verizon

SFLC sues Verizon over FiOS box

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed a lawsuit in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Verizon on behalf of open source software developer BusyBox.

The suit alleges that Verizon has infringed on BusyBox’s copyrights in distributing the Actiontec MI424WR wireless routers to Verizon’s FiOS broadband customers.

BusyBox is a collection of Unix utilities optimized for size, and which are most commonly used in embedded environments. The SFLC claims that the Actiontec router includes BusyBox code, which under the GPL means that Verizon is obligated to distribute source code with the router. The suit charges that the company fails to do this. Continue reading

Verizon dumps WiMax for Long Term Evolution (LTE)

Verizon_wireless Verizon announced last week that it plans to develop and deploy its fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband network using Long Term Evolution (LTE) – a technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization.

LTE promises to deliver a significant performance boost even when compared to Verizon’s current (3-G) EV-DO network. Verizon claims customers will see as much as 100 and 50 megabits per second in download and upload speeds, respectively. Continue reading