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Cloudflare, a web infrastructure provider and content delivery network, is reportedly suffering outages resulting in major websites crashing across the internet. Multiple websites crashed worldwide today as one of the web’s most important infrastructure providers and content delivery networks, Cloudflare, suffered an outage. Cloudflare provides DNS and CDN services and powers approximately “40% of the internet.” The Cloudflare system status page stated that “the issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.” The issue is reportedly related to the Cloudflare Resolver in the company’s edge network in certain locations. The outage struck at quite a few Cloudflare data...

Softbank reaches $20B deal to buy Sprint Nextel Japanese mobile carrier would get 70 percent of Sprint if agreement goes through; Sprint would be tougher rival of Verizon, AT&T Updated 5:10 a.m. ET TOKYO Tokyo-based mobile phone company Softbank Corp. has reached a deal to acquire 70 percent of U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Nextel for $20.1 billion in the largest-ever foreign acquisition by a Japanese company. The deal, announced Monday at a joint news conference in Tokyo by Softbank President Masayoshi Son and Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse, was given a green light by the boards of both companies. It...

Ever wonder why the telcos spend so much on lobbyists rather than, oh I don’t know, value-creating new applications like Skype and Vonage? And don’t think for a second that killing net neutrality isn’t a huge issue. It has already happened in Canada and the results weren’t pretty. As the National Journal noted today, this could be an election deal-breaker for the GOP!

Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telephone company, said yesterday that it would freeze the guaranteed pension plan covering 50,000 of its managers and expand their 401(k) plans instead. In freezing the plan, the company will pay workers the benefits they have already earned but will not let them build additional benefits.

SBC Communications, the second-largest regional phone company in the nation, is in talks to buy AT&T for more than $16 billion, according to executives close to the negotiations. A deal, if reached, would be the final chapter in the 120-year history of AT&T, the first technological giant of the modern age and the original model for telecommunications companies worldwide. A deal would be a reunion of sorts, putting back together some of the largest pieces of the Ma Bell telephone monopoly, which was broken up in 1984. The talks, which the executives described as "fluid" and "very, very sensitive"...

By Robert X. Cringely The world has gone crazy for wireless data. In the dismal days since the dot-com meltdown of 2001, almost the only happy business news has been in the wireless sector, whether it is WiFi, Bluetooth, SMS messaging, you name it. WiFi hotspots are everywhere, 3G mobile data is slowly coming, and next year, we'll see the first 802.16 WiMax products -- the first of these initiatives to cause real concern for the telephone companies. WiMax, which promises fixed wireless 70 megabit-per-second data service over a distance up to 50 kilometers, scares the phone companies because it...

Telephone industry asks court to block FCC rules allowing consumers to transfer phone numbers Friday, November 21, 2003 BY JONATHAN D. SALANT ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - A trade group representing local telephone companies sued on Friday to block a new rule that will allow customers to transfer their landline number to a cell phone. The United States Telecom Association said the rule, which takes effect Monday for people living in the 100 largest metropolitan areas, gives an unfair boost to the wireless industry. The trade group asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for an emergency...

Shortchanged The Baby Bells may have bilked consumers out of billions by inflating the cost of their networks. Regulators seem content to overlook the matter. Front-page headlines in June 2000 hailed a historic deal that dramatically cut phone rates for the nation's consumers. The Federal Communications Commission, in persuading the Baby Bells to slash the access fees they charge long-distance carriers for routing calls to their local lines, said it would save customers $3.2 billion a year. The FCC's claim to have enacted "the largest rate cut in the history of federal telephone regulation" was the New York Times'...