Will Carriers Deliver on Pledge of Open Access?
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The cellular services have promised to open their networks, but progress must be monitored, an FCC commissioner says.
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Novell plans to co-ordinate the release of Open Enterprise Server with the availability of the first service pack for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Customers will be able to deploy OES knowing
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And Vodafone rejigs data tariffs O2 is considering introducing business tariffs for customers who want to use iPhones at work.â¦Learn &amp; Contribute, Live &amp; Online - The Register Debates Green Computing
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The trustees of the Springvale Public Library are seeking support for Future Access, a technology sponsorship program.  Local businesses and organizations may subscribe to support a public computer station for a four-year cycle and will be recognized for their donations.
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AT&amp;T hasn&#39;t decided whether it will bid for the highly desirable 700MHz band because it doesn&#39;t know if it can build a profitable business, given the open-access rules set for the wireless spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July.Calling the rules &quot;interesting,&quot; AT&amp;T&#39;s CEO Randall Stephenson said the company is hard at work crunching numbers and analyzing business scenarios, but hasn&#39;t reached a conclusion yet.&quot;Is there a business model there? I&#39;m not sure if there is or not,&quot; he said Friday at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit, where he answered questions from conference chair John Battelle and from audience members.The FCC conditions, which include&#160;open-access rules on a third of the spectrum, have been a major source of controversy.The winner of 22MHz of spectrum must allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, permitting wireless telephone customers to use handset devices from other carriers. The winning bidder also can&#39;t block or slow down wireless and Web content from competitors.Some telecom carriers wanted no conditions, while some consumer advocacy groups and Google wanted the FCC to require that winning bidders also resell the spectrum at wholesale rates to competitors, something the FCC didn&#39;t adopt.The FCC is scheduled to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning in January. The spectrum is ideal for long-range wireless telephone and broadband services, with signals that travel up to four times farther than in higher spectrum bands.&quot;It&#39;s a huge opportunity. It&#39;s beachfront property. When it comes to buying spectrum, it&#39;s the best you&#39;re going to find for a long time,&quot; Stephenson said.Data consumption on wireless networks is growing fourfold year over year, so a company&#160;such as&#160;AT&amp;T needs to bulk up on spectrum to keep up with the demand, he said.&quot;It&#39;s very obvious we&#39;re going to have to add to our spectrum holdings,&quot; he said.That&#39;s why AT&amp;T earlier this month reached an agreement to&#160;buy 12MHz of high-speed wireless spectrum&#160;in the 700MHz band from Aloha Partners for $2.5 billion.&quot;It&#39;s the first time, I think, that we&#39;ve ever paid $2.5 billion for a company that had no revenue,&quot; Stephenson said.The Aloha spectrum covers 196 million U.S. residents, including 72 of the 100 largest markets in the United States.In other matters, Stephenson said he was very satisfied with the&#160;iPhone deal between his company and Apple.&quot;I&#39;m not sure I could have asked for much more out of it than what we got,&quot; he said.Asked to comment on the decision to use the slower EDGE network for the iPhone, Stephenson said it was a request from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.&quot;He wanted a broad ubiquitous data network. The EDGE network is the only data network that covers the entire United States,&quot; he said. The situation will improve as AT&amp;T upgrades markets to 3G, he said.Stephenson acknowledged that AT&amp;T&#39;s directory assistance business is being challenged by ad-supported options from Internet companies&#160;such as&#160;Google.&quot;We better get our advertising-supported [directory assistance] model up fast,&quot; he said, adding that AT&amp;T is building such a service internally.On a lighter note, he said he&#39;s &quot;envious&quot; of Google and the success it has had with its business model. &quot;It&#39;s a great gig if you can get it,&quot; he said.(Grant Gross in Washington, D.C. contributed with this story.)
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The FCC is about to approve rules that could affect open access of wireless networks, including the portability of cell phones and applications.
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InfoWorld - AT&T hasn't decided whether it will bid for the highly desirable 700MHz band because it doesn't know if it can build a profitable business, given the open-access rules set for the wireless spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July.
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The Federal Communications Commission is set next month to decide how to auction spectrum to wireless carriers to bring high-speed Internet service to  airlines as early as next year. But, regulators have been boxed into a corner: promote low prices and great features, or ensure the service works reliably.
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Academic journals control whose research gets published and influence who wins research funding and contracts. Frustrated by the delays and power in the traditional peer-review system, some scientists are turning to an online open review system.
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(InfoWorld) - In a bid to speed up the dissemination of scientific discoveries, the European Commission said Thursday it plans to shake up the old-fashioned world of scientific publishing by throwing its weight behind a move to make scientific research results freely available on the Internet. Until now, results have been published in journals along with peer reviews of the research. Publishers of scientific, technical, and medical journals argue that the peer review system wouldn't work as reliably if results were published willy-nilly online. "Nobody will benefit if a major European industry is undermined and with it the peer review system upon which science and society depend," said the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) in a statement ahead of Thursday's announcement by the Commission. The publishers, which include giants like Reed Elsevier and McGraw-Hill, cosigned a petition to Europe's lawmakers dubbed the Brussels Declaration, calling for leniency. The Commission is hosting a two-day conference starting Thursday with the publishers as well as with advocates of a free, Internet-based model for scientific publishing. In its statement, the Commission made it clear that it favors freer access to research results. It is planning to spend about â¬85 million ($111 million) over the next two years improving the digital storage and online accessibility of scientific results. Digital technologies are reshaping how research information is viewed, analyzed, and eventually published, the Commission said. For example, about 90 percent of all science journals are now available online, often by subscription. But digital technologies are also leading to more "open access" publishing. This provides free and wide access to publications online. Better access to research data also opens the way to new types of uses and services, often through the reusing of past results as the raw material for new experimentation. However, the Commission added that online access to current scientific information does not guarantee its future availability. Digital information has a limited lifetime and needs to be maintained over time. Better tools and organizational steps are necessary to ensure digital preservation and thus prevent the loss of important scientific information, the Commission said. "The digital revolution has led the European scientific community to suggest that an alternative publishing model with better access to research publications could further stimulate research excellence and innovation," Commissioner for Research Janez Potocnik told delegates at the conference. Publishers association STM had argued that it would be wrong for the Commission to favor one business model over another and urged it to back off from the scientific publishing sector. But the association changed its tune Thursday, after learning how serious the Commission is about taking action. "I am pleased that the Commission has recognized the complex issues that surround the publication and preservation of scientific information and has seen fit to initiate a dialogue rather than prematurely imposing a policy that could undermine STM publishing, which is such an important industry for Europe," said Michael Mabe, CEO of STM in a statement released Thursday. The STM welcomes the Commission's action plan "in the area of creating a level playing field for publication business models, recognizing that further research on preservation and economics is essential before adopting any policy positions," the association said in its latest statement.
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The Bush administration is expected to press for speedier licensing of public airwaves for auction to private companies. But telecom regulators say wireless apps need unlicensed spectrum too. By Joanna Glasner.
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Major mobile voice and data carriers in the United States have pledged to open their networks to outside handsets and applications, but regulators and customers need to be vigilant to make sure those promises are fulfilled, one member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said.
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By Wieland, Ken  Broadband maybe going mobile but data ARPU remains stubbornly static  The number of 3G subscribers in developed markets is slowly, but surely, picking up pace. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about mobile operators' ARPU (average revenue per user).
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Open source doesn't necessarily automatically translate into better paid support for customers.  But it does offer a lot more options and aligns customers with vendors more tightly.
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Here's a way to settle the debate over the use of the much-coveted 700 Mhz spectrum band: Why not build a single open network that supports multiple services on it, both commercial and for public safety? It can be done, but it would require some changes in thinking by the FCC and Internet operators, among others.
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The company may be hinting at going public.
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Blog: Open source is not up to each individual to define.  It's up to the community, and the community has traditionally delivered its verdict on licenses through the OSI.  CentricCRM has given no good reasons for this to change.