In the News

By Public Knowledge
July 17, 2007

Although officially denying the rumors, Vodafone may buy Verizon Communications for around $160 billion (this comes one year after Vodafone nearly sold its stake in Verizon Wireless). If completed, the buyout would create a telecom giant bigger than AT&T
The first Linux-based cell phone designed by OpenMoko, the Neo1973, went on sale last week to third-party developers. The GSM phone comes with Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, expandable storage, and most importantly, and open development environment that will allow anyone to design applications without the carriers' ora hardware designers' approval.
SunRocket, the second largest VoIP provider after Vonage, is going out of business. The event highlights the difficulty of offering single service VoIP in the face of multi-service telecoms and repeated instances of anti-competitive behavior.
Yesterday The Royal High Court in London granted an injunction in favor of Truphone that forces T-Mobile to allow calls to Truphone numbers until the two companies can come to an agreement. Truphone is a service that allows European cell phone users to switch between mobile networks and free VoIP services when within WiFi networks. Earlier this year T-Mobile began blocking calls to its subscribers made by Truphone users. T-Mobile did not however block calls from a similar VoIP service called Jajah, of which T-Mobile was an investor.
A new alliance of online content creators and aggregators hope to standardize measurement methods and advertising practices in an effort to monetize a largely anarchic market. The Association for Downloadable Media, (ADM) which includes Apple and NPR, says that “There has been a need for industry standards in the podosphere, and the ADM will help accelerate its growth into a commercially viable medium.”