Telephony Online

For our staff, 2009 was the year of: Introducing the brand Connected Planet: We came into existence, ending the hundred-year run of Telephony – because of course there’s much more to today’s networks than voice – and charting off to cover the same industry but new terri...tories. Happy New Year! Thank you for your continued readership. Here’s [...]

Over Christmas both operators launch 3G in new markets and expand capacity in old ones

The “Google-Phone” — now officially dubbed the Nexus One — looks to be announced next week in partnership with T-Mobile — the Web is adrift with news and rumors, including look-and-feel, availability and even pricing. Here’s our best ...take on what this important milestone means:

Apple was a catalyst for a lot in 2009, but there are some trends the software giant can’t take credit for:  New “wholesale” markets like CDN and mobile backhaul emerging as hot growth areas  Network equipment vendors overnight turning into outsourced network operators...  DPI and policy entering the network in a big way – adding intelligence to the [...]

Justified or not, the bad economy was everyone’s favorite scapegoat in 2009:  The fact that service providers can’t out-innovate Web and media companies when it comes to content and applications.  That you didn’t make your sales quote or Wall Street guidance – and your... competitor did (there are still good and bad employees and companies, even in [...]

Sometimes competition can turn into all-out feud:  AT&T – Verizon “map” advertising wars. AT&T failed when it tried shut VZW down in court, and the commercials just keep getting juicer.  Verizon CEO to Hulu: “You’ll be dead in 2 years” More after the break…

Pike Research report identifies smart grid automation as primary growth driver

Interesting and provocative quote from IBM CEO Sam Palmisano (from a Barron’s interview via ReadWriteWeb.com, essentially claiming that Google — in particular Google cloud services — have no chance to win in the enterprise.

2010 might just be the year that the cellular phone calls become open to any hacker with the wherewithal to listen in. German hacker Karsten Nohl said this week that he has fulfilled his promise of cracking the GSM encryption code that protects phone calls from eavesdro...ppers while they traverse the airwaves. And while Nohl claims [...]

If it’s booming on the Web now, service providers better take note:  Real-time everything – when Google added “real-time search” to its listings in December, the Web moved from static/archive to a living, breathing thing.  Online TV and video – with any business model ...and from any source. More after the break, including our readers’ responses…

Forget in-flight wifi or entertainment systems, soon flyers may not even be able to open their laptops on a plane.

Mobile operators, like their wireline brethren beside them, live in fear of one thing: being relegated to network pipes while others — device makers, OS providers, app makers — collect money working “over-the-top.” This certainly appears to be ha...ppening in the case of AT&T and Apple with the iPhone, but some interesting research emerged today [...]

In addition to our mobile phones, in 2009 we were addicted to:  Real mobile browsers – starting with iPhone but by year end available on most smartphones (though Blackberry and WinMo browsers still lag) – Editor in Chief Rich Karpinski  Google Goggles – Executive News ...Editor Ed Gubbins  Seafood Watch – Is the tuna that looks so good [...]

In our humble opinion, these technologies got way too much attention in 2009:  Mobile TV  TV Everywhere  LTE – whether not it is important (it is) or arrives on schedule (it won’t) More after the break, including our readers’ responses…

It's been years since IP slowly but surely began infiltrating into mainstream carrier networks. In 2010 it's poised to make its biggest impact ever.

In 2009, some companies adhered to the philosophy ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, leave the market’:  Joost, its CEO Mike Volpi forced out and investigated  Nortel, auctioned off in pieces. A giant of telecom tries to save itself one last time and then simply dissolves.  Veriz...on selling off rural lines to Frontier, exiting smaller markets to instantly boost [...]

Genband’s bid for Nortel’s carrier VoIP equipment business — if it succeeds — will further solidify the space as the domain of specialists that use major equipment vendors as channels for their products, rather than a focus of traditional supplie...rs, according to Elisabeth Rainge, IDC’s director of NGN operations. “Clearly, given Genband’s acquisitions of assets from [...]

Call it wishful thinking, but we’d love to see some new – and promised – services in 2010; and not just from Google either:  Completely cloud-based media: photos, music, books, etc.  Augmented reality for mobile goes mainstream  Social search. We want our search engine...s to anticipate our every move and respond accordingly. More after the break, including our readers’ [...]

A Q&A with Jonathan Luse, Intel's director of marketing for the low-power embedded products division

Not every trend starts in the developed markets and trickles down to emerging markets; some trickle up:  Mobile money matters.  Customers will pay rationally for mobile service – prepaid, tiered pricing, etc – if you ask them. But if you just offer them the world (unli...mited usage) it’s hard to take it back from them. More after the [...]

Smartphone application analytics start-ups Flurry and Pinch Media announced today they will merge their businesses, making them the analytics authority for the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices. Combined, the two companies will cover mo...re than 80% of all iPhones (or four out of every five on the market), iPod Touch and Android [...]

With millions of mobile apps on the market, there were bound to be some strange ones:  Baby Shaker. And by bizarre, we mean offensive, inexcusable and how did this ever make it on through the iPhone App Store approval process?  The upskirt iPhone app? More after the b...reak, including our readers’ responses…

ZapMyTV has been quietly negotiating with broadcasters and content owners in recent months in a bid to launch a completely Web-based (Flash-based) video service in next year's first quarter: a global, three-screen, feature-rich

Throughout 2009, consumers were talking (or Tweeting) the most about:  Location-based mobile services/apps  Facebook tops 300 million users, even Friendster comes back from the dead – social network still a fad? More after the break…

The mobile packet core is emerging as the new battleground in wireless, pitting the big mobile vendors against a new generation of specialty core suppliers

In 2009, these trends stole all the headlines:  Cloud and virtualization coming to operator networks – stage 2.1 of the IP revolution  DPI and policy intelligence added to the network – stage 2.2 of the IP revolution  LTE emerging rapidly, along with converged packet c...ore – stage 2.3 of the IP revolution More after the break, including the best [...]

Want to know how to score stimulus funding? These six takeaways from the first round could give you a leg-up

Networking giant closes $2.9 billion deal for mobile IP core vendor Starent, creates new dedicated mobile IP unit

Analyst sees an opportunity for retailers and other major brands to become video service providers