top news archive
MetroPCS to complete AWS shift in one year
By: By Kevin Fitchard
By the time New York City goes live, MetroPCS hopes to be selling nothing but dual-band AWS-PCS handsets, allowing new customers going forward to roam seamlessly between its two networks...
FiberNet expands nationally as capacity demand grows
By: By Ed Gubbins
FiberNet is embarking on a $2-million network expansion project to add capacity to its network and connect new metro markets just as the company is reporting an increase in higher-bandwidth optical transport services not seen in some time...
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...
Jangl to dead pool; execs, assets to Jajah
By: By Rich Karpinski
That’s one less “j” Web VoIP provider for service providers to worry about. But with subscriber claims seemingly easier to come by than revenues, it’s not clear the Jangls, Jajahs and Jaxtrs of the world have incumbent service providers quaking in their boots just yet, anyway...
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"?...
Mobile handset market unaffected by economic slowdown
By: By Sarah Reedy
Despite a widely reported economic slowdown, the global mobile handset market was largely unaffected in the first quarter of 2008. According to iSuppli, shipments rose by a double-digit percentage compared to the same period in 2007...
Analyst: Occam’s Fairpoint deal could be worth $125M
Occam Networks’ recent contract to supply a broadband access rollout by Fairpoint Communications could yield $125 million in revenue, according to an estimate by Andrew Schmitt, an analyst with Nyquist Capital...
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...
Why Cisco’s U.S. service provider business is down
By: By Ed Gubbins
Cisco Systems reported a decline in orders among U.S. service providers in the quarter ending in April but insisted it was a temporary phenomenon...
iPhone 'jail-breaks' stall growth at OSS firm Synchronoss
By: By Rich Karpinski
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...
Qualcomm ramps up MEMS display production
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Qualcomm is shifting its nanotechnology project Mirasol into high gear, announcing a partnership with Foxlink to break ground on a new fabrication plant in Taiwan that will manufacture the reflective ambient-light displays in volume....
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....
Microsoft updates Zune targeting iPod – eventually iPhone too?
By: Rich Karpinski
Microsoft is famous for losing the initial battle but winning the long, drawn-out war...
Nortel lays down royalty rate for LTE
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Nortel has always claimed to hold a substantial amount of the intellectual property in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFMA) and multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna technology that will power the world’s future 4G networks, but this week it actually put a number to its claims. ...
T-Mobile launches 3G in New York
By: By Kevin Fitchard
New York just gained its fourth 3G network. T-Mobile today said it has turned up its wideband CDMA network in the Big Apple, the first of what the service provider said would be multiple 3G service launches throughout the year....
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. ...
HP revs device management story
By: Rich Karpinski
A year after making a key acquisition in the device management area, HP recently unveiled a new platform focused on helping wireless carriers deliver and manage mobile device roll-outs to their customers....
Sprint loses rebanding appeal
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Sprint will have to vacate its Nextel 800 MHz spectrum in June, even if public safety agencies haven’t vacated the spectrum by then, a federal appeals court ruled today. ...
MagicJack attacks
By: By Sarah Reedy
MagicJack founder, and inventor of its technology, Dan Borislow, doesn’t like the term voice-over IP (VoIP). He thinks it has a negative connotation in an industry prone to struggles. ...
Ribbit adds voice to Salesforce – at $25 a pop
By: By Rich Karpinski
Alternative service provider Ribbit this week said it has gone live with a service integrating mobile voice calling and other telephony features into Salesforce.com...
XO finds demand for higher Ethernet speeds
By: By Carol Wilson
Businesses are asking for higher Ethernet speeds than originally predicted, leading XO Communications to launch service offerings in the 15 Megabit per second and 20 Mb/s range, XO said today. ...
MDU exclusivity ban breeds questions, fears
By: By Ed Gubbins
The Federal Communications Commission claimed to have “opened the door” to competition in March by banning exclusive contracts for bundled services in multidwelling units (MDUs). ...
MetroPCS launches in northern Florida
By: By Kevin Fitchard
MetroPCS has turned up its service in Jacksonville, Fla., transitioning the former PTA and Cleartalk PCS networks into its own footprint...
Alcatel-Lucent’s Olivier Coste on DVB-SH and mobile TV
By: By Sarah Reedy
Last Friday, Alcatel-Lucent announced it would trial the new hybrid satellite-terrestrial mobile broadcast technology with DISH Network in the United States kicking off this month. ...
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...
