Over 35m UK mobile phone users set to get faster Internet speeds

Posted on September 5, 2011 by admin

UK mobile phone customers on Orange, T-Mobile and Three are set to receive faster mobile Internet access, thanks to a new partnership with Virgin Media Business and Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), which will access widened to Virgin’s fibre optic network.

Virgin Media Business has announced a £100m+ deal with MBNL which will see the UK’s first synchronous Ethernet mobile backhaul service, enabling customers of Everything Everywhere (Orange and T-Mobile) and Three to benefit from super-fast access to mobile data on the move.

MBNL is a 50/50 joint venture company owned by Everything Everywhere and Three, and it was formed following the network consolidation agreement between Three and T-Mobile UK, signed in 2007. MBNL manages and delivers the combined 3G access networks of the two companies, and the deal with Virgin Media Business will help it support the explosion in data traffic, as well as lay the foundations for a transition towards 4G.

Virgin Media Business will build 14 regional aggregation networks across the UK to improve MBNL’s bandwidth capacity, which should give users on these three networks speedier mobile Internet, and will mean features such as video calling and mobile TV will be much improved for many users.

Orange, T-Mobile and Three have a combined customer base of 35.2m, so this deal will benefit a large chunk of the UK’s mobile population who use data-hungry applications such as video streaming.

It’s thought that data traffic in the UK will increase by more than 30 times over the next decade, and mobile operators are under increasing pressure to deal with the surge in mobile data. Mark Heraghty, Managing Director at Virgin Media Business, said:

“The mobile sector represents a compelling commercial opportunity for our business. As the only company with a nationwide fibre optic network, we can leverage that asset for all mobile network operators in the UK. This is just the beginning of our deployment and as we roll out this mobile backhaul proposition, operators will increasingly look to us as the best solution for handling the exponential growth of mobile data.”

Virgin Media Business is the largest B2B brand in the Virgin Group, and it has the UK’s only nationwide fibre optic network, which carries 35% of all business broadband traffic.

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Survey shows 1 in 2 prefer contactless payments to cash in the UK

Posted on August 31, 2011 by admin

A new study has revealed that contactless payment technology could finally be gaining traction in the UK, with more than half the people surveyed saying they preferred it to paying with cash in some situations, reports the Telegraph.

Contactless payments allows people to pay for lower value goods, such as takeaway food or transport fares, by swiping a card without the need to enter a PIN number.

The study was commissioned by Visa Europe, and it found that 58% of users preferred it to paying with cash or standard debit/credit cards if they’re in a hurry. The survey also found that 85% of users would recommend contactless to people they know, and 90% think it makes life simpler.

Back in January, McDonald’s announced it was rolling out contactless payment terminals at all of its UK outlets, and we reported in May that Starbucks too was launching the technology at its UK stores. Other outlets to have installed the technology include Subway, Pret A Manger, Caffe Nero, EAT, Boots (some stores), Burger King, Little Chef and Clinton Cards.

Back in 2007, Visa Europe’s CEO, Peter Ayliffe, claimed that we could be living in a cashless society by 2012. Now that’s a mere four months away, are we really that close to consigning coins and paper payments to the history books? No, but we’re certainly heading in that direction.

Visa Europe says there are currently 15m Visa contactless cards in the UK and 23 million in Europe, predicting this will rise to 20m and 30m respectively by 2012. So this will mean a third of the UK will have much less need to carry cash, but there are still some barriers in place.

More than half of the people surveyed said they had never been asked to use contactless payment technology in a shop, and with many retailers still not equipped with the technology, this will restrict the growth of what has often been regarded as the future of retail. However, we can expect to see many more retailers integrate contactless payment technology over the next few years.

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Documentaries on Channel 4, sponsored by Honda

Posted on July 18, 2011 by admin

 

During 2011, Honda will be releasing a series of mini-documentaries, an online hub, and sponsorship idents for Channel 4 by Wieden + Kennedy London.

The films will feature real-life customers who use their Honda products in unique ways. The first of four featuresPhilippa, an alpaca breeder in Oxfordshire, who tends to the animals on her farm using her trusty Honda ATV,Philippa brought over alpaca’s from Peru when there were only 400 in the country, now she has her own piece of the Andes in Oxfordshire. Each film will feature a different Honda-owner in a mini-documentary, a range of idents, and extra supporting content. Each ident will carry a unique URL relating to its story leading viewers to the extra content online.

 

 

 

This is the video if you are curious and want to know more about that firm :

 

Viral video by ebuzzing

 

Martin Moll, Head of Marketing at Honda (UK) said :

"I am very excited that our continued relationship sponsoring Channel 4 documentaries allows us to focus on our customers, highlighting their warm – sometimes quirky – personal experiences of Honda products either for fun or as a necessary part of their daily livelihood.  We hope that this campaign will unveil further examples from our customers, one of which will be nominated to be brought to life on TV for a final set of idents later on in the year".

   

 

There’s also a ‘Take Part’ section, where Honda-owners can upload stories and photographs, documenting the unusual ways in which they use their Honda products. The favourite – chosen by W+K  – will be turned into the final mini-documentary and turned into idents for TV. So what are you waiting for to submit yours?

 

These documentaries would be available in full at www.honda.co.uk/stories.

 

I found it a nice idea to let people share with company how to use their products and discuss that with them. It will give Honda more information on how to improve the quality and to build more useful thing.
You can also visit the Honda Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hondacarsuk

Sponsored Post

Viral video by ebuzzing

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Tag Heuer’s Latest Must-Have $6,800 Smartphone

Posted on July 15, 2011 by admin

If you’re bored of your island and your Learjet, and your Monet just doesn’t do it for you anymore, you may want to consider this brand new smartphone from Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer. With a price tag set at just 4,700 euros, or only $6,820 dollars, you may want to consider getting one for the trophy wife as well.

Even the richest among us need cell phones, so why not go all out? The Link, the latest entry-level smartphone from Tag Heuer, has a wide spectrum of features, although, some may say, not enough to quite justify its price tag. It runs on Android 2.2, has a 3.5 inch TFT display, and features a five-megapixel camera so you can show off your mansion to the in-laws. The Link is also Stereo Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capable and has a starting memory of 256 megabytes, which is expandable to as much eight gigabytes with the appropriate memory cards. The sturdy little battery allows for up to six hours of talk time per charge, but put the Link on standby and the battery can last you up to two weeks.

Of course, the features aren’t why you would invest nearly seven thousand dollars on this gadget. The Link is made from only the highest quality materials – gold, titanium, a few diamonds, if you like. The best thing about this cutting edge design from Tag Heuer is that, like many of their best-selling watches, the consumer can specify the materials from which he wishes to have his phone made. Besides the above choices, also on the menu are steel, platinum, and silver. Although the phone cannot be made entirely of diamond – diamond just gets such poor signal quality – the manufacturers can throw in a few diamonds to be encrusted into the surface, if you please. Trims are also available in Calfskin leather.

Whether you prefer CDMA or GSM, there will be a Link for you, available for the carrier of your choice. The Link’s screen is made out of high-end Corning’s Gorilla Glass, much like the screen of the iPhone, and this should help your diamond-encrusted jewel box to last a little longer no matter how roughly you handle it. Availability of the Link hasn’t yet been announced, although it will probably not show up in the electronics section of Wal-Mart.

The Link is the second high-end smartphone produced by Tag Heuer. Their first release, the 2008 Meridiist feature phone, was priced at a mere $5,000 and had even less features than the Link. These two from Tag Heuer are actually comparatively quite cheap when it comes to high-priced smartphones. The price cake was taken in 2010 by an eight million dollar iPhone built by Stuart Hughes, a designer from the United Kingdom. It included the obligatory gold-plating and diamond-encrusting – over one hundred karats in total. There have also been quite a few Blackberrys custom made to quite exotic and opulent specifications, for those of us who are both filthy rich and have a mind for the business and organizational end of things.

Saving money and reducing unnecessary expenses is key to financial freedom. If you are trying to achieve your financial goals, you should consider going online to compare quotes at Kanetix.ca to see which insurance companies offer the most affordable rates of insurance for your vehicle. Kanetix is a free quote comparison service where you can find the cheapest Ontario automobile insurance quotes based on your vehicle and driving records.

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Tiny Tiny RSS: Open Source Google Reader Alternative

Posted on July 12, 2011 by admin

I have been using Google Reader since launch, but there is a new kid on the block: Tiny Tiny RSS. Tiny Tiny RSS is a great new open source web based RSS feed reader that has a great user experience.

Tiny Tiny RSS is built upon PHP and Mysql, but the actual user interface is completely Ajax.

A brilliant feature is that Tiny Tiny RSS can not only grab RSS feeds, but it can merge them and then republish an independent RSS feed. This is a great way to group together certain topics.

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