Goodbye, Lucent....

The coffee stain of innovation is no more. As of tomorrow morning, Lucent Technologies Inc. will cease to exist. While some hold out hope that Pat Russo's first act as CEO will be to put Freedom Fries on the menu in Paris headquarters, the entire industry acknowledges that this marks the end of an era for the US telecommunications industry.

One Voice Scores With RINA

The Rural Independent Network Alliance, an association of smaller wireless carriers in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, today announced they have signed a multi-year agreement with One Voice to offer One Voice's MobileVoice(TM) service to their wireless subscribers. The MobileVoice service includes Group Conference Calling, Mobile E-mail and Voice-to-Text SMS Messaging capabilities.

This marks yet another win for One Voice as they continue execute successfully against their VASP market-entry strategy. Recent wins for One Voice include: Carolina West Wireless, Cellular 29, Lyrix Wireless and Telmex.

Here's what One Voice has to say via YahooNews:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061030/20061030005491.html?.v=1

Move Over Mozart -- Comverse Deploys Ringback in Austria

With the global manhunt for their CEO over, Comverse decided pump some good news into the market. Namely that they sold their FunDial ringback solution to T-Mobile in Austria.

Here's what BusinessWire via YahooNews has to say:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061129/20061129005041.html?.v=1

YouTube and Verizon Wireless

YouTube, a Google company, annouced a distribution arrangement with Verizon Wireless today. Did they get the deal because of Google or did Google buy them because of the deal? In any case, a deal with the nation's most conservative wireless carrier is a big affirmation that YouTube's legal woes will be short-lived.

Here's what The Hollywood Reporter has to say:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib31cec84f9bcdcbaa56769a2274ac992

Cable Goes Wireless

Comcast will be the first cable provider to bring wireless service to the triple-play bundle. For an extra $33 a month, Comcast customers can now add a cellular phone to their account with 200 minutes of airtime.

Cox, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Advance/Newhouse Communications have all been engaged in bundled wireless trials since last November's announcement of a $200 million partnership with Sprint. Time Warner has been testing dual-mode service that allows seamless roaming between home VoIP Wi-Fi and Sprint's mobile network.

You may recall this same cast of characters, under the name SpectrumCo (original), gobbled up a heftly chunk of spectrum at a recent FCC AWS auction - technically enough to make them the nation's fifth largest wireless provider.

So what does it all mean? Well, given that Verizon, BellSouth, Qwest and SBC all have their own wireless bundles in market today, it seems clear that cable is still trying reach parity. However, the investment they've made in spectrum and with Sprint give them ample room to grow.

Here's what Reuters says:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-11-28T213732Z_01_N28279743_RTRUKOC_0_US-COMCAST-WIRELESS.xml&WTmodLoc=TechNewsHome_C2_technologyNews-1

Skype Goes Both Ways...

...not that there's anything wrong with that. In all seriousness, Skype has introduced a handset that wirelessly connects a user to their Skype account or a tranditional landline. Convergence, it's a beautiful thing.

Here's what Yahoo News had to say:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20061128/bs_nf/48297

Git Yer Game On

IP Unity will add real-time voice, messaging and presence capabilities to the Exit Games Neutron multi-player gaming platform. I like the idea of high-tech trash talk.

Here's what they put out this morning over BusinessWire (via Broadcast Newsroom):

http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=84738

Much Ado About Mobile Instant Messaging

Mobile instant messaging is still a real prickly pear. How does a service provider launch it without cannibalizing their precious SMS revenues? That's what Ovum estimates is the 10B question... in 2009, anyway.

Take a gander at OZ -- a company that has made giving IM a mobile makeover their mission in life. Today they announced raising 34M in their sophmore round of funding. This comes on the heals of over 21 announced deals with mobile providers including Bell Mobility, Sprint, Cingular, AllTel and Telus. Take that Comverse.

Learn something about OZ...

http://www.oz.com/

But wait, there's more... same day, Neustar buys FollowWap for 139M. Another mobile instant messaging provider, another huge payday. Neustar claims that FollowWap was sitting on revenues of about 25M for 2006 and a customer list that includes the Vodafone group.

Learn something about Followap...

http://www.followap.com/