Wednesday Telecom, Internet and Media Digests

This past week, in:

Telecoms:

• Shedding local lines, either voluntarily (Sprint, Trinsic) or not (BT, FT).
• Check out all the cellular developments (including yet another RIM/BlackBerry new competitor, this time no less than Vodafone).
• Also: regulatory measures related to termination, international roaming and SMS termination will send revenues down over an extended period.
• TeliaSonera and Telenor working on their portfolio abroad.
• Tunisie Telecom and Jordan Telecom: coming up in March.
• Skype is doing lots of stuff at the same time.
• WiFi, WiMAX, IPWireless, xMAx: all headed for a showdown later this year. Will News Corp make an offer for Clearwire?
• Cool New Product: the hybrid BPL solution from Motorola.

Internet:

• Google winning market share and diversifying.
• Cool New Product: Prosper.com.

Media:
Of special interest: Time Warner v. News Corp v. 'old Viacom'. What to think of conglomerates? I believe scale matters less, as focus is needed when old businesses adapt to the digital age. Still, the Viacom break-up makes no sense to me; in pleading a Time Warner split, Lazard/Icahn/Wasserstein/Biondi want to keep TV and film together. However, distribution outlets need content (still king!). How do you leverage content optimally? In an entertainment conglomerate?
Further points of interest:

• Some background reading on MTV.
• Check out the video news, especially MovieBeam, but all my favorites are there too: Akimbo, Sling, Brightcove, Blinkx (only Orb was not featured).
• Cool New Product: NewspaperDirect.