eWEEK EDITORS

Phone Marriage Tellme Networks last week announced its acquisition of European competitor Magic Phone. Tellme, backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, supplies eXtensible Markup Language software that supports advanced voice applications for companies such as AT&T. Interactive China Hoping to tap the purchasing power of The Shanghai Cable Network Co.s 1 million broadband subscribers, […]

As battered Nortel Networks goes in search of fresh leadership, its fortunes may depend on whether the regional Bells get the sweetheart deal theyre expecting from Congress. If the bill giving them relief from regulations becomes law, it will spur spending in Nortels direction, as the likes of BellSouth, SBC Communications and Verizon Communications turn […]

Gateway, Juno Settle FTC Cases Gateway and Juno Online Services got out from under federal scrutiny last week. The companies settled separate disputes with the Federal Trade Commission revolving around their disclosure practices to customers. Gateway was accused of misleading customers in 1999 by failing to disclose that customers who bought a computer with the […]

As of tomorrow, you will no longer need to buy an Internet Protocol phone to make and receive IP calls. Cisco Systems is rolling out a $210 box that links a broadband modem with a plain old phone. And other companies are right behind. Cisco on Tuesday plans to introduce its analog telephone adapter, the […]

The new Internet Protocol Standard will make the public Internet more reliable, international and useful — or so the theory goes, since the IP version 6 movement is so far missing the key element of applications. “There is not much pull in the market today for IPv6,” said Al Javed, chief technology officer of wireless […]

Pick up the phone, dial a number, chat, and hang up. How do IP devices perform that same operation? The answer is the Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP. The application protocol is simple. Its function is to set up, modify and terminate any type of communications session between two or more devices. Examples of a […]

Theres a dirty secret that some wireless companies are just discovering: Businesspeople are consumers, too. The word “consumer” has been banished from the wireless vernacular. Industry leaders preached that business services were the only way to earn revenue. The consumer marketplace isnt worth a dime, they said. But just as there are two sides to […]

It was once amusing for speakers at wireless conferences to underscore the reliability of mobile phones by asking audience members: When was the last time you had to reboot you cell phone? The answer, of course, was never. That joke isnt funny anymore. Software glitches on new wireless handsets have led to recalls by NTT […]

The British powerhouse bought Web hosting and content distribution company Digital Island for $340 million last week. The acquisition did not squelch industry talk that Cable & Wireless — which owns MCIs Internet backbone and views the U.S. as both a strategic market and an incubator of new Internet services — is on the prowl […]

Cable operators have spent the last few years getting their acts together. Now theyre ready to put on a show. Since the mid-1990s cable operators have been pouring money into upgrading their network infrastructures. Theyve laid new fiber-optic lines, increased the bandwidth of their headends, and reconfigured their back-office and customer service capabilities — all […]

Browser in Hand Handspring, maker of handheld computers that run the Palm OS, last week said it struck a deal with Microsoft to make MSN Mobile the start page for Handsprings Blazer Web browser. Google provides Blazers search feature. Handspring will bundle Blazer with its VisorPhone combination handheld and mobile phone, and will sell the […]

Usually, when an industrys biggest player sneezes, everyone else catches cold. But in the realm of networking equipment, something like the opposite is happening. The biggest player, Cisco, has caught cold, and the little guys barely have a sniffle. We take these anomalous symptoms to indicate that the networking industry as a whole is in […]