Broadband / Network Services

EU may force mobile carriers to allow VoIP to prevent anti-competitive practices.

Nortel continues under bankrupcy protection amid reports of a sell-off and talk of it being no more as an entity

AT&T is pushing to extend its exclusive iPhone deal with Apple despite the fact they are paying over $300 per sub to Apple for the opportunity.

At 0.3grams of CO2 per message, SPAM is killing the environment

Phorm, the controversial DPI ad targeting firm was sounding bullish recently after much criticism and the British authorities declared their activities legal (or at least not illegal enough to prosecute), then major portals were urged to boycott the technology (Amazon and Wikipedia have responded so far) and now the European Commission has started legal action over user data interception but apparently it's acceptable that the UK Government department tasked with responding to the EU has a Phorm (non-exec) board member as a paid advisor.

Time-Warner Cable backs off from tiered pricing tariff after major negative feedback but Bell Canada is still considering introducing it

India adds 10m mobile subs in March to total 288.3m

US Senate: proposed law controlling mobile SPAM (ie SMS) and mandatory recognition of no-SMS opt-out list. Good idea. Singapore has some decent rules but realisitically, it's hard to complain about the few that still arrive.

FTTH

Huawei wins Libya FTTH contract

FTTH Prism Newsletter: Why Municipal Fiber Hasn't Succeeded, counter commentary

Public WiFi

RedSky offers a solution for E911 location awareness for VoWiFI (back-end link to IP-PBX)

WiMAX

Maravedis report: 4G subs growth in 2008: 1.45m for BWA/WiMAX, 90m for WCDMA

Mobile / FMC / VoIP

Mobile sales are 20% down, Nokia's 1Q09 profit slashed by 90% although that's not as bad as it sounds

iPhone: is the Push technology in V3 software too expensive for small companies?. Having initially dissed the iPhone as unsuitable for the enterprise, Forrester Research now says recommends it for consideration and might even e better than a BlackBerry

SingTel one of first to offer Nokia Messaging (S$5.35 pm, Nokia E63, 2yr contract)

Palm Pre: first good look at the Classic emulation mode for older Palm apps - looks good, if that's interesting to you.

Android: version 1.5 of the SDK is out to developers

Another "2009 is the year of the Femtocell" story, this time with a question mark. Truth is, they can radically alter network stratagies for different operational models and it's only reasonable for major telcos to start slowly to gain understanding before massive investments.

Bus TV: nice use of mobile DTV to provide service on buses in Rayleigh, NC

AT&T's new Family Map service launches amid an expected chorus of concerns over stalking or spying.

Femtocells: slow broadband access could choke data services (yes, but not everyone in the world is stuck with max 3Mbps ADSL) although in the short-term, with congested cells, Airvana claims a x5 improvement using its FCs.