The best and worst of 2008

2008 WILL BE MOST REMEMBERED AS…

THE YEAR THE ECONOMY STOPPED — aka Worst. Christmas. Ever.

THE YEAR MAJOR VENDORS REBOOTED. CEO Pat Russo left Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel purged officers and optical, Juniper got a new CEO, and Tellabs rethought access.

THE YEAR APPLICATIONS EXPLODED — first in Apple's exclusive App Store, then in Google Android's open market and then in every other wireless storefront imaginable.

THE YEAR CUSTOMERS FLED THE LANDLINE MARKET. Even before the economy tanked, consumers were flocking to wireless and cable alternatives.

THE YEAR THE FIRST 4G NETWORK LAUNCHED. Sprint may have turned on only a single WiMAX network in a single market, but its implications for the industry could be enormous.

THE YEAR GSM AND CDMA CAME TOGETHER. With a single move — Verizon Wireless' announcement that it would pursue LTE for 4G — more than a decade of strife between the two competing technologies came to an end. The technology wars aren't over, though. The former enemies face a new threat: WiMAX.

THE MOST UNEXPECTED EVENTS OF 2008

A terrible loss

Zhone co-founder Jeanette Symons dies in a plane crash.

Nortel Networks puts Ethernet/optical business up for sale

The vendor has walked away from businesses before (think: access), but this move was a stunner, gutting Nortel's service provider product portfolio.

Comcast is caught spoofing packets

The cableco has to back down from the practice following pressure from the FCC, giving deep-packet inspection a black eye in the process.

Networked DVRs unleashed

A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit's Court of Appeals overturned an injunction against Cablevision's network-based digital video recorder service, prompting a race to see who can get their services up and running first.

The downfall of Sprint

The operator has been troubled since its acquisition of Nextel in 2005, but no one expected the once mighty operator to fall so far — and some even thought Dan Hesse could manufacture a rebound.

AT&T's acquisition lull

AT&T (actually SBC) went more than 10 months in 2008 without buying anyone, then gobbled up Wayport and Centennial in the same week.

Top Scapegoats

Service providers: Managing network capacity is a requirement, not a crime. Blocking traffic, snooping on your customers without their permission, shoving ads at unsuspecting browsers or, worse yet, selling information about your customers' browsing habits are all network no-nos. But preventing rational evolution of intelligent traffic management and service delivery to prevent such things from happening is almost as much a crime.