Free Republic

The technological and economical development of Scandinavia (including Finland) is today more groundbreking than anywhere else in the world. The investments being made in relation to population size is mind-boggling. Despite a mere population of 25 million inhabitants, the combined GDP of the Scandinavian countries today ridicules that of a Russia often viewed to be a "reborn" super power "on the go" (combined Scandinavian GDP is actually 125% that of of Russia - and the gap is widening!!) But, let's focus on telecommunications here; Five bidders have paid €226 million ($346 million) for fourth generation (4G), super-fast mobile telephony licences,...

Despite SunRocket failure and Vonage trouble, startup says it’s poised for success.Even with SunRocket’s spectacular demise and what could be Vonage’s imminent collapse, VCs are still not convinced VoIP is a bad investment. Exit SunRocket stage left. Enter Ooma stage right. Ooma is a new VoIP startup armed with $27 million in funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an early Skype backer, and The Founders Fund. Palo Alto, California–based Ooma launched a beta of its product on this week, and its CEO and founder, Andrew Frame, talked to Red Herring about what makes his company different. “Comparing Ooma to SunRocket or...

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has launched a mobile-to-mobile text-message campaign in an effort to reach more of America’s 236,000 cell phone users. Users who text the word "Join” to 77007 will receive regular updates about the Clinton campaign, which will "ask for voters’ input and offer a feature allowing supporters to surf Hillary’s Web site on their mobile phones,” according to a statement from her campaign. "By harnessing the power of text messaging, we can engage voters in the political process using the latest technology and provide personalized, local campaign updates to our supporters nationwide.” The text-message initiative is "a...

Stealth firm plays reversi with VoIP codeChinese software developers have reportedly reverse engineered Skype's internet telephony software to develop a clone. The unnamed company has developed a software client using the same protocol and encryption technology used by Skype. This software, which is still in the early stages of development, was used to call Charlie Paglee, co-founder of Voice over IP startup Vozin Communications. Although the software lacks features that indicate whether someone is online or instant messaging technology, Paglee reports that the mystery firm involved plans to add these features (along with stability improvements) and release a stable version...

WASHINGTON--An estimated 4 million subscribers to Internet phone services like Vonage could see new fees on their bills under a plan approved Wednesday by federal regulators. The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously at its monthly meeting here to require all voice over Internet Protocol services that connect to the public-switched telephone network--as opposed to using peer-to-peer technology, like Skype--to contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The $7.3 billion fund, which has been a feature of U.S. policy for more than 70 years, subsidizes telephone service in rural and low-income areas. It also runs a controversy-plagued program called E-Rate that provides...

When Sprint Nextel filed its lawsuit last month against theglobe.com, Voiceglo and Vonage Holdings for allegedly infringing on its proprietary technology, it may have catapulted all voice over IP (VoIP) service providers into the complicated world of patent litigation. Whether the two defendants eventually have their day in court or settle matters privately still remains to be seen. As of this article's publication date, no response has yet been filed by either defendant. But legal experts familiar with the case generally agree that Sprint is executing on a well-constructed legal strategy that the puts the defendants before an uphill climb....