Alltel will introduce a mobile shopping solution for its BlackBerry subscribers. The service will feature products from retailers including Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Godiva Chocolatier and FTD.com. Alltel will use mobile shopping solutions from mobile commerce provider Digby.

Telcos may have a competitive advantage with the burgeoning online gaming business. Not to be confused with gambling, the online gaming business which includes massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORG) is expected to have significant growth in the U.S., and telecom carriers are aiming to leverage their assets to take advantage of it. Much more popular in Asia, MMORG is beginning to take hold in the U.S.

MMORGs place massive burdens on broadband networks because they are bandwidth intensive. But it goes well beyond a fat pipe into the home, and that is where telcos may have an advantage. Within the network, assets like well distributed data centers, disaster recovery, and business continuity are desirable by game developers and distributors. The well entrenched telecom network in the U.S. lends itself to offering this reliable infrastructure, and telcos are beginning to realize that the gaming industry is a desirable business partner.

Find out more in this expansive Billing World article.

Verizon won a statewide franchise in California, saving them the tedious task of going from community to community to offer competitive video services. AT&T is reportedly not too far behind Verizon, and stands to gain the most, since they are the dominant ILEC in California, reaching 75% of the state’s geography. The new statewide franchise law kicked in January 1, 2007. Both Verizon and AT&T will have to meet some aggressive build out characteristics which is pegged to the new law – no easy task, as AT&T is learning.

Get the details from this ZDNet article.

Both AT&T and Verizon will soon offer remote programming of a DVR from cell phones. Not to be outdone, their cable competitors will soon offer it as well, through their partnership with Sprint. AT&T is launching the service for their Homezone product, which pairs DSL with Dish TV satellite service and a DVR set top box. I’m sure their IPTV platform, U-verse is not too far behind.

The real question here may be, so what? Jupiter Research says only 10% of respondents from a recent survey expressed any interest in such a product. Or this might be one of those rare points in technology development history when a new service receives a great big yawn at launch, only to take the world by storm. Depending on who you ask, wireless SMS had a similar yawn. But look at it now.

Read this Red Herring article for the details

Although still relatively small compared to the big picture of traditional telecom voice lines, cable VoIP continues to grow at break neck speed. Telegeography reports that the largest incumbent telcos lost 2.3 million land lines last quarter, with a fair amount of them lost to VoIP. Comcast added over 500K VoIP lines last quarter, and now has over 1.8 million VoIP subscribers. Vonage still leads all VoIP carriers, with over 2.1 million lines, but that lead won't last for long. Overall, Telegeography reports 1.3 million VoIP subscribers were added last quarter.

The real story here is cable is adding VoIP subscribers at a much faster rate than telcos are adding video subscribers. Sure, cable had somewhat of a head start, and we will need to wait a year or so to see how AT&T and Verizon perform with video, but early indications are that cable is enjoying many a telco’s lunch - at least in larger markets. The scenario is probably opposite in tier 3 and 4 markets, where IOCs tend to outperform rural cable systems.

Read this Forbes article for more discussion ...

Verizon has partnered with Open Peak to develop the Verizon One Desktop Command Center, an all-in-one voice, video and data center for the home. The feature list is impressive, including dual mode VoIP/PSTN handsets (up to five), Wi-Fi connectivity, streaming audio and video, and a 7” color touchscreen. Verizon One will be marketed to Verizon FiOS customers as a desktop home command center. Open Peak says it will start shipping in Spring 2007.

Verizon is positioning this as a premium service available to its FiOS customers, and obviously not available through competing cable service. Or as they like to say - take that Cablevision! Time will tell whether subscribers see any value with it.

Read more at the Open Peak website ...

The FCC recently ruled in cable’s favor for interconnection among rural carriers. The ruling stems from cases in South Carolina and Nebraska, where rural carriers were reportedly denying interconnection with Time Warner cable and others, through third parties, including Verizon and Sprint. The rural carriers argued that even though Sprint and Verizon were requesting interconnection, they were doing so as wholesale providers for cable VoIP service, which is classified as an information service, and thus not eligible for interconnection. The FCC sees this differently, and has ruled that interconnection must proceed.

If nothing else, this case reveals the true nature of telecom’s competitive environment. You have large telecom carriers empowering competition between smaller rural carriers and cable VoIP carriers – cable VoIP carriers that they may already compete with themselves (or will some day). Maybe this is "coopetition" at its best, but I’m sure it’s frustrating to some.

Read USA Today’s article on this development ...

Having seen impressive gains in residential voice offerings through VoIP, cable operators now view the small medium business market as theirs for the taking. ABI research estimates the U.S. SMB hosted telecom services market at $11.6 billion. Cable providers have an impressive arsenal of bundled voice and broadband service at aggressive price points that SMB’s may find attractive. And we thought DSL was disruptive to telecom’s lucrative T-1 business - stay tuned.

See this ABI press release …

Ever wonder how much VoIP traffic is out there? If you trust iLocus' numbers – a lot. Their most recent study purports over 1 trillion VoIP minutes worldwide, with 615 billion attributed to national long distance. According to an iLocus press release, “the actual nextgen subscriber line licenses sold during 2006 comes up to 40.9 million. Out of the 40.9 million lines, an estimated 14.8 million lines were deployed for hosted VoBB [voice over broadband] application. The 14.8 million figure further splits into 3.4 million lines of hosted business Centrex/PBX and 11.4 million residential VoBB lines.”

See iLocus' press release for more details ...

The dawn of mobileTV is upon us with Verizon Wireless launching their new vCast service, and AT&T not too far behind. Unlike past mobile wireless video offerings which offered video clips, these new services allow viewing of broadcast TV from the likes of CBS, Comedy Central, Fox, MTV, NBC News and others. Carriers and the vendors providing the infrastructure are making a high risk bet that consumers will want to watch television on a cell phone. Qualcomm has committed $800 million towards MediaFLO, the platform being used by both Verizon and AT&T, alone. But that is surely a down payment on a multi billion dollar investment.

Some are even predicting that mobileTV can put a dent in the traditional home subscription pay TV (cable TV, IPTV, DBS, etc.) model - why pay for cable TV, when I can get it on my cell phone and beam it to my TV. It is certainly too early to tell, but we are now witnessing yet another potential disruptive force provided by wireless.

Read this revealing Business Week article for more details ...