THE WRAP: Quigley's broadside, Li Yue's promotion

 This week, as the Australian election went down to the (broadband) wire, NBN chief Mike Quigley hitched his star to the government.
 
Quigley, head of the new state telco, waded into the election campaign with a broadside at the opposition parties’ wireless broadband scheme. The starkly different broadband platforms are the main differentiator between the two main parties, who are running neck-and-neck ahead of tomorrow’s poll.
 
China Mobile made vice-president Li Yue its new CEO replacing the respected Wang Jianzhou, who stays on as chairman. The company beat forecasts with a 4% rise in first-half profit.
 
Five Thai companies, including the three main incumbent operators, threw their hats into the ring for the pending 3G auction, due to be held late September.
 
Indian authorities attempted to prod Research In Motion (RIM) into a deal over access to encrypted BlackBerry data, as the parties remain in talks ahead of the government’s August 31 deadline. 
 
The government is also considering extending tough new security rules for equipment vendors to cover mobile phones and e-mail services.
 
Telekom Austria’s profits dipped 4.6% to €159.9 million during 1H10 as sales fell 3.9% to €2.2 billion, but the firm remains confident it will hit full-year targets.
 
Reliance Communications quarterly earnings plunged 85%, a result of India’s unrelenting price competition. PCCW boosted profit 17% thanks to higher mobile sales and cost-cutting.
 
LightSquared, the US hybrid LTE-satellite startup, said it would pay Inmarsat $338 million (€263 million) for use of its L-band frequencies.
 
 
Billing and messaging vendor Comverse warned it might run out of cash by next April.
 
The iPhone 4 made a spectacular Korean debut, with customers overwhelming Korea Telecom’s servers with pre-orders.
 
Dell bought virtual storage firm 3Par for $1.15 billion (€897 million), while Intel snapped up McAfee for $7.68 billion.
 
Apple went into damage control after App Store director Phillip Shoemaker was found selling his own apps such as “Animal Farts” in the store, and procurement manager Paul Devine was indicted for receiving kickbacks from Asian suppliers.
 
Bloggers debated the death of the web
 
Eric Schmidt suggested people might have to change their ID to avoid being tied to embarrassing material posted online.
 
Enjoying a 50% first half sales spike, contract manufacturer Foxconn said it would hire as many as 400,000 more staff in China in the next year.
 
US call center staff are becoming as cheap to hire as those in India according to India’s biggest BPO firm.
 
An Australian oceanographer called for telcos to allow their subsea cables to be used to track climate change.
 
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – the browser that launched a rash of anti-trust suits - turned 15 years old.
 
The North Korean government opened a Twitter account
 
And German police arrested a 19-year-old bank robber by tracking emails he had sent taunting them.