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23
Dec 2008 |
The Commerce Commission’s third quarterly report on broadband quality shows while New Zealand’s broadband growth rate puts us among the top ten OECD countries, the credit crunch is expected to moderate broadband uptake and investment in 2009.
“For the June 2008 year, New Zealand’s broadband growth was the sixth highest in the world, with total broadband penetration per 100 people at 20.4, almost in line with the OECD average of 21,” the report says.
“But this quarter has shown the first signs of moder... |
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22
Dec 2008 |
Parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe experienced Internet and telephone outages Friday when three undersea cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged.
The affected cable systems, which run from Alexandria in northern Egypt to Sicily in southern Italy, carry more than 75 percent of traffic between the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.
It's still unclear how the cables were damaged or when they will be fixed. Reliance Globalcom, a communications provider in Indi... |
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15
Dec 2008 |
For the past three years, a startup called M2Z Networks has been figuring out a way to blanket the nation with a free wireless broadband network to ensure all Americans have access to basic high-speed Internet connections.
Along the way, the company has found support in powerful corners of Silicon Valley and Washington. It has attracted funding from several of the Valley's top venture capital firms. And it has captured the interest of Kevin Martin, the chairman of Federal Communications Commission, who i... |
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15
Dec 2008 |
Just in case you needed any other incentive to sign up for Virgin Media’s ultra-fast broadband. You know, other than the lag-free gaming and blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em downloads. How’s this: It’s the broadband service of choice for Her Majesty The Queen.
As Virgin Media took us through the capabilities of its new 50MB service this morning it said around 100 trialists across Kent had been using the service for the last year.
What we didn’t know was Virgin has also been supplying high-speed internet to c... |
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11
Dec 2008 |
Beijing is to become the world's largest Wi-Fi city by 2011, according to reports.
Residents of the Chinese capital will have access to free Wi-Fi in both the main city areas and the surrounding districts.
The news was announced at the Wireless City Summit 2008, where Zhang Yu, Deputy Director of Beijing's Information Technology Office, revealed his Wi-Fi plans.
Beijing's central business district was initially equipped for this year's Beijing Olympics, but a poor signal meant that many could not l... |
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11
Dec 2008 |
Although it hasn't exactly been a well-guarded secret, Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett confirmed this morning that the U.K.'s largest cable operator will launch its Docsis 3.0-based, 50 Mbit/s wideband service next week.
Berkett, speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York, said Virgin Media will introduce the 50 Mbit/s (downstream) tier to about half its homes by next week and will offer it across the board by June.
"DSL in the U.K. environment is a substantially inferior... |
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10
Dec 2008 |
Swisscom AG is the latest European carrier to come to terms with the bandwidth requirements of its business and domestic customers: The Swiss national operator says it plans to invest 2.8 billion Swiss francs (US$2.3 billion) in its "fiber-optic expansion" during the next six years.
The move is just one of many by European operators looking to build additional fixed access capacity that will support a growing menu of bandwidth-hungry services. (See Russian Altnet Makes FTTx Plans, Dutch Hold Back on FTTH... |
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10
Dec 2008 |
The €200 billion economic rescue plan being considered this week by European Union leaders includes a proposal to spend €1 billion on bringing high-speed Internet access to rural areas.
The proposal is likely to pit the Continent's telecommunications operators against satellite companies, which say they are uniquely suited to expand the broadband, or high-speed, network to underserved parts of Eastern Europe and the Alps by the end of 2010.
Despite its potential reach, satellite technology has remaine... |
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10
Dec 2008 |
Ofcom has released its latest quarterly (Q2-2008) Telecommunications Market Data Tables (here), which includes a breakdown of total small business and residential broadband connections. BT Retail's market share has remained unchanged for some time now at 26.5% for the third consecutive quarter. The figures break down as follows:
BT Retail DSL (ADSL) - 4,396,000
Other DSL (exc. LLU) - 3,846,000
Virgin Media (Cable) - 3,563,000
Other inc. (LLU DSL) - 4,797,000
It's worth comparing the... |
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9
Dec 2008 |
Verizon Wireless expects to begin deploying next-generation LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless broadband within a year, a top executive of the carrier said Tuesday.
"We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year," said Dick Lynch, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Verizon Communications, in a speech at Cisco Systems' C-Scape conference in San Jose, California. That would represent a more aggressive timetable than many observe... |
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8
Dec 2008 |
President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday renewed his call for nationwide broadband access as well as more connected schools, libraries, and hospitals.
"It is unacceptable that the United States ranks fifteenth in the world in broadband adoption," Obama said during his weekly address, which was posted to YouTube. "Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they'll get that chance when I'm president – because that's how we'll strengthen America's ... |
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4
Dec 2008 |
AT&T Inc. said today that it will lay off 12,000 workers through 2009 as it reorganizes in the face of the tough economic environment.
AT&T will spend $600 million in its 2008 fourth quarter for severance payments to those workers, who represent about 4% of the company's workforce.
The company tried to soften the blow by saying it will add employees in some areas, such as wireless, video and broadband, in order to meet customer demand. Many non-management employees who are affected will have a guarant... |
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4
Dec 2008 |
If you recall, the network neutrality debate truly took off in the States back in 2005, when then SBC (now AT&T) CEO Ed Whitacre told Business Week in an article that Google wanted to use Ed's "pipes", for free. "I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it," insisted Ed at the time. The comment confused a hell of a lot of people, given that both Google and Google's users already pay for bandwidth. To many, Ed's logic seemed to share a resemblance t... |
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3
Dec 2008 |
When comparing the nation's ISPs, there are few metrics of particular importance for the average consumer. How to determine which one is fastest, or which has the most satisfied customers? Sure, price plays a big role, but beyond that, what does one look for beyond sheer advertising dollars to ascertain which ISP is the best?
Look no further than this analysis of results from PCMag's SurfSpeed app, a utility that grabs pages (and page elements) from several popular Web sites to measure your actual Intern... |
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3
Dec 2008 |
BT is trumpeting figures that show Wi-Fi usage has doubled since last year, with users clocking up more than a million minutes a day during September - but all is not quite what it seems.
Access to BT's wireless network topped 10m minutes on one day during September, and average figures for the month are twice what they were during the same month in 2007. Of course, back in 2007 there were 100,000 fewer hotspots, which have sprung up thanks to BT FON; nor were there so many iPhone users whose handsets de... |
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