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3
Aug 2009 |
WOOLWORTHS is set to become Australia's newest mobile phone company with the launch of a no-frills prepaid service.
But unlike Telstra, Woolworths will not have to build its own infrastructure; the supermarket giant will piggyback on Optus's mobile infrastructure as a so-called mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).
The duo were expected to enter the highly competitive mobile market at the end of last year, but problems integrating Woolworths’ backoffice IT systems with Optus resulted in a 9-month dela... |
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2
Aug 2009 |
LAST week Monday, Nigeria’s SAT3 submarine cable system, had a default on one of its landing cables linking the Benin Republic and up till now, about 70 percent of Nigeria’s internet capacity is said to be still hanging on the balance .
The cut caused on outage on the landing cable that connects the terrestrial fibre optic networks to the submarine fibre optic cable along the Republic of Benin axis is expected to last at least ten clear days from Monday last week, before it could be rectified.
Already... |
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30
July 2009 |
Large parts of West Africa are struggling to get back online following damage to an undersea cable.
The fault has caused severe problems in Benin, Togo, Niger and Nigeria.
The blackout is thought to have been caused by damage to the SAT-3 cable which runs from Portugal and Spain to South Africa, via West Africa.
Around 70% of Nigeria's bandwidth was cut, causing severe problems for its banking sector, government and mobile phone networks.
"SAT-3 is currently the only fibre optic cable serving We... |
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30
July 2009 |
A PRICE war looms in the African broadband market as the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) races towards its June 2010 launch deadline.
Already two fibre optic cable systems, Seacom and TEAMs came online in July.
EASSy is a new 10,000km submarine cable system currently being constructed along the east coast of Africa.
It is owned and operated by a group of African operators and international investors who own 92 percent and 8 percent respectively.
Speaking in Nairobi, Chris Wood, CEO... |
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29
July 2009 |
Ofcom, the UK's telecommunications regulator, released the results of their study comparing provider-advertised broadband speeds to real-world broadband speeds, and as suspected the results aren't all that rosy.
Ofcom compared 8Mbps ADSL offerings from the 8 largest providers and found that the average speed during the day was 4.1Mbps. Even worse, this goes down further after hours. Between 8PM and 10PM the average download speed was a lowly 3.7Mbps, which is only 46% of the maximum advertised speed.
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28
July 2009 |
Zimbabwe’s TelOne, has been hit by a wave of cable thefts that has crippled its operations.
A spokesperson of the company said it was impacting badly on measures to resuscitate the country’s sole fixed landline operator. Collins Wilbesi, TelOne spokesperson told media, “Theft of telecommunication cables and equipment in the country has reached unprecedented levels. The cost of replacing stolen cables is prohibitive.”
Years of economic turmoil characterised by shortage of foreign currency to import vit... |
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28
July 2009 |
Cost-cutting at Verizon Communications Inc.'s land-line business failed to keep pace with falling revenue, prompting the country's largest wireless carrier to announce further job cuts.
The company will cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the land-line business, speeding up its efforts to keep costs in line, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said yesterday.
In recent years, Verizon has balanced layoffs in land line with hiring in wireless, but Chief Operat... |
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28
July 2009 |
Kenya’s economy will receive a welcome boost over the next two years as a new undersea fibre-optic cable brings a flood of bandwidth to the country, almost tripling internet access in the country.
Kenya’s current internet users number around 1.17 million (or around 3% of the population), but may triple to around 3.6 million (or around 3% of the population).
Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in the Communications Ministry, stated that “It takes over six days to receive a classroom DVD over a dial-up c... |
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22
July 2009 |
According to Informa Telecoms & Media's latest World Cellular Data Metrics report, which assesses the extent of non-voice mobile revenues and usage, there were more than 225mn mobile broadband subscribers (all technologies) at the end of March 2009, representing 93% year-on-year growth.
Whilst the popularity of mobile broadband remains at its highest in Asia Pacific (over 90mn subscribers), growth is most notable in Latin America (385% year-on-year growth to over 10mn subscribers), says the report. Typic... |
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21
July 2009 |
TELSTRA customers who pay their phone bills in person will soon be charged for their efforts.
The telco giant yesterday introduced a range of steep fees in an attempt to herd its customers into making online BPAY payments and to eliminate costly face-to-face customer service.
The penny-pinching tactic will cost as much as 2 per cent of every bill and is set to save it "several hundred million dollars'' a year.
From September 14, Telstra will charge a $2.20 administration fee for bills paid by mail ... |
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21
July 2009 |
Queensland Police will soon add unprotected wireless networks to the Sunshine State’s ‘most wanted’ list.
A police car slowly cruises down your street, its occupants on the lookout not for break-and-enter robberies or drug dealers but an open signal from the wireless network in a nearby home or business.
Welcome to the latest initiative from the Queensland Police Department – or, to be specific, the Fraud Squad, which now considers unprotected Wi-Fi networks to be a source of fraud and identity theft.... |
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21
July 2009 |
Mobile broadband in the Middle East and Africa will expand to $6 billion in the next two years from the current $1 billion, spurred by an expanding network and falling prices, a telecoms advisory firm has said.
In Africa, there are 10 undersea cables either under construction or in the planning stages, which could push down international bandwidth rates, Delta Partners said in a report released on Tuesday.
Mauritius-registered private equity SEACOM on Thursday will commercially launch its cable in Sou... |
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21
July 2009 |
Mauritius, has become the second Africa country to host Goggle Cache Servers after Kenya.The servers which have already installed and configured, the servers will be operational from September.
Media reports say, Kenya was first to host a Google cache server in Africa. But the new move gives a strong signal to the international community about Mauritius’s ability ideal to host Internet content for the African region, given its ICT infrastructure and connectivity.
“The hosting of those cache servers p... |
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20
July 2009 |
Listed telecoms firm Safaricom has announced that the testing of the 15, 000 kilometer undersea cable to link South Africa and East Africa will be on Thursday this week.
Speaking in Nairobi where the company announced the implementation of an ambitious upgrade of its retail network in the country, Chief Commercial Officer Peter Arina said the testing will last for a period of four days there after, the services will go live.
Arina said Safaricom is the only company offering the state-of-the art intern... |
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20
July 2009 |
Though not as dramatic as the moon landing that took place 40 years ago Monday, a phone call over a satellite launched earlier this month was the first for a system that may dramatically expand mobile voice and data coverage in the U.S. and Canada.
TerreStar Networks announced Monday it has demonstrated a call over the TerreStar-1 satellite, which was launched July 1 from the European Space Agency Spaceport in French Guiana. TerreStar-1 is designed to complement 3G networks on the ground, providing essen... |
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