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4
Jan 2010 |
UK cell network Orange has unveiled plans to launch High Definition Voice on its mobile network this year.
The high def voice allows for far superior call quality, the only catch being that the handset supports the codec necessary to compress and uncompress the voice data.
Leading mobile phone manufacturers are already working alongside Orange developing devices to take advantage of the HD service, which uses the WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec. This codec sports a greater speech ba... |
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4
Jan 2010 |
Britain could consider making high-speed Internet access a utility alongside electricity, water and gas, thereby guaranteeing broadband for all Britons.
Concerns that rural communities are missing out on the digital revolution have spurred the move. The plans were sent to ministers, and if they're approved by Parliament, Britain will become one of the first countries worldwide to make internet access an essential service. There are also fears that the gap between children in urban and rural areas could g... |
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23
Dec 2009 |
Today draft legislation that would allow the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to specify classes of new developments where optical fibre must be used when fixed lines are installed will be released for comment.
The main aim of the legislation is to avoid incurring the extra cost of fitting fibre to the premises after building has been completed, as well as to complement the NBN rollout.
"It is counter-productive to have our newest homes and businesses connected with old t... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
UK fans of the iPhone will be able to lay their hands on one from mid-January 2010, courtesy of Vodafone.
The phone will be launched on the 14th of January with packages starting at £30 per month, but a pay-in fee of £59 will apply for the 8GB iPhone, £149 for the 16GB, and £239 for the 32GB 3G S.
Customers will be able to choose between numerous contracts, and all plans include voice minutes, unlimited SMS and WiFi access, as well as 1GB of data. Small business customers will ... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
British telecommunications provider BT will speed up the rolling out of its super fast fibre broadband network to 10 million homes in time for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
The company is spending £1.5 billion on its plan to offer broadband to 40 percent of Britain and is rolling out high speed broadband services as it expects growing demand for faster bandwidth in the future.
Virgin Media has also jumped into the fray as it already supplies the fastest residential services in Britain.
BT... |
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19
Dec 2009 |
China has indicated that it wants to meter all internet traffic that passes through its borders.
It is being discussed by the United Nations body in charge of internet standards, and it would allow countries that currently receive no payment for use of their internet infrastructure to generate income., although a cyber security expert has warned that the plan could threaten the stability of the entire internet, and that China could have a "hidden agenda" in wanting to monitor data flows.
The UN's Inte... |
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18
Dec 2009 |
While Telkom South Africa is testing its new 8Mbps ADSL service, Verizon in the US is testing a new fiber technology and a customer's home that delivers downstream speeds of 10Gbps and upstream speeds of 2.4Gbps.
The new technology, called XG-PON, utilises Verizon's FiOS fibre optic network to deliver massive amounts of lightning fast bandwidth to any premises that has a fibre optic connection.
The XG-PON hardware is provided by Chinese telecoms equipment company Huawei, and it is likely that the 10Gb... |
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17
Dec 2009 |
The Obama administration today began the award of USD2 billion in grants and loans over the next 2 and a half months as part of a plan to sharply Americans' broadband Internet access and stimulate job creation.
The USD2 billion is part of an overall USD7.2 billion set aside in President Barack Obama's USD787 billion economic recovery package to bring broadband access to unserved or underserved U.S. communities.
Vice President Joe Biden announced details of an initial USD183 million investment in a ran... |
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17
Dec 2009 |
The same day that TeliaSonera launched the worlds first commercial LTE network (in Sweden and Norway), O2 announced that it has successfully implemented a live trial LTE network in the UK, helped by Huawei.
Earlier this year, Telefonica (which owns O2) announced that it plans to launch LTE trials in five other countries except the UK: Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Argentina and Brazil.
Mobile provider O2 has distributed next-gen LTE USB dongles to numerous people in order to put their new high speed... |
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17
Dec 2009 |
McDonald's today said it will soon offer free wireless Internet access at most of its U.S. restaurants as it tries to broaden its appeal.
The company currently offers Internet access at roughly 11,000 of its 14,000 U.S. locations, and in mid-January, it will lift the USD2.95 (+-R20) fee it usually charges for 2 hours of Internet access. There will also be no time limit put on how long one can use the connection for.
Dave Grooms, chief information officer for McDonald's USA said"We want people to have ... |
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15
Dec 2009 |
In a list of 30 countries recently studied by the OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development), the UK has only managed to make it into the bottom 33 percent of results.
Fellow European nations such as Spain, Portugal and Greece rank higher than the UK where broadband speed is concerned, while Japan and Korea took the top spots for fibre broadband. Regions such as the US, Norway, Denmark and Sweden are all making progress with fibre broadband as well.
As far as broadband penetration is ... |
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15
Dec 2009 |
Australian communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced yesterday that the government is aiming to apply web filters that will prohibit access to websites containing criminal content and which will be selected by an independent classification body assisted by complaints from the public.
The technology being used by the filters has been shown to be 100 percent effective in a 7 month trial by Australian internet service providers.
Naturally the plan has been met with opposition from internet users, ... |
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14
Dec 2009 |
US wireless provider AT&T wants its iPhone customers to use less data, and it may go as far as to consider new pricing models to limit the amount of data usage as demand surges.
Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's head of wireless, said 3 percent of smartphone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity.
"We're going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don't crowd out the other customers in those same cell ... |
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14
Dec 2009 |
This week two new 4G commercial LTE networks were completed in Norway and Sweden, making broadband users in these two countries the first in the world to utilise a commercial LTE network.
TeliaSonera has launched two networks in Stockholm and Oslo and are currently seeking customers willing to sign up for the network pilot early next year. The company has mentioned that the 4G service 'will not be perfect at first', but there should be no shortage of willing test subjects to help iron out the kinks.
T... |
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11
Dec 2009 |
Telkom Kenya has launched trials of its 3G service in Nairobi with a R200 million initial investment.
Ericsson will be providing end-to-end support for the Orange 3G network including design, implementation, rollout, testing and operations support.
Telkom and Zain recently mentioned plans to roll out 3G service during Q2 or Q3 2010, but insisted on the revision of the licence fees, which currently cost R188 million.
According to Zain, the current licence fee is prohibitive and offers low returns on... |
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