News Archive - April 2008

Skype for mobile: not entirely VoIP yet—or any time soon
April 28, 2008

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.
Permalink

UK WiMax Faces Spectrum Fight
April 22, 2008

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.
Permalink

AT&T, Cisco team up on TelePresence service
April 21, 2008

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.
Permalink

Skype's New Packages Shows VOIP Becoming Commodity
April 21, 2008

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.
Permalink

AT&T to Axe 4,650
April 18, 2008

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."
Permalink

Unicorn adopts Mirial technology to develop 3G premium services
April 17, 2008

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.
Permalink

Lawmakers accuse Google of gaming the spectrum auction
April 16, 2008

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.
Permalink

House bill aims to ban new cell phone taxes
April 16, 2008

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).
Permalink

FCC greenlights text message emergency alert system
April 14, 2008

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.
Permalink

T-Mobile betting on 3G to close on high-speed competitors
April 14, 2008

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.
Permalink

Top Four US VoIP Providers Serve over 14M subscribers
April 14, 2008

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.
Permalink

BT acquires Coloradao-based Wire One
April 11, 2008

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

Polycom Again Redefines Conference Calling With Breakthrough VoIP Conference Phones Delivering HD Voice
April 8, 2008

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.
Permalink

Nortel Updates R&D Strategy
April 3, 2008

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.
Permalink

Researchers uncover 100 VoIP vulnerabilities
April 2, 2008

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.
Permalink

VoIP industry tops jobs list
April 2, 2008

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?
Permalink

iPhone users: Think young and rich, not different
April 2, 2008

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.
Permalink

Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet WiMAX Edition gets official
April 1, 2008

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.
Permalink

FCC chairman rejects Skype open-access request
April 1, 2008

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.
Permalink