Cincinnati Bell (News - Alert) Buys CyrusOne
Cincinnati Bell and ABRY Partners plan to acquire the data center operations of CyrusOne for $525 million. CyrusOne, which sells colocation and data center services to Fortune 500 companies, is the largest privately held data center operator out of Texas. It has seven data centers in Austin, Dallas and Houston, totaling 163,000 square feet of data center capacity. Cincinnati Bell's Technology Solutions segment, with CyrusOne (News - Alert), will have 609,000 square feet of data center capacity in 17 facilities. The growth in cloud computing was a key driver of the deal.
www.abry.com
http://cincinnatibell.com
www.cyrusone.com



Publishers Call for E-book Standard
There are plenty of examples of hard-fought format wars that can be found in the high-tech history books. The next one may be over e-book formats. Publishers reportedly are more than a little uncomfortable with the range of format options and distribution options from which they have to select as the era of the e-reader unfolds. But their main beef seems to be that these different formats lock users into reading books and other documents only while within a specific environment. They make this complaint despite the recent, high-profile moves by companies such as Amazon to make e-readers for their e-books available on the iPad and other mobile devices.
www.amazon.com
www.apple.com












AT&T Pulls the Trigger on Metered Mobile Data
Last month AT&T went live with metered data packages for new subscribers to its mobile data services. It's a move that AT&T says will save money for the majority of its customers. Current customers can continue to use the company's $29.99-a-month unlimited data plan, but new customers will have to use the metered plan, which starts at $15 a month for downloads of 200 megabytes of data - the equivalent of approximately 400 Web pages, 1,000 e-mails with no attachments, 50 online photos or 20 minutes of video, according to AT&T. If users exceed the 200 megabytes usage they will automatically be charged another $15 for another 200 megabytes.
www.att.com


LTE (News - Alert) Will Spur Different Pricing for Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless expects to offer tiered monthly data plans on its first LTE networks, which are expected to go live in 30 to 40 metro markets later this year. That's a change from the unlimited access it offers today on its 3G network. The new tiers are likely to offer buckets of data by the megabyte and could potentially allow customers to share those megabytes across their multiple wireless devices, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam (News - Alert) indicated in a recent report. www.verizonwireless.com


GSMA (News - Alert): Most LTE Operators Embracing HSPA Iterations
The share of mobile operators worldwide with plans to move from HSPA to HSPA+ and then on to LTE accounts for 85 percent, according to the GSM Association.
www.gsmworld.com



Broadband Operators Grow Value-Added Revenues
A new report from Point Topic reveals that consumer broadband value-added services revenue grew by 30 percent last year. The subscriber numbers of such services, meanwhile, increased 13 percent in 2009. The leading services were IP telephony, security, online gaming, IPTV (News - Alert) and online music. The "Consumer Broadband Value Added Services" report indicates the run rate for such revenues ascended from $39.6 billion to $48.9 billion during 2009 – a better improvement than that for consumer broadband lines, which grew 14 percent, from 366 million to 417 million from Q408 to Q409. www.point-topic.com


Cableco Seeks Wi-Fi Ticket to Ride
Cablevision Systems (News - Alert) Corp. is setting the stage to bring Wi-Fi to New York City train riders. The nation's fifth- largest U.S. cable operator has put in a proposal to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority requesting permission to offer the wireless service to Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North commuters. Cablevision expects to offer Wi-Fi on the trains for free to its high-speed Internet subscribers. Those who are not Cablevision broadband customers will be charged a "reasonable" fee.


VoIP Pioneer Unleashes $9.99 Vonage (News - Alert) Lite
Vonage has rolled out a brand new calling plan for consumers who don't use a lot of minutes and want to save. The plan, called Vonage Lite, sells for $9.99 and is available online only. It offers customers 200 minutes of residential calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Each additional minute goes for 5 cents.
www.vonage.com


Partners Unveil Google (News - Alert) TV

Google TV last month was announced by Google and its partners on the effort, Adobe, Best Buy (News - Alert), DISH Network, Intel, Logitech and Sony. Through the new service, Google will be able to combine content with intelligent search and use Android and Chrome as the underpinning platforms. That content will include repurposed YouTube (News - Alert) content. And the Google TV navigational tool will enable users to search DISH Network, Internet and stored DVR content simultaneously. Sony TV sets using Intel (News - Alert) technology and running the Google TV software are planned for launch later in the year.
www.google.com


Wireless Operator T-Mobile (News - Alert) Undergoes Management Transition
T-Mobile's seven-year CEO, Robert Dotson, is stepping down. Philipp Humm, a veteran of the mobile space and former CEO of T-Mobile Deutschland, will be chief executive designate starting July 1 and CEO beginning in February 2011. The management transition will be complete by next May. The change is widely being viewed as a positive development for the company.
www.t-mobile.com


Space Systems/Loral Tapped to Provide New Telesat (News - Alert) Satellite
Telesat, the world's fourth largest fixed satellite services operator, will procure from Space Systems/Loral a multipurpose satellite for launch in the second half of 2012. The new satellite, called Anik G1, will carry 16 transponders operating in the extended Ku-band for Shaw Direct, which sells DBS services in Canada. Anik G1, to be co-located at the 107.3 degrees West Longitude orbital location with the Anik F1R satellite Shaw Direct presently uses, will allow Shaw Direct to expand significantly the video content it offers throughout Canada.
www.ssloral.com
www.shaw.ca
www.telesat.ca


Infonetics (News - Alert): Carrier Capex Dropped 5.9% in 2009
Worldwide, service providers spent $295 billion in 2009 on telecom and non-telecom capital expenditure projects, according to Infonetics Research (News - Alert). That's 5.9 percent less than they spent in 2008, but a smaller drop in carrier capex than many expected in light of the recession. The report also reveals that carriers reduced investment in network infrastructure by 8 percent in 2009, with the cuts in IP voice infrastructure, optical network equipment, video infrastructure, and IP routers. At 19 percent, mobile infrastructure spending made up the largest portion of all network infrastructure investments made by service providers.
www.infonetics.com


Global Wireless Customers at Verizon (News - Alert) Dig VoIP
Verizon Global Wireless customers used 200 percent more VoIP time in 2009 than in the previous year. Since the company launched its VoIP portfolio 10 years ago, it's seen steady growth reflecting customer desire for reliable, cost-effective IP voice services, according to the company. As a result of the interest, Verizon has added new applications such as short-duration calling systems for call centers and mass notification systems. The company also has announced plans to add more robust VoIP network interfaces in Europe later this year.
www.verizon.com


GENBAND (News - Alert) Closes on Nortel CVAS
It's a done deal. GENBAND has acquired substantially all assets of the Nortel Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business. With this acquisition, GENBAND's media, session and security gateways are combined with Nortel's (News - Alert) softswitches, media gateways and application platforms. The new, combined company's products are deployed at two-thirds of the world's marquee service providers, which span the fixed, mobile, cable and broadband arenas.
www.genband.com


Cableco Brings Midwest Data-Only 3G Service
Comcast (News - Alert) Corp. has announced the release of its High-Speed 2go Nationwide 3G-only service for consumers in Illinois, northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan. The service employs a 3G- ly data card that operates on Sprint's (News - Alert) national 3G network. Comcast already offers 4G Metro, wireless service and a Nationwide Preferred 4G/3G wireless service.
www.comcast.com


Vodacom, Novell (News - Alert) Partner on Cloud Computing
In a move to help businesses across Africa securely provision, manage and monitor multi-tenant applications deployed from Vodacom (News - Alert) Business's cloud infrastructure, Novell BrainShare Europe and Vodacom Business have announced a partnership that will integrate much of Novell's Intelligent Workload Management portfolio. That includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Platespin Virtualization and Workload Management, and Identity and Security solutions.
www.novell.com
www.vodacom.com


ON24 Collaborates with Global Crossing (News - Alert)
Global Crossing is using ON24's Webcast Center platform and Virtual Show solution for videoconferencing collaboration services to offer customers an interactive tool to reach audiences worldwide. Global Crossing delivers a single online video platform that combines real-time, community-building on the social Web with online content creation, analytics, and control.
www.globalcrossing.com
www.on24.com



Austin to Get New Data Center Data
Foundry, which provides colocation and disaster recovery services, expects to begin building a new master-planned greenfield data center development in Austin starting this month. The plan is to create a $150 million 250,000-square-foot data center by the second quarter of 2011. The new facility will become the only purpose- built, carrier-neutral data center in the central Texas region, according to the company.
www.datafoundry.com


SCOPIA Elite MCU Enables Videoconferencing Interconnection
RADVISION's new telepresence solution, the SCOPIA Elite MCU, can establish connections with telepresence systems from Cisco (News - Alert), Logitech/LifeSize, Polycom and Tandberg. It allows tele-presence users to view all meeting participants in a multi-party call, including those on traditional videoconferencing systems or tele-presence systems from other vendors.
www.radvision.com


Cisco ASR 1000 Helps M2M Provider Grow
KORE Telematics, a wireless network provider specializing in machine-to-machine communications, has deployed the Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers to support its continued growth. Compugen (News - Alert), a Cisco Gold Certified Partner, installed the company's ASR 1000 Series routers to help enable KORE to scale rapidly its business to support more than 11 million wireless devices reliability.
www.cisco.com
www.koretelematics.com


New Service from AT&T Verifies E-Mail Integrity
AT&T Secure E-mail Gateway (News - Alert) Service is now available to verify the integrity of a message prior to its entry to an organization's network. It also helps to monitor, examine, and take action on all outbound e-mail that contains content that violates data loss prevention policies.
www.att.com


Ford on HTC (News - Alert) EVO: 'This Thing Rocks'
TMCnet columnist and high-tech personality Carl Ford recently said that some folks wonder whether wireless will ever compete with fiber. He responds by saying Sprint is already doing it with its HTC EVO phone. Ford calls the device "amazing," noting it supports up to eight Wi-Fi devices, an 8-megapixel back, a 1.3 megapixel front, HDTV support to stream video including to your home TV, and a 4.3-inch screen.
www.sprint.com

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