Top Stories N50

Market consolidation: the transaction SBC-ATT is official. For $ 16m, SBC will take over ATT, its former mother company. But with this deal, consolidation is not over in the US market. The latest rumor is Qwest and Verizon interested buying MCI. Qwest should have already bidden for a $ 6.3bn amount. Another place where consolidation is emerging is China. China Telecom and Netcom said they are interested in buying a mobile network (could be one from Unicom?).  to be continued…..

Merrill Lynch unsurprisingly reported the top 10 technologies to look at in 2005:

-                      FMC (fixed-mobile convergence)

-                      3G

-                      FTTx (fiber to the home, curb, building, pavement, …)

-                      ADSL + (with speeds up to 100 Mbit/s)

-                      WiMAX

-                      IPTV

-                      Docsis 3.0 (transmission up to 200 Mbit/s over cable networks)

-                      VOIP

-                      Videoconferencing

-                      WiFi telephony

Very good news for the mobile industry: Mori has conducted a survey of mobile users for Nokia. The results indicate clear demand for interactive mobile multimedia services, such as push-to-talk, instant messaging, video and content sharing and presence. The most interested are among the active 16-34 year old.