Adam Bender

Level 3 expects a U.S. court to resolve a conflict with Limelight Networks, said Grant van Rooyen, Level 3 Content Markets Group senior vice president. Level 3 is suing Limelight in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia for infringement of three patents it acquired in buying Savvis’s content delivery network business on Jan. 23, 2007. Limelight revealed the suit last week, denying it infringed and saying it will “defend itself vigorously” (CD Jan 2 p10). Level 3 stands by its charges, van Rooyen said. Level 3 didn’t go public with the infringement suit because it was “not looking for PR” but had no intention of hiding it, he said.

A federal court shouldn’t let the Baker Botts law firm represent AT&T in an infringement case brought by Ring Plus, a ring-back tone developer, Ring Plus said. Baker Botts exchanged “several e-mails” over “several months” with Ring Plus official and board member Tom Garretson, disqualifying the law firm from the case, Ring Plus said. In one e-mail, Garretson told Baker Botts that he possesses “a great deal of information that [he] would like to share… patent strengths, weaknesses, Ring Plus legal strategy, claim defense strategy, etc.,” Ring Plus said. Ring Plus’s motion is “baseless and frivolous,” said Larry Carlson, a lawyer with Baker Botts. After Garretson sent unsolicited e-mails to Baker Botts, the law firm called Ring Plus’s lead counsel Frederic Douglas and confirmed Garretson was not affiliated with the company, Carlson said. Baker Botts also checked with Ring Plus’s trial lawyer, who never replied, Carlson said. After that, the law firm sent two e-mails back to Garretson for scheduling purposes, but it hasn’t called or met with him, Carlson said. Ring Plus filed the original complaint against Cingular in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas., on April 14, 2006. AT&T declined comment.

Verizon Wireless sued Alltel for false advertising in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Alltel ads saying it was the only carrier letting customers change calling plans without extending contracts ran on TV unedited even after an Oct. 7, 2007, Verizon policy change to that effect, Verizon said. Verizon notified Alltel of the error and “reasonably believed” ads would stop on or before Thanksgiving; they did not, Verizon said. Alltel did revise the ad after Verizon adopted the consumer-friendly policy, an Alltel spokesman said. “We feel strongly that the current ad is fine.” Verizon wants damages, legal fees, and a court order stopping Alltel’s “misleading” ads and directing Alltel to recall false promotional materials from third parties and issue a corrected ad or notice, Verizon said.

What “open access” means depends on who’s defining it, advocates, analysts and wireless industry officials told Communications Daily. Following news in November that Verizon Wireless would open its network to all devices and applications (CD Nov 28 p2), officials from the Bell’s three largest rivals said their networks were open already. The top four carriers give different reasons for calling themselves open, but open access advocates say no U.S. operator measures up.

Motorola previewed four wireless and cable products it plans to show at CES. On the wireless side, Motorola showed the CPEi 100 WiMAX Desktop Device, a WiMAX router designed to work with 2.5 GHz spectrum. Motorola is selling the WiMAX device through operators in 35-38 countries, said Motorola’s Ashish Dayama. If Sprint or “any other” operator reveals a retail model, Motorola would support it, he added. Motorola also unveiled the Mobile TV DHO1, a DVB-H pocket-sized live TV player with DVR, a 4.3 inch screen and four hours of rechargeable battery life. Motorola starts selling DH01 this month to broadcasters, service providers and retailers, said Venkat Eswara, senior marketing manager for application services. For cable operators, Motorola announced the DCX series of MPEG-4 set-top boxes, supporting HD, DVR and surround sound. All models use a 1 GHz tuner and are backward compatible with MPEG-2. HD models can output up to 1080i through HDMI and component cables; they also have pass-through support for 1080p, said Rob Folk, product management director for Motorola’s Digital Video Solutions business. The DCX series will be available Q3 2008. Motorola will also show CES the SURFboard SBV5422 Digital Voice Modem and Integrated DECT Cordless Phone System. The device combines two cordless VoIP phone lines with a cable broadband modem and lets users access e-mail, check the weather and send and receive SMS text messages. Consumers can configure the device using a handset; previous versions required a PC.

The proposed no-cash Vonage-Nortel settlement (CD Jan 2 p10) is a “non-event” for Vonage stock, Stanford Group’s Clayton Moran said. No one expected a “significant monetary settlement,” and it was unlikely Vonage would come out the loser, told us. Assuming Vonage and Nortel finalize the deal, Vonage will have settled all patent suits brought against it. That “legal stability” is good, but Vonage must now focus on the “financial side,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said in an interview. Vonage must pay off $250 million in debt by the end of 2008 but has less than $150 million in working capital, most of which is needed for business costs, Moran said. Vonage should come up with a plan to address the funding gap in the next three to six months, he said.

Qualcomm has replacement WCDMA chipsets to comply with part of a New Year’s Eve injunction, and is developing workarounds for other products a Santa Ana jury last May determined to infringe three Broadcom patents, Qualcomm said Wednesday. Late Monday, the Santa Ana U.S. District Court banned Qualcomm from making, using, selling and importing the infringing products. However, to lessen the blow to carriers and handset makers, the court stayed the injunction until Jan. 31, 2009, for chips sold before the May jury ruling. Qualcomm plans to appeal to the Federal Circuit U.S. Appeals Court.

Vonage and Nortel would trade patent licenses but no cash in a proposed settlement, Vonage said Monday. Vonage said Friday that it was “close” to a Nortel settlement that would end suits in the U.S. District Courts for Delaware and the Northern District of Texas (CD Dec 31 p6). Under the deal, each VoIP firm would license three patents from the other, Vonage said. Vonage and Nortel could not sub-license the patents to other companies, a Vonage spokesman added. “Claims relating to past damages and the remaining patents will be dismissed without prejudice.” The parties agree “in principle” but are waiting for final documentation, Vonage said. Nortel is “pleased” with the agreement, a spokesman said.

Cable companies seeking wireless partners should take a look at T-Mobile, ThinkEquity analyst Anton Wahlman said in an interview. T-Mobile is seen by some analysts as an “extremely likely candidate” for a cable partnership (CD Dec 28 p4). T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi hand-off service HotSpot@Home would work well with the Internet backbone cable provides, offering excellent wireless coverage in cable customers’ homes, Wahlman said. It costs relatively little to add Wi-Fi, so cable would have to pay only “incremental costs” for T- Mobile’s cellular network to provide service when customers aren’t in range of a Wi-Fi router, he said. Cable companies could save more still by building municipal Wi-Fi networks in cities, he said. Municipal Wi-Fi has struggled because laptop owners don’t use it, he said, predicting that BlackBerry and other cellphone users could turn the networks into moneymakers.

Vonage and Nortel are “in discussions” and “close to a resolution” of their patent fight, a Vonage spokesman told us Friday. The VoIP companies have infringement claims against each other in the U.S. District Court for Delaware and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Meanwhile, Vonage moved to dismiss claims and counterclaims between itself and SBC Internet Services in the Texas court. The action satisfies a condition of the Vonage-AT&T settlement (CD Dec 28 p6).