Carol Wilson

This category features our final tie, between two service providers that have taken advantage of the competitive market in different ways. IXTC, headed by CEO Tom Evslin, provides global call completion to the full range of the worlds carriers, using a voice-over-IP backbone with points of presence in 117 countries. In June, ITXC signed an […]

The lone repeat winner for 2001 is Yipes Communications, provider of Gigabit Ethernet services over optical networks in major metro areas. While other companies are also providing Gig-E as a service over optical pipes, CEO Jerry Parricks Yipes was chosen by the judges for going beyond that service to develop a network architecture that can […]

The cable industry presented our second tie: Glasgow Electric Plant Board and Insight Communications. Glasgow EPB, run by Superintendent William J. Ray, is a much-lauded local electric utility that wound up building a cable network so successful that the existing cable player — a Scripps-Howard company that had been acquired by Comcast — decided to […]

This category produced one of the more interesting ties. Multiple judges suggested one mobile wireless data company that showed significant innovation — Metricom — that had already folded its tent for financial reasons. Many of the same judges admired Sprint Broadband Direct for its fixed wireless data services. Metricom, which closed up shop in August, […]

With its two-way, high-speed internet access, StarBand Communications was chosen as the most innovative ISP for its ability to deliver broadband to a mass audience, much of which is unable to get cable modem or DSL. “I love the satellite approach,” Heckart says. “I think we need to continue to push the envelope on innovative […]

The most aggressive competitors large incumbent telephone companies face today are often small incumbent telephone companies, disguised as competitive local exchange carriers. Across the U.S., in the rural regions of California, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Washington and West Virginia, small, independent phone companies are moving in on their bigger Bell company brethren. They […]

There are many lessons to be learned from the NorthPoint Communications debacle, but most of these have been recited ad infinitum since the company announced its intention to enter bankruptcy after its plan to be acquired by Verizon Communications collapsed. To me, the most resonant lesson is also the least surprising: Customers who get broadband […]

These days, it usually pays to check the investment wires just before going to speak in public. You just never can tell which industry segment has tanked. I was preparing a presentation in the middle of February, when a quick glance at my regular stock tracking site revealed the most recent problems at Emulex, one […]

If the telecommunications industry is in a funk, you wouldnt have known it by attending the SuperNet show in Santa Clara, Calif., Jan. 14 to Jan. 17. Here was a trade show that by all rights should have tanked, and yet it proved successful and even charming. About 5,000 people were expected, and more than […]

The relationship among Wall Street, the investment community and technology is dysfunctional at best. For two years at least, investors courted network service providers that showed a flash of innovation and vision, and money flowed before the ink was dry on the business plans. In many cases, those investors pushed network builders to be more […]