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22
Sept 2009 |
The Australian government is rolling out 240,000 Lenovo netbooks to every New South Wales government high school student in the next four years. So far just under 20,000 netbooks have been rolled out, and students at New South Wales public schools are downloading over 40 Terabytes of data each month, and that figure is increasing rapidly.
Forty Terabytes of data is being downloaded across the department's network every month since the netbook rollout began in August. This total is inclusive of 200,000 ma... |
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16
Sept 2009 |
Testing is currently underway by British Telecom to determine the usefulness of a technology that uses "line bonding" in order to increase the distance and speed at which an ADSL connection can run at. This is to aid in the delivery of Government's Digital Britain mandate, requiring a minimum of 2Mbps to all homes in Britain.
BT's Broadband Enabling Technology (BET) aims to put more people on the internet without having to resort to wireless to fill in the gaps. This idea was suggested in the government'... |
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15
Sept 2009 |
On Tuesday the Australian Government surprisingly announced plans that it was to break up dominant telecommunications player Telstra in a bid to boost competition as it presses ahead with a 37 billion US dollar national broadband network.
Stephen Conroy, Australian Communications Minister, said that Telstra, which is partly Government-owned, would for all intents and purposes have to separate its retail and network divisions unless it agrees to do so willingly.
"It is the government's clear desire f... |
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14
Sept 2009 |
While demand for ADSL connections seems to have reached its peak, Australians are opting for wireless broadband instead of the copper alternative, according to statistics released on Monday.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics Internet Activity Survey reports that ADSL connections represented 63 percent of non dial-up connections in Australia a mere 6 months ago, but now account for 57 percent of broadband subscribers - 6 percent less.
In real terms ADSL connections hardly moved. A total of 4,171,000 ... |
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11
Sept 2009 |
Sprint Nextel launched a new service plan Thursday that let's subscribers make unlimited calls to any U.S. cell phone without using up voice minutes.
For just $69.99 a month, the new Any Mobile, Anytime plan allows subscribers to call any cell phone in the U.S., regardless of the carrier. The plan also comes with Sprint's Everything Data plan, which includes unlimited text messaging and data services. Subscribers also get 450 voice minutes for calls to landlines. Subscribers already signed up for the Eve... |
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10
Sept 2009 |
Filipino consumer groups have reacted with outrage to a proposed law imposing a tax on text and multimedia messages sent from mobiles.
Despite attempts to include a "no-pass-it-on" proviso in the bill it passed yesterday with no such safeguard.
Speaker Prospero C Nograles said: "We will not allow any such additional taxes on the shoulders of the public." He said he there was no need to increase the cost of texts paid by punters but that the tax should be extracted from mobile operators.
Messages ty... |
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8
Sept 2009 |
Over 10pct of Swedes already have super fast fibre internet access, making Sweden the king of the broadband castle, according to the Fibre to the Home Council (FTTH).
According to the FTTHC, the total number of Europeans who have access to a fibre optic internet connection has increaesed by 18pct to 2 million since 2008 and is expected to increase to 13 million by 2012.
Karel Helsen, president of FTTH, said that the number of fibre broadband connections are growing due to the fact that the technology ... |
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8
Sept 2009 |
T-Mobile and Orange have merged, creating a new giant in the UK mobile market.
After much speculation that Vodafone and O2 were in a bidding battle for the UK arm of Deutsche Telekom, that firm and Orange's parent France Telecom have announced a new joint venture company, bringing the two UK operators together.
According to the pair, the new 50:50 joint venture will become the biggest mobile operator in the UK, with 28.4 million customers - some 37 per cent of the market. The two firms are currently r... |
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2
Sept 2009 |
The largest internet service providers in the United States are urging telecoms regulators to take a conservative view on the definition of the word broadband.
They have filed submissions with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the commission asked for comment by August 31 on how they should define broadband.
The Government is attempting to find ways to roll out broadband to underservices rural areas where people still don't have easy and affordable broadband access as compared to their... |
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28
Aug 2009 |
Around 18.31 million households in the UK have internet access according to a report released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This indicates an increase of 1.85 million from the previous period last year.
In 2009, 16.5 million people, or a total of 63pct of UK households, had broadband connections. This represents an increase of 6.6 million since the same period in 2006.
The report adds that around 73pct or around 27.3 million adults access the internet either almost every day or every da... |
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26
Aug 2009 |
Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski told a Washington, DC newspaper on Tuesday that he's going to defend consumers on the 'Net, come what may. "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," Genachowski pledged in an interview with The Hill.
And that would include keeping the Internet "free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads," i... |
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20
Aug 2009 |
Long shortchanged in broadband access, rural areas of the U.S. are now at the vanguard in the installation of high speed Internet access, according to a comScore Inc. study released Wednesday. The market research firm said broadband growth in rural areas is now outpacing growth in urban and suburban areas.
The deployment of broadband technology and expanding broadband penetration in rural areas has been a major goal of the Federal Communications Commission in recent months. The cost of providing broadban... |
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20
Aug 2009 |
Technology group Altech said it has acquired an 8.5% stake in the East Africa Marine System (Teams) data cable via its subsidiary Kenya Data Networks (KDN).
The 5 000km, $130m undersea fibre-optic cable project is being spearheaded by the Kenyan government and stretches from Mombasa to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
The $11m investment by Altech KDN bought it a 10% voting right along with the effective 8.5% equity stake in Teams. Altech said it will fund its portion of the purchase price from c... |
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18
Aug 2009 |
Australia's competition watchdog has found that Telstra-contracted call centres made unsolicited telemarketing calls to telephone numbers listed on the Do Not Call Register.
An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation, which commenced in August 2008, found that external call centres contracted by Telstra breached the Do Not Call Register Act 2006.
ACMA claims to have received numerous complaints from consumers despite having advised Telstra of potential compliance problems.
... |
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18
Aug 2009 |
Anxiety is rising over promises made by telecoms operators in Nigeria to launch submarine cables, which are expected to correct the communication glitches being currently experienced under the Sat-3 technology.
None of the service providers have delivered on their promise to lay the cables in Nigeria.
NEXT gathered for instance that Globacom’s Glo-1 submarine cable, expected to have become operational early this year has run into technical hitches. The launch date has already been shifted twice from M... |
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