Stephen Lawson

AT&T Corp. has agreed to acquire the assets of NorthPoint Communications Group Inc., the bankrupt U.S. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service provider, for approximately US$135 million, the companies announced Thursday.

The U.S.-China cable on Friday suffered its second break off the coast of China in a month, carrier executives confirmed Monday.

Ericsson (China) Co. Ltd. confirmed Thursday it is being sued by a Chinese mobile phone manufacturer that alleges the company infringed its intellectual property in using a Chinese-text input system in its phones.

German telecommunications equipment maker Siemens AG will acquire Efficient Networks Inc., a maker of DSL (digital subscriber line) devices for customer premises, for approximately US$1.5 billion.

Hong Kong Internet portal Hongkong.com Corp. this year plans to launch paid services such as enhanced e-mail and private corporate portal services.

Internet users in China have been hard-hit by a break in a major transpacific cable last Friday. The break is not to be fixed until some time next week.

A repair ship has been dispatched to the waters off Chongming, China, to fix the break that occurred Friday morning in the China-U.S. Cable Network, but the high-capacity fiber-optic cable probably will not be repaired until at least next week, an executive of network provider Teleglobe Hong Kong Ltd. said on Monday.

A subsidiary of the Philippines' incumbent telecommunications carrier announced Thursday it has agreed to buy a majority stake in the nation's second-largest TV broadcaster, furthering the carrier's strategy to build a converged communications empire.