Telecommunications

January 13, 2009

Spies in Your Mobile Phone

Just as advertisers and wireless companies are hoping for the business of marketing on mobile phones to take off, consumer groups are raising pointed questions about ...

January 9, 2009

Open, Schmopen: Wireless Networks Are Still Closed

Over the past year, there's been a lot of lip service in the mobile-phone industry about making our wireless networks "open." The idea, consumer and open network ...

January 9, 2009

The Real Cost of Delaying Digital TV

The transition team for President-elect Barack Obama wants Congress to push back a planned changeover to digital television. The delay, Obama's team argues, would give...

January 7, 2009

Clearwire's WiMAX Launch

You could hardly turn around in Portland, Ore., in recent weeks without bumping into ads for the new mobile broadband service from Clearwire (CLWR). Product reps ...

December 31, 2008

Ten Stories that Defined Broadband in 2008

With every tick of the clock, 2008 is taking its final steps toward 2009, when the year starts afresh. From a broadband perspective it has been an eventful ...

December 23, 2008

Dark Clouds for Darkstrand

Darkstrand, a Chicago startup planning to commercialize the fiber network built as part of the National LambdaRail (NLR) project, is—like most of its telecom ...

December 22, 2008

The Consumer Electronics Inventory Glut

Automakers aren't the only ones halting production as inventories pile up. The consumer electronics industry is also coming to grips with rising stockpiles of unsold ...

December 16, 2008

Tech Stocks for the Stimulus Plan

As businesses hunker down for another year of malaise, a few sectors of the economy are poised to benefit from the incoming Administration's proposed elixir. ...

December 11, 2008

Windows Mobile: What Microsoft Needs to Fix

In September, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer spent a week traipsing across Europe and parts of the U.S. schmoozing 17 of the world's largest handset makers ...

December 5, 2008

AT&T Layoffs: The Tip of a Telecom Downturn

A move by AT&T to eliminate 4% of its workforce may only be the beginning of a torrent of staff reductions and spending cutbacks in the $1 trillion telecom industry. ...

November 21, 2008

Modern Networking Tools: Swapping Bits, Not Cards

With the recession in full swing, industries across the charts have been laying off hundreds of employees—making the job market increasingly competitive. So ...

November 20, 2008

Apple's Superlative Sequel: The Latest iPod Touch

They say sequels often fail to live up to the original. That's not so with the second generation of Apple's (AAPL) iPod Touch. Apple has managed to make the Touch look...

November 12, 2008

Hughes Communications: Boondocks Broadband

(Editor's note: this is the second in a series of articles on the lack of broadband access in the U.S.) When Debra and Lee Sherbeyn first moved to rural Virginia 14 ...

November 12, 2008

CES Preview: More Bang for the Buck

Each January, electronics gadget makers from around the world trot out their most dazzling gear for the more than 100,000 attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show in...

November 10, 2008

Trouble Returns to the Land of Telecom

Earlier this month, Cisco Systems (CSCO) came out with an unusually downbeat forecast. The company, whose sales have traditionally seemed to defy gravity, admitted ...

November 10, 2008

Obama Weighs Choices for FCC Chairman

President-elect Barack Obama may stand for change, but he's turned to some powerful Washington insiders to help him staff the nation's top communications regulator, ...

November 6, 2008

A No-Nonsense Phone from China's ZTE

China's ZTE is stepping up its assault on the U.S. market. In February the maker of wireless gear introduced the C88, its first U.S. cell phone (BusinessWeek.com, ...

November 6, 2008

Ultra-Wideband: On the Ropes

Five years ago, the promise of a new networking technology known as ultra-wideband was a living room without wires, where DVD players, set-top boxes, and video ...

November 3, 2008

The Recycled Cell-Phone Trap

The sales director of a large Japanese company thought he was doing a good deed when he donated his BlackBerry for recycling. But later a group of British and ...

November 3, 2008

Who Killed the VoIP Revolution?

"VoIP is dead," Skype General Manager for Voice and Video Jonathan Christensen declared at an industry conference a few weeks ago. He spoke figuratively, of course, ...

October 31, 2008

Motorola's Turnaround Plans Meet with Skepticism

The latest flurry of turnaround plans for Motorola is being met with about as much enthusiasm as previous attempts to revive the company's foundering mobile-phone ...

October 30, 2008

Google, FCC, Broadcasters Fight for White Spaces

Besides the Presidential election, there's another big political battle brewing in Washington on Nov. 4. This one is over the airwaves that are used to deliver ...

October 29, 2008

Craving Motorola's Krave ZN4 Touchscreen Phone

Motorola (MOT) has made a habit of falling behind in recent years. The money-losing handset maker arrived late to the music-phone craze and camera-phone party. And the...

October 26, 2008

Letting Wi-Fi Do More With Less Energy

In the quest for a truly mobile device, we've managed to cut the phone cord and the Ethernet cable, but the power cord? Well, that's still a problem. While some ...

October 23, 2008

AT&T's Troubling Trends

At first glance, third-quarter results from telecom giant AT&T (T) appear strong. The Dallas-based phone service provider posted net income of $3.23 billion, or 55¢ a ...