This week Google shimmied its search out of mainland China, while Chinese operators counted the cost of rolling out 3G.
Google made good on its promise to end censorship Chinese search results, redirecting mainland search traffic unfiltered to servers in Hong Kong. Chinese authorities said it was “totally wrong” and continued to block sensitive search queries.
Domain registrar Go Daddy said it would stop taking .cn registrations in China because of privacy concerns, while Google called for new global trade rules to combat censorship, which it said limited free trade.
After a meeting with Dell chief Michael Dell, the Indian prime minister claimed the IT firm was considering moving some of its business away from China.
Dell said it had no plans to shift its supply chain, but Michael Dell said India could become a hardware manufacturing hub.
The cost of rolling out 3G drove down the earnings of China Telecom and China Unicom, with both carriers facing higher marketing cost as 3G competition steps up. Telecom’s net fell 34% and Unicom’s underlying profit was down 35%.
Analysts warned that a sharp fall in Chinese network rollouts would hit Ericsson’s bottom line.
Qualcomm raised its sales and profit guidance thanks to increased demand for high-speed wireless chips.
China Mobile and state-backed China Broadcast Corp. launched a mobile TV service using the locally-developed CMMB standard.
After two unsuccessful tilts at MTN, Bharti Airtel made its African breakthrough after Kuwaiti-based Zain accepted its net $9 billion offer.
Ciena finalized its acquisition of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet business. It said it would integrate the Nortel’s optical transport gear into its portfolio but not its metro Ethernet or optical switches.
For the first time, data overtook voice traffic on mobile networks, Ericsson said.
Broadband subs worldwide rose 14% to 467 million last year, with IPTV subscriptions rising to 33 million, Point Topic said.
Telecom New Zealand said its recent 3G network meltdown was a result of bad software code and a router failure.
AT&T, KT and French mobile operator SFR began trialing a new service to counter mobile spam.
UK regulator Ofcom called for BT to make its ducts and poles available to its broadband competitors at no cost.
Skype’s founders set up a $165 million fund to back European disruptive technologies.
Police cracked down on violent flash mobs in Philadelphia.
Facebook rejected a call by the British Home Secretary to place a “panic button” on user pages to protect minors.
And a UK health official linked a rise in syphilis to heavy Facebook use.