October 23, 2006
EDITOR'S LETTER
Farewell to the forecast
Consolidation throughout multiple segments of the telecom industry continues to reshape the landscape, such that our view of the horizon is now virtually...
COVER STORY
Wholesale consolidation moves to the next Level
Level 3 Communications last week made its latest move and maybe its last for a while in a flurry of acquisitions with its $1.4 billion purchase of Broadwing...
FORWARD MOTION
AT&T gets fiber envy
With Verizon's fiber-to-the-premises initiative barreling along, and AT&T's fiber-to-the-node project still hovering, analysts say AT&T insiders are increasingly...
Merger uncertainty
Approval of the AT&T/BellSouth merger has been postponed until at least Nov. 3, as the FCC tries to decide what conditions to impose to protect the competitive...
Fast Forward: Eric Shepcaro
Although it opposes the idea of municipalities building their own Wi-Fi networks, AT&T earlier this year decided to partner with those cities and...
No winner-take-all for AWS
Although much of the attention from the recent Advanced Wireless Services spectrum auction was focused on T-Mobile's $4.2 billion payout for 3G licenses,...
Mobile backhaul exploding, imploding
It's been widely noted that mobile backhaul requirements will grow at a staggering rate as subscriber numbers and adoption of 3G services and applications...
Ericsson cracks U.S. mobile payment market
The mobile content delivery market has experienced a wave of consolidation in the last year, exemplified by VeriSign's purchase of m-Qube and Amdocs'...
Mobile phones: safety device or distraction?
Technologists feel new policy management capabilities can serve both to provide parents with a better sense of security for their school-age children...
Wi-Fi becoming application platform
Having pioneered the broad deployment of Wi-Fi hotspot, Wayport appears ready to be swamped by the flood of municipal networks and other free and ad-supported...
WiMAX roaming off and running
Though the number of WiMAX subscribers globally remains miniscule, proponents of the emerging broadband access technology already have started calling...
Loading the laptop
The era of the loaded laptop is upon us, and what the laptop increasingly will be loaded with is broadband access chips, cards, antennas, ports and interface...
OPINION
It ain't over till it's over
AT&T and BellSouth got a bit of a nasty surprise on their way to a quick merger. It appeared the way was cleared when the Department of Justice shocked...
Wireless in hiding
The secret to the success of any new service or application delivered over a wireless network is to hide the complexity of that network from the user....
Management motivation
The progress Verizon has made lately deploying fiber to the premises brings to mind the executive compensation package the company's board approved in...
INNOVATION
Bridging the smart antenna gap
With the IEEE 802.16e standard finally in place, more than a dozen WiMAX vendors are looking for some way to differentiate their highly standardized products....
IPTV
Hunting for a QOS consensus
Telcos face a new set of challenges as they seek to deliver IPTV services, and although many of the hurdles have to do with how to package and market...
BROADBAND
Making the leap from RF to IP
As competitive pressures force carriers to deploy video services, they must choose the right technologies to deliver those services, balancing short-term...
WHAT'S NEXT
The elusive early majority
A few years ago, while working with a leading manufacturer of networking gear, I was surprised when an executive made the claim that voice over IP had...
