telecom

Cramming: It's a multibillion dollar con that cheats millions of Americans every year. But because it uses small charges, hidden as deceptively legit sounding fees embedded on phone bills, victims may not notice for months or years. DailyFinance readers share how they got scammed -- and how they fought back.

Microsoft has a lot of plans for squeezing profits out of its $8.5 billion acquisition of Internet phone service Skype, but raising the rates on its premium VoIP service is unlikely to be among them, according to industry analysts.

The S&P 500 is one of the most followed stock market index in the world. Mutual fund managers benchmark their returns against it, yet somehow the vast majority underperform the index every year. Many dividend investors choose to ignore the index, and instead focus on its components.

While wireless use has been constantly increasing and the field of providers has been narrowing, the FCC has largely remained absent from discussion over the future of the market. The time has come for a more active and involved government presence.

Do you have enough unused acreage on your homestead to accommodate the equivalent of two inflatable castle bounce houses? If so, you have enough space for a monopole cellular antenna tower, and the potential to collect anywhere from $500 to approximately $5,000 per month in rent.

Motorola's sale of its network-equipment division to Nokia Siemens Networks seems to have hit another hiccup. Chinese telecom-equipment maker Huawei has won a preliminary U.S. court injunction against Motorola, a Huawei vendor, arguing that the deal would transfer confidential information to a competitor.

With trillions of dollars sitting in corporate coffers, the spigots of capital flowing to technology are finally opening up again. Gartner Research projects 5.1% growth in information technology spending in 2011. So which companies' stocks should you buy to take advantage?

Tech layoffs came to just under 47,000 last year, according to employment-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Better still, during the next 10 years, the sector is forecast to have one of the fastest paces of job creation of any industry.

The outlook for IT spending this year is looking up. Research firm Gartner said Thursday it expects revenue to grow 5.1% from 2010, an increase from a previous forecast of 3.5% growth.

If you want to know how the rural developing world could get cheap, easy wireless Internet access, just follow the money: Remittances to those regions total tens of billions each year, and the money flow isn't very efficient. The profits from micro-telcos taking over the business could prime the pump for an information revolution in the hinterlands.