If consumer VoIP is surging, why are VoIP equipment revenues -- especially in a market segment that includes gargantuan players such as Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent -- softening?

Cisco and Intel last week touted a homegrown test which they say showcases the speed of the draft 802.11n specification.

According to market watcher Infonetics Research, in fact, VoIP revenues exploded last year, notching 52 percent growth (amounting to some $24 billion), following on the heels of an even more impressive 66 percent growth spurt in 2006.

Cisco notched one of its more unusual acquisitions last year when it picked up WebEx, a provider of Web and video conferencing software. There's a sense, though, in which Cisco's WebEx acquisition now seems prescient.

The Microsoft Learning Group has extended its popular "Second-Shot" exam retake program. According to information posted on the Microsoft Learning Web site, the program this time will continue until June 30, 2009.

Cisco last week unveiled a partnership with HP to push its unified communications (UC) products to global customers.

The good news, at least from Cisco Systems Inc.'s perspective, is that a recent survey of service provider customers has named it one of the top five VoIP vendors in the industry.

If The Graduate's Mr. McGuire were to give Ben Braddock one word of career advice today, it might very well be "networking" and not plastics.

It shouldn't surprise you that the combined telecom/datacom equipment market is enormous, totaling $139 billion last year.

Cisco Systems Inc. was on the acquisition prowl once again last week, snapping up privately-held Pure Networks for $120 million.

According to a new survey from market watcher Infonetics Research, Cisco sits atop the NAC space -- at least according to prospective buyers, who rate Cisco as tops in a number of areas.

Out with the old (frame relay, ATM and subscriber lines) and in with the new (e.g., Ethernet or IP MPLS VPN services). That's the latest trend in enterprise networking, according to market watcher Infonetics Research.

Cisco Systems Inc. likes to talk up its seminal involvement with IP-over-dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (IPoDWDM) technologies, which it claims it was first (among big-name vendors, anyway) to bring to market.

You've probably heard Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., and others making a lot of noise, recently, about unified communications (UC). There's a reason for that, experts say: There are profits to be had in UC.

You don't hear all that much about the Carrier Routing System (CRS) 1 from Cisco Systems Inc. Call it a hype deficit, a scenario in which the awareness or discussion of a technology isn't actually commensurate with its game-changing bona-fides.

If surging revenues are any indication, there's opportunity aplenty in the content security space. But established players like Cisco Systems Inc. had better be wary -- non-traditional powers (including Google Inc.) are hip to its promise, too.

This spring, Cisco Systems Inc. announced its Nexus 5000 series of Server Access Switches. Cisco's go-to-market strategy with the Nexus 5000 involves a pair of deployment options.

Requirements for professional security certification for IT workers in civilian agencies, now being readied by the Office of Management and Budget, would have a major impact on how government and industry recruit, train and manage their IT staffs, a security

At its Cisco Live! customer and user confab held this week in Orlando, Cisco trumpeted its new Learning Network, a Web 2.0 community that facilitates collaboration between and among networking professionals.

This week, Cisco pledged to reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent over the next four years.