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July 31, 2009

Sprint acquires Virgin Mobile USA

by David Allen
US-based mobile network Sprint Nextel has acquired Virgin Mobile USA for a reported fee of $483 million. Sprint, the US's third largest carrier, said it made the acquisition to increase its market share in the prepaid segment. Virgin's five million customers, the majority of whom use pre-paid services, will join three million pre-paid customers on Sprint's Boost network. “The acquisition of Virgin Mobile ...



Africa now has a fair share of broadband pipe

by Alan Harten
Internet users in Southern and Eastern Africa received good news last week, as an optic line linking Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania to each other, Europe, and India was completed. Future improvements include linking Ethiopia and Rwanda to the fibre optic line as well and onwards into the interior countries of Africa. Seacom was responsible for the line and said ...



Can Micowave, Satellite & E-Band Backhaul work?

by Alan Harten
The Micowave, Satellite & E-Band Backhaul: Growth Prospects has been released: a study on the new developments in these sectors and the current market opportunities for growth in these areas. It also discusses vendors’ responses to customers’ needs and the demand for less costly and flexible bandwidth and deployment. Research analyst for Light Reading Insider, Danny Dicks, stated that backhaul is a ...



Sky Channel in 3D on the way

by Alan Harten
Sky Channel in 3D on the waySky has released news that a Sky Channel in 3D will hit airwaves in 2010 with an entire list of 3D shows through the Sky+HD box. The 3D channel is supposed to have a wide range of broadcast offerings from sports to news to entertainment so you will have plenty of ...



Virgin Media pushes Channel 4 HD

by Alan Harten
Virgin Media pushes Channel 4 HD Virgin Media announced that as of today Channel 4 HD will be available to subscribers to the cable TV network. The announcement came yesterday that Channel 4 HD will become part of the digital Virgin Mobile television line-up with the same level of upscale high definition programming as all other offerings. Since the ...



Virgin follows Tesco unlimited plan

by Alan Harten
Virgin follows Tesco unlimited plan Virgin Media will soon launch an unlimited mobile phone contract on an 18 month term that provides for unlimited texts and calls, in the wake of yesterday’s news that Tesco Mobile has launched a similar plan. The new ‘unlimited’ plan, titled the ‘ultimate’ by Virgin Media, will cost users £65 a month, a ...



Now Five backs Project Canvas

by Alan Harten
Project Canvas has announced a new partner as Five has thrown its hat into the ring of companies participating in the joint venture to produce technical standards for all broadband enabled television set boxes. Other partners in the IPTV project include BBC, ITV, and BT. Overall, the BBC expects Project Canvas will require about a £24 million from each involved ...



Lessons learned from the lunar landing

by Edgar Villalpando
First, some full disclosure: I wasn’t around when Neil Armstrong made his “giant leap for mankind.” But I’ve heard my parents’ accounts of the space race; I’ve seen “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” (where would our space program have been without Ed Harris???); and I’ve understood how the public view of space travel has changed since the race to ...



Ofcom’s claims are out of date

by David Allen
A lot was made out of the recent Ofcom report claiming that no broadband user in the UK actually gets the top end of advertised speeds and in fact the UK average broadband connection speed is currently 4.1 Mbps. However according to telecom and broadband supplier BT, these claims and figures are out of date and unreliable. BT claims that ...



Five goes IPTV with Project Canvas

by David Allen
The terrestrial broadcaster, Five, has finally decided to join in with the other broadcasters on the IPTV joint venture, Project Canvas. The object of Project Canvas is to develop the technical side of IPTV and create a standard that can be delivered to the viewer through broadband enabled set top boxes. Channel Four is the only broadcaster not to have ...



Microsoft plans UK video streaming on MSN

by David Allen
A free video streaming service will be launched next week in the UK by software giant Microsoft. The service will be paid for by advertising and there will be around three hundred hours of content to start off with. Content will be made available in both Windows Media Video (WMV) and flash formats. It will also be compatible with ...



Virgin Media to offer subscribers Channel 4 HD

by David Allen
Subscribers to Virgin Media will soon be able to view Channel 4 HD, the simulcast version of the standard definition broadcast. Channel 4 HD will be available to all Virgin Media customers free of charge, although no timescale has been announced as to when this will happen. Virgin Media has just launched three new HD channels - FX HD will ...



Ninety two per cent of all email is SPAM

by David Allen
It has been found that ninety two per cent of all email is now Spam according to research carried out by the computer security firm McAfee, which has claimed that the growth of Spam in the past three months is cause for concern. During the month of June, it was found that the highest amount of Spam ever seen ...



BBC will teach kids if schools close down

by David Allen
Should swine flu get to the stage where public services such as schools have to be closed down, then the government has a “Plan B” to keep the wheels of the country rolling. The BBC would have to clear the schedules and replace those programmes with hours of educational programming if schools were to close. This is part of the ...



ESPN signs up the UFC

by David Allen
The new satellite sports channel, ESPN, is forging ahead with deals and agreements with sporting organisations. The latest signing is a deal with the UFC for the UK TV rights. The channel will be showing the UFC 101 event on the 8th August, followed by the UFC 102 event on the 29th August. Other deals include the TV rights to ...



Sky’s 3D channels announced

by David Allen
It seemed to be years away, but BSkyB is actually going to be launching a 3D TV channel sometime next year. Sky has already tested 3D TV and by all accounts these trials were a success. However, for Sky to launch the channel it has to be sure that the content is available and that it is what viewers ...



HD drives BSkyB’s profit skyward

by David Allen
The demand for HD TV has had a great effect on the fortune of the satellite TV broadcaster BSkyB, in fact BSkyB has seen the best growth in new customers signing up for satellite TV in five years. This increase in subscribers is showing up on the balance sheets with a solid four per cent increase in the broadcaster’s ...



Motorola Q4A Review

by Franz Bicar
We haven't heard much from Motorola these past few months. But they released one phone that could certainly pique your interests. The Motorola Evoke Q4A comes in slightly different form from what we are used to for Motorola handsets. It now has a sleek slider design and a few smartphone-like features such as a full HTML browser and a widget-based ...



Unofficial Google Voice App Surfaces for the Palm Pre

by Franz Bicar
Its been the news all over, Apple rejected the Google Voice iPhone application. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application and in fact, went as far as pulling down several apps that mimic or duplicate the functionality of the Google Mobile app. Well, as they say, one man's garbage is another man's treasure. A homebrew app called the dkGoogleVoice is ...



July 30, 2009

Tesco Mobile unlimited data plan

by Alan Harten
Tesco Mobile unlimited data plan For the first time in the UK, a mobile provider has offered an unlimited data plan to consumers allowing mobile consumers to text, browse, and talk for as long as they want. The plan was announced by Tesco Mobile and is priced at £30 per month and is only for SIM activated mobiles. The ...



Vodafone says no to T-Mobile

by Alan Harten
Rumours that T-Mobile and Vodafone remain open after both companies refused to make public comment. Sir John Bond, Vodafone’s chairman, told those in attendance at the company’s 25th annual meeting that he was not aware of a sales process, despite the comment by Chief Executive Vittorio Colao that consolidation in the UK would be a good move. Currently Vodafone, which is based ...



More on Microsoft's IPTV launch

by Alan Harten
Microsoft has announced that it will launch a trial TV streaming website for MSN's UK audiences offering longer videos. The pilot TV website streaming project will host 350 hours of programs that are from All 3 Media and BBC Worldwide for the most part, including the Young Ones, Hustle, Peep Show, and Shameless among others from all genres. End users will not ...



Cash boost for broadband in rural Northern Ireland

by David Allen
Government money has been awarded to two companies to help with the provision of broadband services in the rural areas of Northern Ireland. The two companies involved are North West Electronics and Net 1 Limited. Both these firms, specialists in the provision of broadband services, will be getting a cut of the £177,000 government cash taken from the ...



Mobile broadband users face heavy penalties

by David Allen
Mobile broadband users who exceed their monthly download limit could be facing a very heavy penalty from their providers. According to the comparison website moneysupermarket.com around a quarter of all mobile broadband users are not aware of the download limits and that if this is exceeded a charge of up to £200 can be applied to the account. Even those ...



Wireless spectrum expansion gets EU approval

by David Allen
Currently the 900 MHz frequency is being used by the mobile providers Vodafone and O2. They have been reluctant to give their domination of this spectrum up, but a recent decision made by the European Commission's (EC) Council of Ministers could put an end to this standoff. The EC has approved the proposal that will change GSM directives, which ...



Freeview reminds viewers to retune

by David Allen
This autumn will see the launch of a major advertising campaign from the free-to-air digital broadcaster Freeview. The campaign has been designed to remind viewers that they will need to retune their equipment. The retune is necessary because of the reconfiguration of the entire UK digital terrestrial TV network to cater for the increase in high definition channels. The campaign ...



Scotland gets digital switchover date

by David Allen
TV viewers in the north of Scotland have been given that all important date when the digital switchover in the region will take place. As from the 2nd June 2010, viewers who receive their TV signal from the Rumster Forest transmitter will no longer be getting the analogue signal, as it will have been replaced with a digital signal ...



BT and Sony sign deal over VoD

by David Allen
The telecoms and broadband provider BT has signed an agreement with film producer Sony Pictures, which will allow customers of BT Vision to access a huge range of new and classic films. The deal will mean that customers of BT Visions will be able to see the latest film in the Terminator series, 'Terminator: Salvation', the follow up to ...



CNN and BBC allowed to report from Zimbabwe

by David Allen
Reporting restrictions from Zimbabwe have been lifted from the satellite news channel CNN and the UK broadcaster the BBC. It has been some eight years since reporting restrictions were placed on these news gatherers. However, Zimbabwe's minister of media, information and publicity, Webster Shamu, has been quick to point out that the news broadcasters have never been banned from reporting ...



ESPN plays ball with Virgin Media

by David Allen
The new satellite sports channel ESPN will now be going out on cable too. This follows a distribution agreement between Virgin Media and ESPN for both standard and high definition channels. The US-based and Disney-owned sports broadcaster, ESPN, has the live TV rights for forty six Premier League matches in the upcoming season, which starts on the 15th August ...



Setanta about to return to the UK

by David Allen
This must be a month for returns as Lance Armstrong and Michael Schumacher have both returned, and now it seems that the same could be said about the satellite sports broadcaster, Setanta. It seems that the failed satellite organisation has got its house back in order in double quick time. This must have been just enough to persuade the Broadcasting ...



Microsoft and BBC announce VoD Deal

by Janet Harris
Microsoft has entered into a deal with BBC Worldwide and All3Media which marks the software giant’s entry into the UK VoD market. This could be a good time to make a move into this area, where there is currently a huge demand for new content. Through its MSN Video Player, due to launch next week, the latest deal allows Microsoft to offer ...



Samsung to Open its own Web App Store in the U.K.

by Franz Bicar
You have Apple's App Store, the Android Market, Nokia Store, (to name a few) just recently, Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Samsung's joining them with its very own App Store. Samsung plans to launch a mobile application store in Europe this quarter and already has a beta version of its application store in the U.K. early this year. But once ...



Apple gets ready for iPhone SMS Exploits

by Franz Bicar
So you think your iPhone's safe? Think again. Hackers have devised an exploit to the iPhone that could allow hackers to take over the entire phone - and this is done by just sending and SMS (Short Message Service) message. This exploit was discovered by the infamous (Pwn2Own winner) Charlie Miller. In the SyScan conference in Singapore, he mentioned something ...



July 29, 2009

EU opens up new mobile airwaves

by Alan Harten
The EU telecoms ministers announced on Monday that they approved new legislation that will open 900MHz radio frequencies to 3G mobile internet services, as well as to GSM technologies that are used widely by mobile phone service providers. The legislation replaces an old 1987 law that allowed 900Mz frequencies only to be allocated to GSM technology. The result of the new legislation ...



Ofcom condemns broadband providers over download speeds

by David Allen
Ofcom has slammed UK broadband providers for exaggerating the download speeds advertised to customers. Research by the telecoms regulator found the average household receives broadband at 4.1Mbps, compared to the advertised average of 7.1Mbps. Fewer than 10% of households signed up to an 8Mbps connection receive a speed above 6Mbps. A fifth of homes signed up to this speed actually receive less than ...



Nokia 6760 Slide review

by Alan Harten
Nokia 6760 Slide review For those who like the style of the Nokia Surge that is now available exclusively with AT&T win the United States, you may be glad to hear that Nokia has released a replica model almost named the Nokia 6760 Slide that is available for global use. Coincidently, the global model also comes equipped with ...



No Google Voice on iPhones

by Alan Harten
No Google Voice on iPhones Bad news for those who have been waiting for VoIP on their iPhones, as Apple has put the end to the incorporation of the Google Voice application. Google confirmed the denial on Monday saying that Apple did not approve of the application but that Google would continue to offer its other applications, such ...



Samsung to launch Europe-wide app store

by David Allen
Samsung to launch Europe-wide app store Samsung is set to launch a mobile application store for handset owners across Europe. The move, an attempt to emulate the success of the popular iPhone App Store, expands the beta version of the Samsung store launched earlier this year in the UK. The store will offer applications for Symbian and Windows Mobile ...



LG Embeds Vudu BX100 Set-Top Box on their HDTVs

by Franz Bicar
LG-Vudu Earlier, we reported that Samsung completed a deal with Blockbuster’s ONDemand service. LG, on the other hand, will have Vudu. LG won the privilege of embedding the functionality of Vudu’s BX100 set-top box into their televisions ...



Ofcom points finger at slow ISPs

by David Allen
For the average UK broadband user, the downstream speed that they are actually receiving is just over fifty per cent of the advertised rate, according the research carried out by the regulator Ofcom. The figures come from Ofcom’s own performance monitoring network, so where internet service providers are selling broadband as up to 8 Mbps, the average broadband connection ...



MPs debate the Digital Britain report

by David Allen
It has been a few weeks since the much awaited Digital Britain report was released, the main point being that all homes in the UK can expect a broadband service with a minimum connection speed of 2 Mbps. Now it is the turn of the MPs sitting on the Enterprise Committee and the Commons Business department to sit down ...



Pub landlord in trouble over foreign satellite TV

by David Allen
Showing live Premier League football matches in a pub is a sure fire way of getting customers through the door, however the Worcester News reported that for one pub landlord the lure of Albanian TV proved too much to pass by. If Colin Kenwrick of the Berkley Arms in Worcester had taken out a commercial package with BSkyB it ...



Global WiMax demand could reach fifty million

by David Allen
By 2014, the global demand for WiMax could have reached fifty million, according to research carried out by Juniper Research. WiMax is a suitable option to serve those areas where fixed line broadband is unavailable or the network is only capable of delivering a poor service at best. The possibility of using WiMax in the UK is limited, and there ...



Government issues Twitter guidelines

by David Allen
A new paper has been produced by the government and issued to its departments. This is nothing to do with how the departments are run, or changes in budgets - the paper is a guideline on how to use Twitter. The twenty page document, produced by the head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and ...



Arqiva buys up the assets of Kangaroo

by David Allen
The broadcast infrastructure firm Arqiva has paid an estimated £8 million for the technology behind the failed BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel Four video on demand (VoD) joint venture, Project Kangaroo. Arqiva which is a shareholder in the free to view digital TV service Freeview, plans to use the Project Kangaroo platform to offer a brand new VoD service ...



BBC to share video news content with newspapers

by David Allen
For the first time, the BBC is going to be sharing video news content with national newspapers. The deal will mean that the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Independent will all be able to use this content free of charge. According to the BBC, this is a good opportunity to sustain public service content, which is a main theme ...



Sky Sports scores with the Community Shield

by David Allen
Behind the scenes, BSkyB has been cleaning up after the collapse of the failed sports satellite broadcaster Setanta. This time it has managed to secure the rights to the FA Community Shield. Not only that, BSkyB has secured the rights to the women’s FA Cup Final, for the next three years. This highlight of the women’s game will be ...



Bravo launches weekly video games show

by David Allen
The satellite channel Bravo has long been considered as a male dominated channel. In fact, it would seem that Bravo likes that idea and often uses it for marketing etc, yet the channel offers many openings for women. Julia Hardy, who has worked on Current and Kerrang, will be hosting a new video gaming series on the channel. According to ...



July 28, 2009

Microsoft Answers Apple with Windows Marketplace for Mobile

by Franz Bicar
It’s too long and Apple (and other companies) had already taken a large chunk of the market. But, at last, Microsoft has an answer to Apple’s dominating (or monopolizing, depends how you see it) App Store. Microsoft is now accepting submissions from developers in 29 countries for their very own Microsoft Mobile application store. To keep things interesting, Microsoft even ...