2009 January

January 30, 2009

Vodafone completes Wayfinder acquisition

by David Allen
Vodafone has announced the acquisition of Swedish sat nav company, Wayfinder Systems. Vodafone's 239 million kronor cash offer has been accepted by Wayfinder shareholders. The deal - first proposed by Vodafone in December - sees the mobile operator acquire over 98% of Wayfinder shares. Vodafone's director of internet services, Pieter Knook, said the acquisition will enable Vodafone to provide LBS technology on customer ...

Orange launches UK’s first PAYG Blackberry

by David Allen
Orange launches UK's first PAYG Blackberry

Mobile operator Orange has launched the Blackberry Pearl 8120 on pay-as-you-go. Costing £145 for the handset, web access costs £5 per month on the PAYG Animal package. The £5 monthly charge includes access to email, social networks, and messaging. Pippa Dunn, Orange UK's director of PAYG, said: "With nearly two thirds of UK mobile customers ...

As expected government promises broadband for all

by David Allen

We are going to be able to treat broadband as a basic utility, like electricity and water, as everyone in the UK will have the right to have access to it. This won't happen overnight though, as the government’s target has been set at 2012. This right of people to have broadband access has come about from the changing ...

£20 broadband tax for all

by David Allen

Now customers of internet service providers could have to pay a new internet piracy tax. The figure being talked about it £20 per year, but it is believed that this is by no means set in stone, and could change by the time it comes in. To collect and manage this new tax on the people the Communications ...

Rural areas could benefit from euro investment

by David Allen

Following plans made in the UK and US, the European Union is planning to make a billion euro investment into providing rural areas with a broadband service. This will serve two purposes; firstly rural areas could benefit from the introduction of high speed internet, and secondly the EU believes that this investment could create up to a million jobs ...

Birmingham ready for next gen broadband

by David Allen

Over seventy seven per cent of phone lines in Birmingham and the surrounding areas are now ready for the introduction of next generation broadband. This gives the city the highest percentage of next gen exchanges in the UK. BT has been installing new equipment in its exchanges in Birmingham, upgrading just under six hundred thousand phone lines as part of ...

The public could play large role in next gen broadband

by David Allen

The talk is currently all about the Digital Britain report, but one major group appears to have been left out of the plan and that is the British public. Consumers have been left out of the consulting process, and yet the public is a great source of information, and as they are the end user it is important to ...

Google intros broadband performance tool

by David Allen

Another tool has been released by Google, which can be used to check how well internet services are being delivered. Google has called this tool the Measurement Lab (M Lab) and it can be used to check the performance of the internet and suggest why users may be having problems with their connection. This could be an answer to ...

Freesat passes 200,000 subscriber mark

by David Allen

The free alternative satellite service, Freesat, was only launched in May 2008, yet already it has sold systems to well over two hundred thousand households. The joint venture between the BBC and ITV means that digital TV is available to many more people, especially those in areas where, even after the digital switchover takes place, they will not be ...

BSkyB investing in SEO

by David Allen

BSkyB is looking to expand its online presence. As well as beaming its service into people’s homes through satellite dishes, the company is looking to get in through their computers too, which is why they are interested in intelligent positioning. To date Sky’s websites have been growing at a steady pace in both content production and traffic coming in, ...

Power problem for new satellite

by David Allen

After an unexpected problem with its latest satellite, Eutelsat has decided to refuse to take over the craft, due to a serious error with the satellite's power system. This satellite was supposed to have gone into service covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as W2M at 16 degrees east. The satellite was launched just before Christmas but during the ...

January 29, 2009

Palringo adds location function for iPhone users

by Janet Harris
Palringo adds location function for iPhone users

Mobile IM provider, Palringo, has announced the addition of location, distance and maps functionality for iPhone users. The new application allows iPhone users to simply look at their contact list to see the town where their contacts are currently located, and how far away it is. Palringo plans to extend the application ...

UK School Authority Selects Video Furnace

by IPTV
A major educational authority in South Yorkshire, England, has begun using one of the U.K.'s most technologically advanced IP video distribution systems. The 17 middle schools and two learning centers managed by the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council are installing an IP video distribution system developed by Video Furnace, a US-based provider of IP video solutions. The authority was seeking a video distribution ...

O2 denies capping broadband speeds

by David Allen
Broadband provider O2 has denied throttling bandwidth on customer connections. News site 'The Register' suggested this week that O2 and Be have deployed speed-capping equipment to stop subscribers playing bandwidth-hungry online games. O2 denied the allegation, and instead blamed the slow speeds on the success of its network. "We do not throttle speeds on our network," an O2 spokesperson said. Increased traffic is a ...

Gmail available offline

by David Allen

Google has added value to its free email service Gmail by allowing users to access their emails even when they are offline. This is a great bonus for people on the move, who are not always able to connect to a broadband service. All a user has to do is go to setting and into the labs section. ...

Sky offers HD box for £49

by David Allen

Yesterday, buying a new Sky+ HD set top box would have cost £150, but today this same box is going to cost just £49, as BSkyB begins a huge marketing drive to attract more subscribers to Sky HD. With around seven million homes already owning televisions that are capable of receiving HD TV and being used for HD gaming, ...

BT still looking to roll out fibre

by David Allen

It looks as if the roll out of the fibre network by BT will be taking place after all, despite apparent calls from shareholders to hold back until the financial crisis has eased off a bit. BT were quick to clarify that the rollout of the fibre network, with its price tag of £1.5 billion, will only go ahead ...

T Mobile out performs competition

by David Allen

The mobile broadband network provided by T Mobile has been shown to be the fastest mobile broadband service in the UK for second quarter in a row. These results come from independent tests carried out by P3 Solutions, that measured the connection speed at various spots around the UK. The test were carried out in sixteen cities at peak ...

Emergency plan from TalkTalk

by David Allen

In times like these there is often a need for us all to stick together, and it looks as if the broadband and fixed line phone services provider, TalkTalk, has come up with a good deal for those people who are finding it hard to cover the cost of their existing TalkTalk broadband and phone service. It has been ...

BSkyB to recruit 1,000 new staff

by David Allen

Some businesses do well in a recession and BSkyB are no exception to that rule. First of all they announced that they increased their customer base by 171,000 subscribers in the last quarter and secondly they are about to embark on a massive marketing campaign to promote their HD services. In another recession busting announcement BSkyB will be taking ...

January 28, 2009

Nokia ships 1m 5800 XpressMusic

by David Allen
Nokia ships 1m 5800 XpressMusic

Nokia has already shipped one million 5800 XpressMusic handsets, which launched in the UK on Friday. The Comes With Music phone is Nokia's first touchscreen model, pitched in direct competition against Apple's iPhone. Nokia vice president Jo Harlow said: "The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has been received very positively and this milestone is further proof ...

Vodafone partners with UAE operator

by David Allen
Mobile giant Vodafone has signed up United Arab Emirates operator du to its Partner Market programme. The deal will see Vodafone grant du exclusive access to its products, devices and services in the United Arab Emirates. Vodafone will also give du improved voice and data roaming access across 67 countries. In exchange, Vodafone customers visiting the UAE will be given extended network coverage ...

AA extends O2 contract

by David Allen
The AA has extended and expanded its mobile services contract with O2. The new deal will run until 2013. Under the contract, O2 provides mobile service for all AA employees, including voice, data, and Blackberry smartphone connections. In addition, O2 will now provide bespoke mobile and data systems, consultancy services, and voice and data audits. O2 will work to identify and correct problems ...

RADVISION Recognised For IPTV Technology

by Alan Harten
Internet Telephony Magazine has recognized Tel Aviv-based RADVISION for its advancements in IPTV (Internet Protocol Telephony / Video) technology in its recent awards issue. Specifically, the magazine editors cited RADVISION’s work in developing new tools for communicating over 3G, IP and other next-generation networks. Greg Alitzine, Internet Telephony's editorial director, called RADVISION’s impact on the IPTV marketplace “powerful.” He especially cited their Multimedia ...

New Video-Compression at 6x Previous Capacity

by Alan Harten
While technology experts have noted the lack of anything truly innovative at most of the technology expos during the past several months, one offering by Broadcast International holds promise. Their new CodecSys AVC, if it performs as the company promises, will offer video compression at six times the current levels. (Read that story here) Broadcast has been touting the new technology ...

Blusens HDTV Includes Sigma Chip Technology

by Alan Harten
Blusens HDTV Includes Sigma Chip Technology

In a boon to Sigma Designs’ processor-chip business, Blusens has announced it will be using the company’s chips for its new HDTV Home Entertainment Device. Blusens’ new entertainment system was designed from the ground up to manage, distribute and reproduce audio-video content between several different sources. What this means for the consumer is ...

Blusens HDTV Includes Sigma Chip Technology

by Alan Harten
In a boon to Sigma Designs’ processor-chip business, Blusens has announced it will be using the company’s chips for its new HDTV Home Entertainment Device. Blusens’ new entertainment system was designed from the ground up to manage, distribute and reproduce audio-video content between several different sources. What this means for the consumer is that they could receive content from the Blusens Blu ...

RipCord Receives Frost & Sullivan Recognition

by Alan Harten
RipCord Receives Frost & Sullivan Recognition

RipCode, Inc. has won a Frost & Sullivan award honouring its achievements in the field of mobile-video call technology and its potential impact on the marketplace. Each year, Frost & Sullivan hands out awards honouring those businesses which demonstrate superior performance and outstanding achievement in areas such as technological innovation, customer service, leadership, ...

Wales to get broadband boost

by David Allen

Those rural areas in Wales, where there is no broadband access at all, could soon be getting their wish for a reliable service. It seems that broadband could be included in the Universal Service Obligation, which would mean that in the same way that a phone line has to be supplied to a property no matter where it ...

Broadband speed is top complaint

by David Allen

Speed and customer service appears to be the most common complaints, when it comes to broadband users. It is interesting to find that different surveys often show up different results, and broadbandgenie's latest survey is not the exception to that rule. The results of the survey undertaken by broadbandgenie are as follows: Speed - 37 comments, 9 positive, 28 negative Customer ...

Be and O2 accused of bandwidth throttling

by David Allen

Some subscribers to internet service providers O2 and Be Broadband have reported that service at weekends and in the evenings is being affected by a severe slowdown, resulting in some users finding that they are unable to access their usual sites. Be Broadband was bought by O2 back in 2006. This was before they launched their own service on ...

Sky predicts increase in subscribers

by David Allen

In these worrying times, it seems there are certain businesses that are set to gain from the public tightening their purse strings. One such business is Sky TV, which sees the recession as an opportunity, rather than a problem. The satellite provider is predicting that because people are now tending to stay at home, rather than going out for ...

PVR boosting Freeview sales

by David Allen

The introduction of a personal video recorder (PVR), that is compatible with the Freeview service throughout the UK, has been a serious boost to viewers taking up Freeview as their preferred digital TV provider. Over nine hundred thousand PVRs have now been sold, with two of these boxes being bought every minute during the 2008 final quarter. The addition ...

Mobile broadband providers to get 3G deal

by David Allen

As more details leak out from the Communications Minister's report on Digital Britain it looks as if the government is willing to offer incentives to the businesses involved in the industry, in an attempt to get the 'broadband for all' plan and the development of a next generation broadband network in place. It seems that mobile broadband providers could ...

January 27, 2009

Zen expands into Colocation services

by Jan Harris
Zen Internet, which has held the title of Best Internet Service Provider of the Year for five years now, has announced a new Colocation service. Zen launched the service, which will be situated in a secure data centre at its headquarters, in response to demand from customers, who wanted more data centre space. As well as allowing Zen to ...

Monster victim of largest data theft

by David Allen

The online job hunting site, Monster, has become the victim of the largest data theft in the UK, with hackers managing to gain access to the personal details of four and half million people on monster.co.uk. The hackers are believed to have got away with Names, passwords, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, birth dates, sex and locations of both employers ...

Is next gen broadband to be revised?

by David Allen

The future of the government’s plans to introduce broadband for all, and even next generation broadband, are under threat because of the current financial crisis that is still hitting the UK. There is a lot of talk about the Digital Britain report compiled by the communications minister, Lord Carter, yet as this report takes shape the broadband industry is ...

Mobile broadband to get code of conduct

by David Allen

At the end of 2008 the broadband industry agreed to sign up to an industry code of practice, which in reality covers speed issues more than anything else. Basically internet service providers agreed to provide more accurate connection speed estimates for customers. This system could now be taken up by the mobile broadband service providers as well, who would ...

No disconnection for pirates

by David Allen

It now seems that anyone found downloading illegal music will not be disconnected from the internet as previously thought. The Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, is preparing a consultation named Developing a Copyright Agenda for the 21st Century. This deals with the practicalities of preventing the illegal downloading of music and other material, and will also look into the ...

Shetlands get Wi-Fi broadband

by David Allen

A pilot scheme could see many households and businesses in the Shetland Islands, getting a stable broadband connection for the first time. In the past, residents and business owners throughout the region have been campaigning for the situation to be improved. The first places to try the wireless broadband service provided by the Cable and Wireless company Thus, will be ...

Army gets troops connected

by David Allen

Despite the plans to provide broadband for all, getting a fixed line broadband connection in extreme rural locations, such as in parts of Wales, is very difficult. This shocked the troops based at the Cawdor Barracks in Pembrokeshire, who found that when they were in Afghanistan and Iraq they had better a better broadband service than that being ...

January 26, 2009

UK operators offered indefinite 3G licenses

by David Allen
Mobile operators will be allowed to keep their 3G licences indefinitely if they agree to new spending plans outlined by communications minister Lord Carter. The offer is designed to placate concerns that a universal obligation to provide every home with 2Mbps broadband would be too expensive for the telecoms industry. Two-megabytes-per-second is fast enough to watch videos on BBC iPlayer. Currently, only 58% ...

China Unicom announces WCDMA winners

by David Allen
China Unicom has announced the winning bidders in its first WCDMA infrastructure tender. Huawei, Motorola and Ericsson are the biggest winners, whilst smaller contracts went to ZTE, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Alcatel-Lucent. The tender is believed to cover 55 cities in 30 provinces, and is the first stage in a 282 city rollout of the 3G technology. Huawei, who will carry out their ...

Virgin Media’s P2P plans shelved

by David Allen

Has Virgin Media caved in to pressure from the big players in the music industry, by shelving its plans to introduce a fully legal and above board music sharing service for their customers? Virgin Music Unlimited was due to be launched in a matter of weeks and actually represented a huge investment by the company. If it had matured into ...

Emails reach 210 billion per day

by David Allen

According to recent research by the website performance business Pingdom, last year there were two hundred and ten billion emails sent each and every day to internet users located all around the world. This staggering figure looks even more spectacular when it is considered that there are only just under one and half billion email users around the world. ...

Future of Teletext in the balance

by David Allen

The media regulator, Ofcom, is questioning the need for the long standing public service Teletext, in light of the growth in digital and internet TV. It is expected that Ofcom could recommend that Teletext may not have much use after 2014, even though the service has been available since 1993 when it took over the service on ITV and ...

Dell Mini 10 on sale at Tesco

by David Allen

Tesco is almost always at the front of the queue when it comes to getting the latest technology onto supermarket shelves, somewhere between its stores' special offers and discounted seasonal goods. Now, the Dell Mini 10 has hit the stores with a price tag of around £349. The machine includes a webcam, Bluetooth, 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, ...

Plans for broadband for all to be revealed

by David Allen

The future of digital Britain could mean that the government will end up regulating the internet in order to adjust the balance between the television and the internet. This is just part of a report being compiled by the communications minister, Lord Carter, who is due to present this much discussed document sometime during the spring. The report will explore ...

UK may get broadband tax

by David Allen

The UK music and entertainment industry must have been taking notice the Isle of Man government’s plans to introduce a tax, in an attempt to satisfy all parties with regards to the downloading of music. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimates that around forty billion illegal music files were shared during 2008. They are proposing that ...

January 23, 2009

Five.tv chooses Claranet for web hosting

by David Allen
TV broadcaster Channel Five has outsourced its web hosting and management to Claranet in an attempt to better engage with viewers. The content of Five's website will be moved to a single location, Five.tv, including revamped content for popular shows Fifth Gear, Five News, The Gadget Show, and Neighbours. "This is part of our wider plan to ramp up our rich media ...

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