THE WRAP: The FCC's plan, TNZ's pain

Robert Clark | March 19, 2010

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This week, FCC comes up with a national broadband plan, while a Kiwi broadband scheme hits the local incumbent.

The FCC sent its national broadband plan to Congress, calling for a network offering 100Mbps in download speeds and up to 1Gbps available in schools and other institutions.

The New Zealand government unveiled its $214 million rural broadband program, to be funded mostly by Telecom NZ, sending its stock to an all-time low .

Hong Kong operators agreed to publish mobile broadband performance metrics.

But the consumer council attacked the bandwidth throttling schemes deployed by all Hong Kong cellcos.

Google China’s sales partners complained they had been kept in the dark over its plans and warned of layoffs if it left the market.

After a report stating that it was “99.9% certain” of exiting China, Google said it was still in talks with authorities.

One of Telstra’s biggest shareholders warned of risk from the government’s broadband plans.

Qualcomm surprised by announcing a bid for an Indian TD-LTE license. Softbank tipped $33 million into ailing PHS firm Willcom, giving it access to valuable 2.5Ghz spectrum.

StarHub said it would increase maximum bandwidth on its mobile network from 21Mbps to 42.2Mbps.

Verizon Wireless said it expected the first LTE handsets by mid-2011.

After poor early sales of NexusOne, Google abandoned its go-it-alone sales strategy and struck deals with AT&T, Sprint and Rogers. But sales of Android-based handsets are making rapid gains in the US.

China’s long-running efforts to merge its cable and telecom sectors remain at an impasse.

Facebook overtook Google as the biggest US web destination.

Google is working on a web TV project with Sony, Intel and Logitech, reports said.

Telenor said the Pakistan market was ripe for consolidation.

Orascom slid into the red in Q4 thanks to football riots in Algeria and higher taxes in Pakistan.

The mobile apps market will be worth $17.5 billion in 2012, experts predicted. Opera downloads have more than doubled since Microsoft began offering a choice of browsers in Europe on March 1.

Two Emirates Airline staff in Dubai were jailed for three months for text messages that were a “coercion to sin”.

And the dotcom domain celebrated its 25^th anniversary.

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telecomasia.net

Robert Clark

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