February 11, 2008

Bell Labs: Reviving an icon

By Kevin FitchardFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

As the research arm of a monopoly, Bell Labs invented the communications world as we know it. But in today's competitive market, this venerable institution must redefine itself to survive...

The good monopoly

By Carol WilsonFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

I have a confession to make: I've never played an entire game of Monopoly. Somewhere along the way, either I got bored or my playing companions did...

Open access & a boatload of cash

By Kevin FitchardFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

It turns out the two most controversial licenses in the 700 MHz auction generated the least amount of excitement when it actually came down to bidding...

Portal power shift

By Rich KarpinskiFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

Lost amid the hoopla of Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!, AT&T this month renegotiated its broadband portal deal with Yahoo! -- with much improved terms for the service provider...

Q&A:Bango's Anil Malhotra

Social networking, advertising and location-based services are among the biggest applications migrating to mobile handsets. The potential for additional revenue streams is definitely significant, but if mobile carriers can't measure their services' traffic, the mobile push could go unnoticed. Enter Bango...

Optical homecoming

By Ed GubbinsFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

The escalation of network traffic and its ensuing consumption of bandwidth capacity have brought renewed vitality to the optical sector in recent years...

DSL in the dumps, analysts say

By Carol WilsonFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

A growing chorus of analysts is questioning the pace at which Verizon and, to a lesser extent, AT&T have backed off selling basic DSL services in order to push their higher-speed Internet offerings and their video services...

Real Web comes to mobile

By Rich KarpinskiFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

Talk about your 180-degree turns. Remember when the mobile Web was about simple text snippets and phone-ready widgets? That's old hat. The latest trend is delivering the Web -- in all its desktop glory -- right to your hip pocket...

Rim races to deliver a faster DSL

By Ed GubbinsFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

Rim Semiconductor has given few clues about how it claims to have sent 40 Mb/s of data over 5500 feet of 26-gauge copper in...

A wireless waste

By Sarah ReedyFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

In case you missed the buzzword train, everyone in the telecom industry is going green. Now it's just a matter of getting consumers to realize it...

Broadband for all

By Ed GubbinsFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

As the FCC proposes significant changes to the Universal Service Fund, it will consider for the first time the notion of applying USF to broadband deployment -- which I'm sure will bring no end to the political and philosophical debate over what extent rural broadband should be subsidized...

What's in a node?

By Carol WilsonFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

In building fiber-to-the-node networks, telecom service providers are relying extensively on their experience with outside plant engineering while future-proofing their networks for what they know will be bandwidth-intensive applications...

Hands on the home

By Mark DonahueFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

Residential gateways, IP set-top boxes, voice-over-IP terminals -- and soon you can add femtocell and WiMAX base stations. The list of customer premises equipment is growing, both in number and complexity, as service providers roll out richer services to more people...

Jeff Citron, here's your answer

By Danny BriereFeb 11, 2008 12:00 AM

I briefly met with Vonage at the Consumer Electronics Show, and I talked to the nice, smart people in your booth. They were demonstrating some good-looking equipment that could do neat new things, and I even gave them a few good ideas to take it a step further...