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29
June 2008 |
Jamaica's Internet penetration has grown 20-fold in the last decade, and is now at 55 per cent, or 1.5 million users, according to the most recent global industry data compiled by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Actual Internet subscription in 2007 was estimated at 85,000.
Eight years ago, in 2000, while the ITU posits no data for Internet subscriptions, penetration or usage was only 3.08 per cent.
Present stats
Now it's 55.27 per cent.
But while this spells commercial oppor... |
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27
June 2008 |
MTN has denied it is evading its tax and social responsibilities in Ghana, stating it was the top taxpayer in Ghana in the past three consecutive years.
MTN paid a total of $172.1 million in taxes in 2007, with 2006 payments adding up to $127 million, and 2005 taxes coming to $103 million, says Mawuena Azo Dumor, MTN Ghana's corporate services executive.
The denial follows a statement by Solomon Abam Quaye, the district chief executive of the Awutu-Senya region. He alleged that telecoms companies ope... |
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27
June 2008 |
Next week California will try to wrest cell phones from the hands of drivers, telling everyone from movie starlets and dot-com millionaires to surfers and soccer moms that conversations behind the wheel must be on a headset.
Several U.S. states and some two dozen countries around the world already have restrictions on mobile phones while driving but now such a law has come to California -- where the car is king and much of life is spent on the famously snarled freeways.
Californians interviewed by Reu... |
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27
June 2008 |
The smartphone wars — and hype — appear to be in full heat. Two weeks before the second-generation iPhone goes on sale, the Samsung Instinct, dubbed a potential iPhone “killer,” looks like it’s appealing to buyers’ instincts.
The phone, sold by Sprint, the nation’s third largest wireless carrier, went on sale June 19 to existing customers and June 20 to new customers. The company said Thursday that the Instinct is “breaking records for the initial launch of any Sprint product.”
While Sprint did not re... |
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27
June 2008 |
BT look as if they are following the lead set by Virgin Media when it comes to file sharing, as they recently sent an email to one of their four million broadband subscribers, informing them that they had been flagged up as having been part of a file sharing programme, where the Girls Aloud song “Biology” had been shared.
This email was backed up by evidence from the BPI, that the user has a file sharing programme which can be used on either the BitTorrent or Gnutella networks.
Although it is not know... |
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27
June 2008 |
There's no question that Verizon Communications hit a home run with its aggressive fiber strategy.
The fiber-to-the-home network called Fios has enabled Verizon to supercharge broadband speeds and compete against cable in the TV market.
Fios also has helped future-proof Verizon's network. While its cable competitors buckle under the pressure of peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, Verizon has enough capacity in its network, thanks to its fiber upgrades, to weather the storm unscathed and work on it... |
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27
June 2008 |
THE federal Opposition says uncertainty over the Government's proposed national broadband network (NBN) is pushing some businesses towards collapse.
The tender process for the $4.7 billion contract is yet to be completed, and Telstra says the delay has caused it to put on hold large investments in improving current services.
Janelle Rhodes, who relocated her business to Cranbourne in southeast Melbourne, says she is struggling to stay afloat because of a lack of broadband services in the area.
She ... |
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27
June 2008 |
Verizon Communications has stepped up the pressure on Vodafone to sell out of Verizon Wireless, their mobile joint venture, saying that the second largest US telecoms company intends to be "the hunter" in future industry consolidation.
Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, owner of 55 per cent of Verizon Wireless, told the Financial Times he would like full ownership of the US mobile operator.
It follows almost two years in which both groups have played down the prospect of owner... |
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26
June 2008 |
The European Commission unveiled the draft of a plan to force down termination fees for calls to mobile phones on Thursday, opening up the plan to a two-month consultation with the European Union's telecommunications industry.
"Call termination markets in the E.U. need a regulatory plumber. Over the next 3 years, I expect greater consistency and coordination to bring the costs for mobile phone calls down by around 70 per cent from the current level," the E.U.'s telecommunications commissioner Viviane Red... |
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26
June 2008 |
Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. will provide a broadband satellite network to Alldean Satellite Networks (Kenya) Ltd., Gilat announced June 25.
The SkyEdge 2 hub and IP VSATs initially will cover sites in various parts of Kenya, providing interactive data, broadband Internet access, Voice Over Internet Protocol and client-server banking applications to Kenyan enterprises and financial services firms.
Alldean previously had deployed Gilat 360e, DialAway and FaraWay VSAT networks. “We have worked with... |
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25
June 2008 |
Peer-to-peer file sharing may be more of a drain on ISPs than previously realised if figures released yesterday are accurate.
Ars Technica quotes a report issued by broadband equipment vendor Sandvine which states that traffic from peer-to-peer file sharing networks accounts for 35.6 percent of all data downloaded over the Internet in the United States. This contrasts with regular web surfing and streaming media usage, which suck up 31.6 percent and 17.9 percent respectively. Unsurprisingly, the figures ... |
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25
June 2008 |
T-Mobile will soon launch its US$10 landline phone service across the U.S., the company planned to announce Wednesday.
Already available in Seattle and Dallas, the service will be offered to T-Mobile customers elsewhere starting July 2. The $10 monthly subscription includes unlimited local and long-distance calling as well as services including voicemail, call forwarding and call waiting.
The service has a few drawbacks but should appeal to certain people, including existing VoIP (Voice over Internet ... |
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25
June 2008 |
Bandwidth caps are coming to Japan, but not in the way to which North Americans are accustomed. OCN, operated by NTT Communications, has decided to impose a daily upload limit beginning on August 1. The limit? 30GB per day. Upstream.
According to the company, the limit is being implemented to address a "small number" of users who apparently upload far more than that on a day-to-day basis by running servers for file-sharing. Customers will get a warning upon first violation, NTT spokesperson Tei Gordo... |
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24
June 2008 |
NEC and Tyco began joint planning work Tuesday for the Unity undersea cable, a high-speed fiber optic link between the U.S. and Japan that's backed by Internet-giant Google and five telecom operators.
The US$300 million cable will initially contain five fiber pairs -- dual optical fiber cables one of which is used for service and the other for back-up -- but will be expandable to eight pairs. Each pair is capable of carrying 960G bps (bits per second) of data giving the system a capacity of between 4.8T ... |
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24
June 2008 |
Wireless broadband in all its forms (fixed, portable, and mobile) gives operators a way to grow revenues as voice revenue growth slows, reports In-Stat. Based on survey data collected by the high-tech market research firm, WiMAX provides the right mix of features and pricing to appeal to consumers. Business users on the other hand will provide more of a challenge to WiMAX operators, primarily based on business users' need for ubiquitous coverage.
The research, “Waiting for WiMAX: US Consumers Want More f... |
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