Connected Planet is working with STL Partners to provide coverage of the first of the U.K.-based strategy consultant’s influential Telco 2.0 events to reach the U.S., to be held Dec. 9-10 in Orlando. As a lead-up to that event, STL CEO and founder Simon Torrance and his team shared with us — and we’re sharing with you — some analysis of the most recent Telco 2.0 event, held last month in London.

Up today: Insights into Telco Data 2.0, a session that explored the issues surrounding telco resources of subscriber data, the opportunities they create, the barriers to success and the critical requirements.

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Verizon Business (NYSE: VZ) is positioning its new cloud-computing consulting offering – which fluidly combines consultation, professional services and some of the carrier’s own managed telecom/IT services – as an open-ended best-of-breed approach. The company hopes to advise enterprises on their cloud strategies, whether based on internal or third-party infrastructure or a hybrid of the two, even when those enterprises get their cloud computing services from a competitor to Verizon – say, Savvis, Rackspace or AT&T.

“The client may want our full support or just a helping hand,” said Bruce Biesecker, senior strategist at Verizon Business. “They may want design help or other resources. Or they may just want us to provide some training and then fade out into sunset gracefully.” more

Tellabs (NASDAQ:TLAB) today finalized its acquisition of upstart mobile core gateway WiChorus, making Tellabs the newest entrant into the 3G and 4G core space. Announced just over a month ago, the purchase of the small and privately held WiChorus was a relatively painless process. Meanwhile, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) still has a few more hurdles to overcome in its own acquisition of mobile core vendor Starent (NASDAQ:STAR), which it announced just a few weeks earlier. As a publicly traded and much larger company (Cisco is paying $2.9 billion as opposed to the $165 million Tellabs shelled out for WiChorus), Cisco must has to run a much bigger regulatory gauntlet and doesn’t expect to finalize the deal until the first half of next year. more

By now it’s commonly known that consumer data habits on Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone haven’t been friendly to AT&T’s (NYSE:T) overloaded 3G network. The average iPhone user consumes five to seven times the monthly bandwidth of an average wireless subscriber, and two times the amount of an average 3G smartphone user, according to Bernstein Research senior analyst Toni Sacconaghi. As smartphone penetration continues to increase, his belief is that usage-based pricing is inevitable in the US. more

Though AT&T (NYSE:T) had another hearing in federal court coming up on Dec. 16, it has chosen to drop its lawsuit against Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) over its series of TV ads attacking AT&T’s 3G network coverage. In two separate filings today with the US district courts in Atlanta and New York, AT&T and Verizon Wireless agreed to dismiss the suit as well as VZW’s counter claims against AT&T. more