Posts Tagged “government”
Jun
08
2010
 
Government launches rural broadband projectsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt today laid down government thinking on rural Read Full Story…
May
25
2010
Queen’s speech sets out plans for ID cards and high-speed broadbandPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Coalition government plans to speed the creation of a high-speed broadband Read Full Story…
May
24
2010
End of IR35 tax rules welcomed by IT contractorsPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The government has pledged to abolish the unpopular tax legislation, the focus of court battles between IT contractors and HMRC Read Full Story…
May
21
2010
Coalition gov’t plan outlines ICT contract splitPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have released their plan to break up IT contracts and to begin full online disclosure of central government spending over 25,000 Read Full Story…
May
20
2010
New legislation could ‘reduce cost’ of fibre rolloutPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The government is considering new laws to make super-fast broadband available to more of the UK and to increase the number of broadband providers Read Full Story…
May
19
2010
Vodafone, Bharti win costly India 3G spectrumPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Vodafone and Bharti paid a combined $5.1 billion for 3G mobile licences in India, ending an epic auction that yields a bonanza for a deficit-strapped government but puts winners under pressure. Read Full Story…
May
19
2010
UK broadband minister to be introduced this weekPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The coalition government could appoint a new broadband minister this week, Read Full Story…
May
18
2010
Vodafone doubles profits but admits downturn in IndiaPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
• Selling iPhone helps group make £8.7bn
Vodafone predicted a return to growth on the back of the rising popularity of smartphones and its deal to sell the iPhone in Britain and Germany. After three years of declining revenues, Vodafone cheered investors by announcing a doubling of annual profits to £8.7bn and predicting that it will generate up to £7bn of cash this year, allowing it to boost payouts to shareholders. The company’s promise to increase dividends by at least 7% annually over the next three years helped offset news that it had wiped a quarter – £2.3bn – off the value of its Indian operation due to intense competition in the sub-Continent. When Vodafone bought control of India’s third largest mobile phone company in 2007 there were six nationwide players. There are now a dozen. While it has since signed up more than 100 million customers and become the nation’s number two player, Vodafone has been forced into a fierce price war, which has slashed margins. The cost of operating in the country looks set to increase further when the authorities auction licences to run 3G services. Prices could run into the billions and the Indian authorities have suggested that companies such as Vodafone could pay even more for the spectrum they already have. Chief executive Vittorio Colao, however, sent the Indian regulator a stark warning that cash today means slower growth tomorrow. “Spectrum should not be seen as something that the government can use to squeeze money out of private capital,” he said. “Spectrum is the fuel for future economic development. If you see it that way, every time you take money out of investment you take money out of future GDP growth.” The company’s problems in India have caused some analysts to question whether Vodafone should remain in the country. But Colao was adamant that “India is a market that when you look at it, all the projections in terms of GDP, population, wealth creation, emergence of a middle class and opportunity for data are very positive. It is a country that, from an industrial point of view, one wants to be in.” Vodafone announced that while revenues were up 8.4% to £44.5bn, after stripping out acquisitions and foreign exchange movements, they actually declined by 2.3%. The trend has been improving over the year – in the last quarter group service revenues were down just 0.2% – so Vodafone expects to return to growth in the current financial year. In Europe, Vodafone has been battling against fierce competition in mature markets, regulatory price cuts and the switch from high-margin voice traffic to lower margin data traffic. There has been concern that as smartphone usage takes off, it will lead to an explosion in traffic, which will require increased capital expenditure but bring little actual increase in revenues as many people are on flat-rate data tariffs. “There is a lot of concern, I think to some extent unjustified, that the move from voice to data will be an unprofitable move for our industry,” Colao said yesterday. “But what I am saying is if companies like ours continue to invest, continue to upgrade the network and quite frankly continue to be more efficient, that switch [from voice to data] can happen at the same level of profitability.”"I think in the very long term people will end up spending more on their smartphones because they will be doing more and more stuff. But already today it is not – from a cash perspective – worsening our profitability.” Just 11% of Vodafone’s European customers, meanwhile, have a smartphone and the company plans to increase that to 35% by 2013. At least some of that increase will come from the iPhone, which Vodafone started selling in the UK in January and will start stocking in Spain and Germany over the summer. In the UK, where Vodafone endured two years in which O2 had the Apple device exclusively, finally being able to sell the phone has halted a two year long exodus. In the three months to end March, more customers kept their mobile phone number and moved over to Vodafone UK than took their number and left, the first time Vodafone has been a net ‘porter’ of numbers for two years. “This I can say is probably down to the iPhone,” Colao said. “In the sense that the negative in the last two years was linked to the iPhone: personally I heard a lot of people say ‘I would love to stay with Vodafone but I want an iPhone’. That was a problem and now it is not any more.”
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May
17
2010
McKinnon asks new government to halt extraditionPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The Nasa hacker’s solicitors have sent a letter to the new home secretary Theresa May, asking for her to ‘intervene and prevent’ his extradition to the US Read Full Story…
May
12
2010
ID cards, National Identity Register scrappedPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The Conservative-Lib Dem government has begun its term by confirming the imminent cancellation of Labour’s identity card scheme and its underlying database Read Full Story…
May
12
2010
Tories and Lib Dems form coalition governmentPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have much common ground in their opposition to ID cards and enthusiasm for open source, but could diverge on copyright and rural fibre Read Full Story…
May
12
2010
Vodafone and Axia partner on New Zealand’s UFB initiativePosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Vodafone and Axia NetMedia, a Canadian provider of broadband IP services and solutions, have formed an alliance to deliver the solution to the New Zealand government’s ultra-fast broadband initiative. Read Full Story…
May
06
2010
New Government must consult again on spectrum reallocationPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Risk of legal challenge if current proposals get go-ahead, warns analyst Read Full Story…
As the country goes to the polls, it’s not enough to just look at tech policies ? what’s needed is a party that will reform the basic mechanisms of government Read Full Story…
Apr
25
2010
Cuba’s mobile phone boom sees few calls but plenty of chatterPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Once illegal gadget is now ubiquitous, despite prohibitive costs, and is loosening the regime’s grip on information Roberto Machado tapped his pocket with a smile and with some ceremony fished out the phone: a Sony Ericsson, vintage 2003. For its new owner this was no clunky relic. It was beautiful. Machado, a 31-year-old artist, recently received it from an aunt in Spain and was enchanted. “I love it. I tell you, with this life isn’t the same.” The age of the mobile phone has reached Cuba. Since being legalised by the communist government the phones, once a forbidden badge of foreign consumerism, have become a ubiquitous sight across the island. Clipped to belts, worn around necks, endlessly fiddled with, you see them everywhere. There is, however, a Cuban twist: very few use the phone to talk. Machado looked aghast at the idea. “Speak? As in a conversation? Never. Not once. You would have to be crazy or desperate.” Calls are too expensive so the phones are used as pagers. Instead of answering, Cubans note the incoming number and call back from a landline. Such are the calculations wrought by an impoverished, centrally planned economy where the average monthly wage is $20 (£13). Calls between mobile phones cost 65 cents a minute, and slightly more from a mobile to a landline. Even texting, at 17 cents a message, is considered pricey. A minute-long call to Europe costs more than a week’s salary, $5.85. It takes enormous sacrifice – or a foreign benefactor – for Cubans to afford the $60 handset sold in government stores and a further $50 to activate the line with Etecsa, the state telephone. Even so, there is always a queue outside Etecsa’s store on Obispo street in Havana. Many are youths in sunglasses and designer jeans – part of a generation as obsessed by brands as their western peers. “We’re catching up,” said Miguel, a 19-year-old. All in the queue – faces pressed against the store window – appeared giddy at the prospect of imminent cellular connection. “They’ve been waiting for this a long time,” said a uniformed guard at the shop entrance. Cuba still has the lowest mobile phone use in Latin America but the number is rising fast, with 480,000 handsets for 11.2 million people, according to officials. On one level this represents success for President Raúl Castro’s promise to ease the hardships and petty restrictions which stoke resentment among Cubans at the 51-year-old revolution. Bans on DVDs and computers have also been lifted. From the government’s viewpoint, however, there is a catch. These consumer goods fan a different, rival revolution – in information. Cubans yearn for news other than state media propaganda. “I’m sick of being treated like a 10-year-old who lives on another planet,” one tourism worker put it. A gossip grapevine nicknamed Radio Bemba (Radio Lip) is the traditional way to supplement official information. The new gadgets – phone cameras, flashcards, DVDs and the occasional internet link – are now multiplying that informal network. The state monopoly over news is history. “Even if it is not always immediately visible the arrival of new technology brings changes which bubble under the surface,” said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst and Cuba expert at the University of Miami. Cubans are better informed than ever before, said Ruben Polanco, 29, an IT worker with a state bank. “With this,” he said, indicating the camera on his Motorola phone, “the truth gets out.” Three recent examples show the technology’s impact. Last month a baseball game between Industriales and Sancti Spíritus turned into a riot. Police waded into players and spectators – including a communist party chief – with batons and pepper spray. In the past the incident would have been the stuff of rumour, at most, but this time the brawl was captured on mobile phones, loaded on to flashcards, played on computers and DVD players across the island and uploaded to Youtube. “Everyone was talking about it, saying did you see the guy in the headlock,” said Polanco. Another clandestine video hit was a protest at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana where dozens of students protested over foul food and other grievances. A third case has fuelled anger over a scandal at the main psychiatric hospital in the Cuban capital where at least 26 patients died during freezing weather in January. The authorities admitted a blunder, promised an investigation and hoped to move on. Instead, autopsy photographs showing emaciated, apparently bruised corpses were leaked. “It’s one thing to hear and another to actually see,” said Antonio Gonzalez-Rodiles, 37, a scientist who received the images on a flashcard. “The bodies were skin and bone, like something out of a concentration camp. It’s really, really upsetting.” Unlike in Burma, Iran and other countries with repressive regimes, Cuba remains calm and stable. There are no uprisings, no mass demonstrations, so information technology poses no immediate risk to the government. Over time, however, the technology is likely to present an increasingly fraught challenge. The sea still surrounds it, but Cuba is ever less an island. Bloggers critical of the Cuban government, such as Yoani Sanchez, have attracted wide followings overseas and admirers at home, despite internet restrictions. Secret police have struggled to winkle out satellite TV dishes hidden in water tanks, among other places. Cuba’s government retains formidable control but a battle with information technology is likely to be a battle lost, said Dianna Melrose, the British ambassador in Cuba. “They are trying to do a King Canute, they are fighting an impossible tide.”
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Apr
22
2010
Health of 250,000 mobile phone users to be trackedPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
Scientists to look for increased risk of a range of conditions in study spanning five countries, including Britain A quarter of a million mobile phone users are to have their medical records tracked for more than 20 years in the world’s largest study into the health effects of the devices. Network operators, including Vodafone and O2 in the UK, have agreed to invite a random selection of customers aged 18 to 69 to take part in the study, which will look for increased rates of cancer, dementia and other conditions, such as depression and sleep disorders. The cohort study on mobile communications (Cosmos) is the latest to be funded by the government’s mobile telecommunications health research programme (MTHR), set up after the Stewart inquiry into mobile phones and health in 2000. Then it was concluded that, while there was no evidence mobile phones were dangerous, more research was needed to rule out an increased risk of brain tumours and other cancers over the long term. As a precautionary measure, the report advised against children using mobile phones unless essential. Mobile phone ownership has soared since the mid-1990s to more than 70m in the UK – more than one handset for every individual. Because cancers grow slowly, any increase due to mobile phone use is unlikely to have become apparent yet. “The balance of scientific evidence to date does not suggest that mobile phones cause cancer but, because of the uncertainty, we cannot rule out the possibility that it might,” said Professor Lawrie Challis, of the MTHR management committee. “With many cancers it takes 10 or 20 years for symptoms to show, and most of us have not had mobile phones that long. There just hasn’t been enough time for cancer to develop.” The £3.1m British arm of the study, running alongside others in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, will follow the health of at least 90,000 people for up to 30 years. With participants’ approval, scientists led by Paul Elliott at Imperial College, London, will gather information from network providers on how much people use their mobile devices for making calls, texting and surfing the net, and compare this with their medical records over the duration of the study. Unlike previous studies, scientists will look for an increased risk of a broad range of medical problems, including brain tumours, leukaemia, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease and psychological conditions. A report focusing on cancer risk is expected within 10 years. Previous studies claim to have found evidence suggestive of an increased risk of brain tumours with mobile phone usage, but many scientists say the results are inconclusive. “Cosmos aims to fill in important gaps in our knowledge of mobile phones and health. By looking at large numbers of people across Europe over a long period of time, we should be able to build up a valuable picture of whether or not there is any link between mobile phone usage and health problems over the long term,” said Prof Elliott. The Cosmos study will not look at the effects of mobile phone use among children, although some experts believe they may be especially vulnerable to mobile phone radiation, because they have thinner skulls and still-developing immune systems. Prof Challis said it was unrealistic to prevent older children and teenagers from using mobile phones, but suggested parents might want to keep children under the age of 11 from using the devices. “I think it’s better if they don’t use them, but it’s up to parents,” he said. “Generally I would think that’s not a bad line to follow, but I’m a scientist, not a risk manager.”
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The new Data Protection Act leaves us exposed to data attacks and poses a privacy challenge the government can’t ignore Everyone seems very excited about the arrival of the iPad. It’s the latest addition to a plethora of mobile devices that can change the way we interact with people, businesses and, in some cases, government. It’s a device designed for a world where people want to make the process of participating in modern society that little bit slicker. But it’s not the devices themselves that have grabbed my attention – it’s the number of ways in which people are using them. The growth in applications to reduce daily processes to automated functions is exponential. Paying for parking; setting up digital TV recording at home; buying theatre tickets; updating corporate sales systems – these are now regularly delivered through software on handheld digital devices, often mobile phones. The phenomenal number of apps downloaded through the Apple App Store is an indication that we are quickly moving towards a truly digital society – an environment in which consumers, businesses and government have total confidence in digital technologies to support their daily processes. This presents huge opportunities to streamline previously cumbersome tasks, make consumers’ lives easier and reduce the cost of running businesses. But it also presents some difficult challenges because turning these opportunities into reality can make it difficult to protect people’s privacy. There are problems here for everyone. Companies that gather and store data – referred to as data controllers – now have to secure increasingly vast amounts of information. A society in which digital systems are part of the social and commercial fabric generates vast quantities of data. According to research firm IDC, 1,200 exabytes of digital data will be generated this year – the equivalent of 10 billion copies of The Guardian. Storing that amount of data securely requires the development of new technology that goes way beyond current options. Are vendors expected to pay to develop these technologies and if not, who is? Citizens may enjoy the ability to pay for concert tickets with the click of an icon but they remain exposed by the current legislation if a data breach occurs. Under last week’s changes made to the Data Protection Act, individuals can only claim financial compensation if they can prove financial loss from a data breach. This is incredibly difficult and provides no route for compensation for distress caused by data privacy attacks. Today, no suitable route exists for individuals to hold data controllers to account. This means they have to rely on the regulator, the Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO), to seek redress. Considering the ICO’s fines are limited to £500,000, the impact on large data controllers, if they are negligent, is tiny. Both of these create a unique challenge for the next government. It’s down to the administration to create the appropriate legal, regulatory and technical environment in which people and businesses can benefit from the advantages of new technology while feeling protected. The mistake to avoid is policymakers thinking they can deliver this environment on their own. They can’t. They need to work with every community that has a stake in the outcome. They need the help of privacy lawyers to craft legislation that considers the best way to protect citizens, business and the state. They need to work with consumer groups to appreciate the way people perceive the issue of privacy so they can respond to the public’s wants around information security. They need to work with the media to escalate the country’s understanding of how to mitigate against privacy attacks so that basic errors when handling other people’s data become as unacceptable as leaving your car unlocked in a public place. And they absolutely must consult with leaders from the technology industry to better understand how today’s technologies work, how they are used, and how they are expected to develop. Only then can policymakers truly understand how to act as the decision-maker in a digital society. Only then can they build a framework in which society can thrive through new technology, without constantly looking over its shoulder to see where the next data privacy breach is coming from.
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Apr
16
2010
Gov’t needs to step up on IT, say public sector CIOSPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The government needs to be ‘more ambitious’ about IT for public sector organisations to meet their goals, according to a poll of CIOs and IT directors Read Full Story…
Apr
15
2010
HP offices raided in reported bribery investigationPosted by CompareMobiles.com in Mobile News
The company is under investigation by authorities in Germany and Russia for allegedly paying bribes to win contracts to sell computers to the Russian government Read Full Story…
Crackdown on Jobsian WiFiIf you’re planning a visit to Israel, don’t bring along your new iPad – the Israeli government will confiscate it at entry.…
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