Daily Payload

Cisco's Telepresence Gets Personal

Tue, 13 May 2008 04:03:25 GMT

Cisco Systems will take its TelePresence virtual meeting systems into home offices later this year, bringing telecommuters nearer to their corporate colleagues and society one step closer to science fiction.

Sprint Nextel continues to bleed customers

Mon, 12 May 2008 21:55:44 GMT

Sprint Nextel subscribers continue to jump ship, as the company's sales decline and losses widen. Investors have been pushing the company to sell assets and focus on its core cell phone business and has already dumped its WiMAX effort. — Focus on core phone business, though? That is exactly what caused them to get into this situation. A phone is a phone and Sprint is smaller. They must do something different, else they will disappear.

Vonage: On the road to recovery?

Fri, 9 May 2008 01:14:11 GMT

Vonage is getting back on track with improved quarterly earnings and a deal to resell broadband service from Covad, a DSL service provider. The new service, called Vonage Broadband, will offer speeds of 3 megabits per second to 6 Mbps to residential and small-business customers.

Skype for mobile: not entirely VoIP yet�or any time soon

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:29:36 GMT

Skype announced that it has begun testing a version of its software for 50 of the most popular mobile phones capable of running Java. Skype on your mobile will enable chat, presence indicators, and the ability to make and receive Skype calls— but not via VoIP.

UK WiMax Faces Spectrum Fight

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:46:54 GMT

WiMax hopefuls in the U.K. may find themselves shut out of the action in Office of Communications' (Ofcom) upcoming 2.6 GHz auction as a result of the five mobile operators potentially bidding to hoard WiMax spectrum.

AT&T, Cisco team up on TelePresence service

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:50:14 GMT

AT&T announced today it will deliver Cisco's TelePresence service to business customers in 23 countries by year-end. AT&T says it is incorporating TelePresence with its own IP-network and VPN capabilities to create a teleconferencing service that will target such industries as healthcare, high-tech, retail and government.

Skype's New Packages Shows VOIP Becoming Commodity

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:59:10 GMT

Skype has announced a flat rate for international calls, further showing how difficult it is to make money from telephony. In the U.S. users will, for example, pay $9.95 for calls to 34 countries.

AT&T to Axe 4,650

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:49:12 GMT

AT&T will be cutting 1.5% of its workforce — about 4,650 employees — as "part of the company's move from a collection of regional companies to one AT&T." The filing says AT&T will take a $374 million charge for the cuts, which will mostly involve employees in "non-customer-facing areas."

Unicorn adopts Mirial technology to develop 3G premium services

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:51:44 GMT

Mirial unveiled that Swedish service provider Unicorn will leverage on its PSE Media Server and PSE 3G Gateway to enable the offering of Premium video services to 3G subscribers through local and International telephony operators.

Lawmakers accuse Google of gaming the spectrum auction

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:53:55 GMT

Perhaps this article might be more appropriately titled "Lawmakers accuse Google of doing Good". Apparently, some representatives in the US government — which is well-known for wasting billions every year — is upset that Google might have caused a bid for wireless spectrum to bring in more had it not had open access rules associated with it.

House bill aims to ban new cell phone taxes

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:50:18 GMT

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives would ban new state or local takes on mobile phone services for a period of five years. The bill is known as the Cell Tax Fairness Act (HR 5793).

FCC greenlights text message emergency alert system

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:03:01 GMT

The FCC will work with wireless carriers to enable the government to send emergency text message alerts to mobile subscribers. The specific details on the types of alerts has not been decided.

T-Mobile betting on 3G to close on high-speed competitors

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:59:11 GMT

While rivals such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel have been talking recently about building new 4G wireless networks, T-Mobile—which will begin offering 3G wireless service this summer—is leveraging cheap, unlicensed Wi-Fi technology to bring true broadband speed over wireless networks to some of its subscribers.

Top Four US VoIP Providers Serve over 14M subscribers

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:09:57 GMT

VoIP subscriber growth is clearly visible with the top 4 US VoIP carriers now serving more than 14M subscribers. Based on the numbers in the SEC filings that are referenced in this brief report, once can see that there is still a lot of growth opportunity for cable operators.

BT acquires Coloradao-based Wire One

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:01:54 GMT

BT announced that it has agreed to acquire Wire One Holdings, one of the leading providers of videoconferencing solutions in the US.

Polycom Again Redefines Conference Calling With Breakthrough VoIP Conference Phones Delivering HD Voice

Wed, 9 Apr 2008 16:22:24 GMT

Polycom enhanced its IP conference phone offering with what it calls Polycom HD Voice, which we assume is their trademark name for some standard wideband codec that others in the industry support, else it might not work at all or only when calling a similar Polycom phone. In any case, we are wondering whether it will actually overcome general conference room noise problems or only enhance those distracting background noises.

Nortel Updates R&D Strategy

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 22:41:19 GMT

Under a new initiative to address engineering waste in less profitable areas, Nortel will concentrate certain skill sets in 15 R&D sites around the world. That's two full-service R&D centers, nine "centers of excellence," and four specialty sites.

Researchers uncover 100 VoIP vulnerabilities

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 22:36:58 GMT

We've been hearing for years that widely-used VoIP systems may hold large numbers of exploitable vulnerabilities, but a new report isolates over 100 specific flaws that researchers have found in the applications.

VoIP industry tops jobs list

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 01:37:16 GMT

VoIP providers are set to produce the most job and wage growth of any industry over the next few years, a study has found. OK, now consider all of the folks who lost their PSTN-related jobs. Did the industry come out in the hole in terms of communications-related jobs?

iPhone users: Think young and rich, not different

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 20:24:32 GMT

Rubicon Consulting's survey of 460 iPhone users shows users are are young (half under 30), tech savvy and use the device for e-mail, texting, and Web browsing. What's more, they have disposable income.

Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet WiMAX Edition gets official

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 23:09:45 GMT

Nokia announced the new N810 Internet Tablet at CTIA 2008, which will utilize WiMAX and is expected to go on sale in the U.S. later this summer.

FCC chairman rejects Skype open-access request

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 04:32:57 GMT

The FCC said an application by Skype to require wireless operators to allow any device on their networks should be rejected, citing that the wireless industry is embracing a more open approach. — Where? Every wireless operator in the US still locks phones to their networks, forces customers to sign one or two year contracts even if one does not but a phone, refuses to enable certain application to work over their advertised unlimited data services, etc. We believe the FCC needs to think again.

Nortel Shows how Carriers can Deliver Better, Faster Networks to Reach True Mobile

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 05:17:34 GMT

At CTIA Wireless 2008, Nortel will demonstrate the ways its mobile convergence and 4G mobile broadband technologies - LTE and WiMAX - are reducing the complexity of a hyperconnected world to deliver better, faster wireless networks that simplify work, study and even play for today's "always connected" consumers.

AT&T, T-Systems Strike Oil

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:15:05 GMT

Oil giant Shell has handed out a series of managed services deals worth billions of dollars as part of a move to outsource most of its communications and networking capabilities, with AT&T Inc. and T-Systems Inc. dividing the spoils.

Motorola Sets Its Phone Unit Free

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 04:38:37 GMT

Motorola has decided to spin-off its mobile phone unit as a separate public, publicly traded company that some analysts believe will breathe new life into the mobile phone business and will also help Motorola get back on its feet.

Gartner Recommends HD Videoconferencing For Businesses

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:59:49 GMT

Organizations upgrading their standard-definition videoconferencing systems should purchase high-definition systems from now on, says Gartner. Gartner expects the move to HD systems to be a driving factor behind a 20% to 30% annual growth rate of the worldwide market during the next couple of years.

Mirial Softphone 6.0 - Your private HD video conferencing lounge

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:55:01 GMT

Mirial released the new version of its Mirial Softphone for professional video conferencing, including a set of useful, eagerly anticipated new features. In addition to its support for both SD and HD 720p video resolution, the product now supports H.239, call management and embedded MCU functionalities that enable unprecedented possibilities for small to mid-sized business environments.

WiMAX has 'failed miserably'

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:13:42 GMT

Australian wireless carrier Buzz Broadband has shuttered its WiMAX network, describing the technology as a "disaster" that has "failed miserably". The industry was quick to blame Airspan, which provided the infrastructure to Buzz, but the supplier was equally quick to blame its customer, saying that cost-cutting had led to an ineffective network. So, is it the carrier, the supplier, or the technology?

Motorola Does the Splits

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:04:26 GMT

Motorola has started the process to split itself into two independent, publicly traded companies — tentatively referred to as Mobile Devices and Broadband and Mobility Solutions — in an effort to speed the recovery of its struggling mobile devices business.

Comcast, Time Warner cable cry foul on Verizon

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:31:09 GMT

Three cable giants are accusing Verizon of illegally using proprietary information it obtains as a wholesale telecom provider to retain customers who had planned to switch to the cable providers for their phone service.