The ng Connect foundation, formed by Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and made up of 30 companies, is using the Consumer Electronics Show to demo – among other services – its LTE Connected Car, pushing the limits of what ultra high-speed mobile networks can do on the road. Since November, the organization has added new features to the car, a 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid-electric, including capacity for video on-demand, games, an audio library, detailed traffic and weather information, remote diagnostics and maintenance. more

Interesting video today courtesy of Jeff Pulver’s blog and his recent 140 Character conference, with Amdocs’ Chief Scientist, Tal Givoly discussing the role that traditional service providers can play on the social Web. more

Tomorrow is Google-phone day, and the question of the day seems to be: will Google make its Android offering just a little more appealing by adding — and more importantly subsidizing — specialty apps like streaming music player Spotify into the Android OS. more

Prices for video services are expected to rise this year as cable companies agree to pay broadcasters more for their content. But prices for broadband services among major providers are going up at least as much as video prices are, according to Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffet. And unlike video, broadband prices don’t have the same history of perpetual increases.

“Cable and telco operators almost across the board are implementing price increases for broadband as well as video,” Moffet wrote in a note today. “Taken together with video price increases, they may enable cable and telco fiber operators to more

Just weeks after mobile application analytics company Flurry Analytics announced its merger with Pinch Media, the newly formed company today forged a partnership with mobile and PC-based Web analysis house comScore. The two companies will combine comScore’s mobile panel data with Flurry’s mobile app usage data, which covers 80% of iPhones, Android and BlackBerry devices. more

For our staff, 2009 was the year of:

Introducing the brand Connected Planet: We came into existence, ending the hundred-year run of Telephony – because of course there’s much more to today’s networks than voice – and charting off to cover the same industry but new territories.

Happy New Year! Thank you for your continued readership. Here’s to a great and prosperous 2010.

Apple was a catalyst for a lot in 2009, but there are some trends the software giant can’t take credit for:

•  New “wholesale” markets like CDN and mobile backhaul emerging as hot growth areas
•  Network equipment vendors overnight turning into outsourced network operators
•  DPI and policy entering the network in a big way – adding intelligence to the network
•  Vertical solution areas – most notably smart grids – emerging as key driver of network growth
•  The acceleration of 4G

The great android v. Apple debate after the break… more

The “Google-Phone” — now officially dubbed the Nexus One — looks to be announced next week in partnership with T-Mobile — the Web is adrift with news and rumors, including look-and-feel, availability and even pricing. Here’s our best take on what this important milestone means:

more

Justified or not, the bad economy was everyone’s favorite scapegoat in 2009:

•  The fact that service providers can’t out-innovate Web and media companies when it comes to content and applications.
•  That you didn’t make your sales quote or Wall Street guidance – and your competitor did (there are still good and bad employees and companies, even in a downturn)
•  Apple can sell smartphones despite the economy, yet no one else can sell them because of it

More after the break, including our readers’ responses… more

Sometimes competition can turn into all-out feud:

•  AT&T – Verizon “map” advertising wars. AT&T failed when it tried shut VZW down in court, and the commercials just keep getting juicer.
•  Verizon CEO to Hulu: “You’ll be dead in 2 years”

More after the break… more