AT&T's Whitacre Paid $17 Million in 2005

Edward Whitacre, Chairman and CEO of AT&T, was paid $17.2 million in 2005, including $2.12 million in salary, a $7.125 million bonus, other annual pay of $2.67 million, long-term incentives of $4.79 million, additional compensation of $249,588 and stock options worth $217,051. This compares with total compensation of $15.7 million for 2004.Randall Stephenson, AT&T's chief operating officer, earned $3.5 million in annual pay and bonuses.http://www.sbc.com/gen/landing-pages?pid=5...

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Competition Rises in Video Distribution

Competition among multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), including cable operators, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers, local exchange carriers (LECs) and others, continues to provide U.S. consumers with increased choice, better picture quality, and greater technological innovation, according to the latest FCC report on video competition.TV viewership is at its highest level since television viewing was first measured by Nielsen Media Research in the 1950s. The average American watches 4 hours, 32 minutes each day, a record...

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FCC to Consider Tougher Privacy Rules

The FCC launched a proceeding to examine whether additional security measures could prevent the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive customer information held by telecommunications companies.In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the FCC seeks comment on a variety of issues related to customer privacy, including what security measures carriers currently have in place, what inadequacies exist in those measures, and what kind of security measures may be warranted to better protect consumers' privacy. The Notice grants a petition for rulemaking...

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NTL Tests ARRIS' DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS for 100 Mbps Access

ntl, the UK's leading consumer broadband provider, is conducting field trials of a 100 Mbps access service using ARRIS's FlexPath channel bonded technology and its Cadant C4 CMTS and Touchstone Wideband Modem.FlexPath uses the same bonding technique as that selected by CableLabs for its DOCSIS 3.0 standard.ntl is using the channel-bonded cable modem service to demonstrate a variety of new services, such as ultra fast downloads of large media files; security services including closed circuit television; inexpensive video conferencing; internet-based...

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Microsoft Announces Global Partner Support for its Mobile Messaging

At this week's 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona, Microsoft is showcasing new services and Windows Mobile-based devices from its global partners.Cingular Wireless, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone announced free upgrades to the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) for all their Windows Mobile 5.0 customers, enabling Direct Push functionality and providing enhanced device management and security for messaging applications. Palm and i-Mate also...

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Atheros and QUALCOMM Target Cellular/Wi-Fi Solution

Atheros Communications and QUALCOMM announced a partnership to offer a cellular/Wi-Fi solution. The companies initially will develop interoperability between Atheros' single-chip Radio-on-Chip for Mobile(ROCm) solution and select QUALCOMM Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets. The ROCm solution will initially interoperate with the MSM6550 for CDMA2000 networks and the MSM6280 chipset for WCDMA (UMTS) networks. The combined solutions will enable cellular devices to support 802.11g and 802.11a/g wireless LAN (WLAN) technology.The companies are demonstrating...

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Microsoft Cites Gains for its Connected Services Framework

More than a dozen communications companies, including Bell Canada, BT Retail and Celcom Malaysia, have now adopted Microsoft's Connected Services Framework, a software product that allows operators to aggregate, provision and manage converged communications services for their subscribers, regardless of network or device. In addition, France Telecom is currently trialing this solution. Microsoft first launched Connected Services Framework a year ago at 3GSM World Congress 2005.BT Retail is using the solution to provide a packaged broadband access...

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Cornice Showcases 10 GB HDD for Mobile Phones

Cornice, a start-up specializing in micro hard drives, is showcasing end-user drives for mobile phones at this week's 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. Cornice's announcements at 3GSM include:Cornice Dragon Series Micro Hard Drive -- launching in 8- and 10-gigabyte capacities: Setting a new standard for the smallest possible hard drive, Dragon is enabling a whole new series of consumer electronics that seek the thinnest end user product with enough capacity to take everything with you.Cornice Inside the Samsung i300 Mobile Smartphonehttp://ww...

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GlobeVISION to Launch Video Service for Asian-Americans

GlobeVISION, a global media service company with North American headquarters in Los Angeles, will launch an on demand video service for Asian-Americans in North America. Content deals with Korea's two largest private broadcasters, MBC and SBS, as well as CJ Media, Korea's largest cable media group, will allow the "PIE" service to deliver tens of thousands of Korean and Chinese television and movie programming choices directly from Asia to the TV sets of subscribers in North America. The service is available now on a trial basis in Southern California...

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AT&T Calls on FCC to Remove Barriers in Video Competition

"Removing the existing barriers to investment in video competition would be consistent with the broadband polices this Commission has traditionally endorsed. And consumers will benefit from innovation and choice," said Lea Ann Champion, AT&T senior executive vice president-IP operations and services, speaking at an FCC open hearing held in Keller, Texas.As there result of state-wide video franchise bill passed by the Texas legislature last year AT&T said it was able to commit without delay $800 million in new broadband facilities throughout...

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