InternetNews Staff

AT&T Broadband, which serves millions of U.S. cable television and high-speed Internet customers, officially changed its name to Comcast today. The switch comes three months after Comcast paid $45 billion for the unit and is buttressed by a multimedia ad campaign featuring Tour de France champ and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. But more than establish […]

Mindful of competition for broadband customers, Verizon Communications has invested in its DSL network. Specifically, the carrier has purchased new test software from Spirent Communications to verify the performance, reliability and scalability of access routers. The offering will help Verizon decide how many new devices to deploy, by confirming, in advance, how many subscribers each […]

Instant Messaging Planet Conference & Expo returns to Boston this month, offering attendees expert advice on how the communications technology can improve efficiency in their businesses. The two-day event, produced by Jupitermedia (parent of this site), begins Feb. 24 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. In addition to keynote addresses and panel discussions featuring experts, […]

Storage networking specialist McData QUOTE NASDAQ:MCDTA> has expanded its Asia-Pacific presence with a new office in Beijing. “China is an increasingly important and strategic country for McData,” said Unji Kawanishi, McData’s general manager for the region said in a statement. The Broomfield, Colo., company will use the new office to better support customers, partners and […]

New Mexico is now home to an ambitious fiber co-op which brings the benefits of metropolitan competition on bandwidth prices to the country, seemingly having figured out how to bring broadband into rural areas—something the RBOCs, many alternative LECs, and the federal government failed to do. A brainchild of four New Mexico-based entrepreneurs, the co-op, […]

CenturyTel is a step closer to acquiring the assets of Digital Teleport for $38 million, a pickup that would further its mid-market strategy and augment its network. The deal between the Monroe, La., and St. Louis communications service providers cleared one of its final hurdles Thursday, securing approval from a U.S. bankruptcy court judge. The […]

Saying that it has achieved it goals of increasing recurring revenue and managing expenses, Ultimate Software , a Web-based payroll and workforce management service provider, yesterday announced financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year, both of which ended on Dec. 31, 2002. The Weston, Fla.-based company reported that total revenues for the fourth […]

BlueStar Solutions, an enterprise application outsourcer that specializes in SAP services, announced yesterday that it has signed a channel partnership agreement with IBM. The partnership is designed to combine BlueStar’s capabilities to manage and host SAP solutions with the broad reach of IBM’s Global Services organization. Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will sell […]

Comverse Technology a maker of hardware and software for mobile carriers, announced a new customer in Asia-Pacific and unveiled a new technology platform. The contract comes from Taiwanese mobile operator MoBiTai. Specifically, the deal includes Comverse’s Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC) and Mobile Data Gateway (MDG). Financial terms were not disclosed. “(The win) emphasizes that […]

Bizfinity Inc., a Web-based ASP that specializes in applications for small and medium businesses (SMBs), earlier this week announced the availability of BizfinityPro 7.0. Version 7.0 features two new suites: Distribution Suite and Manufacturing Suite. The other suites in the BizfinityPro include e-Commerce, Back Office and Business. Distribution Suite is designed for retailers, wholesalers, distributors […]

When will tech spending improve? Not until 2004-2005, according to a recent research report by Merrill Lynch’s economics group. In a note published Tuesday, Steven Milunovich, first vice president with Merrill, wrote that tech spending will “pick up when (or perhaps slightly later than) overall capital spending increases.” As to when capital spending is expected […]

AltaVista has expanded its multimedia index and upgraded its news search as it continues to joust with Google and others in the sector. The moves are part of a “plan to further integrate multimedia with our core results and to provide the most robust multimedia and news resources on the Web,” said Fred Bullock, chief […]