telecom

If AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile USA is rejected by federal regulators, the former will need to pay a hefty sum to Deutsche Telekom for all the trouble, according to Reuters.

Citing anonymous sources, the news service reported yesterday that AT&T would need to pay $6 billion, including $3 billion in cash, to T-Mobile USA's parent company if the deal falls through. That figure would also reportedly include giving Deutsche Telekom $2 billion in spectrum and $1 billion in a "roaming agreement," Reuters says.

Though Reuters' sources didn't give details on the … Read more

A Chinese government committee announced plans this week to try to ease vehicle traffic congestion by monitoring the whereabouts and movement of millions of mobile phones.

"Aha!" you might say, cynically thinking it's a ruse by the government to conduct surveillance on its citizens. But that kind of surveillance is already being done there (as it is in the U.S.).

If you had been in the gnarly 62-mile traffic jam that took nine days to clear up near Beijing last August you wouldn't be so suspicious of the news. Beijing, an urban hub in northern … Read more

Tech, media, and telecom companies in emerging markets and those considered "digital innovators" are among the world's tops in providing value to their investors, according to a new study from the Boston Consulting Group.

Out today, the report "Swimming Against the Tide: How Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Companies Can Prosper in the New Economic Reality" found that seven of the top 10 telecom performers, five of the top 10 media performers, and four of the top 10 technology performers are in India, Taiwan, Mexico, China, and other emerging markets. But global companies tuned into the … Read more

Venture capitalists expect greater investment next year, while CEOs of VC-backed firms are looking at more work and more hiring, according to a report (PDF) released today by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and Dow Jones VentureSource.

Among the venture capitalists polled for the "2011 Venture View" survey, just over half (51 percent) are looking for investment to pick up next year. Only 24 percent expect it to stay level, while the same percentage believe it will decline. CEOs running venture-backed companies were also optimistic, with 58 percent eyeing an increase in venture investing next year and … Read more

European telcos say companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook should pay to help them keep up with growing demand for data on their networks, according to an article published by Bloomberg today.

France Telecom-Orange, Telecom Italia, and Vodafone Group would like to charge content providers fees linked to usage to help cover the cost of upgrading wireless broadband networks.

France Telecom-Orange Chief Executive Officer Stephane Richard discussed the issue at the "Le Web" conference in Paris Wednesday. Richard said the current mismatch between revenue and investment for Internet infrastructure providers is not sustainable.

"Service providers are flooding … Read more

A report delivered today to Congress by a commission on U.S.-Chinese relations is pointing the finger at the Chinese government for continued hacking attempts and computer exploits.

"Recent high-profile, China-based computer exploitations continue to suggest some level of state support. Indicators include the massive scale of these exploitations and the extensive intelligence and reconnaissance components," noted the report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC).

The report specifically concluded that the Chinese government, Communist Party, and Chinese individuals and organizations continue to hack into computer systems and networks in the U.… Read more

A Chinese state-run telecom provider was the source of the redirection of U.S. military and corporate data that occurred this past April, according to excerpts of a draft report sent to CNET by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The current draft of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC's) 2010 annual report, which is close to final but has not yet been officially approved, finds that malicious computer activity tied to China continues to persist following reports early this year of attacks against Google and other companies from within the country.

In several cases, Chinese telecommunications firms have disrupted or impacted U.S. Internet traffic, according to the excerpts.

On March 24, Web traffic from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other popular sites was temporarily affected by China's own internal censorship system, sometimes known as the Great Firewall. Users in Chile and the United States trying to reach those sites were diverted to incorrect servers or encountered error messages indicating that the sites did not exist. The USCC report said it was as if users outside China were trying to access restricted sites from behind China's Great Firewall.

Then on April 8, a large number of routing paths to various Internet Protocol addresses were redirected through networks in China for 17 minutes. The USCC identified China's state-owned telecommunications firm China Telecom as the source of the "hijacking." This diversion of data would have given the operators of the servers on those networks the ability to read, delete, or edit e-mail and other information sent along those paths.

The April incident affected traffic to and from U.S. government and military sites, including sites for the Senate, the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the office of the Secretary of Defense, the USCC said. Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Domain Name System registry Neustar, also confirmed in a recent interview with CNET that the data diverted to China came from Fortune 500 companies and many branches of the U.S. government.

Evidence didn't clearly indicate whether this diversion of data was done intentionally or for what purpose, according to the USCC. But the capability alone raises a red flag.

"Although the commission has no way to determine what, if anything, Chinese telecommunications firms did to the hijacked data, incidents of this nature could have a number of serious implications," said the report excerpts. "This level of access could enable surveillance of specific users or sites. It could disrupt a data transaction and prevent a user from establishing a connection with a site. It could even allow a diversion of data to somewhere that the user did not intend (for example, to a 'spoofed' site)."

The report also commented on an incident in April in which a China-based spy network was accused of targeting government departments, diplomatic missions, and other groups in India. The activity, which also compromised computers in at least 35 other countries, including the U.S., grabbed sensitive documents from the Indian government.… Read more

A project between Intel and Korea Telecom is aiming to turn South Korea into the first country with nationwide WiMax coverage.

The two companies announced today the expansion of their effort to roll out WiMax-based high-speed Internet service throughout South Korea.

Currently available in Seoul, Inchon, and Suwon, the expanded service will reach five new cities as of tomorrow--Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon, and Ulsan--and also cover the expressways of Gyeongbu, Jungbu, Honam, and Yeongdong.

The expanded service, dubbed a "mobile wonderland" by Korea Telecom, will offer a "3W" network, so named because it will consist of … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- A researcher released software at the Black Hat conference on Thursday designed to let people test whether their calls on mobile phones can be eavesdropped on.

The public availability of the software - dubbed Airprobe -- means that anyone with the right hardware can snoop on other peoples' calls unless the target telecom provider has deployed a patch that was standardized about two years ago by the GSMA, the trade association representing GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) providers, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.

Most telecom providers have not patched their systems, … Read more