News Archive - November 2009

At the most recent meeting of ITU-T SG16, the H.325 experts decided to initiate a series of electronic meetings in order to help progress the work. For those interested in participating in the creation of this exciting new multimedia system, see the meeting notice posted on the h325-design mailing list.

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Wireless broadband provider Clearwire said late Tuesday that it is has racked up another $920 million in debt to help it finance the deployment of its nationwide 4G wireless network.

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Ericsson announced that it has won a bid to buy Nortel Networks' North American GSM business for $70 million in cash.

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Video conference users have for the most part been free of the hassles of trying to figure out how to interoperate products from different vendors, thanks to early and widespread adoption of H.323 signaling protocols and H.261 and H.264 video encapsulation, both sets of protocols well defined by the ITU. Telepresence is a whole different story, however.

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This year, police in the Arab nation of Oman have raided 121 internet cafes throughout the country and arrested 212 people for providing VoIP services, a crime punishable by a fine of US$130, two years in jail, or both.

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It took a few months, but finally, Trillian IM is available to iPhone and iPod Touch users through Apple's App Store. The application costs $4.99.

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The debate over Droid v. iPhone rages on, but lots more Android surprises are on the way. Get ready for the Google Phone. It's no longer a myth, it's real. Google is building their own branded phone that they'll sell directly and through retailers, with shipments expected in early 2010.

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There is considerable discussion about the oncoming impacts of cloud computing and how it will reshape (or eliminate) the enterprise data center. But until recently, there has been relatively little discussion about how cloud technologies will impact telecommunications, or specifically enterprise voice.

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Cisco Systems has bumped up its buyout offer to $3.41 billion for videoconferencing company Tandberg, up from the first offer of $3 billion. The initial offer had been rejected by a sizable number of shareholders.

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Windows Mobile lost 28% of its smartphone market share between last year's third quarter and this year's third quarter.

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Dell said that it's ready to enter the smartphone business with the Android-based Mini 3.

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Google confirmed its intention to acquire Gizmo5, a VoIP software company that makes a SIP client.

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Orange signed up 30,000 people with a new iPhone contract on its first day selling Apple's smartphone.

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In the race for mobile phone profits, Apple has overtaken Nokia. Apple earned $1.6 billion in the third quarter from the iPhone, outpacing Nokia's $1.1 billion cell phone profit to grab the top spot among all mobile phone vendor.

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Logitech said it will acquire LifeSize Communications for $405 million in cash. The move puts Logitech into the videoconferencing market.

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Online auction giant eBay announced Friday that its sale of a controlling interest in its Skype unit will proceed, following the settlement of litigation over the proposed transaction. As a part of the deal, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the original founders of Skype, will be given a 14% stake in the company.

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The ITU approved a new revised version of Recommendation ITU-T H.323. H.323 is the most widely-deployed IP-based multimedia communication system in the world, used in videoconferencing, telepresence systems, and by service providers for international VoIP calls.

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New smartphone research from Canalys.com Ltd. says that Android has captured 3.5 percent of the global smartphone operating system market. Not bad for an OS that was nowhere in the race the year before.

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The ITU just completed its most recent meeting of Study Group 16, which is the group working on, among other things, the new Advanced Multimedia System (AMS). During the meeting, progress on several key work items including requirements, architecture, and information flows for AMS.

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AT&T*, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Sony Ericsson have defined the preferred way to ensure the smooth introduction and delivery of voice and SMS services on Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks worldwide. — One that brings absolutely no extra value to users, we might add.

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AT&T files a lawsuit against Verizon after Verizon launched an attack against AT&T showing Verizon's 3G coverage map as compared to AT&T's 3G coverage map. The AT&T map appeared to be significantly sparser than Verizon's map. To keep viewers amused, Verizon used the slogan "there's a map for that" (a play on Apple's "there's an app for that") as the commercials ask questions that highlight how AT&T users cannot use their 3G services in a number of areas around the United States.

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The exclusive carrier for the device in China, China Unicom, said that it signed up 5,000 iPhone subscribers in the first four days it was available. While that's certainly not a blockbuster opening weekend, the carrier says it's pleased nonetheless.

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Rumor going around the Internet, based on comments made by people at Skype, is that the software might become open source.

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Google took an important step in the development of Google Wave, opening its servers up to outsiders who want their own waves to communicate with the outside world.

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