Top stories of 2009: Honorable mentions

As we take a look at our top stories of 2009 this week, there were a number of other stories during the year that didn't quite fit into the broader areas encompassing our top five, but which should not go unmentioned. So, here's five more honorable mentions:

-TiVo's lawsuits: TiVo wants to be a telco partner, but it also fought to protect its patents through lawsuits against Dish Network, AT&T and Verizon.

-IPTV over cable: As DOCSIS 3.0 became more of a commercial reality, cable TV operators increasingly have looked at IPTV bypass scenarios. Vendors have been happy to oblige.

-Home networking remained a big topic of conversation, as the ITU approved the physical layer portion of the G.hn standard, but proponents of various home networking technologies continued to battle in the marketplace.

-Multi-screen content initiatives also made some progress this year.

-Microsoft used server virtualization to make its Mediaroom software more affordable and more viable for smaller service providers.