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3
Sept 2010 |
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The global disparity in fixed broadband access and cost has been revealed by UN figures. The Central African Republic is the most expensive place to get a fixed broadband connection, costing nearly 40 times the average monthly income there. Macao in China is the cheapest, costing 0.3% of the average monthly income. Niger becomes the most expensive place to access communication technologies, when landlines and mobiles are also taken into account. "Access to broadband in an affordable manner is our greatest |
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Sept 2010 |
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Mobile phone operator Safaricom Limited has ruled out any tariff reductions on its voice and short message service (SMS) services, even as shareholders pile pressure on the company to do so to match the competition. "We need a balanced response to the ongoing price war in the mobile phone market to safeguard our revenues, margins and subscriber numbers," Michael Joseph, Safaricom CEO, told the firm's shareholders at the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM), held yesterday at the Bomas of Kenya. Safaricom |
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Sept 2010 |
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Mobile firm Orange has become the first UK network to use a technology that offers higher quality voice calls. High Definition (HD) voice claims to reduce background noise and the "hisses and crackles" often heard on a normal mobile call. The technology, known as, Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) has been adopted as an international standard for 3G mobile networks. Other networks are expected to follow Orange soon, experts said. "It is relatively easy for an operator to introduce - it's just a software |
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Sept 2010 |
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T-Mobile USA said Tuesday afternoon that it will increase the maximum possible data speeds offered on its upgraded 3G network to 42 Mbit/s in 2011. The fourth-ranked mobile operator in the US has been upgrading its GSM-based 3G network with a high-speed packet access plus (HSPA+) software update for months now. Upgraded markets offer a theoretical peak download speed of 21 Mbit/s. The operator has previously said that this translates into average download speeds in the 5-to-8-Mbit/s range using its HSPA+ |
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22
Aug 2010 |
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The Federal Communications Commission reported this week that broadband users see about half the advertised "up to" speeds promised by Internet providers, and similar findings were made earlier this year in the UK. (Keep in mind that some speed problems are outside the control of the ISP, including poor indoor wiring, bad WiFi setups, outdated computer hardware, and Internet congestion.) Given the massive disconnect between the actual and advertised speeds, how is a broadband buyer to know in advance how |
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Aug 2010 |
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Just hours after iiNet claimed to make history with Australia's first terabyte broadband plans, rival Primus has launched a new 1.1 terabyte offering - upping iiNet's new deal by 111GB per month. Last week, iiNet chief executive Michael Malone said his company didn't see Primus as "particularly relevant, from a competitive point of view", compared with larger rivals such as Telstra, Optus and TPG. But yesterday Primus chief Ravi Bhatia (pictured, above) claimed leadership in the battle to offer Australian |
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17
Aug 2010 |
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Nearly 60 homes and three businesses in Ashby de la Launde - a small village in Lincolnshire UK - will be connected to a fiber network by the end of September. On Friday NextGenUs UK CIC and AFL Telecommunications announced the installation of a "community interest owned FTTH network" there. The privately funded network will provide its users with "super fast" 100 Mbps connections, according to the press release. NextGenUs UK CIC is a founder member and supporter of a campaign Final Third First, which aims |
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Aug 2010 |
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About 225,000 terabytes of data is pulsing across mobile networks globally each month, according to new figures from Ericsson. The networking vendor said mobile data was growing exponentially despite mobile broadband accounting "for only 10 percent of total mobile subscriptions". "Global mobile data has nearly tripled in the last year, growing more than 10 times faster than voice," Ericsson said. It came as Ericsson said it had deployed its two-millionth base station globally. A spokesman declined to |
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9
Aug 2010 |
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Google and Verizon held a press conference today to address concerns that it is conspiring to undermine net neutrality. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said the companies are committed to an open Internet for wireline broadband and for wireless broadband to have similar openness with a few caveats. The companies issued a joint proposal about how the government should approach any regulations for the Internet regarding net neutrality. It made it very clear that this wasnt a business |
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Aug 2010 |
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Regulators have put net neutrality discussions on ice after reports surfaced that two key participants had potentially reached a deal on the side. The closed-door negotiations on how to rule the web going forward involved phone, cable and internet companies, but it is believed that Verizon and Google may have come to a separate agreement. "We have called off this round of stakeholder discussions," said Edward Lazarus, chief of staff for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. The |
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6
Aug 2010 |
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A report from the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has revealed that 43.9 million Nigerians have access to the internet.
According to the Vanguard, Mr. Abasiama Idaresit Managing Director Wild Fusion, an internet marketing firm based in Ikoyi said:
This is the latest stats from the International Telecommunication Union, ITU and this makes Nigeria the largest internet population by country in Africa dwarfing South Africa, Morrocco, Kenya and Egypt combinedӔ.
Idaresit also stated that about 39.6 |
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5
Aug 2010 |
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Joe Hockey, shadow treasurer, has told Australian radio that the Liberal Party will oppose the Australian government's planned compulsory net filter. Communications minister Stephen Conroy has staked his reputation on blocking content from the internet which would be censored if it were a film for cinema release. The government announced a review of the contentious plan last month. Hockey said his party would not support the policy. "We believe the internet filter will not work and we believe its a flawed |
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5
Aug 2010 |
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Young men and women working as telephone receptionists in Tanzanias booming mobile phone industry could be risking permanent hearing disability as evidence continues to emerge that taking on the job was highly associated with loss of hearing. Revelation on the sorry state of affairs comes at a time when victims of the situation have resorted to take court action, demanding billions of shillings in compensation as the result of severe hearing loss. To corroborate the claim of some staffs in the call centers |
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Aug 2010 |
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Google and Verizon have negotiated an agreement on how to handle Web traffic, according to a report by Bloomberg on Wednesday. The deal was arrived at separate of the ongoing negotiations between the Federal Communications Commission and other Web and telecommunications giants, according to Bloomberg's anonymous sources. As part of the deal, Verizon would agree not to selectively throttle Internet traffic through its pipes. That would not, however, apply to data traveling over its wireless network for |
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29
July 2010 |
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The government has endorsed the plan to pass organisation of the digital dividend mega auction back to Ofcom, with universal service guarantees, and promises a new-for-old deal for the Programme Makers and Special Events (PMSE) crowd. Minister for Communications Ed Vaizey drafted a statutory instrument covering the plan, which emerged from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in March. He added a promise that wireless microphones that need to shift frequencies will be replaced on a new |
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