Categories: telecom

Ericsson Appoints New CEO, Hans Vestburg

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 25

I just spoke with Hans Vestburg, who will become Ericsson's new president and CEO come Jan. 1, 2010. Vestburg, who currently serves as Ericsson's CFO, replaces Carl-Henric Svanberg, who has accepted the position of chairman of BP, Ericsson announced this morning.

One Number to Ring All Your Phones: Google Resurrects GrandCentral Service

Posted by: Rob Hof on March 12

With no news for so many months after Google bought GrandCentral Communications in July 2007, a lot of people thought it might be one more Google acquisition that ended up...

Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent Win the Verizon Wireless LTE Sweepstakes; Clearwire Talks Trash

Posted by: Spencer Ante on February 18

The battle for the fourth generation wireless networks is officially on. At the Mobile World Congress trade show in Bareclona today, Verizon Wireless announced that it has selected Ericsson and...

Wiretapping for Dollars

Posted by: Rob Hof on September 24

No, it's no joke: A company called Pudding Media is offering people free Internet phone service if they allow advertisers to pitch them ads based on the content of...

What Did Cisco's $3.2 Billion for WebEx Buy?

Posted by: Rob Hof on March 15

Following the deal announced by Cisco for the Web conferencing service, here are the candidates: 1) A channel for its cool telepresence system, according to Sean Ness. 2) A pig...

TellMe's Long Journey to Redmond

Posted by: Rob Hof on March 14

TellMe Networks has to be one of the longest-running IPO candidates ever. Now, it's going to be part of Microsoft. I hope it doesn't get buried inside the colossus, because...

On Telephone Telepathy and Chat Robots

Posted by: Olga Kharif on September 05

E-mail and phone telepathy? A robot that can concurrently have up to 1,000 conversations? A new cancer treatment? All of these are being discussed at this week's British Association for the Advancement of Science conference.

Archiving Phone Calls? Why Not; It's Cheap

Posted by: Olga Kharif on May 16

Archiving phone calls is becoming increasingly cheap and easy. And that could lead to some corporations doing just that.

eBay's Skype Sued by StreamCast

Posted by: Rob Hof on March 27

According to VoIP Watch's Andy Abramson, StreamCast Networks has sued Skype, claiming StreamCast owns the FastTrack peer-to-peer technology powering the Internet phone phenom Skype, which eBay bought last year for...

VoIP Hype: Could It Lead to a Bust?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on September 11

Investors seem willing to shell outs billions for VoIP companies. But are these outfits, like Skype and Vonage, worth it? Chances are, the answer is no. And today's irrational exuberance over VoIP companies could lead to a bust.

Should Skype Migrate Away From Its Proprietary Technology?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on September 06

PC-to-PC calling service Skype has been wildly successful so far because it uses a proprietary technology. But would Skype need to standardize on Internet Protocol to do well long term?

SBC DSL--Promises Made, Promises Kept?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on August 29

Whatever happened to keeping the promises both implied and real that you make to a customer? In nearly every industry you look nowadays, it seems customer service is getting more...

First Phase of E-Rate Program Clean-up Nearly Complete

Posted by: Olga Kharif on August 09

Sources tell BusinessWeek Online that one of the investigations into E-Rate fraud is nearly over. The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce has completed its investigations and is about to start pointing fingers.