:: Broadband News Archive ::
IT execs plan, don't test, business continuity
By: By Carol Wilson
Business-continuity planning is a growing priority among Chicago-area businesses, but convincing them to fully test their plans remains a challenge, according to AT&T’s annual business continuity survey...
Was Google Clearwire investment a 'steal'?
By: By Rich Karpinski
We know what Sprint/Clearwire needed: cash to fund a new, massive greenfield WiMAX network. But what did Google, one of the surprise investors in yesterday’s deal, get for its $500 million investment? And was it something that the service providers in the equation should have been so willing to "sell off"?...
Clearwire-Sprint WiMAX deal reborn
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The deal that was lost has now been found. Sprint and Clearwire have resurrected their WiMAX joint venture, this time with the added bonus of a $3.2 billion investment from Google, Intel and three cable companies...
HD, DVR take-up drive DirecTV growth
By: By Sarah Reedy
DirecTV, the largest direct-broadcast satellite television provider and the third-largest pay-television provider in the United States, today reported a 10.4% increase in earnings due largely to an uptake in digital video recording (DVR) and high-definition (HD) services...
Broadweave to heal iProvo by shedding wholesale fiber model
By: By Ed Gubbins
Broadweave Networks, a provider of fiber-based triple-play services in greenfield developments, has acquired the municipal fiber network of Provo, Utah, vowing to improve the operation by replacing its open-access wholesale model with one in which Broadweave both owns the network and offers services over it...
Qwest wireless switch adds another nail to MVNO coffin
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Until Monday the main casualties of the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) fallout have been small boutique operators, but now Qwest Communications is giving up on its virtual operator relationship with Sprint, opting instead to sell the standard Verizon Wireless service available at any cellular kiosk. The MVNO business model isn’t just failing the niche players; it isn’t working for the big retail operators either...
Wild idea? AT&T, others to launch Skype competitor, firm predicts
By: Rich Karpinski
With voice lines eroding rapidly, AT&T, British Telecom, NTT and other incumbent carriers will soon launch their own IP telephony competitor to Skype, essentially writing off voice revenues entirely while moving customers to data, wireless and IPTV services, investment banking firm ThinkPanmure predicted today....
Allot expands NetXplorer options
By: By Carol Wilson
Deep packet inspection, or DPI, has been under something of a cloud lately because of concerns from regulators and consumers alike that Internet service providers are using the technology to block some peer-to-peer traffic in the name of network management. ...
Wireline erosion muddies AT&T, Verizon picture
By: By Carol Wilson
Both AT&T and Verizon met Wall Street expectations with their first-quarter earnings, and neither reported any distressing impact of a slowing economy...
The bundled advantage
By: By Sarah Reedy
Consumer interest in the quadruple play has increased 55% from July 2007 to March of this year, according to a Compete survey of online shoppers...
By the numbers
By: By Rich Karpinski
The telecom industry is changing and evolving so rapidly these days, it's sometimes hard to keep up. It's also difficult to separate hype from reality and real trends from blind alleys. For that reason, we thought we'd take a look at a (large) handful of key industry numbers, figures and metrics hard data or at least very strong, educated guesses to create a snapshot of where the industry is today, and where it's heading...
Building B says ‘open Sezmi’
By: By Carol Wilson
As promised, Building B, the company offering end-to-end wholesale video offerings to service providers, has relaunched itself as Sezmi Corp. and today also unveiled a set of advanced television features that it calls the complete TV 2.0 solution....
Alcatel-Lucent: As CDMA declines, W-CDMA steps up
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Alcatel-Lucent doubled its sales in Wideband CDMA in the first quarter as the synergies of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies' merged UMTS portfolios begin to emerge, company officials said today...
Updated: Time Warner spins off cable services
By: By Sarah Reedy
Time Warner Cable, which today announced will be fully separated from parent company Time Warner Inc., has beat out its main competitors, including AT&T and Verizon, in both video and broadband earnings. As both of the leading telcos state plans to increase the price tag on their video services, some analysts are predicting the run of success will continue...
Telepresence inches toward interoperability
By: By Dawn Bushaus
So far, most telepresence vendors have been myopically focused on getting their proprietary systems into the hands of customers, but service providers caution that they need to start thinking now about how to interconnect their systems in order to avoid islands of technology that can’t be bridged...
Verizon income up, wireline sagging
By: By Carol Wilson
Verizon isn’t seeing the ill effects of a slowing economy, Verizon officials said today in their first quarter earnings call. Verizon Wireless business continues to grow, deadbeat accounts actually fell and FiOS customers are actually spending more money with Verizon, CFO Doreen Toben reported. Verizon is actually planning to increase prices in the second quarter, Toben added....
Surfing the TV
By: By Sarah Reedy
It is hard to imagine surfing the Internet without a search engine, yet this remains the only option for television viewers seeking a similar experience...
Putting the squeeze on HD
By: By Carol Wilson
Coming late to a market is not usually a sign of innovation, but as Thomson makes a U.S. push with its SmartVision IPTV system, the global video company is banking on doing things better than the existing players...
Panning for MDU gold
By: By Carol Wilson
Major telcos are targeting apartment dwellers for video services, spurred on by an FCC ruling and a new kind of fiber...
IPTV standard-bearer
By: By Carol Wilson
The DSL Forum might not seem like the obvious organization to tackle IPTV standards, but based on its work delivering end-to-end visibility into broadband networks via its TR-069 standard, the global group is now firmly focused on IPTV quality of experience as well...
DISH’s DVB-SH testing could gel with 700 MHz plans
By: By Sarah Reedy
In another boon to the expanding DVB-SH ecosystem, DISH Network and Alcatel-Lucent today announced they will test the new hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile broadcast technology in the United States starting in May of this year...
Qwest comes clean on 20Mb/s FTTN
By: By Carol Wilson
Qwest Communications today hailed two new DSL offerings, at 20 Megabits per second and 12 Mb/s, over its fiber-to-the-node architecture. Travis Leo, product director for broadband at Qwest, spoke to Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson about Qwest Connect Quantum and Qwest Connect Titanium...
Pivot's Demise Leaves Quad-Play Opportunity to Telcos
By: By Sarah Reedy
Just as Comcast and Cox Communications announce that they are abandoning their Pivot wireless phone partnership with Sprint, Compete today released survey findings indicating that most consumers would be interested in buying their wireless service from their existing cable or telco provider....
IDC: Consumers willing to pay for faster Net video
By: By Carol Wilson
A new IDC study shows both service providers and content distributors may be missing revenue opportunities by not offering consumers the option of paying more for faster Internet video downloads. ...
AT&T teams with Cisco on managed telepresence
By: By Carol Wilson
AT&T will soon become the first major telecom operator to launch a managed telepresence service, teaming with Cisco Systems to enable a wider range of businesses to do high-end video conferencing by eliminating the major upfront capital expense and enabling users to connect in the network with other subscribers...
