USF stakeholders may see fund cuts
By: By Ed Gubbins
As the FCC works to overhaul the Universal Service Fund, some changes could have important consequences for a number of rural carriers...
P2P in play
By: By Rich Karpinski
February saw BitTorrent, traffic shaping and Net neutrality come to the fore...
Mobile game-changers loom
By: By Rich Karpinski
While Google marketers were using the Mobile World Congress as a mobile coming-out party, Google developers were busy releasing a significant new version of the Android software developer kit...
TIA study: Economic downturn won’t deter telecom
By: By Sarah Reedy
According to the Telecommunications Industry Association’s “2008 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast” for the global telecommunications industry, there has been a healthy uptake of telecom services, both at home and abroad, with international markets seeing more growth than domestic markets...
Could targeted ads create an IPTV digital divide?
By: By Ed Gubbins
As IPTV allows for more targeted forms of advertising, it could potentially illuminate differences among demographic groups in varying levels of demand by advertisers. Could that effect create a digital divide similar to the one created in broadband infrastructure? John Reister, chief IPTV architect for BigBand Networks, explains...
FCC traffic-shaping hearing set for Monday
By: By Rich Karpinski
The Federal Communications Commission today released the agenda for a meeting Monday on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and service provider traffic-shaping, with speakers from Comcast and Verizon taking up the carrier point of view...
HP tools manage profiles, developer access
By: By Rich Karpinski
HP recently announced two new software products to help carriers better identify customers and deliver new services to them...
Occam GPON gear coming in Q2
By: By Ed Gubbins
Occam Networks plans to start shipping its first gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) gear in the second quarter, benefiting from an acquisition it made last year...
ECI adds Sonet to packet optical play
By: By Ed Gubbins
ECI Telecom is adding its ante to the North American packet optical networking space. The Israeli equipment vendor today announced a Sonet-based version of its XDM 300 optical platform for the North American market...
Knology studies triple-play customer loyalty
By: By Sarah Reedy
As Knology fights to climb out of the red this year, the rural triple-play provider will spend much of 2008 striking a balance between competitive pricing and increasing average revenue per user on its bundle. The company has learned in recent years that bundled services don’t just increase customer ARPU, they increase customer retention...
T-Mobile now unlimited, too -- who’s next?
By: By Sarah Reedy
Contrary to analyst predictions, T-Mobile is the third company to announce it will offer consumers an unlimited pricing plan today...
BitTorrent developers seek traffic-shaping route-around
By: By Rich Karpinski
In the latest turn of a long game of cat-and-mouse, BitTorrent developers has said they are working on extensions to the core peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol to better thwart efforts to detect and throttle down heavy BitTorrent users...
AT&T: We’ll take the all-you-can-eat special, too
By: By Sarah Reedy
Within hours of Verizon’s announcement of unlimited calling plans, AT&T proved many speculators right and followed up with its own $100 unlimited voice plan for new and existing customers...
Ekinops adds GigE rings to optical transport
By: By Ed Gubbins
Ekinops is beefing up its optical transport platform with ring-based Ethernet capabilities as the French vendor works toward a larger presence in the United States...
Will mobile carriers be pressured into flat-rate pricing?
By: By Sarah Reedy
Just weeks after Sprint announced it will test expanding its flat-rate calling and data packages, Verizon Wireless is taking it one step further...
Video quality major issue for IPTV, study says
By: By Carol Wilson
A new study, commissioned by a company that provides quality monitoring, identifies video quality as critical to the growth and success of IPTV and reports service providers don’t always have the tools they need to monitor quality...
Amedia Networks ceases operations
By: By Ed Gubbins
Amedia Networks ceased all operations last week, the company has disclosed in regulatory filings...
Vendor integrates telephony into Google apps
By: Rich Karpinski
Curious what a Google-provided – or at least Google-enabled – unified communications offering might look like? Look no further than vendor Voice Mobility, which this week integrated its enterprise messaging capabilities into the Google Apps suite....
New box brings open IPTV home
By: By Carol Wilson
A Dutch company is trying to bring IPTV to the masses over the Internet via a business model that uses corporate sponsorships to subsidize distribution of a key piece of hardware that ties together Internet video with existing video products...
In the Spotlight: Virtela's Bill Dodds
By: By Carol Wilson
As a managed service provider, Virtela operates a virtual network, using the physical facilities from a broad array of partners to serve multinational corporations, including the increasingly popular undersea cable routes. The recent cable cuts in the Mideast raised concerns about the security and reliability of global networks and services, which Virtela Co-President Bill Dodds discussed with Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson...
Markey offers Net neutrality compromise
By: By Carol Wilson
As expected, Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat, is once again taking a run at imposing Net neutrality rules, this time introducing a bill that stops short of imposing requirements on Internet service providers but suggesting principles instead...
MWC: Nortel takes a closer look at EDGE
By: By Kevin Fitchard
BARCELONA--While the rest of the Mobile World Congress did back flips for the latest radio access craze, Long Term Evolution, Nortel Networks was talking 2G. The vendor is proposing that operators take another look at the EDGE networks of yesteryear, and specifically buy its new software upgrade to the GSM base station, Evolved EDGE...
MWC: Linux platforms battle for attention
By: By Kevin Fitchard
BARCELONA--Android prototypes dominated the Linux hype at the Mobile World Congress, but Google’s pet operating system wasn’t the only Linux platform to debut at annual GSM event...
MWC: WiMAX Forum to certify at 700 MHz
By: By Kevin Fitchard
BARCELONA--The WiMAX Forum today said it would include 700 MHz in its future certification profiles, creating a new opening for WiMAX vendors to sell their gear. With the forum officially pursuing 700 MHz, the stage may be set for a showdown between WiMAX and Long Term Evolution as both technologies are now targeted squarely at the spectrum...
MWC: Alcatel-Lucent, NEC form LTE venture
By: By Kevin Fitchard
BARCELONA--Alcatel-Lucent and NEC are creating an joint venture focused solely on Long Term Evolution in a bid to bring the 4G technology to market as quickly as possible. The partnership, announced here at the Mobile World Congress, has been running on silent for the last six months, and has already defined an LTE base station design the two plan to begin production of this year...
Qwest seeks broadband wireless partner
By: By Carol Wilson
Qwest Communications is actively looking for a partner in the broadband wireless arena, company CEO Edward Mueller told analysts today...
Mushroom Networks launches broadband-bonding CPE
By: By Ed Gubbins
A new broadband access equipment vendor making its public launch today promises to boost broadband speeds by bonding access lines of various types—including T-1, DSL, cable broadband and satellite...
MWC: Mobile TV gets a mixed report card
By: Sarah Reedy
BARCELONA--Despite positive growth, many early adopters give up on mobile TV...
EarthLink departure doesn’t doom muni wireless
By: By Carol Wilson
EarthLink's decision to exit the municipal wireless business and attempt to sell off its current assets shouldn’t adversely affect the current municipal wireless business, according to industry analyst Craig Settles, author of a new book, After Muni Wireless Comes to Town...
MWC: LTE on the brain at GSM World
By: By Kevin Fitchard
BARCELONA--Long Term Evolution is the new rage at Mobile World Congress, the latest incarnation of the GSM Association´s annual European extravaganza. While 3G and mobile data services have dominated the GSM event in the past, 4G has definitely come to the fore with all of the major vendors offering at least some kind of demo of LTE...
