World VoIP Database

Centillium Communications announced that it has agreed to sell its DSL business unit to Ikanos Communications for about $12 million in cash. The move will allow Centillium to focus on its faster growing optical and VoIP business, while reducing about $18 million in costs related to its DSL efforts. For Ikanos, the acquisition looks to fit into its ongoing effort in the market for VDSL-based residential broadband gateway products. The deal likely will close in the first quarter this year.

Cable TV giant Comcast Corp. has confirmed that it has received notice from the Federal Communications Commission that the regulatory agency wants to question Comcast about its delaying (or some alleged “blocking”) of some peer-to-peer Internet traffic. Many consumers and advocate groups have called on the FCC to investigate and fine the service provider for its actions, and at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin pledged that the agency do just that. All broadband service providers should watch this one closely, as it could have an impact on future network management and monitoring practices.

Following the recent appointment of Dan Hesse as CEO, Sprint Nextel is considering laying off a few thousand of its 60,000 total employees, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The carrier, which has suffered through customer defections and ongoing corporate strife related to the Sprint Nextel merger, cut about 5000 jobs last year.

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A proposal would require that voice over Internet Protocol providers enable calls to emergency services. The U.K.’s telecommunications regulator, the Office of Communications, has since mandated that such access must be made available by September 2008.

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The cost of industry consolidation over the last few years was not just limited to the deal prices quoted to Wall Street. 2007 was the year that the telecom began to deal with the ongoing cost of consolidation, such as technological and corporate integration. The most obvious example at the carrier level was Sprint Nextel’s ongoing difficulty in merging different network technologies and corporate cultures, a job that still isn’t done.

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Vonage’s first patent lawsuit loss came back in March and was something of a stunner. Verizon Communications had sued the VoIP juggernaut over alleged infringement on seven patents, and though only three of them were found to have been infringed upon, the die was cast for a year in which Vonage also was sued by and settle with Sprint and AT&T.

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There was probably no issue more divisive in the telecom industry during 2007 than the question of whether or not to grant telcos that participated in a warrantless domestic wiretapping program operated by the federal government retroactive immunity for their actions.

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Net neutrality, as recently as the summer of 2007, appeared to be on the wane as a topic of concern for the telecom industry. Service providers weren’t taking it seriously, Net neutrality advocates couldn’t provide enough evidence for their concern, and Congress had moved on to different battles.

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Demand for consumer VoIP in Canada is surging a survey of retailers says. The survey showed one of 12 Canadians is using a VoIP service and predicts the strong growth to continue as consumer costs fall for devices because of the strong Canadian dollar.

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Britain has joined the U.S. to mandate the enabling of emergency calls from U.K.-based VoIP services. The new rules formulated by telco regulator Ofcom will come into effect Sept. 8 and follow a survey that showed 78 percent of VoIP users couldn’t access emergency numbers, or were unsure if they could.

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