David Legard

The Australian Communications Authority (ACA), the country's telecommunication regulator, is to investigate the performance of mobile carriers in complying with the industry code for mobile number portability (MNP), ACA said in a statement Tuesday.

American businesses have proven to be the most successful at exploiting IT to become more productive and competitive, and companies in Asia should be trying to emulate that model, Singapore's senior minister Lee Kuan Yew said Wednesday in Singapore.

IBM Corp. staff in Kuala Lumpur were forced to evacuate their 24-story IBM Towers building Wednesday following phone calls to police that a bomb had been planted there, the official government news agency Berita Nasional Malaysia (Bernama) has reported. A two-hour search of the building revealed nothing and police later said the call was a hoax, Bernama said.

Worldwide semiconductor sales in July reached US$10.86 billion, 37.2 per cent lower than the $17.29 billion posted in the same month last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

Two men have been arrested for trying to sell advanced communication encryption devices to China, the U.S. Customs Service said in a statement last Thursday.

A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced a U.S. company executive to 13 years in jail last week for stealing phone time worth 60 billion dong (US$4 million), according to an official government report.

Australian telecommunication vendor Davnet Ltd. has ceased operations in Canada and Hong Kong while its Singapore subsidiary is "continuing to review its alternatives," the company said in a statement Monday.

Australian publisher News Ltd. launched a digital version of its flagship last week "The Australian" newspaper, claiming it is the first major newspaper that can be delivered to customers over the Internet in identical form to the printed version.