WCA November 2008

application platform to rival Apple’s iPhone. The handset was expected to be available to consumers at the end of October. The phone has a somewhat chequered history. In November 2007 Google announced the formation of the Open Handset Alliance to promote open standards for mobile devices. The group of more than 30 hardware, software and telecom companies includes Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola and T-Mobile. Mr Claburn tracked progress beginning in August. “After several rough spots, Android’s prospects brightened considerably, thanks to US Federal Communications Commission approval of the HTC Dream, Google’s delivery of the Android 0.9 SDK beta, and T-Mobile’s confirmation of its plan to ship an HTC Android-powered phone.” Also in August, Google inaugurated the Android Market, “an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download, and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices.” A reader of Mr Claburn’s column addressed the question of cellphone security with open standards: “[It] does not mean anyone can put anything on your computer or device. It means that the source code is freely available, so you have a ton of pros looking over this all the time. It really is safer.” This respondent, Dual Boot, added: “You’ve seen ‘The Matrix,’ right? Think of Microsoft as the alien that has you hooked up to the machine. If you can break free, there’s a beautiful world out there in Open Source Land.” Elsewhere in telecom . . . A new undersea cable linking Bermuda to the United ❖ ❖ States, the first to be run by a Bermudian company, has been landed. The 898-mile Challenger cable connects an exchange of the Bermuda Telephone Company to the Charleston terminal in Massachusetts. Its predecessors are a year-old link run by British-based Cable and Wireless and an 11 year-old link run by Brasil Telecom. Cable Company, the local company that laid the new line, is made up of KeyTech, North Rock Communications, and Transact. (Royal Gazette, Hamilton, Bermuda 17 th September) The Canadian telecommunications equipment maker ❖ ❖ Nortel Networks said 17 th September that it would make further cutbacks in already much reduced operations and that it planned to sell a key operating unit. Cutbacks in purchasing by both telephone companies and corporate customers for communications systems caused Ottawa-based Nortel to cut its third-quarter revenue forecast from $2.66 billion to $2.3 billion. If accurate, the forecast will represent a 14.8% decline from the same period of 2007. To bolster cash reserves, Nortel will try to sell its fast-growing Metro Ethernet Networks operation, including a unit that makes equipment for global fibre optic communications networks.

Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – November/December 2008