VOIP NEWS

One of America’s most advertised companies, Verizon Wireless, has recently announced plans to begin selling ad space on several of its mobile internet websites.

The news, weather, and sports websites made available to Verizon subscribers will soon become revenue generators in their own right through the inclusion of paid banner ads.

Executives with the company say that they intend to move cautiously into this largely uncharted industry, limiting the amount of ad spots available, and gauging demand gradually.

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As 2006 comes to a close, Motorola is predicting a major breakthrough for the WiMAX mobile broadband standard in the year to come, with the technology reaching new levels of commercialization.

“When we look back one year ago and reflect on all that the industry has accomplished, it is truly astounding the pace at which next generation broadband solutions are evolving. WiMAX no longer is just a promise, a potential. Now it’s here, it’s
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America’s largest telecom carrier, AT&T Inc., has rolled out its fiber-optic IPTV service, U-verse, in Connecticut for the first time. The markets covered by U-verse include parts of Hartford, Stamford, New Haven, and several surrounding communities.

This news comes shortly after the carrier launched its fiber-optic television offering in the San Francisco Bay area and San Jose, California for the first time last week. U-verse is now
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The world’s fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer, Sony Ericsson, intends to enter the highly competitive Korean handset market in late 2007, according the Asian country’s leading wireless carrier.

“Sony Ericsson is in talks with Korean mobile carriers about installing the Wi-Fi wireless Internet platform on its phones to be launched in Korea,” revealed a spokesman with SK Telecom Co, which hasn’t yet decided whether it will carry the phones.

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The worldwide number of DSL users increased to more than 173 million by the end of September, comprising 65.6% of all broadband subscribers, according to new data published by Point Topic and the DSL Forum.

A total of around 65 million people signed up for high-speed internet access in the third quarter alone, with more than two thirds of them choosing DSL. This trend is largely due to the fact that most new broadband customers are coming from outside of North America in countries where cable networks aren’t as widely available.

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A total of 936 billion SMS text messages were sent in 2005, according to Gartner, which expects the number to top 1.2 trillion this year and reach 2.3 trillion in 2010.

“Nobody could have could have predicted the phenomenal success of SMS and the race is on to find its successor,” commented analyst, Nick Ingelbrecht. “Without a doubt new services are needed, but a clear leader has yet to emerge from the messaging services currently being deployed
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BellSouth Corp. announced this week that it is cutting the price of its highest tier broadband internet service by $4 per month.

FastAccess DSL Xtreme 6.0, which offers downstream bandwidth of up to 6 Mbps, will now cost just $42.95 for all new and upgrading customers. Existing subscribers can get in on the new price by calling BellSouth and opting in.

This fairly significant change in pricing is designed to make BellSouth’s fastest DSL package
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The largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history will likely be back on the regulatory negotiation table in the coming weeks after Republican FCC commissioner, Robert M. McDowell, declined to vote on the merger.

McDowell was initially unable to participate because he had previously represented a trade group opposed to the AT&T-BellSouth merger. He has since been given legal clearance to cast a ballot, but announced on Monday that he will be declining to do so.

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The pending launch of an “Apple iPhone” music-enabled mobile device, true to the hardware maker’s iPod branding scheme, has been a cornerstone of technology blogsphere gossip for well over a year now. A little known fact, however, which has recently surfaced, is that Apple never owned the rights to the iPhone brand name.

Instead, Cisco’s wireless networking division, Linksys, is using its trademark on the term to launch a new line of seven wireless
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U.S. cell phone carrier, Cingular Wireless, has unveiled its own mobile version of MySpace.com, the internet’s most popular social networking service.

Cingular subscribers will now be able to read and respond to MySpace messages, write blog entries, upload new photos, and view and search for new friends over the airwaves, at a cost of $2.95 per month. MySpace videos won’t be immediately available with the cell phone service, but they are expected to be added sometime in 2007.

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