Caron Carlson

As early as this week, regulators plan to issue the latest in a series of rewritten rules governing the obligations of the Regional Bell Operating Companies toward their competitors. The stakes are high in the perennial war between the RBOCs and rival carriers, but if regulators dont get the new rules right, it could be […]

Businesses turning to managed and hosted services for a smooth path to voice over IP are discovering an uncomfortable reality—not all offerings are enterprise-strength. For Micro Office Solutions LLC, an office space rental company in Manhattan targeting small businesses, the attraction to VOIPs savings and simplicity led to just such a disappointing false start. “It […]

From the time the technology was technically possible, VOIP has held second-class status in telecommunications, unable to deliver a call with the reliability, quality and security of plain old telephone service. Equipment vendors have coddled it, carriers have dismissed it, and users have mostly waited to see if it could ever deliver the promising mix […]

Enterprise communications systems are no longer used simply as tools of convenience and sound business practice but increasingly as crisis-management programs as well. The mass notification industry is growing as more organizations implement emergency calling networks for their employees, partners and affiliates. Government agencies, schools and transport companies are on the forefront of the mass […]

Before recessing for Thanksgiving, Congress approved legislation that allows the tech industry to hire 20,000 additional foreign workers next year. The industrys lobby lauded the measure as a boon to the economy and U.S. competitiveness, but many in the industrys rank and file see it as a way for companies to take advantage of low-cost […]

The tech industry is redoubling its lobbying efforts to raise the cap on the number of foreign nationals permitted to fill skilled jobs in the United States. With slim hope of seeing legislation passed this year exempting the industry from visa limits on foreign workers, IT companies are setting the groundwork for the next Congress […]

Telephone services are on the verge of an upheaval like none seen before, and whether they ultimately become increasingly innovative and economic or stifled and above-cost will hinge on decisions reached by policy-makers in Washington over the next year or two. With POTS (plain old telephone service) now viewed as a commodity, long-distance carriers are […]

After more than a year of leaving the threat of new state- and city-levied taxes looming over Internet access providers and online merchants, Congress is poised to reimpose a moratorium on taxing Internet access. The House and the Senate reached a standoff months ago on how to prohibit taxes that could dampen e-commerce. The House […]

Authentication developers are preparing new systems that offer enhanced data security but reduce the burden strict access controls traditionally place on users. At the Inside ID Conference & Expo in Washington this week, RSA Security Inc. will unveil an SSO (single-sign-on) system for enterprises that is designed to eliminate the hassle of myriad passwords. Called […]

IQ NetSolutions Inc. this week will roll out the latest version of its enterprise presence and call control technology, expanding instant messaging and enhancing directory services. VistaPoint 4.0, which aims to increase enterprise productivity by providing a common interface for PBX systems from different vendors, now incorporates Microsoft Corp.s Windows Messenger. The Westboro, Mass., developer […]

Makers of electronic voting machines declared victory for their technology in this years presidential election, but computer scientists, who collected thousands of reports of voting glitches, said the results may reveal a different outcome. And while the problems were not great enough to affect the outcome of the presidential race, they could affect some state […]

By reaching antitrust settlements with two additional litigants—Novell Inc. and the Computer & Communications Industry Association—Microsoft Corp. has brought its cost of persuading rivals to drop lawsuits to roughly $3 billion. The two settlements announced Monday morning likely put an end to the protracted antitrust litigation in U.S. courts first brought by the Department of […]