Europe
- FCC launches broadband consumer tools 6 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) The Federal Communications Commission launched the 'Consumer broadband test' and the 'Broadband dead zone report' digital tools. The former enables consumers to test their broadband service and the latter enables users to report areas where broadband is not available. The 'Consumer broadband test' measures broadband quality indicators such as speed and latency, and reports that information to consumers and the FCC. The mobile version (the FCC's first mobile app) is available through the Apple and Android app stores, whereas the fixed version is available at www.broadband.gov. Two popular broadband testing tools are used in this beta version, namely the Ookla Speed Test and the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) running on the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) platform. In the future, the FCC anticipates making additional broadband testing applications available for consumer use. The 'Broadband dead zone report' enables Americans to submit the street address location of a broadband 'dead zone' where broadband is unavailable for purchase.
- Dutch mobile market grows 0.9% to EUR 6.5 bln in 2009 7 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) The Dutch mobile industry generated EUR 6.5 billion in service revenue for the full year 2009, up 0.9 percent from a year earlier. The growth rate slowed from an increase of 2.4 percent in 2008. According to Telecompaper's quarterly mobile market monitor, growth in 2009 was mainly due to non-voice services, which compensated for the continuous drop in voice service revenues. Voice still accounts for more than 73 percent of total service revenue. Only Vodafone and KPN were able to show annual revenue growth, of respectively 2.6 and 2.0 percent in 2009, while T-Mobile posted service revenue down 2.9 percent. Seasonally the fourth quarter is a weaker quarter compared to the third quarter, but this year fourth-quarter service revenues showed an increase of 0.9 percent to EUR 1.6 billion, due to growth in voice revenue rather than data. Compared to the fourth quarter 2008, revenues showed a small increase of 0.2 percent, less than in previous years. In terms of mobile SIMs, the Dutch market saw a drop of 2 percent last year to 20.5 million at the end of 2009. The main reason for the drop is a 9.7 percent decline in the prepaid base, which was mostly related to T-Mobile's deactivation of around 1.0 million inactive customers from the integration with Orange. As a consequence, mobile market penetration dropped from 126.7 percent at the end of 2008 to 123.5 percent at end-2009. KPN expanded its market leader position slightly to over 50 percent of all subscribers, and Vodafone saw its market share increase to more than 25 percent thanks to strong subscriber growth, while T-Mobile dropped to around 24 percent market share. For 2010, Telecompaper forecast revenues up 1-2 percent to EUR 6.6 billion. Telecompaper also updated its five-year outlook for the industry, predicting a CAGR of 1.8 percent to reach around EUR 7.2 billion in 2014.
- Telefonica launches bravo! three-year strategic programme 8 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Telefonica has launched a new strategic programme for the next three years. Dubbed bravo!, the programme sets out Telefonica's strategic priorities and key initiatives to align operations in the three regions in which Telefonica is present. The bravo! programme focuses on four main aspects: the customer, the operator's offering, platforms and culture. According to Telefonica's chairman Cesar Alierta, Telefonica targets over 320 million customers by 2012, or 30 percent of the market in the regions where the company operates. Telefonica also forecasts annual growth ranging between 1 and 4 percent over the next four years.
- GyPSii launches Tweetsii app, raises USD 11 mln in funding 10 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Geo-location and social networking applications GyPSii has launched an application named Tweetsii. The application connects people with places and networks by bridging the Twitter experiences with mobile social media, the social graph, location and contextual mobile-based search in real time. It builds an aggregated real world index of places, with updates from Twitter users and location-based services, including GyPSii, Gowalla and Foursquare. All content contributes to a place-based index that delivers real time, mobile, location-specific content creation and search. The application allows Twitter users to tweet, check-in, send alerts and tips, create places, and geo-tag them with comments, photos and other rich media content and updates made via Tweetsii also appear in the user's Twitter feed. It also delivers real-time "PlaceStreams" and "EventStreams" to users directly tied to their location and social-graph connections. The application features streams that enables users to view the tweets, see who is nearby and what people are saying about the area the user is in and what's trending. Tweetsii provides an explore feature that uses GyPSii's core PlaceRank search technology to combine Twitter streams with several place-based points of interest and events. Users can also search by interests and get results sorted by proximity, ratings and time. GyPSii's OpenExperience API was used to build Tweetsii into the Twitter eco-system. Tweetsii can be downloaded for free on iTunes. Initial availability will be in the Apple Appstore for iPhone, followed by Android and Blackberry platforms. GyPSii has also closed an USD 11 million private funding round led by UK-based Schroders, to support marketing and additional development of GyPSii applications including Tweetsii. This infusion brings total fund raising to USD 40 million to propel the GyPSii business forward.
- Google unlikely to withdraw from China altogether - report 13 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Google is unlikely to withdraw from China entirely but could stop censoring its web search results, The Wall Street Journal reports citing people familiar with the matter. Google is currently negotiating with the Chinese government over its future in the country. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at a media conference in Abu Dhabi that "something will happen soon". In January this year, Google announced it would stop censoring search results on google.cn and that it was considering pulling out of the country altogether. The announcement followed a hacker attack in December, which also targeted about 34 other companies, and the discovery that a number of e-mail accounts of human rights activists were compromised. The attacks had been traced to two schools in China and the writer of the spyware used in the attack has been identified as a Chinese security consultant with links to the government. It is likely that Google will make agreements with specific ministries in China about the various parts of its business. The company has made more progress with some ministries than others, the source said.
- Axiata to offer 20% of XL Axiata shares 14 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Asian mobile operator group Axiata plans to offer up to 20 percent in its Indonesian subsidiary XL Axiata to institutional investors. Axiata owns 86.5 percent of XL Axiata. The exercise will be carried out via an international private placement of secondary shares. Final offer price and size will be determined after the completion of the bookbuilding process. Axiata is currently evaluating various options with respect to the use of the proceeds of the planned offering in areas related to Axiata group's businesses and for general corporate purposes. The offering is expected to be completed by April.
- ST Telemedia takes 10% stake in VNPT Global 15 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Singapore-based telecommunications investment company ST Telemedia has taken a 10 percent share in VNPT Global, a subsidiary of Vietnamese communications firm VNPT. ST Telemedia did not disclose financial details. VNPT Global's main business activities include setting up VNPT Group's international connectivity networks, providing value added telecom services and contact center services to VNPT Group customers worldwide. Outside Vietnam, VNPT Global operates in Singapore, Hong Kong, USA and the Czech Republic. The founding shareholders of VNPT Global are VNPT Group with a majority share, Mobifone, and Vietnam Post (VN Post), each with a 5 percent stake.
- Pacific Fibre plans cable between NZ, Australia, US 16 hours ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) A New Zealand investor group, Pacific Fibre, plans to build a 5.12 Tbps cable to connect Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Founders of the new venture include Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan and Rod Drury, Mark Rushworth (former Vodafone chief marketing officer), John Humphrey, and Lance Wiggs. The group is looking to secure funding and build the cable to be ready in 2013. The current proposed cable configuration would be 13,000 km long, and have two fibre pairs with 64 wavelengths (lambdas) each at 40 Gbps per lambda. The maximum lit capacity initially would be 5.12 Tbps, but would be upgradeable to over 12 Tbpsas the emerging 100 Gbps per lambda technology becomes reality. The newer cable and repeater technology that Pacific Fibre proposes to use will be more easily upgradeable than that of existing cables. Pacific Fibre will seek to work alongside existing industry players and also seek to aggregate any existing initiatives into a unified project. New Zealand-based telecommunications networks provider Kordia has welcomed the announcement. The company has been in talks with Pacific Fibre and said it is looking forward to working with them. ISP Natcom also welcomed the news.
- Telia upgrades LTE to 100Mbps 1 day ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Swedish mobile operator Telia is upgrading its mobile broadband base stations in central Stockholm to deliver speeds of 100 Mbps. The rest of its LTE base stations will undergo the upgrade process beginning this spring. After the upgrade, customers will be able to access the web with practical speeds of up to 80 Mbps. At present, Telia's LTE network covers the central parts of Stockholm, as well as Stockholm's districts Alvsjo, Kista and Hammarby Sjostad. Telia plans to launch LTE in 25 locations in Sweden. In Q3, the LTE network will be expanded to Lund, Vasteras, Malma, Gothenburg, Uppsala and Linkoping. Other cities will be covered by the network by the end of the year. Telia's LTE network equipment is delivered by Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.
- Virgin Media trials using telephone poles for broadband 1 day ago Digital Media Europe - digital media news from across Europe
(Telecompaper) Virgin Media will soon begin a trial to deliver 50 Mbps broadband to the Berkshire village of Woolhampton using telegraph poles. The trial is expected to effectively increase broadband speeds by more than ten-fold by connecting homes directly to Virgin Media's network. The rural community previously relied on BT's copper network. Villagers will also be offered Virgin Media's TV service. The trial will start this month and is scheduled to run for around six months. A Virgin Media spokesperson told Telecompaper that the cable operator will use fibre-to-the-premise technology, to bring the fibre line directly to the residence. The test is part of Virgin Media's plans to bring next-generation digital services to people who currently live beyond the reach of fibre-optic networks. Virgin Media has already announced plans to extend its HFC network, which now passes 12.6 million homes, to 500,000 new homes and has identified more than one million homes in parts of the UK that stand to benefit from deployment over telegraph poles. Virgin said that initial analysis suggests that 'non-traditional' approaches of this kind could deliver next-generation broadband to over one million homes up and down the UK without the need for government subsidy.
