Tag Archive
Packet8 back online after outage
8×8 says the failure of its VoIP system Packet8 yesterday was caused, according to the company, by “an Internet element beyond our control.” The service returned by 4:30 PM pacific time and the company is still looking into the causes of the disruption. A major issue during the disruption was 8×8’s own internal systems (including their website) went down... »
Bisnoff Back as TelePacific Channel Chief
TelePacific Communications, a CLEC operating in California and Nevada, announced Thursday changes to its TelePartner program, including the return of Ken Bisnoff as its channel chief, changes to its support staff and new onboarding and training programs.Bisnoff, senior vice president of strategic opportunities, launched TelePacific’s Telepartner Channel Program in 2002 …(567 words) ... »
Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales on Pace for Flat Growth in 2009, Increase 9 Per Cent in 2010
Stronger than expected sales in Western Europe and an acceleration in the grey market in the third quarter of this year will drive worldwide mobile device sales to end users to 1.214 billion units, a 0.67 per cent decline from 2008, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. In September, Gartner had forecast... »
Voxeo teams with Remego for contact centers in APAC
Florida-based VoIP platform provider Voxeo is teaming with Remego, a Sigapore-based VoIP provider to provide open source contact center services in the Asia Pacific region. Using Voxeo’s open technology platform in Interactive Voice Response (IVR), instant messaging, SIP, VoiceXML, CCXML and mobile web for the creation and management of unified communications and unified self-service applications,... »
What I Think About the Bing Outage
Bing, the upstart search engine nee portal nee discovery service that had been riding the crest of a goodwill wave, saw that wave come crashing down last night — both literally and figuratively. The site was down from 6:24 p.m. to 7:10 p.m. PT, according to some reports. And with that crash came the... »
Technology, Media and Telecommunications: News from Asia
Japan Telecommunications • Softbank Corp. (SFTBF.PK) is interested in buying stakes in Indian and Chinese companies. The company is eying companies engaged in mobile applications and technology. Softbank bought an additional stake in U.S. application provider RockYou Inc. for US$50 million. Softbank has a 33 percent stake in... »
Asia mobile recycling yield beats Europe
The raw material recovery rate for one handset vendor is higher in Asia than in Europe due to low labor costs that allow workers to be employed to separate materials before the recycling process, said a Nokia spokesperson. “In the West, it’s about 80 to 85 percent yield. Here, because we segregate the materials, we... »
Where Have The Big Internet Players Gone in VoIP and Why
The crusty John C. Dvorak has been a fixture in PC Magazine for many years. This week he penned a piece about Google Voice and free calling. In the opinion column John raised a few points that need to be expounded upon, and I’m in the kind of mood to do just that! Point One: Now... »
Australia’s Optus to trial LTE, successor to 3G
Optus will be the first telco in the nation to trial a new mobile broadband technology that transmits data 20 times faster than current 3G systems. The technology — which is known as LTE (long term evolution) and is being positioned as a successor to current 3G mobile networks — is capable of transmitting data... »
Research Report Shows VoIP Kicking PSTN’s Ass
According to Infonetics Research, VoIP services brought in $21 billion for service providers in the first half of 2009. According to their report, the number of residential/SOHO VoIP subscribers is forecast to top 225 million by 2013. In other words, with about 310 million Americans that means 75% of all residential subscribers will be... »
Why the Great Internet Buildout Is Spurring M&A
If you’re a BlackBerry or iPhone user (see: addict), then you are partly responsible for the great Internet buildout. Those cute apps that look up baseball scores or let you log into Facebook eat up enough bandwidth to put the backend infrastructure of phone companies under pressure, forcing them to upgrade their networks with... »
Analysts want more submarine cables for Australia
Australia needs to invest in more international submarine cable links to cater for continued growth in Internet traffic and to provide greater redundancy, according to two leading analysts. Last week, the PIPE Networks undersea cable system, PIPE Pacific Cable (PPC-1), was officially launched, providing the country with its fourth major international communications link. To read this... »
Asia Pacific leads world in WiMax adoption: Frost & Sullivan
The Asia Pacific region continues to lead the world in WiMax innovation, as countries like Japan, India and Korea continue to invest in the technology, with maverick operators in neighboring countries following suit, industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan reported recently. This feat, however, is stifled by China’s refusal to license WiMax in its area,... »
IBM Launches Stimulus Fund as Business Case for FTTH Is Improving
Tim Poulus submits: In theory, the business case for FTTH (and the like) is improving. Total cost of ownership is being reduced continually, broadband demand and traffic are growing, the cost of waiting is increasing, etc. Again, in theory that should attract investors. Obviously, the crisis, a lack of regulatory clarity and the enormous amount... »
Nokia Ovi Store Launching
Client Nokia is opening up it's OVI Store in phases, starting in the Pacific Rim first and rolling the service out around the globe. The key here is diversity. Nokia will have apps for various models and platforms, with music, games and apps being a part of it. Related Topics: 2008, Nokia, Pacific, Pacific Rim, platform,... »
Asian telcos plot 4Tbps intra-Asian cable
Eight Asian carriers have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a new regional club cable, the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) The 4Tbs subsea system will land at nine locations between Singapore and Japan and would go into service in 2011, NTT Communications said. To read this Telecomasia report in full, see: telecomasia.net/article.php?id_article=13634 … >>> Rest of the... »
700 Million Broadband Subscribers By 2013
The wireless and broadband revolution is finally spreading to the final frontiers of our planet. India, China, Brazil, Russia and the African continent have become major drivers of growth of the telecom networks. Across the planet people are signing up for either mobile services, landlines or broadband connections. And we are not done yet.... »
And Another Google Senior Executive Shake-up
Omid Kordestani Whenever I write that headline, I am reminded of the movie “Groundhog Day.” Today, Omid Kordestani, Google’s president of global sales operations and business development, is leaving the job that position and instead will advise Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt. (Google spokesperson just emailed to let us... »
Asian mobile subscriber growth drops 21 percent
Mobile subscriber growth in the Asia-Pacific telecom market fell 21 percent in Q4 2008, the region’s lowest growth rate in seven quarters, research firm Informa Telecoms and Media said. The region’s operators added just 68.7 million new subscribers, the researchers said. Some of the fastest-growing mobile markets–Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines–were hit particularly hard. To... »
Verizon Business lands $2.5B DOD contract
Verizon Business continues to steadily post big wins, as it landed a Department of Defense contract worth up to $2.5 billion. The contract is the latest in a series of federal customers the company has collected. Under the Defense Information System Network Transmission Services – Pacific II (DTS-P II) contract, Verizon Business will provide telecommunications services... »
Hong Kong court delays hearing on PCCW buyout
A Hong Kong court deferred a hearing on Tuesday on a $2.2 billion plan to take the dominant telecoms operator PCCW private, giving the securities watchdog time to provide evidence in an investigation of alleged vote buying. Trading in PCCW shares was suspended before a High Court hearing on the controversial plan, raising concerns the... »
Top 10 Telecom Markets: Asia
The Asia/Pacific region now forms one of the largest telecom markets in the world, and almost certainly the one with the highest growth potential in many areas of telecom. As Pyramid Research pointed out in its October 2008 “Asia-Pacific Market Perspective,” the region comprises “50% of the world’s population and has a relatively low... »
Japan’s Telecom Market to Show Modest Growth Through 2013, Pyramid Research Predicts
Japan’s telecommunications services market will grow by 1.1 percent each year over the next five years, with revenue growth from IPTV, VoIP, and mobile data services making up for declines in legacy service offerings, according to the latest report from Pyramid Research (pyr.com), the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications... »
Skype adding 380k users per day, targeting enterprise market
Skype is touting its growth and enterprise uptake, claiming it now adds 380,000 users per day and that one-third of registered members use the VoIP service for business purposes. The end-of-year head count of 405 million registered users used 2.6 billion SkypeOut minutes in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company is pushing small and... »
PCCW leaves public stage
Nothing quite exercises Hong Kong retail investors like PCCW, the telecommunications company controlled by Richard Li. Nine years after PCCW paid HK$218bn (US$28bn) in cash and shares for Hongkong Telecom, then controlled by Cable & Wireless of the UK, minority investors on Wednesday met to approve a buy-out offer from Pacific Century Regional Developments, Mr... »
Philippines sent most SMS messages in Asia Pacific
A total of 6.37 billion text messages were sent through their messaging systems across Asia Pacific over the 2008/2009 Christmas and New Year period. According to Acision, the communication solutions provider, short message service (SMS) messages formed a large majority of the traffic with 6.36 billion messages, while multimedia messaging service (MMS) messages were recorded... »
564 million 3G subscribers in Asia Pacific by 2013: Frost & Sullivan
The Asia-Pacific’s 3G subscriber base is expected to top 564 million by 2013, according to analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. This accounts for about 18.2 percent of all mobile users. The region was home to an estimated 158.4 million 3G subscribers last year and some 121 million the year before. To read this MIS Asia report in... »
With Servers, Now Cisco Fights Partners
It’s nice to see The New York Times and others finally catching up to us by reporting that Cisco Systems is working on a new kind of server. We first reported the development of these new servers back in March 2008, essentially a lifetime on the web, which has short memories but (almost)... »
2008 IP contact center market up 37% over 2007
Infonetics Research reported Wednesday that the IP contact center market in 2008 was up 37 percent from 2007. The report, entitled “Unified Communications and IP Contact Center Market Share and Forecast,” also predicted slowdowns in both markets due to poor macroeconomic conditions. But, it said strong IP contact center growth in the Asia Pacific... »
10 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 year –- one that was good, bad and ugly. Here is a rundown of 10 stories that defined the sector in 2008: 1. Optical cable cuts... »