In what has to be the severe  wounding of Vonage; Sprint has won a $69m award against the company for patent infringement. Considering the money it already owes to Verizon this has to be a very heavy blow. Fact is I am surprised that the Sprint-Verizon legal eagles have not gone into bankruptcy court  and instituted a forced liquidation. More at the link.

Link

I read with interest my colleagues post below. Verizon is known to have one of the best legal and regulatory teams around, but this is fraught with peril.

• Should the rules be changed upfront that will most likely delay the auction as another around of comment will have to be brought.
• Verizon has no guarantee that after those comments that the auction rules would be in their favor. It could end up much worse.

Were I Verizon I would bid as promulgated then do my dirty work on the back end. Maybe do the same BS that was done with ISDN by scaring the State regulatory agencies into concessions on the older technology to subsidize the newer. Or the bait and switch that AT&T is doing on their mandated $10 DSL as part of the merger. Which by the way last time I checked is nowhere on their website to order.

Personal Note: To our readers, I have been out the past three weeks on emergency surgery. Just getting back into the swing of things. I will be posting some on the Digital Conversion later this week. It’s lack of movement so far might have impacts on the deploy rate of the 700mhz band.

Last Thursday, prodded by a flurry of GOP press conferences, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a two-line statement saying that he had “every expectation that Congress will approve a continuation of the moratorium.” Not exactly a passionate call to protect America’s 213 million Internet users. Commerce Chairman Daniel Inouye added later that he’s “hopeful” his committee can move a bill this week and he has scheduled a Thursday markup. (from the Wall Street Journal)

Many are politically split on whether we need a national broadband policy, but everyone seems in uniform agreement in their hatred of taxation (except the States, that is). Companies like Google and Verizon, who’ve been at each other’s throats over network neutrality and the 700Mhz wireless broadband auction, are congenial bedfellows on this issue. Says Google on their policy blog:

“Keeping Internet access tax-free is also another way that government can help further the growth of the web to all corners of the U.S. At a time when American policymakers are working to increase broadband penetration rates and improve the quality of broadband services to consumers, we believe that increasing barriers to access — whether they are created by the government or by the private sector — will only frustrate our common goal of greater access to better broadband for all consumers.”

The Congressional debate over making the Internet access tax ban permanent has been painfully slow going, but at least one Republican lawmaker believes they have enough votes to kill Internet access taxes forever. If Congress fails to act by November 1, the current ban will expire, leaving States free to tax your broadband connection and add to your monthly bill. (from Broadband Reports)

“Cities that have seen early success have been able to articulate very clearly to politicians and citizens how the network will be used and how it will benefit people,” said Craig Settles, an independent wireless consultant. “And they’ve also had clear business plans for paying for the networks.”

In his keynote on Wednesday, David Perlmutter, senior vice president of Intel’s Mobility Group, described mobile users with “insatiable appetites,” hungry for ever more mobility and connectivity.The company plans to sate this hunger with something called Montevina in mid-2008. Montevina, which will become the company’s next-generation Centrino mobile platform, is based on Intel’s 45-nanometer fabrication technology. It will support things like DDR3 memory, Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback, as well as an integrated Wi-Fi/WiMax module the company calls Echo Peak.What that means in plain English is that Montevina notebooks will be faster and low-power, will include support for the latest optical storage standards, and will presumably be ready to connect with the latest wireless networks out of the box. As testament to the clout Intel wields, a number of laptop manufactures like Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba and Panasonic have already committed to using Montevina.

Key to Intel’s wireless strategy is the standard known as Mobile WiMax (IEEE 802.16e). Yes, that’s the same WiMax you’ve been hearing about — but not seeing — for close to five years now. But according to Intel, as well as Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, WiMax really will be ready for its public debut next year.With Sprint Nextel and Clearwire (which counts Intel among its major investors) teaming up for a $5 billion WiMax build-out by 2010, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he expects “150 million [people] will be covered [by WiMax] in 2008, 750 million in 2010 and 1.3 billion in 2012.”

“We are on the cusp of a new global network, seamlessly integrated around the globe, to go into these ultramobile devices,” Otellini said.

Oncor’s BPL network, which the company is building with Current Communications, now covers 106,000 homes. Oncor has installed so-called smart meters at 61,000 of those homes, allowing the electricity company to communicate directly with those meters at any time.

Atish Gude, senior VP for Sprint’s WiMax business operations, said the company expected to be in “30ish” U.S. markets by the time Intel releases Montevina next year, covering an area of 100 million people. Montevina is the codename for a chipset that will provide Wi-Fi and WiMax support in notebooks.

John Saw, chief technology officer for Clearwire, declined to say how many markets the company would be in at that time. The company, however, plans to start a 145 square-mile test of WiMax in the Portland, Ore., area this year, making it generally available over a 700 square mile area, which will reach into Vancouver, Wash., next year.

Even though WiMax deployment is still in the early stages, Sprint and Clearwire believe they can take a sizable chunk of the wireless Internet by delivering a bigger pipe than wireless carriers at a better price. In addition, surfing the Web on a WiMax network would be the same as on a wired connection at the home or office.

the Federal Communications Commission is seeking formal public comment on whether it would make sense to permit the sort of scheme proposed by Silicon Valley-based M2Z Networks or others that previously expressed interest in operating a slice of the 2.1 GHz band.

article on Cnet

The amount of spectrum to be released should be sufficient to allow three extra operators to access the 900MHz band, Ofcom suggests, greatly increasing the opportunities for chip suppliers and mobile handset and infrastructure makers.