WCA January 2008

From the americas

“But,” she wrote, “European makers scored better [this time]. Audi’s A3, A4, and A6 sedans and BMW’s 3, 5, and 7 Series sedans all were average or better, while the Volvo S60 was rated above average after failing to get even an average rating two years ago.” (ChicagoTribune.com, 16 th October)

Vonage has also agreed to pay $80 million to Sprint Nextel to settle that patent litigation, and said it settled another patent case with Klausner Technologies for an undisclosed amount. Klausner, a privately held company that owns patents on voicemail technology, had sought $200 million. However, as noted by W David Gardner in Information Week (22 nd October), Vonage has begun to fight back, claiming it has developed workarounds for two of the three patents it was found to have violated. Earlier in October, the VoIP firm asked the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to review earlier rulings against it. In other news of AT&T, on 23 rd October the company reported third-quarter profit up 42% as its wireless unit added 2 million subscribers, an increase of 47% that offset continued weakness in the company’s fixed-line business. Total AT&T wireless subscriptions reached 65.7 million, securing the company’s hold on its place as the largest wireless provider in the US despite intensive efforts of competitors to topple it. The huge increase in AT&T’s wireless sales is largely attributable to its BellSouth acquisition, from which the company expects to save $3 billion in 2007, $5 billion this year and $6 billion in 2009. But AT&T is also clearly benefiting from Apple’s strong sales of the iPhone, for which AT&T is sole carrier. On 22 nd October, Apple told investors that it had sold 1.4 million iPhones since the release date in late June; AT&T said that it had activated 1.1 million subscriptions for iPhone users. ❖

Telecom

Third major phone company files patent lawsuit against Vonage The US telecommunications giant AT&T is the latest company to sue Vonage Holdings (Holmdel, New Jersey) for patent infringement. AT&T filed its suit against Vonage in a Wisconsin federal court in mid-October. According to media reports, AT&T’s lawsuit alleges that Vonage infringes on US Patent No 6,487,200 (‘Packet Telephone System’), granted to AT&T in November 2002. The patent describes a telephone system that uses a packet network to provide ‘virtual circuits’ and compresses voice calls into data form in short packets. Vonage is a publicly held VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) network and SIP (session initiation protocol) company providing phone service that rides the customer’s broadband connection. The series of lawsuits against it was begun by Verizon, which won a jury verdict in March.

Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2008