Tuesday, January 16

A new Jupiter Research study indicates that the Internet will lose its US-centric focus in coming years. By 2005 the US share of the Internet population will drop from 36 percent to 24 percent. The Asia-Pacific share will increase to nearly one-third.

AOL says that some users of its Web-based email program are having a password problem in which old passwords are still accepted.

The FCC is facing criticism over its handling of the instant-messaging issue in the Time Warner merger. The FCC didn't regulate the current instant messaging situation. It's edicts only apply to "advanced, IM-based high-speed services (AIHS) applications" which AOL now says it has no plans to develop. 

ZDNet looks at the uncertain development path of Internet Explorer 6.0.

Toysmart.com will destroy its customer list. The out-of-business toy site set off alarms last year when it planned to sell off its customer database, a move that would have violated its privacy policy.

Mobile phones

A German study found a link between cell phones use and eye cancer. The study was published in the journal Epidemiology .

The spectrum for high speed 3G cell phones might come from bandwidth currently allocated to instructional programming for colleges.

A ringing cell phone in the baggage department of a Slovenian airplane set off a fire detection system. The pilot heeded the warning light and returned to the airport shortly after takeoff.

Boring old business stuff

Intel plans to buy Xircom for US$748 million. Xircom makes modems and network adapters for laptops.

AT&T is buying an additional US$2.9 billion stake in Excite@Home. AT&T will use its stock to buy the shares from Cox Communications and ComCast.

Motorola is laying off 2,500 workers and shutting down a cell phone production line at its Harvard, Illinois plant.

3Com announced plans layoffs for some of its 11,500 workers to save $200 million per year. 3Com will make its decision by the end of February.

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Friday, January 19

For the past five months, Hotmail has being applying spam filters to outgoing mail, essentially discarding customer's email. The filtering is based not on the content of the outgoing email, but on its destination. If the recipient's email account was hosted by a company that hosted spammers, the email was discarded.

Melissa X (AKA Melissa 2001) is a new variant of the Melissa virus, which spreads via Microsoft Outlook and Word documents.

Sprint Broadband Direct is now available in parts of Australia .

Hard times in the ISP sector

Forbes.com posits that an economic downturn could significantly impact the ISP business. For the last two years the signup rate for households with less than $50,000 annual income has been twice that of higher income groups, in part due to market saturation in more affluent families. Forbes thinks that in tough financial times the monthly Internet fee could be one of the first items out of the family budget.

DSL provider NorthPoint Communications has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Verizon Communications had agreed to buy a controlling stake in NorthPoint, but backed out of the deal. NorthPoint is now suing Verizon Communications for US$1 billion for breach of contract.

Verizon Internet Services, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications, has been presented with a class action lawsuit on behalf of its customers. Internetnews.com reports that the lawsuit charges Verizon with "breach of contract; violation of Virginia Consumer Protection; untrue, deceptive or misleading advertising; and negligent misrepresentation concerning the fulfillment of promises made about its DSL service."

Charles Cooper of ZDNet thinks the Baby Bells may win the DSL competition, not because they provide better service, but because their financial health will allow them to survive the bad times that will wreck their rivals.

It could be worse. You could be an ISP in Britain, where the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act allows law enforcement wide latitude in accessing user account information from the ISP when the police suspect illegal behavior.

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