If the pipes are too small and what’s going through them too big — which is the case on many mobile data networks (hey AT&T, how’s that iPhone traffic treating you?) — then wouldn’t it make sense to add some compression algorithms to the mix?

It makes sense certainly, and something operators — not to mention mobile phone users — have experimented with. On the vendor side, players like OpenWave and Bytemobile offer network-based solutions that operators can deploy to “optimize” mobile data delivery via a variety of techniques. Meanwhile, a handful of mobile Web browsers, such as Skyfire, have tried to drive compression right down to the handset, utilizing proxy servers and compression algorithms on the back-end and specialty browser clients on the phone.

Do bandwidth optimization techniques taken from the VoIP world have something to offer to the equation? more

Receiving nearly $16 million in smart grid stimulus funding was certainly a boon to the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, as it was to the other 99 recipients, but the funding had a different meaning for this New Hampshire-based utility. It is owed $400,000 from Fairpoint Communications, the area’s main telco, which is busy wading through bankruptcy. more

The unsurprising truth about new competitors pitching ‘voice 2.0′ services or angling to compete with traditional telcos is that sitting behind them and powering most of their services are … traditional, or at least “semi-traditional” (i.e., more IP-based), telephone companies.

Witness the lineup of partners supporting Google Voice, Google’s find-me-follow-me-help-me-manage-my-calls service, which according to docs filed with the FCC (and reported by Business Week) includes:

Level 3 Communications, Global Crossing, Broadvox Communications, Bandwidth.com, Pac-West Telecomm, IBasis, Neustar and Syniverse Technologies.

It’s not so easy to recreate the telephone network, is it? more

In their biggest launch day yet, Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) and its virtual network partners Sprint (NYSE:S) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) rolled out commercial WiMax service in seven new markets today, including in the long-awaited Chicago, where Motorola (NYSE:MOT) has been building a massive metropolitan network for more than two years. more