Broadband Breaking News

Sprint's WiMax service to include local features
Sprint Nextel will put location-based services front and center on its Xohm WiMax service, offering a portal with widgets for local weather, traffic, events, reviews and other information. More..

Intel demos prototype in India of US$114 Atom device
Intel Thursday showed a prototype of a range of low-cost "nettops' that are to be introduced in the country over the next several months. The devices, will be offered in the country by domestic and multinational PC vendors and local system integrators. More..

AMD sells digital TV business to Broadcom
Advanced Micro Devices has agreed to sell its digital television business to Broadcom for $192.8 million, as the chip maker fights to return to profitability, the companies announced Monday. More..

Comcast: No new traffic-management plan yet
Comcast has made no final decisions on how to manage network congestion, despite news reports Wednesday that it will slow traffic for heavy users for up to 20 minutes during times of peak network use. More..

East Coast Web connections run laps around rest of U.S., study says
A new study claims that states on the East Coast have significantly faster median download speeds than the rest of the country, with the top states doubling or nearly tripling the national median speed. More..

Kenya banking on triple play to lower digitization costs
The Kenyan government is banking on technology convergence to lower the cost of migrating from analog to digital broadcasting, said Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication. More..

White spaces group: Mics don't interfere with TV
Wireless microphones were operating in spectrum occupied by television stations but didn't interfere with broadcasts during recent tests of new wireless broadband devices in Maryland, says a group pushing for government approval of the new devices. More..

Orange launches mobile broadband package
Orange at the weekend launched a new mobile broadband package, which includes a free dongle and a discounted ultraportable Asus laptop, as more people eschew their fixed-line internet connection and opt for the flexibility of mobile broadband. More..

Verizon launches emergency communications service
Verizon Business has launched a service designed to allow police, fire departments and other emergency responders to connect to each other on the same network, whether they are using traditional radio sets, mobile phones, fixed-line phones or e-mail. More..

Tata offers TelePresence rooms for rental
Indian telecommunications service provider Tata Communications plans to offer TelePresence services worldwide based on technology from Cisco. More..

Mobile telephony drives France Télécom revenue
France Télécom reported revenue up 1.5 percent for the first half of the year, with growth strongest in its mobile communications division. More..

Olympics, security holes, IT job dissatisfaction and more
Beijing Prepares for "High-Tech Olympics"; Endpoint Security Holes an Open Door for Attackers; IT Leaders Can't Get No Job Satisfaction; and more. More..

Alcatel-Lucent CEO and Chairman resign
Alcatel-Lucent's CEO Patricia Russo plans to step down before the end of the year, and Chairman Serge Tchuruk will quit on Oct. 1. Russo will stay on until the board finds a replacement, the company said Tuesday. More..

US poised for broadband explosion, says Gartner
The U.S. has fallen behind on broadband penetration, but that will change in the next four years, according to a report from Gartner. More..

Broadband to reach 77% of U.S. households by 2012, Gartner says
The United States will close its digital divide significantly within the next four years, with 77% of US households having a broadband Internet subscription, according to a new Gartner study.  More..

Groups urge FCC to keep the Internet open
The FCC needs to take steps to keep the Internet free of interference from broadband providers, such as the slowing of peer-to-peer traffic and the tracking of subscribers' Web habits, several witnesses told the FCC at a hearing Monday. More..

Comcast pitches IPv6 strategy to standards body
Comcast has developed an innovative approach for gradually migrating its customers to the next-generation Internet, and the ISP is promoting this approach to the Internet's leading standards body. More..

Aircell picks LTE to deliver in-flight mobile broadband
Airline communications provider Aircell has chosen Long Term Evolution (LTE) as its standard to give passengers in-flight access to 4G wireless services. More..

FCC moves toward prohibiting Comcast traffic management
Amid news reports that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is moving to prohibit Comcast from throttling BitTorrent traffic on its broadband network, a Comcast official said the agency has provided no guidance on how to deal with network congestion. More..

Sprint picks wireless backhaul for WiMAX
Sprint Nextel has picked a supplier for the wireless backhaul links that will connect its WiMAX network to the Internet in the carrier's first three deployments. More..

How Talari gets the most from WAN links
In the last newsletter I wrote about Talari Networks, a San Jose start-up whose technology lets enterprises take advantage of lower-priced broadband services, such as DSL or cable, to supplement (or even replace) expensive private WAN links. More..

Talari looks to expand WAN bandwidth options
With prices for consumer broadband services so low, wouldn't it be nice to use DSL, cable or Wi-Fi services for enterprise WAN connectivity? One start-up says it can be done - affordably and reliably. More..

War brewing over Swedish broadband subsidies
The Swedish government -- at least part of it, but we'll get back to that later -- is trying to get a second round of broadband subsidies off the ground. More..

Fiber access gains on cable for broadband access
For the first time, fiber-based broadband access is expanding faster than cable: 4.2 million compared to 2.5 million subscribers were added during the first quarter, according to the analysts at Point Topic. More..

Ericsson equips Toshiba laptops with mobile broadband
Ericsson will equip Toshiba's business laptops with integrated support for mobile broadband access using High Speed Packet Access, it announced on Tuesday. More..