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EMP is electromagnetic radiation from an explosion (especially a nuclear explosion). The worst of the pulse lasts for only a second but any unprotected electrical equipment - and anything connected to electrical cables, which act as giant lightning rods or antennas - are affected by it. If a nation with a nuclear bomb and the ability to explode it high above an American city were to do so, it would have a massive effect in all directions. Almost immediately all communications systems in the country would be disrupted completely. No radio. No television. No internet. Indeed no electricity at all....

Former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson will deliver keynote addresses on the final day of CTIA WIRELESS 2008®, Thursday, April 3 at 9:30 a.m. at the Las Vegas Hilton, Barron Room. CTIA WIRELESS 2008 takes place April 1 – 3 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. John Edwards was a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President. Edwards served as U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1999-2005 and was John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in 2004. Fred Thompson was a candidate for the 2008 Republican nomination for President. He served as U.S. Senator from Tennessee from...

Company's plan for Iran trade brings guilty plea Mar. 18, 2008 Allied Telesis Labs, a telecommunications research company with offices on NC State's Centennial Campus, entered a guilty plea today to conspiring to trade illegally with Iran. According to a federal court press release, the company conspired to land and carry out a $95 million contract to rebuild telecommunications systems in Iranian cities including Teheran. The guilty plea followed a written plea agreement and required the defendant to pay a fine of $500,000. The plea came in federal court in Raleigh to charges of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency...

India has already built the world's cheapest car – the £1,250 Tata Nano – now the country has unveiled the telecoms equivalent: the £10 "people's phone". The mobile handset, developed by Spice, the Indian telecoms group that is listed in Bombay and worth £1 billion, is angled at the very lowest end of the market. This means the phone has jettisoned all "non-essential" features – such as a screen. "It is just a phone," said Bhupendra Kumar Modi, the Spice chairman, who hopes to sell about 10 million in the next year. Mobile phones priced under about £20 account for...

In the coming months, you'll see campaign ads everywhere: On billboards, bumpers, lawns, Facebook profiles. But did you ever think you'd hear one on a friend's cell phone? Did you ever think you'd want to? A company called YouMail launched a page last week with nine campaign-related voicemail recordings available for free download. Fans of certain candidates can set their greetings so they play to their whole address book or assign them only to a few select contacts. The idea hasn't yet taken off in any big way; only greetings supporting Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani have been...

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez solicited $125,000 in charity contributions from Verizon shortly after pushing successful legislation last year that is expected to bring billions to telecommunications firms in coming decades. Less than three months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Núñez's hotly contested bill, Verizon spread holiday cheer to seven of the Assembly leader's designated charities in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000. The contributions all were recorded in state disclosure documents on the same day, Dec. 7, weeks before the new legislation would allow Verizon, AT&T and other telephone firms to obtain statewide franchises to offer cable television programming. "It...

In a surprising anti-consumer decision, the Connecticut Department of Public Utility (CDPU) rejected AT&T’s application to expand its U-verse IPTV service further across Connecticut. This is surprising because AT&T was granted a statewide video franchise, but the CDPU shockingly classified IPTV as a cable offering. By forcing IPTV to conform to 1970’s era regulatory standards designed for cable monopolies, the CDPU and state attorney general have sided against competition and the free market. Connecticut is the only state to consider IPTV a cable system, and therefore it is not covered under video franchise law. Unfortunately for Connecticut’s consumers, this decision...

How intelligent does a phone have to be to deserve the title of “smartphone”? Should it be able to retrieve your e-mail? Probably, but not necessarily. Should a smartphone take high-resolution pictures, and play music and movies on the go? Many do—but then again, some don’t. “Smartphone” is a nebulous term that is as much marketing spin as it is a distinct category of mobile phone. Nevertheless, smartphones in one form or another have been around for over a decade, bringing e-mail and productivity software to anyone busy enough to carry their office around in a pocket wherever they go....

I've been having trouble with my broadband Internet service lately. It cuts out frequently. The calls to customer service have gotten longer. The actual speed of the service isn't close to what was advertised. And the price has gone up twice in a year. I'd like to take my business elsewhere. But I can't. Even though I live in a large metropolitan area, my local cable company is the only option for broadband at my condo. The local phone company has yet to wire my building for DSL. Satellite broadband -- which costs more for slower speeds -- isn't an...

A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books - with the world's fastest internet connection. Sigbritt Löthberg's home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed. But Sigbritt, who had never had a computer until now, is no ordinary 75 year old. She is the mother of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg who, along with Karlstad Stadsnät, the local council's network arm,...

Maybe it's time to stop grumbling about your cell phone company and just start your own. That's what Rod Farthing did, at 2:30 a.m. no less. Oh yeah, it took him just a few minutes to get Farthing Mobile up and running, replete with a selection of national calling plans and cell phone models. Business is slow so far: Since the April launch, Farthing has signed up two subscribers, himself and his son. But he has two prospects in his wife and another son. Well no, Farthing didn't actually build a cellular network or develop a billing system and everything...

Verizon Communications (VZ) is locked in a dispute with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick over attempts to close a tax loophole that would cost the phone giant upwards of $50 million a year. Cyndi Roy, a spokeswoman for the Governor's office, said Monday that Verizon has said that it will not deploy broadband services in western Massachusetts if the tax reform is implemented. Patrick has proposed the Municipal Reform Act, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that would end an exemption telecommunications companies have from property tax. "Verizon says that without the exemption telecommunications companies will not build broadband in western Massachusetts,"...

Mexico's Communications and Transport Secretary Luis Téllez (SCT.gob.mx) told Federal Communications (COFETEL.gob.mx) members and industry representatives that greater competition (in the telecommunications sector) would allow more Mexicans access to opportunities provided by new technologies. "Letting this new technology remain in just a few selective hands is something we do not want and are not going to allow," Téllez said. Teléfonos de México SA, or Telmex, owned by the world´s second-richest man, billionaire Carlos Slim, controls more than 90 percent of the nation´s fixed phone lines, while his América Móvil SA provides about 70 percent of cell-phone service in Mexico. Telmex...

This is a very long,interesting article that is hard to excerpt. Here is a brief portion of it: Aditional findings: Men gossip as much as women. The study found that men gossip at least as much as women, especially on their mobiles. Thirty-three percent of men indulge in mobile gossip every day or almost every day, compared with twenty-six percent of women. Men gossip for just as long and about the same subjects as women, but tend to talk more about themselves. Mobile as 'symbolic bodyguard'. Women use their mobile phones as 'symbolic bodyguards' when feeling vulnerable in public places...

Voice over IP wielding the knife, says analystVoIP technology spells the end of traditional home telephone numbers, according to an industry analyst. A study by JupiterResearch claims that the rise in fixed/mobile telephone services appeals strongly to Europeans, and that location will cease to be important for either making or receiving calls. The report said that 27 per cent of consumers are already interested in regularly using their mobile phone in place of their home telephone. "VoIP will convert the home telephone from analogue to digital and, once digital, the home telephone number will become unfixed," said Ian Fogg,...

Why should some telcos be allowed to send some bits at one price and other bits at another? The battle continues.Should a college student downloading a movie with BitTorrent pay his ISP more than a senior citizen trading emails with a grandchild, as phone companies argue? At its simplest, that’s what the current fight over Net neutrality in the United States comes down to. Networks want to impose a pay-per-use system based on a tiered formula that would prioritize traffic, and increase charges to third-party companies (which, in effect, would pass the extra charges on to their customers) for using...

May 12, 2006 — Americans by nearly a 2-1 ratio call the surveillance of telephone records an acceptable way for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, expressing broad unconcern even if their own calling patterns are scrutinized. Lending support to the administration's defense of its anti-terrorism intelligence efforts, 63 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the secret program, disclosed Thursday by USA Today, is justified, while far fewer, 35 percent, call it unjustified. Indeed, 51 percent approve of the way President Bush is handling the protection of privacy rights, while 47 percent disapprove — hardly a...

March 20, 2006 issue - Never count out a brand. Not long ago the once great AT&T name was headed for the boneyard, as was its former chairman's daring strategy of milking a cash-cow business for money to bet on fast-growth telecom. Now, as we see from last week's $90 billion telecom deal, both the AT&T name and its strategy are back. Big time. Who'da thunk it? When SBC Communications made a deal last winter to buy the shrunken remnants of faded blue-chip AT&T, it said it would eliminate the brand. Both AT&T Wireless and AT&T Broadband had previously been...

AT&T is on the rise again. A 20th century industrial icon, the company once known as American Telephone & Telegraph was chopped into pieces in the 1980s and then withered into a bite-size company that was easily swallowed up by one of its offspring last year. A proposed $67 billion deal to acquire BellSouth Corp., perhaps the biggest merger ever in the telecommunications industry, will restore some of AT&T’s lost heft, making it the local phone service provider in 22 states and giving it a workforce of more than 300,000 people. But for all its size the new AT&T is...

Vonage is looking to raise $250m as part of an IPO, the US-based VoIP outfit revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The cash will be used to fund the continued marketing of the service, which boasts some 1.4m subscribers. According to documents lodged with the SEC, the broadband telephony outfit lost $190m in the first nine months of last year on the back of revenues of $174m. Separately, Vonage announced that founder Jeffrey Citron is to take on a new role as chairman and chief strategist. He'll be dabbling in areas such as developing new...

The rapid growth in popularity of VoIP phone service is unlikely to slow anytime soon. Just in the corporate arena alone, VoIP phone lines are projected to grow from about 39 million to 532 million during the next four years, according to market research firm The Radicati Group. And that doesn’t include home VoIP lines. Cost is the primary driving force behind VoIP’s popularity. VoIP service is not subject to the taxes and fees that come with regular phone service, according to the FCC website. Also, long-distance charges are greatly reduced or eliminated because information can travel any distance for...

LAS VEGAS--Networking products maker Netgear and wireless calling provider Skype on Wednesday unveiled the first Wi-Fi phone designed to work on the internationally popular voice over IP service. The so-called Wi-Fi phone, which will allow Skype users to access the service and call anyone anywhere in the world, is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2006. The companies also said pricing would be announced in that time frame. The idea, company officials said at the Consumer Electronics Show here, is that Luxembourg-based Skype's members will be able to use the phone on any wireless Internet connection out...

Yhoo is expanding its reach in the fast-growing Internet calling market, offering a service that will allow people to make and receive low-cost computer calls to and from regular phones. The long-expected move could make the Sunnyvale company one of the biggest players in the Internet phone-calling market, along with eBay-owned Skype Technologies, Vonage and others. Yahoo would not say when it will launch the service, but the date is expected to be unveiled soon. Yahoo has long allowed people who use its Yahoo Messenger service to make free, computer-to-computer voice calls to each other. But that market is limited....

During the late 1990s, Airbiquity was a high-flying telecommunications startup that boasted a cutting-edge technology, a powerful board of directors and a cadre of well-connected investors that included some of Seattle's best-known executives and venture capitalists. The Bainbridge Island company raised $46 million and grew to more than 80 employees as it tried to roll out its system for delivering location-based information to cell phones. The only problem: Airbiquity's technology was about five years too early. Millions of dollars from folks such as InfoSpace founder Naveen Jain, former Nextlink Communications Chief Executive Wayne Perry, Acorn Ventures and Madrona Venture Group...

When does something temporary become permanent? For most people, the answer would be less than 107 years. It was in 1898 that lawmakers first passed a temporary 3 percent excise tax on telecommunications to help pay for the Spanish-American War. The telephone tax and related levies would, in the words of the Revenue to Meet War Expenditures Act, "be naturally repealed or modified when the (necessities) of war and the payment of war expenses have ceased." At the time, only a wealthy few could afford telephone service. The wartime telephone tax was, therefore, considered a luxury tax. As time passed,...

Qwest surrenders in war for MCI By Bruce Meyerson The Associated Press Post file / Brian Brainerd The logos of Qwest and MCI appear on buildings in downtown Denver in this 2005 file photo. New York - Denver-based Qwest dropped out of the bidding war for MCI Inc. today after MCI agreed to another new deal with Verizon, rejecting a higher-priced bid from Qwest for the fourth time. "It is no longer in the best interests of shareowners, customers and employees to continue in a process that seems to be permanently skewed against Qwest," the company said in a statement....

The International Telecommunication Union is one of the most venerable of bureaucracies. Created in 1865 to facilitate telegraph transmissions, its mandate has expanded to include radio and telephone communications. But the ITU enjoys virtually no influence over the Internet. That remains the province of specialized organizations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN; the Internet Engineering Task Force; the World Wide Web Consortium; and regional address registries. The ITU, a United Nations agency, would like to change that. "The whole world is looking for a better solution for Internet governance, unwilling to maintain the current...

Chicago, IL, Mar. 18 (UPI) -- The wireless industry may be poised for another massive expansion in the coming years -- perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom -- as new voice and data applications emerge and network quality dramatically increases, experts told UPI's Wireless World. "Demand for cellular service by consumers will continue to grow," said Doug Tribble, a telecommunications expert and attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop in San Diego. "The major suppliers of service are shoring up their national platforms." By Gene Koprowski Wireless World: New 'apps' driving growth Chicago, IL, Mar. 18 (UPI) -- The wireless industry may be poised...

Jane Murray was fuming as she answered the phone, and, hearing her husband's voice, let it rip: their teenagers had once again left the bathroom littered with empty shampoo bottles despite repeated lectures on tidying up. It was a routine parental exchange, but not one Ms. Murray would have indulged in had she taken a moment to collect herself. The problem was one of context. Ms. Murray's husband, Col. John M. Murray, was calling from Baghdad, where he commands 6,000 soldiers of the First Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Tex. Over nine time zones and many months of separation,...

ST. PETERSBURG, February 22 (Itar-Tass) - The number of cellular communication telephone users in Russia exceeds 80 million and continues growing, Russian Minister of Information Technologies and Communication Leonid Reiman said at the Norvecom-2005 fair on Tuesday. The number rose by four million in January 2005 alone, he said. In some regions, for example in Moscow, the number of cellular communication users is higher that the number of the population: 103 mobile telephones for 100 residents. Cellular communication companies operate in 80 Russian regions, and the areas are broadening. One of the problems is inequality of development of information technologies...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Assistant Attorney General Eileen J. O'Connor, of the Justice Department's Tax Division, Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia, Mark W. Everson, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner; and Daniel J. Black, Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia's Office of Tax and Revenue, jointly announced the indictment and arrest of Walter Anderson, 51, a local telecommunications entrepreneur, on tax evasion and related charges. A federal grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C. returned the 12-count indictment last Wednesday under seal. Anderson was arrested Saturday, February 26 and will be presented this afternoon before a U.S....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The growing surge in international VoIP calls has caused the state-owned telecommunications monopoly in Costa Rica to propose legislation that could criminalise the use of internet telephone calls. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) said that it views VoIP as a value-added telecom service and, as such, it should be regulated. At its most Draconian, the proposal would make internet telephoning a crime. One Costa Rican official of an agency seeking to promote the Central American country's software industry said last week that ICE's proposal would be "disastrous" to the country's...

In a rare twist, a broadband technology may be launched out in the sticks before it reaches urbanites BT may launch WiMax in rural areas ahead of cities following the success of its trials of the high-speed wireless technology.

<p>WASHINGTON — A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI (news - web sites) on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials confirmed Friday.</p>

In a victory for Verizon Communications, a measure in a new Pennsylvania law will make it harder for cities to build high-speed Internet networks that compete with major telecommunications providers. The measure, part of a broad telecommunications law that was signed late Tuesday by Gov. Edward G. Rendell, has been watched closely by telephone companies and cities across the country. The industry and municipal governments have increasingly found themselves at odds, as cities try to spur the growth of high-speed Internet access by building their own networks - often in competition with the dominant local phone company. Under the new...

HOW IT WORKS HIGH-speed Internet access usually comes to homes through one of two wires: a telephone line for D.S.L. subscribers, or a coaxial cable for cable modem users. But an emerging technology known as broadband over power lines, or B.P.L., may soon offer a third wire into homes, channeling high-speed data through a somewhat improbable conduit: an ordinary electrical outlet. B.P.L. is the ultimate in plug-and-play. Users plug a small power line modem into any wall outlet and then connect the modem to a computer with a U.S.B. or Ethernet cable, or through a wireless Wi-Fi connection. The appeal...

John Kerry has now decided, retrospectively, that he would not have gone to war to remove Saddam Hussein. But he would have put U.S. troops in harm's way to shield Haitian strongman Jean Bertrand Aristide from a revolt of his own people in February. "I would have been prepared to send troops immediately, period," Mr. Kerry told the New York Times on March 4. This assertion from the would-be commander in chief seems to have had some unfortunate repercussions. Emboldened by a prominent champion in the U.S., the deposed Aristide's Lavalas Party thugs are committing mayhem again.... The opportunistic brutality...

Futurist Marshall McLuhan once famously wrote that the "medium is the message." The phrase has become a credo for the telecommunications industry during the last 30 or so years. Trouble is, there are so many media today, the message is getting garbled.Technology entrepreneurs are creating a continual array of new technologies, from wireless-fidelity networks to high-speed Internet, for mobile consumers and business people, none of which were envisioned only a decade ago. The problem is, the federal government's rules for telecom technology -- first written in the 1930s and revised about 10 years ago -- have not kept pace with...

At first glance, it might seem like the simple extension of a standard tool in the fight against the bad guys. But in fact, wiretapping Internet phones to monitor criminals and terrorists is costly and complex, and potentially a big burden on new businesses trying to sell the phone service. Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to move forward with rules that would compel the businesses to make it possible for law enforcement agencies to eavesdrop on Internet calls. But developing systems to wiretap calls that travel over high-speed data networks - a task that the companies...

      Michael DellChairman and CEO, Dell, Inc. Meg WhitmanPresident & CEO, eBay, Inc. Craig McCawChairman & Co-CEO, Teledesic Mark HurdPresident and CEO, NCR Corporation John ChambersCEO & President, Cisco Systems Jim BarksdalePresident & CEO, Barksdale Management Carol BartzChairman of the Board & CEO, Autodesk Leaders in Technology, Telecommunications and Biotechnology Launch Innovators for Bush-CheneyDell, Whitman, McCaw, Bartz Chambers, Barksdale and More Announce Support for President Bush and Vice President CheneyArlington, VA – Today, some of the nation’s top leaders in technology, telecommunications and biotechnology announced in a web video their endorsement of President Bush. The web video...

Are you paying monthly taxes on your high-speed Internet connection?cable connection The answer, bizarrely, depends on whether you use a cable connection or a telephone data line, even though the two services offer comparable access to the Internet. In Minnesota, for example, customers of Earthlink Inc., an Internet service provider, who get broadband access from a cable modem pay no tax on the service. But Earthlink customers who get their high-speed access through telephone digital subscriber lines have to pay $3.10 a month in state and local taxes and other surcharges. A similar tax distinction is made in 17 other...

The Kerry-Kennedy-Haiti Connection By Cliff Kincaid March 26, 2004 It wasn't a big story when John Kerry said that he would have risked U.S. lives to maintain Marxist Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power in Haiti. And except for columnist Robert Novak, there hasn't been any discussion of why Kerry chose such a controversial course of action. Novak noted evidence of "Aristide's gold-plated U.S. connections." He explained, "He is close to Kerry's influential friends, the Kennedy family of Massachusetts, and is the unconditional favorite of the Congressional Black Caucus." Novak noted that Aristide spent millions on U.S. lobbyists and lawyers, and that,...

<p>Rare it is in politics and life to get a second chance at a huge opportunity. But by reversing a catastrophic decision of the Federal Communications Commission that has paralyzed America's telecom industry, a U.S. court has given the Bush administration a new chance to escape the blame for killing broadband in the U.S.</p>

<p>Apart from its steel tariffs, the Bush Administration's biggest economic blunder has been the hash it has made of telecom regulation. The good news is that a federal court has just handed the White House a chance to make amends.</p>

<p>Other nations zip by USA in high-speed Net race By Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY LaBelle Management fights a poky dial-up Internet connection every morning to see how 13 restaurants did the day before. The company in Mount Pleasant, Mich., can't get high-speed Internet to all its 46 restaurants and hotels in Michigan and Indiana because it is either unavailable or too expensive. "I dread dial-up," says tech chief Michael Reed.</p>

Every few years, economists identify another mutant variation of inflation to keep them awake at night. In the 1980's, it was stagflation. Three years ago, it was deflation. And now, meet the economic specter of the new millennium: stealth inflation. That's when phone companies and just about anybody else who sends you a bill manages to extract more money from you without actually raising their rates. Phase 1 of this program was the proliferation of miscellaneous fees -- for "regulatory assessment," "handling," "restocking," and so on. According to Business Week, newly concocted fees will generate $100 million for hotels this...

Korea to build 100M bps Internet system Infrastructure will offer telecom, broadcasting and Internet access from a variety of devices By David Legard, IDG News Service November 18, 2003 South Korea plans to build a nationwide Internet access infrastructure capable of speeds between 50M bps (bits per second) and 100M bps by 2010, the online edition of the Chosun Ilbo daily newspaper reported Tuesday. The infrastructure will be known as the broadband convergence network (BcN) and will offer telecommunications, broadcasting and Internet access from a wide variety of devices, the paper said, quoting the Ministry of Information and Communication. Construction...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: October 8, 2003 David Fiske, 202-418-0513 GLOBAL CROSSING TRANSACTION APPROVED Washington, D.C.-- Consistent with established Commission precedent, today, Global Crossing received approval to transfer control of its FCC authorizations and licenses to GC Acquisition Limited (New GX). In a joint decision, the International Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureaus) found that grant of the applications would be in the public interest, subject to certain conditions. Global Crossing subsidiaries hold FCC domestic and international Section 214 authorizations, interests in submarine cable landing licenses and certain radio licenses. Through its subsidiaries, Global Crossing,...

<p>The effort to make permanent a temporary ban on Internet-access taxes has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. But don't blame the Democrats.</p> <p>Fault instead two GOP Senators, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and George Voinovich of Ohio. Both are using procedural legerdemain to prevent a vote on the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act, a provision that not only keeps the taxman away from your AOL or EarthLink account but also bans "multiple or discriminatory" levies on electronic commerce. A temporary Internet tax moratorium, in place for the past five years, expired on November 1. If Congress doesn't act to extend it before winter recess, don't be surprised by a yuletide e-mail tax.</p>

BERLIN, Oct. 29 - When Sebastian Engel received a letter in the mail last winter warning that he would soon lose his over-the-air analog television service, he reacted like any 26-year-old graduate student with little money and even less interest in the vagaries of TV technology. Mr. Engel, who lives in a bohemian part of the former East Berlin, ignored the promotional palaver about the brave new world of digital broadcasting, and instead asked his landlord whether he could sign up for cable. Alas, he was told, his apartment block, with its drab, coal-heated buildings, was not wired for cable....