Broadband Breaking News

Clearwire set to launch its first WiMAX city
Clearwire will formally launch its first commercial WiMax network on Tuesday in Portland, Ore., laying down the second piece of a planned nationwide system that was first unveiled last year in Baltimore. More..

India postpones auction of 3G spectrum
India has postponed to Jan. 30 the auction of 3G spectrum to give potential bidders more time to study bid documents and rules for the auction, a government agency said Tuesday. More..

Cable repairs set back by second undersea break
Efforts to restore normal communications between Europe and Asia have suffered a setback after an important undersea cable broke for a second time, this time at a much greater depth. More..

Swedish tabloid buys 700 iPhones
Sweden's largest tabloid newspaper, Aftonbladet, will be the first company in the nation to use a new iPhone-based enterprise package from TeliaSonera as it equips 700 of its employees with iPhones. More..

Undersea cable cuts disrupt Internet access
Internet and telephone traffic between Europe and the Middle East and Asia was hampered Friday after three major underwater data lines were cut, according to France Telecom. More..

Wi-Fi coming to Japan's bullet trains next year
Passengers on Japan's super-fast bullet trains will be able to surf the Web while travelling at 270 kilometers per hour thanks to a new service that will start in March. More..

Swedish regulator wants to unbundle fiber access
Swedish incumbent TeliaSonera will have to open up its fiber network to competitors, according to a new proposal from local telecommunications regulator PTS (Post och Telestyrelsen). More..

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WiMAX speeds ahead: Sprint, Clearwire unveil dual-mode router
Sprint and Clearwire's WiMax plans seem to be moving ahead. Sprint announced Wednesday that on December 21 it will begin selling a dual-mode WiMax/CDMA router ($149.99 after a $50 rebate) with a two-year contract.  More..

Google, Microsoft say they still support net neutrality
Google and Microsoft said Monday that they have not backed away from their support for net neutrality principles, despite a report to the contrary. More..

How an Obama FCC will deal with major telecom issues
With new leadership soon to take over at the Federal Communications Commission, observers say the FCC is likely to be more skeptical of big telecom mergers and to embrace network neutrality rules. More..

Intel, Ericsson team up on mobile security for laptops
Intel and Ericsson are offering to protect lost or stolen laptops by sending an SMS (Short Message Service) to the laptop will render it useless to thieves. More..

Verizon aims for LTE deployment in 2009
Verizon Wireless expects to begin deploying next-generation LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless broadband within a year, a top executive of the carrier said Tuesday. More..

Fujitsu Siemens joins mobile broadband push
Fujitsu Siemens Computers has become a member of the Mobile Broadband Initiative, whose goal is to push built-in support for mobile broadband using HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) in laptops. More..

Obama: Broadband, computers part of stimulus package
Rolling out broadband and putting more computers in schools will be pieces of a massive economic recovery package proposed by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, he has announced. More..

White space, AWS-3: How much wireless is too much?
The U.S. is attempting to squeeze as much wireless broadband service as possible over its airwaves. More capacity, more services, more choice - it all sounds good, right? Yet there are possible interference side effects that are as yet unknown. More..

Obama outlines plan to put every child online
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has outlined an ambitious plan to give every child in the U.S. access to the Internet and to connect the nation's hospitals with "cutting edge technology." More..

U.S. broadband Internet satellite scheduled for launch in 2011
A California satellite technology provider has signed a deal to put a planned broadband Internet satellite into orbit above the U.S. in the first half of 2011. More..

Telstra readies 21M bps mobile broadband service
Telstra will boost data speeds in its Next G mobile network to 21M bps (bits per second) early next year, and will conduct tests of the faster service this month, equipment vendor Ericsson said Friday. However, customers may have to wait longer for the arrival of compatible phones, which haven't yet caught up with prevous improvements to network performance. More..

We need a mobile broadband space race
On Oct. 4, 1957, Russia launched Sputnik, the world's first-ever man-made satellite, into Earth orbit. More..

Cisco renews call for national broadband strategy
Cisco this week renewed its call for a national broadband strategy to be a priority for the new Congress and the incoming Obama administration. More..

Analyst: Mobile data will continue boom in '09
There will be more than 36 million laptops connected to mobile data networks in Western Europe in 2009, compared to the 26 million estimated for the end of this year, according to market research company CCS Insight. More..

Nokia boosts upload and download speeds with 6260 phone
Nokia's 6260 is the company's first phone with support for both faster download and upload speeds using High Speed Packet Access, at up to 10.2Mbps and 2Mbps respectively, it announced on Tuesday. More..

BT ups pressure on regulator over fiber rollout
The boss of BT has ratcheted up the pressure on the U.K. telecoms regulator over the rollout of fiber in the U.K., after admitting in a newspaper article that its spending on fibre is being questioned by some of the carrier's shareholders. More..

Research sees U.S. making gains in broadband penetration
Germany, Sweden and the U.S. are expected to experience the greatest rate of broadband penetration growth in the world during the next five years, according to market research company Point Topic. More..