US plans to give high-speed broadband to every American
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which will now submit the plan to Congress, said broadband was the "greatest infrastructure challenge". It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home.
The FCC's goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now.
BBC News

Lords pass controversial internet piracy bill
The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to be rushed through the Commons before the general election. Peers had earlier rejected a bid by ministers to include wide-ranging powers over future online piracy law. But despite criticism, the government said it was still committed to giving courts the power to block websites which are infringing copyright.
BBC News

Facebook removing stalker applications
Facebook says it is "aggressively disabling" applications that claim to allow users to see who is viewing their profile. It has also confirmed that the programmes do not work and won't allow access to private information. Several variants of the so-called "stalker apps" have appeared on Facebook in recent days. Unwitting users have helped spread the rogue software by attempting to install it.
BBC News

Twitter embeds itself in the web
Twitter has announced technology that it hopes will further embed the service into the fabric of the web. @anywhere, as it is known, will allow people using websites such as Amazon or the New York Times to follow new users or share media directly from the page. It was unveiled at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
BBC News

Traffic to Twitter and Facebook fell in February in US, says Compete
Figures about web traffic are notoriously hard to interpret - as in, to what extent should you trust them? It can be like trying to discern which opinion poll to believe. So bearing in mind our story about Facebook passing Google for traffic in the US in a week in March, according to Hitwise, see how you like these numbers: according to Compete.com, in the US in February Twitter's web traffic fell by 9.63 per cent, Facebook's by 4.32 per cent, LinkedIn's by 8.30 per cent, while MySpace lost 11.5 per cent of its unique visitors.
The Guardian

Juniper predicts $18.9bn of web 2.0 mobile revenues by 2014
Juniper Research's latest report predicts that Web 2.0 applications and services will be generating $18.9 million of mobile revenues by 2014. Where will the dosh come from for these services in mobile? According to Juniper, it'll be a mixture of ads, messaging, premium services and virtual economies, along with mobile micro-payments.
Mobile Entertainment

Google hires heavyweights to lead mobile charge
Web giant Google has been busy adding more ‘hero’ executives to its ranks as it prepares to really stake a claim in the mobile space. As of Monday morning, Tim Bray, co-founder of web technology XML, works for Google as developer advocate for the Android platform.
Telecoms.com

Motorola prepares for network unit sale
Motorola is planning to sell its mobile network infrastructure business, but may team up with a rival to form a joint venture, according to reports. The company is planning a group demerger that will result in separate companies for its handset and infrastructure businesses early next year. Greg Brown, co-CEO of Motorola, will lead the companies that make network infrastructure and mobile radio equipment for the emergency services.
Global Telecoms Business

Orange adds three MVNO deals
Orange has signed three new mobile virtual network operator deals. The company has secured the deals on its Orange Partner Platform, through Transatel, Orange’s mobile virtual network aggregator partner. Orange has signed two deals with UK fixed line providers, Unicom — not connected with China Unicom — and Axis Telecom, and the third with Catalyst, a company working with students, ethnic minorities and small and medium enterprises.
Global Telecoms Business