Rick Perera

Swedish telecommunications providers Telia AB and Tele2 AB have signed an agreement to create a joint UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) network company. The deal finalizes plans announced in January.

EDS Corp. has signed an agreement with airline booking giant Sabre Inc. to run its IT infrastructure the companies announced Thursday. Sabre has awarded EDS a 10-year, US$2.2 billion service contract, under which some 4,200 Sabre employees, mostly in the United States, will switch to EDS.

Visitors to the massive IT and telecommunications trade fair CeBIT, which opens next week in Germany, are particularly interested in Internet and wireless telecommunications technologies, according to one survey.

Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a silicon-based light-emitting diode (LED) that could lead to a more seamless link between semiconductors and optical data networks.

They've barely begun tackling the much-vaunted 3G (third-generation) of wireless technology, but leading companies in the industry are already laying the groundwork for what some are calling 4G.

Private company New.net Inc. will announce plans later Monday to offer a series of new Internet TLDs (top level domains), from .chat to .xxx, in a process calculated to sidestep the monopoly control of nonprofit organization ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on such domains, the company said in a statement.

Corning Inc. has announced it will cut 825 jobs in its photonic technologies businesses, in response to weak market conditions in the telecommunications industry.

Questions are swirling around the future of a planned US$1.5 billion semiconductor plant, after two members quit the supervisory board overseeing the project, and a government document appearing to question its feasibility surfaced in the media. If the project collapses, as critics say it might, Intel Corp. could walk away with access to prized technology developed at taxpayer expense.