12, 2007... NeoPhonetics, a telephony provider that designs, implements and supports custom VoIP systems for enterprises, launched its Asterisk Business Edition- based unified-messaging platform for what it says is the majority of legacy TDM and IP PBX...

FCC Stays Up Late To Vote On Wireless Items.
September 12, 2007... It's gotten to be a habit at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to push back the normal start (9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m.) of its monthly open meeting, but yesterday, it really pushed the envelope, keeping the votes (and reporters) on...

Verizon Targets Managed Services For Business Branch Operations.
September 12, 2007... Verizon Business launched a suite of managed services aimed at companies with retail stores, branch offices or other remote locations. Verizon's offering a five-member family of what it calls "mix and match" managed services, including...

AppRiver Beefs Up Microsoft Exchange Hosting Offering.
September 12, 2007... E-mail security solutions provider AppRiver LLC claims to be the first Microsoft Exchange Hosting provider to deploy Akamai Technologies Inc.'s Application Performance Solutions in its secure hosted exchange service. And customers pay...

Jamaican Businesses Slated For Hosted VoIP PBX.
September 12, 2007... Cable & Wireless Jamaica is set to launch IP-based hosted PBX and integrated access services to small- and medium-sized enterprises across Jamaica. While the move makes it the first provider on the island to offer such services, it's...

Appeals Court Allows Some Qualcomm Chip Imports.
September 13, 2007... Qualcomm got some good news late yesterday when a federal appeals-court judge decided to allow handset manufacturers that use the company's chips to sell product in the United States while Qualcomm fights an International Trade Commission...

Post Merger, Alcatel-Lucent Profits Continue To Slide.(Financial report)
September 13, 2007... Alcatel-Lucent, which has been trying to cut costs since last February, continues to see cuts of another kind -- in profits. Earlier today, it disclosed that, for the third quarter, "operating income (loss) is expected to be around break...

Cisco Unveils Web 2.0 Partner-To-Partner Network.
September 13, 2007... As part of a continued effort to build a collaborative and adaptive channel accelerating customer and partner success, Cisco has launched the newest part of its "human network" strategy: the Cisco Industry Solutions Partner Network. The...

BT Buys Belgian IT Services House.
September 13, 2007... BT, adding to its lengthening string of acquisitions as it diversifies and reduces its dependence on simply being a "phone company," is the new owner of Belgian IT services concern INS Group SA. The deal enhances BT's position in the...

Survey Sez: How Strategic Offshoring Produces Positive Results.
September 13, 2007... An Everest Research Institute report reveals that more than 85 percent of the key executives polled believe company-owned offshoring operations in India, known as "captives," are delivering on cost savings and service expectations, despite...

Intel Buys Into Bulgarian WiMAX Operator.
September 13, 2007... Intel and MCI have taken minority stakes in Nexcom Bulgaria, a competitive telecom operator that's in the process of rolling out that country's first 802.16-based nationwide wireless broadband network using WiMAX Forum certified hardware. The...

Is Hosted IP Ready For Prime Time?
September 14, 2007... According to research firm IDC, hosted IP voice services aren't ready to challenge PBX "any time soon" for supremacy in the enterprise communications market, despite enjoying a steady increase in demand during the past two years. ...

Seminar Series Stresses Collaboration How-To's.
September 14, 2007... American Management Association (AMA), a provider of professional- development and performance-based learning solutions, is launching a new series of programs specifically designed to help those who are managing strategic alliances and...

Blaze Advisor Update Adds To Microsoft Toolkit.
September 14, 2007... Fair Isaac Corporation says its new Blaze Advisor 6.5 for .NET brings enterprise-class business-rules-management capabilities to Microsoft's software for connecting information, people, systems and devices through Web services. As a key...

Emerson, Cisco Team For Wireless Process-Manufacturing Solutions.
September 14, 2007... Austin, Texas-based Emerson Process Management is collaborating with Cisco to offer open-standard solutions for wireless process- and plant- management applications. Emerson's wireless process applications use self-organizing field...

Nuvio Buys Iperia Unified-Comms Platform.
September 14, 2007... Unified-communications solutions provider Iperia Inc. will supply VoIP concern Nuvio Corporation with the Iperia VX platform as the foundation for Nuvio's next-generation, unified communications-based services. No financial details were...

FaceTime Backers Ratchet Up Investment Commitments.
September 14, 2007... FaceTime Communications, which develops and markets solutions that control greynets and manage unified communications in the enterprise, is $15.6 million richer in new investment capital it says will sustain the company until it's profitable....

Paetec Buys Chapter 22 McLeod.
September 17, 2007... Paetec Holding Corp., has agreed to purchase twice-bankrupt McLeodUSA Inc. for $492 million in stock and the assumption of $65 million in debt. The deal gives Paetec, which specializes in voice and broadband for the mid- and large...

SAP Vets New F5Networks Upgrades.
September 17, 2007... Seattle-based F5 Networks Inc, a developer of application-delivery- networking products, says its BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) version 9 with WebAccelerator and the FirePass SSL VPN Controller version 6 have achieved SAP Certified...

U.K. VoIP Provider Taps Converse For FMC Expansion.
September 17, 2007... Comverse, which bills itself as the world's leading supplier of software and systems enabling network-based, multimedia-enhanced communication and billing services, won a contract from U.K.-based hosted VoIP solutions provider Inclarity that...

Leap Calls MetroPCS Takeover Offer 'Too Little'.
September 17, 2007... Leap Wireless has rejected the unsolicited $4.7 billion takeover offer it received from MetroPCS Communications (TelecomWeb news break, Sept. 4), complaining both that the price is far too low and that MetroPCS is essentially being...

MuleOnDemand Harnesses Enterprises, SaaS, Third Parties.
September 17, 2007... MuleOnDemand, the newest offering from open-source developer MuleSource that currently is in beta testing, reportedly allows enterprises to leverage their existing systems through loosely coupled integration using a broad range of protocols...

Harris Sets Up Technology-Financing Program.
September 17, 2007... Harris Corp. cut a deal with National City Corp. operating unit National City Media Finance under which National City will finance the purchase of Harris equipment, systems, software and engineering services by the company's broadcast...

Yahoo! Buys Corporate E-Mail Maven Zimbra.
September 18, 2007... Yahoo! is buying unified-communications developer Zimbra in a move to penetrate the business e-mail market and to compete with Google's growing stable of online software aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses. The deal will cost...

Avaya Collaboration Specialist Talks Enterprise Interaction.
September 18, 2007... New computer technologies - driven by communications data and analytics - that intelligently automate communications will transform the way enterprises and staffers interact with each other to conduct business, according to Avaya Labs...

Rumor Du Jour: ECI Unloads Its Factories.
September 18, 2007... Israeli broadband giant ECI is negotiating to sell all of its factories to global contract-manufacturing giant Flextronics, according to reports in local newspapers. The sale could take place at the same time ECI itself is sold for $1.2...

Cisco, IET Partner For IT Professional Development.
September 18, 2007... The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Cisco are teaming to promote professional development in the information technology (IT) industry. The partners say they will help to address the global shortage of IT professionals...

HP CentralView Helps Companies To Mine Customer Data Better.
September 18, 2007... Earlier today, HP unveiled a portfolio of solutions it says will help communications companies and other kinds of enterprises to "unlock the value that exists within their vast stores of customer and operational data." HP CentralView...

Will The iPhone U.K. Launch Change The Wireless Revenue Formula?
September 18, 2007... Apple this morning unveiled its U.K. iPhone strategy, revealing Telefonica's O2 had won the nod to sell the phone in the British Isles but keeping secret the terms of a deal some think endangers the entire economics of high-end "convergence"...

Alaska Air Plans In-Flight Satellite Broadband.
September 19, 2007... Alaska Airlines yesterday took the wraps off a scheme under which it may become the first U.S. airline to offer satellite-based broadband to passengers, courtesy of a small curiously-named startup called Row 44 and Hughes Network Systems....

Ciena Buys Out Failed Cable-based Business Ethernet Startup.
September 19, 2007... Ciena reportedly has picked up most of the intellectual property - patents and products - of PhyFlex Networks (better known by its previous name of Narad Networks), apparently ending the life of the startup which attempted to create a market...

Turkey Takes Back 3G License.
September 19, 2007... Turkey has cancelled the 3G license that it awarded to Turkcell earlier this month in an "auction" that in the end consisted of just a single bidder, with the rest of the world's cellular industry essentially boycotting the proceeding...

Beleaguered Earthlink Wins ISP Honors Amid Wi-Fi Disaster.
September 19, 2007... Earthlink has been rated the top dial-up Internet service provider (ISP) in the United States, and the best broadband ISP in the South and East, in a JD Power survey released this morning. The rave review comes even as Earthlink continues to...

Audiocodes And ShoreTel Team On Unified Communications Solution.
September 19, 2007... Audiocodes and ShoreTel have teamed up to craft the code needed for enterprise customers to use Audiocodes media gateways so that ShoreTel Customers can integrate Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 into their ShoreTel IP telephony system For...

VoIP Maintenance-Service Customer Satisfaction Critical To Success.
September 19, 2007... The latest "InfoTrack for Maintenance Services Report" examines the impact of maintenance service and support on VoIP solutions and vendor selections in current and software model fashions, concluding maintenance- service customer...

Wi-Fi BlackBerry Hits The Market; Could Be The New Office Phone.
September 20, 2007... The first BlackBerry with access to both public and private Wi-Fi networks went on sale this morning at AT&T Wireless stores and on the AT&T Web site. TelecomWeb news break had anticipated the eventual introduction of the device more than two...

Best Buy Beefs Up Its Business VoIP Offering.
September 20, 2007... Best Buy, in its first bit of tinkering with the business VoIP service offered by Speakeasy since buying the outfit earlier this year, has crafted a business VoIP plan that replaces traditional small- to medium-sized business types of VoIP...

BT Tells Businesses How To Reduce Their Carbon Footprints.
September 20, 2007... With "carbon footprint" being the new global corporate-social- responsibility buzz phrase, BT's newly formed Global Services Sustainability Practice is jumping on board, launching a new service to help large corporations and public-sector...

Voice-Over-WiMAX App Benefits Enterprises, Carriers.
September 20, 2007... Cedar Point Communications, a provider of integrated VoIP switching technologies for the service-provider and enterprise industries, has released its Safari C to the third power Multimedia Switching System for voice-over-WiMAX applications....

Alcatel-Lucent In Orange Managed-Services Pact.
September 20, 2007... France Telecom subsidiary Orange Switzerland is turning over the operation of its mobile network to Alcatel-Lucent, as of Jan. 1, 2008. In a statement, Orange explained why it decided to outsource the operation of its network: "In a market...

East Coast CLEC Expands Last-Mile Ethernet Offerings.
September 20, 2007... Hatteras Networks, a Mid-Band Ethernet services specialist, inked a contract with Allied Telecom Group, a facilities-based broadband ISP and CLEC, to be the preferred platform for Allied's last-mile business Ethernet service rollout...

NYC Subways Soon On Board With Cell Service, Wi-Fi.
September 21, 2007... After two years of planning, New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) finally has selected a contractor to wire the Big Apple's 271 underground subway stations for cellular phone service and Wi-Fi - and the big loser was a...

McCaw Veteran Heads SMB Managed-Service Provider.
September 21, 2007... Phoenix-based managed-service provider TeleSphere is touting new CEO and a new IP network platform to deliver what it says are cutting-edge IP telephony and data solutions to small- and medium-sized U.S. businesses (SMBs). Incoming...

Intel Group, Qwaq Collaborate For Collaboration App.
September 21, 2007... An agreement to meld Miramar, a 3-D information-space technology originally developed by Intel's research labs, with a desktop-visualization edition of Qwaq Forums aims to integrate 2-D desktop applications and shared 3-D information...

SK Telecom Attempts To Salvage Helio.
September 21, 2007... South Korea's SK Telecom is going to plow as much as $270 million more into youth-oriented mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Helio, its joint venture with ISP EarthLink, to keep the operation alive long enough to become successful...

FL IP Services Houses Combine To Create Regional Leader.
September 21, 2007... Two of the larger collocation and managed IP-based services providers in South Florida are merging to form what will be the region's largest such company as Host.net buys competitor WebUnited. Terms of the deal were not disclosed....

Cable's Wireless Venture Turns On Local Content Play.
September 21, 2007... As cable operators and their telco partners try to figure out what customers want in the wireless space, local video content is shaping up as a big contender. In fact, according to TelecomWeb news break's sister publication CableFAX...