This week, as the Australian election went down to the (broadband) wire, NBN chief Mike Quigley hitched his star to the government.
Quigley, who was appointed by the current government to head up the new state telco, waded into the campaign with a broadside at the opposition parties’ wireless broadband scheme. The starkly different broadband platforms are the main differentiator between the two main parties, who are running neck-and-neck ahead of tomorrow’s poll.
China Mobile tapped vice-president Li Yue as new CEO, replacing the respected Wang Jianzhou, who stays on as chairman. The company beat forecasts with a 4% rise in first-half profit.
Five Thai companies, including the three main incumbent operators, threw their hats into the ring for the pending 3G auction, due to be held late September.
Indian authorities attempted to prod Research In Motion (RIM) into a deal over access to encrypted BlackBerry data, as the parties remain in talks ahead of the government’s August 31 deadline.
Reliance Communications quarterly earnings plunged 85%, a result of India’s unrelenting price competition. PCCW boosted profit 17% thanks to higher mobile sales and cost-cutting.
LightSquared, the US hybrid LTE-satellite startup, said it would pay Inmarsat $338 million for use of its L-band frequencies.
Billing and messaging vendor Comverse warned it might run out of cash by next April.
The iPhone 4 made a spectacular Korean debut, with customers overwhelming Korea Telecom’s servers with pre-orders.
Apple went into damage control after App Store director Phillip Shoemaker was found selling his own apps such as “Animal Farts” in the store.
Bloggers debated the death of the web.
Eric Schmidt suggested people might have to change their ID to avoid being tied to embarrassing material posted online.
Enjoying a 50% first half sales spike, contract manufacturer Foxconn said it would hire as many as 400,000 more staff in China in the next year.
US call center staff are becoming as cheap to hire as those in India, according to India’s biggest BPO firm.
An Australian oceanographer called for telcos to allow their subsea cables to be used to track climate change.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – the browser that launched a rash of anti-trust suits - turned 15 years old. The North Korean government opened a Twitter account.
And German police arrested a 19-year-old bank robber by tracking emails he had sent taunting them.