This week the tech sector glowed with signs of a recovery, while a survey found that telcos no longer rule the internet.
In a return to growth among tech leaders, Google postedits highest ever quarterly net and both Intel and IBM beat forecasts and raised guidance.
Nokia maintained its market share but was dragged into the red by infrastructure arm Nokia Siemens.
Internet firms, CDNs and data centers have replaced Tier-1 telcos as the biggest carriers of IP traffic, with just 30 companies accounting for 30% of all internet data, Arbor Networks concluded after a five-year survey.
Fast broadband of at least 1Mbps became a legal right in Finland.
T-Mobile’s Sidekick customers lost their personal data when the Microsoft-hosted storage crashed without backup. Microsoft later said it had recovered most of the data.
Air NZ’s reservation system, outsourced to IBM, crashed leaving thousands stranded and a furious CEO.
Telecom New Zealand abused its market power in the wholesale access segment, offering wholesale rates sometimes higher than its retail charges, the High Court ruled. The Australian government vowed to pass its Telstra separation bill
by the end of the year, ignoring calls from the carrier for a delay.
An independent auditor found Indian carrier Reliance Communications had under-reported revenue and had paid too little in license and spectrum fees.
The Wi-Fi Alliance came up with a technology spec that will allow devices to connect directly to each other without going through a hub – a direct challenge to Bluetooth.
Wimax was destined to be a niche technology in its target emerging markets, with less than 5% of connections, Ovum predicted.
China banned foreign investment in online games.
Cisco jumped on the mobile data bandwagon with a $2.9 billion cash takeover of Starent, whose gears enable the delivery of IP content to cellular networks.
Hong Kong users spend twice as much time on instant messaging as others in Asia, a comScore study found.
Facing stepped-up 3G competition, China Mobile is tipped to be spending more than $4 billion on handset subsidies next year. Vinaphone became Vietnam's first 3G operator.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the web, said he should have left out the double slash “//” after the http in web addresses.
Google ousted Apple director Arthur Levinson from its board, winning praise from the FTC and the termination of an antitrust inquiry.
A US court ruled that a cell phone ringtone ringing in public is not a public performance and therefore artists are not entitled to additional royalties.
And Pepsi apologized for an iPhone app aimed at helping users “score” with women.
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