December 2011

Millions of Microsoft customers may soon be able to use their smartphones for virtual meetings, collaborating remotely via telepresence. Polycom is making its telepresence solution part of Microsoft’s Lync unified communication platform, extending a partnership that is already a key part of Polycom’s business.

Gigabit Passive Optical Network technology, designed and developed in India by the Centre for Development of Telematics, was transferred to manufacturers today.

Subtel, Chile’s secretary of telecommunications, will disclose on Dec. 16 the new award conditions for the 4G auctions in the band of 2.6 GHz. The auction of three 20 MHz blocks of frequency is set for the first half of 2012.

Telecom operator GVT Holdings, owned by French entertainment and telecom group Vivendi, has been approved for a loan of U.S. $663 million (R$1.184 billion) from Brazilian development bank BNDES. The loan is intended to complement the company’s investment plans through 2013, which are aimed at expanding current business areas and new cities, as well as pay-TV operations and implementing innovation in telephony services and Internet bandwidth range, content and interactivity.

Although news, the big data concept has been recently spread among ICT market. “Big meets cloud” has been the EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) slogan this year. Big data and cloud …

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers, we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say …

What the wireline Internet has taught the world is that eventually power shifts from the ones providing the pipes to the ones providing value-added service. Unless net neutrality goes away, I expect this same phenomenon will take place in the wireless domain.

India’s state-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), which has posted a loss of $1.2 billion in its most recent fiscal year, plans to lease out spare capacity of its network of towers to private players, according to news reports.

Just when investors in Canada’s Research in Motion were enjoying some good news, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook tablet triggered a new round of sell orders on Wall Street with news of a $485 million charge related to a markdown of its inventory of unsold PlayBook tablets. RIM also said BlackBerry shipments are slipping and lowered its sales and earnings projections for the year.

With Occupy Wall Street movements across the country protesting the pay earned by investment bankers and brokers, the Senate Banking Committee heard arguments this week for and against a bill …

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for …

Verizon Wireless (VZ) bolstered its spectrum war chest today by announcing plans to acquire 122 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum licenses (also known as AWS spectrum) covering 259 million potential customers for …

Indian telecom operator Idea Cellular has picked up the most subscribers from other companies through the mobile number portability facility launched by the government a few months ago.

Amid a double-digit increase in global revenue during its fiscal first half, Digicel Group has completed its acquisition of Claro, América Móvil’s business in Jamaica, and the sale of its business in Honduras to América Móvil.

Colombia’s ICT Ministry has published a bulletin detailing the progress of its national digital plan, Vive Digital, which was launched last year to overcome several barriers to massification of the Internet.

Accustomed to the U.S. market, where banks have had no problems with buying standard ATMs, NCR Corp. has had to change to compete in the Brazilian market, where banks insist on customized machines.

The chiefs of leading telecom companies met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other key policy makers to discuss contentious issues plaguing the telecom sector.

Shares of Magma Design Automation (Nasdaq: LAVA) surged 25% after the company said it had agreed to be purchased by Synopsys Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) for $7.35 a share, or $507 …

Chipmakers Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN) all saw tremendous growth this year, according to preliminary 2011 market share rankings from research firm IHS. Acquisitions …

Clearwire (CLWR) avoided a potential default on an interest payment and secured its near-term future through a new agreement with parent company Sprint Nextel (S). The deal also guarantees the …

Tata Communications today announced the launch of InstaHCM, a human capital management addition to its InstaApps software-as-a-service portfolio. InstaHCM will offered in partnership with SuccessFactors Inc., a company dealing in cloud-based business execution software.

With its new lines of Lumia and Asha Windows-based phones, Nokia is hoping to maintain its hold on low-end consumers while increasing its appeal to high-end users, say analysts and company executives.

Finnish telecom giant Nokia is planning to add its Asha series of Web-enabled cellphones and Lumia 710 to the array of devices manufactured at its Manaus plant in northern Brazil.