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8
Jan 2009 |
TELSTRA has been revealed as the previously unknown bidder that snapped up iBurst's 1.9Ghz wireless spectrum just five days after the wireless broadband provider was shut down.
Telstra said it was selected as the preferred bidder to acquire the spectrum from iBurst’s owner, Personal Broadband Australia, after a competitive tender process.
Pacific Wireless and BigAir had planned to acquire iBurst’s wireless broadband assets but withdrew their interest after the iBurst network was shut down on December 19... |
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8
Jan 2009 |
The average broadband connection in the UK runs at a speed of 3.6Mbps, even though the average potential speed of UK broadband lines is 4.3Mbps, according to a report from Ofcom.
Following on from the introduction of a code of practice governing how broadband speeds are communicated to customers, Ofcom has now highlighted the differences between the speeds actually being experienced by surfers in comparison to advertised speeds.
Ofcom's chief executive, Ed Richards said: "We want to see all ISPs meet ... |
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7
Jan 2009 |
Comcast Corp. made good on its pledge to migrate its entire footprint to a new "protocol agnostic" platform by the end of 2008 -- so says a new blog post on the MSO's "Network Management Policy" Website.
"Effective December 31, 2008, we have completed this transition, which is now part of our daily business operations for managing congestion on our network," the posting noted. "The approach is designed to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that all of our high-speed Internet customers have fair and... |
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6
Jan 2009 |
Giant U.S. phone companies AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have been seen by anxious investors as a near-term oasis for their money, but an influential analyst says such a view might be a mirage.
Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett cut his earnings forecasts and stock ratings on both carriers, saying a sharp slowdown in growth appears inevitable in 2009. He also asserted that Wall Street is overestimating the ability of AT&T and Verizon to weather a steep recession.
Moffett reduced his ... |
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5
Jan 2009 |
Residents of a West Country town that was transformed into a Wi-Fi zone have complained of dizziness, headaches, nausea and panic attacks.
Nearly 40% of those surveyed in Glastonbury, Somerset, said the installation of Wi-Fi had made them unwell.
The £34,000 wireless internet installation, the first of its kind in the UK, was designed to encourage tourism and boost business in the town.
However, the medieval town’s New Age residents have put together an online petition against the Wi-Fi, saying it ... |
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5
Jan 2009 |
Virgin Trains is to launch onboard wi-fi in mid February. The company is working with Nomad Digital for a launch next month by which time all 52 Pendolinos and half of the company’s 21 Super Voyager will be wi-fi enabled.
Virgin Trains spokesman Jim Rowe told businesstravelworld.com that the service is likely to be complimentary for first class passengers with standard class passenger charged a fee, although the pricing has not yet been finalised.Nomad Digital also provides wireless service on the Heathr... |
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4
Jan 2009 |
THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.
The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.
The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may b... |
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2
Jan 2009 |
The U.S. was the largest broadband market by services revenues in 2008, ahead of Japan and Germany, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (now part of the Light Reading group). (See Heavy Reading Gets Pyramid Power.)
According to data compiled for the report, Global Fixed and Mobile Broadband Outlook, the U.S. generated more than $32 billion in broadband revenues in 2008, a long way ahead of second-place Japan, which generated $23 billion in broadband revenues.
Germany was third in the chart... |
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31
Dec 2008 |
MTN Nigeria has upgraded its Short Message Service platform and its overall capacity by 500 per cent to enable it handle the numerous goodwill SMS messages that will be sent during th enew year celebrations.
As telecommunications companies round the world prepare to process millions of messages and calls expected to be made by subscribers during the celebrations, the Corporate Services Executive, MTN, Mr. Wale Goodluck, said ina statement on Wednesday that the decision to upgrade capacity was aimed at en... |
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30
Dec 2008 |
By fixing nearly 1,000 hotspots across Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital is set to become one of the few cities in the world providing free wireless Internet throughout the city. Anyone in the Danish capital with a laptop or compatible mobile phone will be able to access the Internet, according to The Copenhagen Post.
Copenhagen is just one of 52 municipalities across Denmark that are slated to receive citywide wireless Internet. The ambitious project was given the green light last week when the nation’s Sta... |
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28
Dec 2008 |
Britain is falling badly behind the rest of the world in the use of broadband technology and the consequences could prove disastrous for education, health care, entertainment and the fight against global warming, one of the country's leading computer experts has warned.
Professor Christopher Bishop, chief scientist at Microsoft Research Cambridge, who will present the Royal Institution Christmas lectures this week, said the government now needed to launch an urgent programme to install fibre-optic cables... |
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26
Dec 2008 |
Verizon Communications has won $31.15 million in damages in a cybersquatting case it brought against domain registry OnlineNIC, while Microsoft is seeking judgment against the same company and Yahoo has recently filed similar charges.
Verizon had accused OnlineNIC of registering at least 663 domain names identical or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks. The domain names listed in the complaint, filed June 6, included verizon-cellular.com and buyverizon.net. Both of those domains are now in the hand... |
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26
Dec 2008 |
TEXT messaging is a wonderful business to be in: about 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cellphones worldwide this year. The public assumes that the wireless carriers’ costs are far higher than they actually are, and profit margins are concealed by a heavy curtain.
Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carrier... |
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23
Dec 2008 |
AT&T confirmed on Thursday that it has started testing some of it next-wave 3G services through a trial in Chicago. The upgrade follows previously revealed plans and gives users of supporting devices a theoretical peak 7.2Mbps download speed versus the 3.6Mbps of the current network. Upload speeds aren't mentioned but may not change depending on whether the service continues to use the older, download-focused HSDPA spec or the full HSPA format, which supports 2.9Mbps.
Carrier spokesman Mark Siegel doesn'... |
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23
Dec 2008 |
Virgin Media’s much vaunted 50Mb broadband service was launched last week, but critics say it is unlikely to offer such dizzying speeds for long.
The service, which can cost £51 a month, promises to cut the time it takes to download a feature-length film from six minutes to three, and an album from about 25 seconds to 11, making it the UK’s fastest mainstream internet service.
Sky — part of News Corporation, ultimate owner of The Sunday Times — currently offers a maximum broadband service of only 16Mb... |
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