|
|
Free Newsletters
|
|
|
|
|
|
Verizon Business adds to SLAs Verizon Communications' Business unit has expanded its service-level agreement (SLA) options, allowing customers to invoke their SLAs on the last mile of their network connection, even in cases where Verizon doesn't own those pipes. Tandberg deal reflects videoconferencing growth A rising tide lifts all boats, and in the world of videoconferencing, Cisco Systems' high-profile TelePresence products are boosting the market as a whole. Longtime player Tandberg is trying to make the most of the good times. September 7, 3:00 p.m. PDT Tata to aid India's telecoms expansion India's largest outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. has landed a US$140 million contract from India's large state-owned telecommunications services provider, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., for the deployment of next-generation networks in the country. August 30, 7:15 a.m. PDT SMB technology: Replacing in-house software with applications in the cloud In the near future, there's only one way to go for SMBs when it comes to purchasing business software -- and that's out of house. Whether it's full-on SaaS (software as a service), where users access all facets of the application through a browser, or a hosted product (including hosted Exchange, where only the server component is off-site and users employ a standard desktop client such as Outlook), either model is simply too cost-effective for SMBs to ignore.  August 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT Processors: Dividing chips into many virtual cores The current approach taken by x86 CPUs -- to stuff as many processor cores and as much cache memory as will fit on one chip -- will prove impossible to scale beyond a certain point. And adding more, big, hot processor cores may not be the best fit for server roles that call for managing large workloads over long periods of time. August 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT Pundits on parade: What’s next in tech You’ve heard of Christmas in July, that classic advertising gimmick designed to lure shoppers into stores despite the oppressive heat and humidity. We’ll, we’ve got New Year’s in August, which invites you to stay indoors and read “The next big things in IT” -- 15 predictions about the future of technology. August 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT European Commission pushes Germany on telecom access The European Commission asked the German regulatory authority, the Federal Network Agency, Monday to do more to ensure a level playing field in the market for high-speed optical fiber connections to the home or office. June 25, 9:49 a.m. PDT Microsoft packs A/V Web conferencing features into RoundTable The only cool thing about this job is the volume of awesome toys that crosses my threshold. That and having a down-the-hall commute with a shower-optional working environment (kidding, Mom). Just today I picked up Microsoft's Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. Apparently, Redmond didn't get it right 7,999 times, but this one is darn good: mouse, remote control for PowerPoint slide shows, and a laser pointer, all in one little rodent. Look for a blog review in a couple of weeks or so. June 6, 3:00 a.m. PDT Microsoft shows off new unified communications phones Microsoft is launching a qualification program for phones that are compatible with its unified communications products. May 14, 5:35 a.m. PDT Google buys video conferencing software Google Inc. has bought video conferencing software from Marratech AB, a Stockholm-based vendor, and hired the engineers involved with the software, a Google spokesman said Friday. April 20, 2:54 p.m. PDT Microsoft gets into VoIP ... and confuses us Impenetrable questions I've been pondering: The difference between acute dyslexia and the way Linux programmers name their software. How Apple Store sales personnel differ from those at the Clearasil human testing lab. Whether the proliferation of Law & Order: X and Ebola virus outbreaks are somehow connected. The difference between Office Communications Server and Microsoft Response Point. March 28, 3:00 a.m. PST More IT war stories Off the Record, the real-world slice of life that graces the last page of InfoWorld, is one of our most popular columns. I know this from reader surveys and from all the e-mail I receive about it. As reader Roland Sickenberger put it recently, “It’s my favorite part of the magazine, kind of like a ‘Dilbert come to life’ thing.” March 5, 3:00 a.m. PST Women in technology: A call to action A quick scan of almost any IT department -- from the trenches to the corner office -- confirms it: Women who embrace technology as a lifelong career remain a rare breed. To be sure, opportunity for women in technology has advanced in the past few decades, as have education initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field, but for every woman rising to prominence or embarking on a profession in IT, there seems to be another opting out of her career in technology. January 29, 3:03 a.m. PST Back to school: Getting girls into IT Despite the success of various education initiatives in the past several years, there’s little doubt that the shortage of women in technology begins on the playground. As such, many industry leaders and experts believe the long-term solution to the gender imbalance in IT lies in women technologists going back to school -- way back, to high schools and even elementary schools to mentor young girls, who too often give up on math and science at an early age. January 29, 3:02 a.m. PST Activism provides competitive advantage for IT Encountering another woman working in technology was a rare event for me when I started out in IT many years ago. In the years since, women have made significant strides, sometimes against great odds, proving their mettle as both tech execs and engineers. January 29, 3:01 a.m. PST Gender crisis in IT You don’t need a degree in statistics to recognize that IT is a men’s club. Just walk the floor of any tech conference or, in all likelihood, your own office — XY chromosomes everywhere you look. January 29, 3:00 a.m. PST The smart business of diversity Carly Fiorina served as CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005, the first woman to run a Fortune 20 company. After she was ousted, along with a $21 million exit package, Fiorina did what a lot of us would do if we had millions of dollars in the bank and some time on our hands: She wrote a book. In Tough Choices, published in October, Fiorina talks about rising to the top of a male-dominated culture. Fiorina spoke with InfoWorld correspondent Carmen Nobel for our upcoming feature on the issues women face in IT. January 22, 3:00 a.m. PST Managing content in a rich media world For years, directors at the Dallas Museum of Art faced a daunting problem that threatened to stifle the growth of the century-old organization. The prolific use of computer-generated content was requiring them to store ever more videos, audio clips, and digital images relating to the museum’s vast collection of works to assist in research, accounting, outreach, and other day-to-day operations. January 8, 3:00 a.m. PST Technology of the Gods January is named after Janus, the two-faced Roman deity of beginnings and endings, who reportedly was able to look both forward and back. So for our Jan. 1 issue, we pay homage to the mythological immortal with our seventh annual Technology of the Year Awards, an analysis of where IT has been and where it’s going in 2007. January 1, 3:00 a.m. PST AT&T offers more concessions for BellSouth acquisition In a bid to win approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its planned US$67 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp., AT&T Inc. has expanded the set of concessions it's offering to overcome opposition to the deal. December 29, 4:11 a.m. PST Review of reviews It’s coming up on closing time for 2006. All around us, everyone is going into holiday mode. Not to be curmudgeonly contrarians, InfoWorld will be following suit, taking a one-week break before returning on Jan. 1 with our first print issue of the year. (It’s really only a semi-hiatus; InfoWorld.com will continue to perk over the holidays with a slightly reduced slate of stories.) December 18, 3:00 a.m. PST Cisco focuses on video, innovation teams Cisco Systems Inc. executives looked to video, the developing world, and still-emerging technologies as they kicked off the company's C-Scape analyst conference Tuesday. December 12, 3:06 p.m. PST Adobe launches Reader 8, online conferencing Adobe Systems has released a new version of its Reader 8 software that incorporates a link to Web conferencing software the company plans to release next month. December 6, 4:25 a.m. PST Congress sets Alcatel-Lucent hearings Another hurdle has cropped up for the merger of Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. as the U.S. House Armed Services Committee has set a hearing on the national security implications of the deal. November 10, 10:32 a.m. PST Simple, single-purpose screen sharing There’s one thing I wish screen-sharing systems would do well: screen sharing. I watch a lot of demos projected to my computer. It’s always a struggle, both for the presenter and for me. Windows or Mac? IE or Firefox? Who has the latest version of the client? Who’s the host? Which application is shared? Can you see my screen? November 1, 3:00 a.m. PST First impressions of Cisco's TelePresence Cisco Systems' TelePresence 3000 is an awesome piece of kit, but then anything with three 65-inch plasma display screens would be. Still, there's more to the TelePresence 3000 than looks alone: it's by far one of the best videoconferencing systems out there -- with a sky-high price tag to match. October 26, 4:58 a.m. PDT Cisco CEO preaches networks, collaboration John Chambers, the chief executive officer of networking giant Cisco Systems, was in fine evangelical mode Tuesday, laying out his company's vision of a future where intelligent networks power IT and collaboration is the key driver for businesses. October 25, 4:53 a.m. PDT Practical 3-D telepresence Two weeks ago I wrote about an invitation to join Sun’s Oct. 10 debut in Second Life. On the same day, coincidentally or not, IBM invited me to its alumni virtual block party on the 12th. I’d been itching to try my hand at virtual cinematography, so I donned my avatar, went to the party, and used the in-world movie camera to document the event. October 25, 3:00 a.m. PDT Cisco helps meetings go widescreen If you're an enterprise executive, Cisco Systems wants to put you on TV -- big-screen, high-definition TV. October 23, 6:27 a.m. PDT Demofall to highlight Java Wares The Demofall show has never had quite the cache of the bigger Demo conference, but it’s still a fun time, as startups from across the tech sector give their patented six-minute pitches for why their company’s product will change the world. September 25, 3:00 a.m. PDT Technology with no past To the extent that it’s possible, I’m declaring today the beginning of recorded history in information technology. On this day, the phrase “information technology,” abbreviated IT, came into being as shorthand for electronic devices that aid humans in storage and sharing of, analysis of, protection of, and access to significant amounts of digitized content. Content? That’s anything you’re capable of holding in your brain for even a nanosecond. IT is not a department or a group of people. It’s a smart phone. It’s a room full of SPARC servers. A telephone headset? A keyboard? I don’t know. They’re new terms. We’ll work that out as we go. I do know that if we didn’t have such things, information technology would be inaccessible. September 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT Skype bridges Macs and PCs with video calling With the latest beta of Skype for the Macintosh, released on Wednesday, Skype hopes to help bridge the barrier between Macs and PCs for video calling. September 13, 6:18 a.m. PDT Screencasts show off software One of the oldest rules in the creative writing handbook is “Show, don’t tell.” The idea is to use dialog and action, as opposed to narrative, to flesh out things such as a character’s motivation or belief system. It’s a fine practice in novels, but tough to pull off in nonfiction, where the emphasis is, rightly, on the facts. July 31, 3:00 a.m. PDT Microsoft, Nortel team up on unified communications We live in a world of redundancies. Take the telephone (please!). Most of us probably have one sitting right there on our desk, next to our computer. It’s used for talking to people. But do we really need a separate device? “No” is the short answer from a growing number of tech heavyweights pushing “unified communications” technology that combines and integrates voice, video conferencing, e-mail and IM on a single IP network. The technology is still in its infancy, with companies lining up to be the “Microsoft of unified communications” -- including Microsoft itself. July 24, 3:00 a.m. PDT IM as a unified collaboration platform Is the ability to respond quickly to the right situation or to the right person at the right time at the very core of how your company conducts business? My guess is there are fewer and fewer companies that would answer that question in the negative. July 4, 3:00 a.m. PDT InfoWorld CTO 25 The top technology slot in the enterprise has changed. Once, forward-looking CTOs and CIOs scanned the horizon for new technologies that would improve the lot of IT. Today, as many of this year’s top 25 CTOs can tell you, technology leaders must also focus on understanding the business goals of the enterprise -- and then craft technology strategies to meet those objectives. June 5, 3:00 a.m. PDT Teleworking can slow bird flu, lawmakers told Parts of the U.S. government could shut down during a much-feared outbreak of bird flu unless it develops better telecommuting plans, two IT leaders told lawmakers Thursday. May 11, 3:09 p.m. PDT A casting call for my screencasting experiment I’d like to invite some of you to join me in a journalistic experiment. As you know if you’ve been following my work through the years, I preach what I practice. My analytical perspectives flow from my own hands-on work. However, my experience is necessarily limited to certain styles: Web programming, lightweight integration, semistructured data, collaboration. May 10, 3:00 a.m. PDT Alcatel, Lucent agree to merge Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. have reached a definitive agreement to merge, they said Sunday. April 2, 8:04 a.m. PDT Lucent and Alcatel in merger talks Faced with a challenging industry environment, telecommunication equipment makers Lucent Technologies and Alcatel are discussing a possible merger, according to a statement released by the two companies. March 24, 4:02 a.m. PST Do you believe in the power of telecom mergers? In a year when top-tier Oscars went to niche-market movies, why are business plaudits going to do a blockbuster deal such as AT&T’s just-announced $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth? If scale doesn’t work in movies anymore, why should it work in business? March 17, 3:00 a.m. PST Product Previews Fluke Networks brings greater visibility to VoIP Fluke Networks is enhancing the VoIP module of its visual UpTime Select network and application management solution, offering additional tools for monitoring, managing, and optimizing VoIP performance. Network managers can, for example, calculate and track MOS (mean opinion score) for each call on a continual basis, enabling them to troubleshoot both real-time and intermittent performance issues. The new release also incorporates a number of in-depth performance reports. The release is available now at no charge to existing UpTime Select VoIP module customers. For new customers, pricing begins at $795 per site. Visual UpTime Select, Fluke Networks February 27, 3:00 a.m. PST Silicon Valley group pushes for local wireless network The region that spawned the microprocessor and helped wire the world now wants to unwire itself with the help of local chip giant Intel Corp. January 30, 12:01 p.m. PST Family-friendly enterprise calendaring When Ray Ozzie posted an announcement to his Weblog about Microsoft’s proposed SSE (Simple Share Extensions) for RSS and OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language), I was delighted. On the technical front, it’s great to see the synchronization DNA of Groove and Lotus Notes finding its way, at last, onto the Web. But on the social front, it was a milestone, too. January 18, 3:00 a.m. PST IT will give up control of the network As we look at all the changes taking place on the Internet during the past several years, I think we can boil it down to two simple observations. First, the volume of traffic is increasing exponentially: E-mail, IM, and RSS all mean more connections. Second, each connection is moving a great deal more data, including multimedia, voice, and video. January 10, 3:00 a.m. PST 2006 Technology of the Year Awards: The winners' list See correction at end of article January 2, 3:00 a.m. PST Top technologies of the year Welcome to our first issue of the year. For those of you who took a break, re-entry into the heady universe of work may be a bit discombobulating. Fortunately, last Saturday, the world’s ever-considerate timekeepers saw fit to give us an extra sliver of time -- a leap second-- to prep for the new year. And now, with the pop of the cork (or was that the buzz of a pager?), we’re ready to herald 2006, a potential banner year for the enterprise. January 2, 3:00 a.m. PST BCE to sell stake in Canadian IT service provider CGI In a move to refocus on its core telecommunications business, BCE Inc., Canada's largest telecommunications company, has agreed to sell its stake in Canadian IT service provider CGI Group Inc. December 19, 2:53 a.m. PST US senator's bill would overhaul FCC's authority A U.S. senator has introduced a bill that would limit the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) policy-making power over telecommunications and broadband providers. The bill, in many cases, would allow the FCC to step in only when there's "clear and convincing evidence" that competition has failed. December 16, 9:33 a.m. PST The two-way media Web For a blog entry this week, I wanted to quote an interesting remark by Iona CTO Eric Newcomer on how traditional distributed computing differs from XML-based Web services. If he’d made that remark on his blog, I’d simply have quoted the text. Instead, however, he made it on a Webcast published by SYS-CON.TV. Creating the video equivalent of a pull quote is much harder than just selecting, copying, and pasting text, but it’s doable. As I worked out the solution, I reflected on the unholy alliance that Silicon Valley is forming with Hollywood. December 14, 3:00 a.m. PST Why data synchronization still matters The physics of data management used to dictate that your data could be either consistent or highly available but never both at the same time. The discipline of data synchronization sits uncomfortably on the horns of this Heisenbergian dilemma. As times change, though, so do the trade-offs associated with synchronization and its uses. November 30, 3:00 a.m. PST IBM employees play with podcasting What do you get when you hand 320,000 employees the tools and corporate podcasting guidelines to internally publish their audio creations? In IBM Corp.'s experience, lower phone bills and better, more informal internal communication. November 23, 11:23 a.m. PST Verizon revenue up, income flat Verizon Communications Inc. reported Thursday net income of US$1.9 billion for the third quarter of 2005, with income essentially flat from the third quarter of 2004. October 27, 5:42 a.m. PDT The H-1B swindle It appears there is hard evidence to prove that employers are using the H-1B visa program to hire cheap labor; that is, to pay lower wages than the national average for programming jobs. October 25, 3:00 a.m. PDT Mobile phone operators call for low cost equipment All the talk at the 3GSM World Congress Asia about ensuring people in poor countries have access to inexpensive mobile phones prompted some operators on Tuesday to call for the development of lower-cost equipment, so they can extent their networks throughout less-populated areas. September 27, 5:52 a.m. PDT IDC sees healthy IT growth through 2009 The days of double-digit growth may be over, but an uptick in spending by the media, communications and health-care industries will help to keep worldwide IT spending growing at a healthy clip through 2009, IDC predicted Tuesday. August 16, 9:27 a.m. PDT Handsets are the last frontier for Linux We’ve all heard the Microsoft pitch a thousand times -- if you’re running Windows on the server and the desktop, it only makes sense to run it on the handheld. But if that argument is valid then perhaps Microsoft is soon to be hoisted on its own petard. August 16, 4:00 a.m. PDT Ex WorldCom CFO Sullivan gets 5 years in jail Former WorldCom Inc. Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for his role in engineering the $11 billion accounting fraud that led to the bankruptcy of the telecommunications powerhouse. August 11, 10:01 a.m. PDT Sprint, Nextel expect to finish merger Friday Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. said Tuesday they intend to finalize their merger on Aug. 12, after gaining all required regulatory approval. August 9, 11:33 p.m. PDT Open source VoIP/Telephony One of the first open source VoIP projects -- and one of the earliest VoIP PBXes, period -- is Digium-sponsored Asterisk. A highly mature platform licensed under the GPL, Asterisk supports almost everything that even larger enterprises would desire of a VoIP gateway solution, including voice mail, call forwarding, conferencing, and even IVR (Interactive Voice Response). It also has call-detail records -- the golden goose of VoIP -- as well as advanced features suitable for use in virtual classroom or virtual conference room applications. Its large developer community contributes still more add-ons for the platform, both commercial and open source. August 8, 5:00 a.m. PDT Fight about TV over IP coming to Congress WASHINGTON - TV over IP (Internet Protocol) may come eventually to a television set near you, but not before a regulatory fight in the U.S. Congress. July 20, 3:18 p.m. PDT VoIP on a bike A bicycle-powered, Linux-based VoIP system: not your usual high-tech architecture. But what if you were one of the more than 1 billion people living without electricity? No power, no phone. July 19, 5:00 a.m. PDT ISP tests high-quality streaming for shuttle launch A Japanese ISP (Internet service provider) is using Wednesday's launch of the Space Shuttle to test a high-quality video streaming system. July 13, 5:40 a.m. PDT EU warns 11 more members on telecom competition The European Commission, the European Union's overall telecom regulator, launched its latest bid on Thursday to get its member states to ensure fair competition in the telecom sector. July 7, 10:08 a.m. PDT DOJ requires Alltel to divest assets in acquisition The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will require Alltel to sell off some of its assets in three central U.S. states before completing a $6 billion acquisition of competing wireless carrier Western Wireless Corp. July 6, 11:12 a.m. PDT Report: Trials of China's 3G technology went 'badly' SHANGHAI -- In a possible setback for China's 3G (third-generation) mobile telecommunications plans, recent trials of the country's homegrown 3G technology went "badly," according to the official China Daily newspaper. June 22, 5:42 a.m. PDT BT's 'new wave' services contribute more to revenue PARIS - Net profit rose faster than revenue at telecommunications operator BT Group PLC in the quarter to March 31, with its "new wave" services now contributing 28 percent of revenue, compared to 23 percent at the start of 2004, the company said Thursday. May 19, 3:27 a.m. PDT Secrets of screencasting I’ve mentioned Nic Wolff’s nifty SSO (single sign-on) solution several times before. It’s a simple JavaScript hack that empowers people to do something about a critical IT dilemma: weak passwords that are guiltily reused everywhere. May 11, 5:00 a.m. PDT Qwest bows out of MCI bidding Qwest Communications said it is no longer in the "best interests" of the company to continue competing with Verizon Communications in a bidding war to acquire MCI. May 2, 12:10 p.m. PDT Verizon raises bid for MCI and retains favor of board A new month, a new bid for acquisition target MCI. This time around it's Verizon Communications that has won the approval of MCI's board of directors with a revised cash-and-stock offer of at least $26 per MCI share, the companies said Monday. May 2, 5:17 a.m. PDT BT names suppliers for 21st Century Network SAN FRANCISCO - BT Group has picked eight network infrastructure vendors from seven countries as preferred suppliers for its 21st Century Network, a voice, video and data network that the U.K.'s incumbent national carrier plans to build over the next five years at a cost as high as £10 billion (US$19 billion). April 28, 1:55 p.m. PDT Verizon net income up, beats analyst expectations Verizon Communications on Wednesday reported net income of $1.76 billion in the first quarter of 2005, up from $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2004. April 27, 12:03 p.m. PDT MSN Messenger gets video call update Microsoft released an update to its MSN Messenger application on Thursday, offering improved video and voice calls in an effort to catch the eyes and ears of more Internet users. At the same time it launched a finished version of an online scrapbook service it has been testing, MSN Spaces, and rolled out new advertising opportunities. April 7, 5:16 a.m. PDT Analysts say MCI, Verizon isn't yet a done deal The decision by MCI's board to accept the latest acquisition offer from Verizon doesn't mean the bidding battle between Verizon and Qwest Communications is over, analysts said Tuesday. While Verizon is generally seen by analysts as the more compatible suitor, Qwest shouldn't yet be counted out, they said. March 29, 11:50 a.m. PST MCI accepts Verizon bid of $7.64 billion MCI has accepted a revised $7.64 billion acquisition bid from Verizon Communications, rejecting a higher offer from Qwest Communications, MCI announced Tuesday. March 29, 8:42 a.m. PST Qwest increases offer to buy MCI Qwest Communications has increased its offer to acquire MCI, hoping to derail last month's merger agreement reached between MCI and Qwest rival Verizon Communications. March 17, 5:19 a.m. PST Bush names Martin new FCC chairman U.S. President George Bush on Wednesday announced that he will appoint former advisor Kevin Martin to be the new chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the telecommunications and broadcast industries. March 16, 11:56 a.m. PST Small telecom carriers focus on providing choices WASHINGTON - As traditional competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) retool to keep up with U.S. regulations and battle the huge regional Bells, a range of new business models are emerging. March 7, 1:50 p.m. PST Land, satellite multimedia set for showdown in S. Korea SEOUL - In the next few months, South Korea will launch competing terrestrial and satellite-based multimedia broadcasting services, marking one of the first commercial showdowns for digital video content for mobile phones in the world. March 4, 1:38 p.m. PST U.S. lawmakers question telecom mergers Three recently announced telecommunications mergers received mixed reviews in a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing Wednesday, with some lawmakers questioning whether the deals will lead to less competition and higher prices. March 2, 11:51 a.m. PST DC telecom exec indicted on tax charges A Washington, D.C., telecommunications entrepreneur and investor, has been indicted on tax evasion and related charges after allegedly failing to pay more than $200 million in taxes owned to the U.S. and District of Columbia governments, three government agencies announced Monday. February 28, 10:22 a.m. PST Update: Ebbers takes stand in fraud trial NEW YORK - Former WorldCom Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers Monday took the stand in a packed New York courtroom to defend himself against charges of conspiracy and fraud in connection with $11 billion of accounting misstatements that led to the bankruptcy of the telecommunications giant he built. February 28, 9:19 a.m. PST Latest merger hails new telecom era Verizon’s announcement last week that it intends to acquire MCI -- the third telecommunications merger since mid-December -- effectively ends a two-decade experiment in which the U.S. government attempted to break up a huge telecom monopoly. February 21, 6:00 a.m. PST VoWIP untethers the office phone The basic business phone can be a real pain. You’re not at your desk all day but your phone is, so callers get voice mail, everyone plays phone tag, and critical conversations get delayed. Callers try your cell phone, but if reception in your building is spotty, you miss the call. February 18, 3:00 p.m. PST Add-on server routes calls and manages voice traffic Voice over wireless requires more than wireless handsets and a wireless LAN. There also needs to be a telephony server to manage the voice traffic. February 18, 3:00 p.m. PST 802.11e adds QoS to Wi-Fi networks The largely unsolved hurdle of contention for access-point capacity keeps voice-over-wireless systems vulnerable to poor-quality calls, as well as calls marred by dropouts if too many voice or data users are trying to connect to the network simultaneously. February 18, 3:00 p.m. PST Qwest bid for MCI may attract stockholders WASHINGTON - Qwest Communications International's announcement late Thursday that it plans to renew its bid for MCI could leave MCI stockholders with a tough decision between Qwest and rival bidder Verizon Communications, telecom analysts said Friday. February 18, 2:35 p.m. PST Verizon-MCI deal: New era of telecom giants WASHINGTON - Verizon Communications' announcement Monday that it intends to acquire MCI for $6.7 billion, the third multibillion-dollar telecommunications merger announced since mid-December, effectively ends a two-decade experiment in which the U.S. government attempted to break up a huge telecom monopoly. February 14, 9:38 a.m. PST When time-shifting and telepresence collide Yesterday I drove to a meeting in another state. On the way there and back, my car radio was tuned to no regular broadcast but instead to the pirate radio station in my briefcase. Its components: a $20 Belkin FM transmitter, a $90 Creative Nomad MuVo MP3 player, and do-it-yourself programming. As I drove to my destination, I listened to Shai Agassi's talk at the Accelerating Change Conference, courtesy of ITConversations.com. On the way back, I listened to an audio interview I'd done the day before, reviewing which parts I might want to use in a podcast or weave into an article. January 28, 3:00 p.m. PST Trial of WorldCom's Ebbers begins in New York Opening arguments in the securities fraud trial of former WorldCom Inc. chief executive Bernard Ebbers are scheduled to begin at about 2 p.m. EST Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. January 25, 9:54 a.m. PST The world according to AT&T During the past decade, AT&T has been jettisoning divisions faster than a heavyweight fighter sheds pounds trying to get back in shape for a shot at the title: NCR in ’94; Bell Labs in ’96; AT&T Cable, AT&T Wireless in ’01; Excite@Home, Small Business Hosting accounts in ’02. Earlier this year, it announced plans to stop pursuing residential and long-distance voice customers altogether. November 19, 3:00 p.m. PST Carriers see key rulings soon LAS VEGAS - The major U.S. regional carriers want to leapfrog cable operators with advanced video services over IP (Internet Protocol), and expected upcoming U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulings may help pave the way for those roll-outs. October 12, 5:30 p.m. PDT Calling for standards For those of us who have watched the VoIP (voice over IP) standards wars over the years, the current battles raging behind closed doors should come as no surprise. Nevertheless, if you sit on a VoIP evaluation committee, it might be worth your while to consider the challenges still to be met. June 18, 3:00 p.m. PDT Siemens moves to merge telephony, data center Telephony servers now emerging are set to transform enterprise phone systems into just one more service provided through the corporate data center. May 3, 4:39 a.m. PDT > Application development > Collaboration > Applications > Collaboration > Telecom |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
