According to reports, Google is trying to strengthen its presence in the mobile internet market through its acquisitions.
It is worth noting that the Google is well known for its policy of acquisition of new comers with a huge potential in order to enhance its portfolio in the market. The scope of this Mountain-View California situated company has gone far beyond its initial search engine service to become a stronger market player linked up with a number of other entities. The number of its acquisitions runs to over 50 companies, including mobile software to video as well as VoIP in last nine years.
Quite recently, Google disclosed its plans of acquiring AdMob, a four-year old advertising company, which is engaged in adverts designed to work with mobile phones. This proposed acquisition of Google is under scrutiny of the FTC, the US Regulator. Even before this acquisition, the FTC had taken some time to approve the purchase of a similar internet advertising company (DoubleClick) by Google.
Presently, Google is looking forward to buying a local business reviews site, Yelp. The location awareness applications on the present day mobiles can benefit a lot from the services offered by this company. Local recommendations and advertising have never been a strong point for Google, especially with respect to mobiles. This makes Yelp a worthy asset for Google as the former already has a strong presence in the local market.
A new report released by a telecommunication researcher firm has identified those areas across the UK that are expected to benefit from the next generation broadband that is on the cards of BT Openreach in the next couple of years.
The report released by Point Topic contains four maps that have coloured spots showing areas that will be upgraded. However, the plans do not seem to be quite elaborate as of now, as the primary focus of the upgrade are areas that are more populated than others, especially those around London. The deployment of the fibre-based broadband is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.
Although the statistics are impressive, the report makes a clear indication that chances of issues like slower broadband speed in neighbouring areas are quite high and will have to be sorted out by the service provider at the outset. In other words, the digital divide that is going to be created by new high-speed service might also result in discontent among the subscribers.
The Point Topic study shows that by the end of 2010, there will be as many as 4.52 million people accessing fibre-based broadband, and the number is expected to increase or leap up to 10 million by the end of 2011. The estimates suggest that the subscriber base could touch a new high of over 21 million people by the time the project is completed at the end of 2012.
However, according to Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic, the present plans still fall short of expectations in high demand areas.
British Telecom, a leading internet service provider in the UK, has been accused by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) of allowing illegal downloading and assenting to online piracy. Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive of the BPI, while talking to the Mirror, categorically stated that this attitude adopted by BT towards online piracy is appalling and condemnable. He added that all service providers should understand they share the responsibility of running a network that is free of piracy, and that if there is any diversion, the same should be punished in order to bring defaulters to book and discouraging further misuse.
The fact that BT has allowed nearly 100,000 users to indulge in online piracy and has done nothing to prevent it is disgraceful, according to the BPI. The organization has based its entire accusation on the IP addresses of the defaulters that it collected. However, the source of such information is not known.
A BT spokesperson, on the other hand, maintained that not all peer-to-peer applications are illegal in nature, as some are needed to play online games, and hence identifying illegal activity is very difficult. Moreover, if the company were to adopt a strict stance towards online piracy, its action would translate into infringing the privacy of the users, which would not be acceptable by the customer.
While addressing Your Money Government, a BT spokesperson had earlier clarified that intrusion into the internet usage of the subscribers in order to monitor the extent of online piracy and to prevent it would lead to annual increase of £24 in the bills of customers.
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European Telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, has mentioned that she might consider a ground-breaking third term, which is something telecom operators are not looking forward to.
Reding, who wants to speed up the change to digital TV before the official date, is also putting in solid efforts towards freeing up the spectrum for mobile broadband services. She played a key role in reducing the data roaming charges across the EU- a move that was slammed by some for being ‘populist’.
In a speech at the Lisbon Council, which is an economic think-tank, Reding expressed that the digital dividend had provided an opportune moment to begin work on the broadband services provided to European users. She said that she wanted to link the whole of Europe with high speed broadband that gives top-quality facilities and to ensure a variety of wireless broadband services available to the users. But, to meet these demands, radio spectrum has to be utilized using a synchronized approach, she added.
Reding valued the benefits from using analogue TV spectrum for wireless broadband across the EU at 200bn and has envisioned an additional benefit of 50bn, but only if all the states across the EU can get their act together. These measures, she insists would benefit the businesses and the citizens of the Union. She urged the individual member states to enforce these measures as soon as possible without waiting for the 2012 deadline.
Have you been sent a spam text message recently? Well apparently the amount of spam that is sent via text is on the rise.
Cloudmark polled 1000 consumers recently and though research revealed that over 66% of those people had received a spam message via a mobile phone within the last two weeks. Indeed half of those who had received messages believed that they are either malicious or possibly even fraudulent.
The research also questioned people on their propensity to use their mobile phones and old mobile phones for services such as mobile banking, however 70% of the respondents to this particular research said that they would definitely not trust using their phone for such important services.
Cloudmark is well-known in the e-mail business, they provide system has which stop up to 90% of spam e-mail coming through two in boxes. It hopes to take that technology and learning over to the mobile phone industry in the form of three different products.
The chief executive of the company commented that they had initially spotted the growth of spam text messages a few years ago in Asia. Those readers interested in the mobile markets will be aware that the Asian mobile networks are a few years ahead of Europe. Another thing worthy of note is that following the popularity of mobile phones in nature a lot of people started to not even have fixed telephone lines, instead they relied completely on their mobile phones. The sad fact is that in China which has seen a huge growth in the market from mobile phones, up to 40% of the text messages per cent are in fact spam.
Now if you look to the European mobile phone networks the lover of spam is a lot less, however the networks want to proactively ensure that this does not get out of hand and say they’re looking for solutions already.
The product that they have launched basically inspects the content of the text message and filters it as to spam e-mail messages are filtered currently. In addition they have another system which identifies spammers and allows mobile operators to block them from both within their own and partner networks.
VOIP or voice over Internet Protocol is the ability to transmit voice over the Internet to either a receiving computer, telephone or even a mobile phone. VOIP offers an inexpensive alternative to traditional telephones and keeps you away from huge bills. VOIP helps you save money, especially for long distance calls. It also enables you to talk to several people simultaneously. It offers different services with developing technologies. VoIP enables you to send any type of data at higher speeds of Internet.It is increasingly becoming a great choice for residential and business customers.Many providers offer unlimited plans, that will give the subscriber unlimited long distance, free calling with VOIP.
VOIP promises cost savings over traditional phone lines and thus allows you to save on your monthly phone expenses.VOIP is one of the coolest advancements you’ve ever been blessed to experience. VoIP allows you to make phone calls over the internet, using your computer, to pretty much anywhere on the planet. the technology with VoIP has yet to progress to the point where you will consistently experience crystal clear sound over slower internet connections.If you currently live in an area that hasn’t been wired for broadband, you shouldn’t have to wait too long for the technology to progress to where you can enjoy a quality conversation over a slow internet connection.
However, the quality can suffer without a high speed internet connection. VoIP services cost less than residential phone service and much, much less than most monthly cell phone plans.If your broadband internet company just happens to be one of companies that currently offers VoIP services, then its better because it would cost you higher if used an independent or outside company for your VoIP phone service. If your internet connection goes down you wouldn’t be able to make or receive phone calls.Due to lack of signal strength,your calls can also get dropped.Although it has some drawbacks, but once you use it, you’ll not want to loose it, especially with your bills getting lower each month.
With many people discovering the benefits of VOIP by switching from using their land line telephones to VoIP service, VoIP phone service providers are increasing in popularity. People are now aware that VoIP phone services costs significantly less than standard phone service.In today’s advanced technology world, VOIP is expected to have a great future ahead.
Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) is changing the way that the average consumer makes long distance phone calls. The technology is rapidly advancing because companies all over the world are now competing to be your VOIP provider. However, there are still some disadvantages of VOIP - especially when it comes to using the technology for functions beyond the one caller to one caller scenario.
The disadvantages of VOIP can be annoying, but are relatively limited for the consumer. The main complaints regarding VOIP have to do with providing the level of quality of service that customers are accustomed to with regular telephone technology. The reason for this is multifold. VOIP requires a large amount of data to be compressed and transmitted, then uncompressed and delivered, all in a relatively small amount of time. Problems develop in VOIP conversations when this process takes too long and the callers experience one of two problems; echo or over-talk.
Standard phone calls function with a delay of no more than 10 milliseconds. But one major disadvantage of VOIP is that there have been delays of up to 400 milliseconds, meaning that the callers won’t hear each other fast enough to make the conversation flow easily. They will either hear themselves talking or they will start talking again before they have heard the other person respond. Although these problems won’t necessarily happen every time a call is made, it can happen often enough to be annoying.
The disadvantages of VOIP are usually tolerable if the callers are using a free service and the calls are for individual, personal communication. But once a network of users, such as a business, wants to use VOIP, the problems become a little more complicated. Part of the reason is that most networks have a firewall; and most firewalls don’t know how to route a VOIP call once it is received - which phone does it go to?
Plus, multiple users create a problem when judging what amount of bandwidth can be and should be used at any time. If multiple users need to make VOIP calls, it can be difficult for the company to know exactly how much bandwidth to provide - especially if internet access, video conferencing or other data transmission services are using the same path.
Overall, the disadvantages of VOIP aren’t significant enough to dissuade the average consumer from using the technology; especially with the fact that they know that the calls they are making are free. But we can rest assured that the technology will only get more reliable as time goes by.
Article written by Van Theodorou, President of WorldNet Solutions, Inc. They help you find the lowest business long distance rates and in essence become your telecom department at no cost to you.
VoIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol, is an enigma for many
businesses. There are many flavors of VoIP and many pros and cons that you need to be aware of when considering which service to choose. One goal of this article is to help you decipher through the technospeak so that you can make an informed decision that will save you time and money.
The first thing you need to know about VoIP Service is that it
can replace your local phone company. Whether you have just one
POTS (plain old telephone service) line or a voice T1 (24 bundled dedicated lines), a VoIP solution is meant to replace your phone company. Instead of using your local phone company’s voice connection, VoIP will digitize your voice signal and send it over an internet connection.
In order for your voice to transmit digitally through the
internet, you need to be sure you have enough bandwidth to
facilitate the communication link. A minimum of a DSL line is
required, but most larger companies will want a T1 line - a
dedicated link directly to the internet that is guaranteed to be
up over 99.999% of the time. Since you will be entrusting all of
your business voice communication to this new technology, your
connection to the internet becomes the critical link and you
don’t want to risk a company-wide phone outage to save a few
hundred dollars on your bandwidth connection. To help with this
DS3-Bandwidth.com has developed software that will allow you to
generate a T1 or DS3 price in just seconds.
Once you have your high-speed internet connection taken care of,
it’s time to select a VoIP Service Provider - the company that
will actually route your digitized voice signal to a real
telephone on the other end. In essence, your VoIP Carrier will
become your long distance carrier. The service providers
Business-VoIP-Solution.com work with offer unlimited telephone
calls to the United States and Canada, all for one fixed price.
That’s a good place to start your search. For companies who
average more than $40 in local and long distance usage per
employee, VoIP is well worth the initial investment.
There are likewise other hidden benefits of VoIP Service, the
main benefit being the reduced bandwidth required to conduct a
regular telephone conversation. Since a VoIP transmission only
requires 32KB of bandwidth, you can fix up to 24 ‘VoIP lines’ on
a data T1, and still have 768KB left over for dedicated
high-speed internet access! This means that you can migrate your
entire phone system on to your existing T1 and still have half of the bandwidth allocated for data.
Other benefit of VoIP lies in the prioritization of the digitized voice signals that are generated when you speak. In the event no one is talking, the VoIP line does not transmit any data. This allows your T1 line to dynamically allocate bandwidth as it is needed, instead of permanently blocking out an entire channel of data.
Lastly, the MAJOR benefit of VoIP telephone systems is that they
come with a very rich feature set. Some common features include:
Unlimited Minutes, Local Number Porting (LNP), Personalized
Voicemail, Unlimited In-Network Calling, Caller ID, Caller ID
Blocking, Call Waiting, Call Waiting ID, Call Forwarding, 3-way
Conferencing, Call Return *69 activates, Online Management &
Billing, Choose Your Own Area Code, *70 Call Waiting Disable,
*78/*79 Do Not Disturb, *77/*87 Anonymous Call Blocking,
Distinctive Ringing for Virtual Numbers, Virtual Phone Numbers
all over the world, Enhanced 911, and Toll Free Services. You
just can’t get all that service with regular phone service
without paying extra fees and surcharges. These features are
standard with most business VoIP plans!
Michael is the owner of FreedomFire
Communications….including Business-VoIP-Solution and
DS3-Bandwidth.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you’re always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and insights.
Most mobile broadband service providers in the UK charge up to £15 a month for a data download limit of 3GB. While some providers do offer 10-15 GB per month, they charge much more for these download limits. Bucking the trend, Vodafone has launched a new deal wherein you can download an unlimited amount of data for a fee of £18 per month plus VAT. However, the download limit will come under the terms of fair usage.
Vodafone is offering one-year, 18 months and two-year contracts on the package. For those who are not sure whether they would want to stick with the package for that long, a 30-day contract is also on offer, which can be rolled over at the end of every month. For over 18 months contract periods, the company is giving away the dongle free to the subscribers. Click for info on mobile broadband pay as you go.
Many market experts feel that unlimited download flat fee model of pricing mobile broadband is not viable, and Vodafone’s move will be observed keenly. The competitors would be quite uneasy though, as Vodafone is also one of the fastest services in the UK, operating at speeds of 7.2 Mb, and by launching this unlimited deal, it is giving the customers a package that most other providers will find it very hard to match.
It is yet to be seen how much financial pressure Vodafone would put itself under by offering this highly competitive package, and customers would be advised to take advantage of the deal while it is still on.
Gasoline costs are rising and as a result, company expenses are spread short more than previously. With an global economy grinds and capital stays scarce, intelligent decision makers realize redundant accounts should slashed. Executives everywhere have to make a few calculated choices to reduce expenses. Perhaps the best way to slash department costs is to cut down on unnecessary travel budgets, and the easiest way is web conferencing.
Online conferencing allow business people to converse with stakeholders virtually in a appointment in another metropolis, on a distant coast or especially in an overseas country. Most online conference calling employ revolutionary web video components. Because that they usually conducted on almost any computer, they merely make additional use of no additional business capital. Only by looking to the Internet, can a business person make a far off conference from just about any office with Internet access. Not only is it everywhere, it can save travel costs five digits or more in a year.
Advancements in telecommunications technology make Internet conferencing calls a good choice for people to exchange information and presentations seamlessly. Conference participants feel as though they were in the same room, even if theyre really on the other side of the planet earth. The quality of the audio, video and presentation is without flaw through the highest standards in streaming video.
Its hard to miss how most businesses would cut costs by using Internet conference calls in place of blowing thousands flying out an employee on a costly trip. You won’t waste money on meals, hotels and even transportation costs. Big savings that matter over a year. Any cost savings is higher flexibility for your organization. Most everyone knows that some businesses are implementing Internet conference calls to slash money on low-priority business trips.
