THE WRAP: Cisco orders some video

Robert Clark | October 02, 2009

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This week Cisco snapped up a vidcon firm as Bharti Airtel finally called time on the MTN merger.

Cisco bid $3 billion in cash for Oslo-listed Tandberg with the aim of widening its conferencing portfolio.

Bharti’s share price spiked after it canceled the MTN deal. It had failed to win the backing of the South African government despite four months of negotiations.

The Obama Administration opened up internet naming body ICANN to international oversight. The EU called for ICANN to be made fully independent.

Telefónica hooked up with six vendors – Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens and ZTE – to trial LTE in six different markets. Huawei hired former BT CTO Matt Bross as its global CTO – its first ever appointment of a top exec from a foreign telco.

Vodafone and Orange won iPhone deals, breaking O2’s exclusivity in the UK. The US government banned texting while driving for federal government staff.

Global wholesale IP rates are falling 20% a year in Europe and North America, still well below prices in Asian cities. Botnets and spam are on the rise, says the latest MessageLabs report.

Telstra’s chairman and CEO wrote to shareholders to reassure them they would look after their interests as the government pushes for structural separation for the carrier.

A software developer who was awarded $388 million in a patent suit against Microsoft has lost his case – and cash - on appeal. Another developer says his health app was banned from the App Store because it was too political.

Palm released a new OS that works wirelessly with the Amazon MP3 store.

It also signed up two senior Mozilla programmers to head up developer relations. Lotus is set to launch a hosted email service.

Reporters Sans Frontières said online censorship in China had redoubled in the leadup to the 60^th anniversary of communist rule. China Mobile replaced its standard ringback tone with a patriotic song sung by Jackie Chan.

A British court ordered a writ against an anonymous Twitter user, accused of impersonating a rightwing blogger, to be issued via Twitter itself.

Websites using the .yu domain extension – signifying Yugoslavia – are no longer accessible online.

Some 4,000 websites are thought to have been affected.

And actor Hugh Jackman stopped a Broadway play when an audience member’s phone rang. “You want to get that?” he said, in character.

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Robert Clark