DMOZ a Forgotten Wasteland?

I noticed that the Telecommunications section of DMOZ.com has not been updated with new listings for some time and contains many old listings which are no longer relevant. I understand that DMOZ utilizes "strict" guidelines for its listings but I have yet to get any one of the sites I work with listed! I have been working with some telecommunications companies that have websites dating back to the late 90s and are very reputable... Yet none have been listed!!

Seems like they don't much care about staying current....

Not sure who the editors of this category are but it seems as if those involved (most likely telecom professionals) are selfishly trying to protect their websites from the competition. I have listings on all of the other major directories like Yahoo, BOTW, Joeant, business.com and so many more but yet can't get three sites listed after two years of waiting for the editors of DMOZ to give me a listing. DMOZ better shape up and change their strategy or risk being left out in the cold in the fast changing internet landscape!

Oblio Lands a Deal with Sprint

First it was At&T and now Oblio Telecom has landed Sprint as a carrier for just about their whole product line. They will launch 25 calling cards within the coming weeks and will no doubt cause quite a stir in the prepaid industry. I am not sure if they are going to port over their popular cards like Picante and others to Sprint or create all new ones, but I would imagine they are going to do both. I wonder which one of the two companies got the better deal? Hopeful Sprint learned from MCIs big mistake a few years back with 9278 and isn't giving away the kitchen sink!

FiOS TV Service from Verizon - FiOS

I had heard about Verizon wanting to get into the Cable TV industry but I just recently heard that their fiber TV service, FiOS, is up and running in one small test market in Texas and they are working diligently to get it out across the country.... And the price tag, you won't believe this, $700 to $1,000 per household... WOW!!!

Hey if they are willing to spend that much, it can't be half bad! I will pick it up when it comes to my area as my current provider is cleaning out my pocket each and every month. Competition may not be good for the likes of Comcast and Time Warner but it will mean great savings for us the consumer!

FYI - Comcast and other big cable companies are doing everything they can to stop Verizon so be prepared to wait awhile until the legal battles are over before you see this in your neck of the woods.

AT&T Has to Pay Up!

It seems as if AT&T has finally lost the battle in trying not to pay the USF charges. For sometime now they have been claiming that these cards are "information services" since they contained advertising and thus were not subject to the USF charge. Well today the FCC dug in its heels and announced that AT&T had to pay up! I am sure new owner SBC is loving this great inheritance... Surely they new this was coming. Don't worry they will find a way to make us everyday customers pay for it with a "we are stupid" type of tax on local and long distance services.

In other news related to this judgment, all carriers claiming they are exempt from the USF since they carry calls over a VOIP network, now have to pay the fee as well. No more hiding behind the VOIP thing, especially if their network only has limited usage of VOIP. There is still some grey areas as it relates to 100% pure VOIP carriers. This should be interesting for the lawyers from the big VOIP companies like Net2Phone, Vonage and Ibasis.