VoIP technology company ShoreTel has filed a patent infringement counterclaim against competitor Mitel Networks. Filed in Ontario Canada Superior Court, the suit seeks $10 million in damages as well as an injunction.The action comes in reaction to a Mitel patent infringement filing against ShoreTel at the end of June....
When last week's failure of SunRocket left some 200,000 subscribers scrambling for an alternative home phone service, many saw this as the free market at work. Free market as in, survival of the fittest, and the availability of other choices waving discounts to former SR customers as the wisdom of...
Colleague Anne Broache reports that a federal appeals court weighing the patent case that Verizon filed against Vonage heard arguments earlier today but did not immediately reach a decision.Anne thinks that one hint about what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may be thinking...
FCC Chair Kevin Martin is addressing NXTComm now via a satellite hookup.Priorities he's mentioned include:Â Making sure that Uni versal Service fee assessment policies are updated so that people live in rural areas can be connected to broadband. He backed reverse auctions as a way to fast-track this goal. Making sure that...
Starting today, U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea can no longer use U.S.-based VoIP services to phone home.Now, they will have to use a South Korean telco such as Korea Telecom Corp., Hanaro Telecom Inc. as well as LG Dacom Corp. These soldiers must obtain a South Korean local...
In terms of Internet broadband subscribers per 100 residents, the U.S. keeps slipping further down the world rankings every time a new report is released.Today is one of those days. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD released data that notes that in December, 2006, the U.S. ranks...
Just a few minutes ago, U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton issued an order barring Vonage from signing up new customers.The order is for the length of the appeal process, in which Vonage appeals a ruling that it infringed on three Verizon patents.The only good morsel of new on this...
As The New York Times noted earlier this week, defunct video-on-demand company Intertainer filed a lawsuit asserting that Apple, Google and Napster are infringing on a 2005 patent that covers the commercial distribution of audio and video over the Internet.Based on that information I decided to look at that...
The city of Baltimore has sued Vonage to collect an excise tax Vonage insists it shouldnt have to pay.As part of a deficit-reduction plan passed in 2004, the city imposed a $3.50 monthly tax on cell phones and land lines. Baltimore now says that the tax should apply to...
Earlier this afternoon, Universal Music Group sued MySpace for copyright infringement.The problem seems to be that Universal believes that MySpace facilitates conversion and upload of copyrighted videos and music files of their artists to unauthorized third parties.No dollar amount on the suit yet, but Universal says that of the "thousands...
And so, as Rich Tehrani reports, it played out in a Texas courtroom yesterday when Comcast successfully defended itself against a $2.2 billion lawsuit filed by Caritas Techologies.Dave Farber, who is often cited as the "grandfather of the Internet," holds a series of VoIP-related patents. That was, and is,...
I know that many advocates of meaningful Congressional action on net neutrality are hopeful that tomorrow's elections will result in a shift of power to a Democratic party that generally seems to be more sympathetic to pro-net neutrality arguments than the Republicans are.There's two reasons why tomorrow's results are not...
According to analyst reports, the volume of enterprise data doubles every 18 months - and a lot information is inaccurate, duplicated or out-of-date and needs to be managed. Commentary - Every corporate decision and operation relies on the quality of the organization?s underlying data. ...
Just like 9/11 thousands will have to die Before we give a damn. It's really a shame.and everything workshow's that possible?Unfortuantely, it will take a disasterIn the US, until disater strikes no one will do anything. Once it does happen then there will be screaming for heads to role....
Yahoo delivered a bit of a surprise for its third-quarter earnings, beating Wall Street’s expectations handily and offering signs that CEO Carol Bartz is turning the company around. For the quarter, the company reported net income of $186 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenue of...
Las Vegas?"But if you?re going to let New Yorkers buy from Vermont why not let them buy from Las Vegas?"Uh, because Las Vegas is NOT A STATE.We are the united states of america and not the united cities of america.I could have written Nevada, trueBut Las Vegas is funnier and...
Why?Because any future energy system , even if coal-powered, will make great use of IT, software and digital technologies. As will any affort to convert energy systems to solar, wind, tidal, etc. Even the digital and nano-tech being used in cars now and in future will come from...
How They RollThis is just how the GOP rolls. When Bill Clinton left office we were number one or two in broadband. Now we're down around 17 behind some Eastern European countries. The GOP keeps saying they're about competition, but they keep passing bills to stifle real competition. Sort of...
Office Web AppsNot at all impressed with the Offfice Web Apps....while the other issue that many will still have to decide upon, if they want/ or should allow their own, or business data to be stored on the web/ internet/ cloud.....MS, along with many others pushing Web based apps have...
Which organizations want to be in the news because of a security breach? Threats to corporate information continue to increase and IT organizations now have to worry about internal and external attack vectors - including employees who may either intentionally or accidentally risk critical information. Loss of this critical information...