Items tagged with telecom

Since the first launch in 2019, the Starlink satellite network has steadily been growing. Once it had enough satellites in Earth orbit, SpaceX introduced the beta program, which has grown immensely as well. Now, in an FCC filing to become a telecommunications carrier, Elon Musk’s company disclosed that it has 10,000... Read more...
Besides smartphones, Huawei and ZTE have many products for network and IT infrastructure that have likely been implemented worldwide. Since early this year, however, the U.S. government has had both companies on the run due to evidence of hardware backdoors. Now, US lawmakers have backed approximately $1.9 billion to... Read more...
High-speed internet and robust infrastructure is often the life blood of growing communities looking to attract high tech business and satisfy citizens. In most cases, however, residents and businesses only have access to one, or at the most two, broadband internet providers. You'll usually have access to broadband... Read more...
Led by outspoken CEO John Legere, T-Mobile hasn't been subtle in its aggressive attempts to win over customers from competing wireless customers, and that's still the case in a new promotion designed to lure Verizon subscribers. It's called the "Never Settle Trial" and is a sarcastic spoof on Verizon's "Never Settle"... Read more...
Nokia just announced a huge acquisition today, confirming that it is purchasing one of its closest competitors in the network equipment market: Alcatel-Lucent. The purchase price was a hefty $16.6 billion in an all-stock transaction. The acquisition will allow Nokia to better compete with Chinese players like... Read more...
Earlier this month, Masayoshi Son, CEO of Sprint's parent firm SoftBank Corp., said the wireless carrier would adopt its "street fighter" tactics behind the leadership of newly appointed chief Marcelo Claure. It was also reported that Sprint was testing out new pricing plans as it prepares to battle T-Mobile... Read more...
Much to T-Mobile's chagrin, Sprint is no longer interested in acquiring the nation's fourth largest wireless carrier, and the decision to ditch any potential deal the two may have been negotiating could spark a price war. That's just fine by Sprint, which is testing out new pricing plans as it prepares itself for what... Read more...
Possessing the gift of gab is one thing, but only a handful of CEOs in charge of major companies are willing to speak candidly, even when it means offending rival firms. T-Mobile chief John Legere is one of them and now that Sprint has backed out of merger talks, the spunky CEO is right back at it with a string of... Read more...
History may look back at this time period and consider it the era of consolidation, especially in the technology sector. Hence, we're not shocked to learn that Sprint has agreed to buy T-Mobile for roughly $32 billion, though there are some significant hoops and obstacles to maneuver if a deal like this is to go... Read more...
Ever since terrestrial broadcasters shut down their stations and went off the air, the FCC has been mulling what to do with sections of spectrum and how that wireless space should be allocated between wireless broadcasters and other types of use. It's a complicated issue, in that much of the frequency in question is... Read more...
Two events in the telecommunications and cable world this week have highlighted why, exactly, we need net neutrality and stronger protections for consumer rights. First, on the cable side of the business, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Eagle Communications, and Comcast have collectively introduced a bill into the Kansas... Read more...
In a desperate bid to save a sinking ship, Alcatel-Lucent, a global mobile phone manufacturer and telecommunications equipment company, is planning to reduce its workforce by around 10,000 employees by the end of 2015, the firm announced today. The job cuts are part of what Alcatel-Lucent is calling "The Shift Plan,"... Read more...
Wireless carrier T-Mobile USA added 61,000 new customers in the fourth quarter, a vast improvement over the 526,000 subscriber losses it recorded a year prior. Unfortunately for T-Mobile, all those new customers didn't translate into positive revenue growth for the full year. On the contrary, T-Mobile earned $4.9 billion, a decrease of 5.2... Read more...
Verizon this week issued a strong challenge to the U.S. Congress to update the nation's antiquated and anti-competitive telecom rules (Verizon's words, not ours), saying that Congress must act now to address telecommunications policies that are broken. "The grinding you hear are the gears churning as policymakers try to fit fast-changing technologies... Read more...
France Telecom-owned Orange is planning to make high definition telephone calls available to British customers sometime this year. The HD voice service will require customers to buy new handsets. In return for upgrading to HD voice service, customers will enjoy clearer mobile phone calls that are said to make you feel as if you're in the same... Read more...
Telecommuting makes a lot of sense. Having information workers gathered into cubicle farms in a central location is so 1960s. The ability to quickly exchange information from remote locations, coupled with the high cost in time and energy to commute to the old office park, makes it increasingly popular now, and probably the de facto standard... Read more...
A massive volume of telecommunications data flows through undersea cables.  We've seen the havoc that's created when one of them is severed, and it looks like the middle-east and western Asia are now experiencing the trouble created when 4 of them are damaged in a little less than a week.Having one cable damaged is unusual, 2 or more... Read more...
The company whose name is virtually synonymous with on-line searches has been rumored to be interested in getting into the telecom business for quite a while now.  Apparently that rumor may be more fascinating than the truth: Google has a need for speed that only fiber optics can fufill:Google does have an abiding interest in bandwidth. Google's... Read more...