Do you remember when a mobile phone was too heavy to carry?  Take a look at this nostalgic series of classic cell phone photos.





Technorati Tags: Mobile, Telecommunications

A few weeks ago, Bruce Schneier posted an interesting article explaining how Barack Obama will need to give up his Blackberry to minimize his personal "electronic trail" that could prove troublesome or worse:

"When he becomes president, Barack Obama will have to give up his BlackBerry. Aides are concerned that his unofficial conversations would become part of the presidential record, subject to subpoena and eventually made public as part of the country's historical record."

Interestingly enough, when I re-visited that article this afternoon, the sidebar list of Most Popular posts listed "Governor is Arrested on Graft Charges" as the second most popular post today. I wonder what Governor Blagojevich thinks about the damning electronic trail he left behind?


Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Obama

In this Telecom TV video interview at the recent NXTComm conference, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems talks about the impact of cloud computing and open source software on the telecom industry.



Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, OpenSource, SunMicrosystems

AT&T announced yesterday that "the company has shattered its text messaging record of 64.5 million by generating more than 78 million messages this season of 'American Idol' -- the most popular show on television."

My family contributed substantially to that total. Thank heavens for unlimited text message plans!

So, at least for now, SMS is still the reigning "killer application" for mobile telephony.

Technorati Tags: SMS, Telecommunications

I recently had an interesting discussion with a telecommunications executive about Google. He loves the way Google creates demand that increases the percentage of potential subscribers who buy his broadband Internet services; he hates Google's penchant for giving away services for free. Most of all, he hates Google's avowed ambition for "world domination."

"Will Google get into the wireless telephony business?" I asked.

"No, the high cost of installing and operating a mobile phone business is far too expensive," he said, "even for a cash-rich company like Google."

But he was quick to point out that Google's bluffs in that direction have already caused Verizon and AT&T to announce they are opening their networks to non-proprietary phones. The Open Handset Alliance and Google's intention to bid in the 700 mHz spectrum auction next month has the big carriers churning.

Isn't competition interesting?

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Google