Caron Carlson

A new plan to overhaul the byzantine payment system that carriers use to complete one anothers calls could be a boon to enterprises but a bane to consumers, some of whom fear it would result in higher local telephone rates. The plan submitted to the Federal Communications Commission last week by nine carriers—including AT&T Corp., […]

A score of large enterprises, including CVS Corp., The Home Depot Inc. and Thrifty Inc., were targeted this month by privacy advocates who want them to refrain from voluntarily giving sensitive data about customers to the government. Concerned that federal agents are pressuring companies to turn over electronic data even when theyre not legally required […]

If deploying a voice-over-IP system is proving more difficult than vendors have claimed, help may be here from Logicalis Group, which this week is adding an IP telephony managed service to its offerings. Logicalis, a division of Datatec Ltd., is expanding to support IP telephony systems from Cisco Systems Inc., following customer demand, said Terry […]

Many enterprises are wading slowly into voice-over-IP systems, testing the waters with an installation at one or two sites before full-scale deployment. But Data Design Associates Inc., a financial software company in Raleigh, N.C., dove in this spring, replacing its entire legacy PBX system with a converged PBX, voice mail server, and voice gateway and […]

Less than a week after president Bush signed into law a measure to combat cyber-identity theft, Internet con artists last week unleashed a new form of phishing bait: a double whammy of instant messages and e-mail to fool America Online Inc. subscribers into handing over their credit card numbers. The latest phishing tactic, which spread […]

Copies Unlimited, located in a West Valley City, Utah, strip mall, is not in the service territory of DSL or cable modem providers. Dial-up service is too slow to transmit the files Rhett Sears creates, and satellite service is too expensive. So what data delivery method is available to Sears? “The car,” said owner and […]

Recent acceleration in the popularity of voice-over-IP services has lit a fire under lawmakers to define IP telephonys place within the larger scheme of telecommunications regulation. But there remains considerable disagreement in Congress over the roles federal and state regulators should play. Demonstrating the issues ongoing divisiveness, commerce committee senators last week approved the VOIP […]

Giving credit primarily to its wireless business, Sprint Corp. officials this morning reported an increase in net revenues of 6 percent this quarter compared with a year ago. The growth was “the result of our unique nationwide wireless and wireline assets that offer integrated communication solutions to businesses and consumers, and a customer-driven team that […]

Voters took to the streets in 19 states last week to protest paperless electronic voting machines. In the coast-to-coast “Computer Ate My Vote” rallies, citizens showed what activists say could become widespread dissent against nonverifiable ballots if this years presidential election becomes another close call. The crowds mobilized last week were not Luddites looking to […]

RFID proponents insist that the tracking tags will be used to improve supply chains and not to track individual sales items or the people buying them. But if you purchase a printer or scanner from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a tracking tag might go home with you. That possibility is raising red flags among privacy rights […]