Opinion

Opinion

Network Infrastructure Solutions and Services

• Imagine if Wi-Fi was the norm and cable was the new invention

  Recent Ofcom research suggests that mobile broadband is not a viable replacement to fixed line broadband, reports Nick Booth.  Continue Reading

• Every Dog has his day as Vincent's Apprentice run is cut short

  So its farewell then, Vincent Disneur, given the heave-ho by Lord Alan Sugar on the Apprentice on Wednesday after a fatal boardroom miss judgment and a double firing.  Continue Reading

• Cisco sued over Chinese Falun Gong crackdown

  In a move that could have serious consequences for network suppliers, Cisco is being sued by the Human Rights Law Foundation on behalf of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual movement banned by Beijing.  Continue Reading

• Volcanic panic strikes again!

  Save a few airports in Scotland, British airspace remains open following the eruption of another Icelandic volcano, but that hasn't stopped HP from finding an opportunity to big up remote working and video conferencing.  Continue Reading

• Super-injunction farce could raise questions for networkers

  The sheer farce surrounding the breaching of so-called super-injunctions on Twitter has reached new heights in the past week.  Continue Reading

• Five minute interview: Lorna Riddle, Digium

  This week, MicroScope puts its questions to Lorna Riddle, European sales manager at Digium. What is the best/worst advice you have received and from whom? The best advice given to me by my Mother has to be to always wear sunscreen.  Continue Reading

• Nortel wins promotion to Premier League

  As the venerable comms and networking giant that was Nortel fades into memory, it's heartening to know that its name lives on ...after a fashion... So congratulations then, to Nortel FC of Monkstown.  Continue Reading

• Tru promises to end scam of ripping off mobile phone customers when they're abroad

  Tru has launched a new range of contract plans which, it claims, will give mobile users an alternative to the extortionate roaming charges. Any customer of a UK mobile operator who uses their mobile for voice and data abroad is currently clobbered ...  Continue Reading

• Avaya defeated by webcast gremlins

  It was heartening yesterday to see that even the finest minds in the comms industry can't always get technology right.  Continue Reading

• Why has Nuance bought Equitrac? To take out the competition or to complement its range?

  Nuance Communications is to buy Equitrac, a specialist in print management and cost recovery software used by 25,000 organisations worldwide.  Continue Reading

• Apprentice latest. Vincent Disneur squeezes in a quick plug (and a couple of oranges)

  Breaking news this afternoon from the world of The Apprentice, where it emerges the BBC may have unwittingly violated its rules on advertising.  Continue Reading

• Tech Data stakes a claim to the Cisco Cius

  Over in the States, C2000 and Azlan-parent Tech Data has staked claim on Cisco's upcoming Cius tablet, announcing it will make the device available to Cisco Advanced UC partners from the end of May.  Continue Reading

• Handsome Vince is all set for Apprentice glory

  After the gift to blogging that was Stuart Baggs, Network Noise hardly dared hope that its luck might hold for the next series of The Apprentice. But believe it or not, the comms channel will once again be represented, and we can't wait for the new ...  Continue Reading

• Bad news for O2 customers

  Now could be a good time  Continue Reading

• Is Stephen Elop the right man to run Nokia?

  Nokia today announced it is to dump its Symbian software activities on Accenture and give 4,000 employees the heave-ho, with the UK particularly badly affected. This has led some to ask the question: is former Redmond man Stephen Elop a Trojan horse...  Continue Reading

• Royal Wedding fever. Track the happy couple on your mobile!

  With just three breathless days to go until the wedding of the century, we're pulling out all the stops to bring you the latest network and mobility innovations to help you get the most out of the big day.  Continue Reading

• Relief ahead for overloaded 3G networks, says Juniper Research

  In recent months Network Noise has been on its own little crusade (in a manner of speaking) to raise awareness of the parlous state of Britain's mobile network infrastructure and the lengths that the network operators will go to stop people getting ...  Continue Reading

• Britain should not fear Huawei

  Huawei announced today that it is to double its UK workforce, hiring 500 people by 2014 in engineering, management and sales roles, and creating an additional 1,500 subcontracting jobs.  Continue Reading

• Cisco is right to overhaul its consumer business

  I am hugely pleased to see that Cisco is finally taking action over its struggling consumer businesses. It today announced a major restructure that will see some lines axed and others, such as Linksys and home telepresence solution umi, realigned ...  Continue Reading

• Nokia credit rating cut again, but could a turnaround happen?

  A report from Forbes reveals that more than a month after Nokia and Microsoft first announced their collaboration there is still significant doubt over the firm's future. Corporate financiers and credit arbiters Moody's have become the latest agency...  Continue Reading

• Shovel-wielding granny cuts off Armenian net

  Every so often, we hear of internet outages in parts of the UK caused by thieves making off with BT's copper wiring. Usually they affect a few thousand households and are pretty easily fixed.  Continue Reading

• Cisco's strategy shake-up is disappointing and vague

  As reported today on MicroScope.co.uk, outspoken Cisco CEO John Chambers has moved to quell internal unrest and conceded that the company has disappointed its investors and confused its employees.  Continue Reading

• Does Google's patent grab point to a change in strategy?

  Google's $900m bid for Nortel's patent portfolio - its last significant asset - represents a major shift in the search and advertising giant's approach to the wider IT market, and in particular the world of networking and mobility.  Continue Reading

• Daisy is full of the joys of spring

  In the spring a young company's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, as Tennyson could have written, but didn't, on account of being a poet and not a trade journalist. And acquisitive comms outfit Daisy Group has been doing some serious wooing ...  Continue Reading

• Cisco Cius tablet set for spring launch

  Over in the US, Cisco's long-anticipated Android-based Cius tablet has finally hit the FCC for testing. This is the firm indication that we will be seeing them in the wild very soon.  Continue Reading

• IPV4 hoarders can strike it lucky

  Psst, guv', want to buy an IPV4 address? Nah, fell off the back of a lorry, didn't it... If you've been sitting on a little nest egg of IPV4 addresses it could be time to cash in.  Continue Reading

• Resellers! Upsell Royal Wedding tat and keep your margins up

  Network Noise wonders why it is only mobile phone companies that are rushing out ill-advised Royal Wedding paraphernalia. The picture shows an Avaya Flare desktop video device, tragically unadorned with a bad water colour of Prince William.  Continue Reading

• Alcatel hops on Royal Wedding tat bandwagon

  Last month we brought you news that mobile phone accessory outfit Proporta was launching a lovely Royal Wedding themed iPhone case... Well, now low-end mobile phone outfit Alcatel - a JV between Alcatel-Lucent and China's TCL - has gone one better ...  Continue Reading

• Comic Relief for networking channel

  It's good to see that the channel was out in force last Friday, raising money for Comic Relief. Staff at business comms provider Daisy threw themselves into the spirit of things.  Continue Reading

• Cisco should buy EMC if only to save it from Oracle

  As vendors such as Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM plough headlong into the data centre like runaway trains, the industry is seeing a growing number of bidding wars for storage networking companies.  Continue Reading

• ScanSource is on the road to Hull

  Avaya, Panasonic and ShoreTel distie ScanSource is expanding its UK footprint into the north of England with the addition of a demo and training centre at its branch office in Hull, which 'til now had dealt with the firm's barcode contracts.  Continue Reading

• Wi-Fi security luddite? The ICO is coming for you!

  The Information Commissioner's Office today published new guidance for home Wi-Fi security after a YouGov report found that 40% of home users did not understand how to manage the security settings on their networks.  Continue Reading

• Avaya, Cisco, Juniper named to ethical companies list

  Ethisphere, a think-tank specialising in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability, has named Avaya, Cisco and Juniper Networks to its 2011 rundown of the world's most ethical firms.  Continue Reading

• Time to rally behind core Cisco business, says Comstor

  Cisco distie Comstoris speaking up for its vendor partner after John Chambers used his keynote at the recent New Orleans partner summit to reaffirm the vendor's commitment to its core switching and routing business.  Continue Reading

• Networkers count cost of Japanese earthquake

  Millions of people across Japan are this evening counting the cost of a major earthquake and tsunami, which struck the northern part of the country just before 6am GMT on Friday.  Continue Reading

• Who's been mis-selling domestic broadband connections?

  Up to 70% of SMEs in the UK are still relying on domestic rather than business grade broadband connections, and collectively could be wasting up to £357m a month.  Continue Reading

• Jail for conman in latest Cisco parts fraud

  How easy is it to scam Cisco? A walk in the park, apparently. Long-time readers of Network Noise may remember the case of an Arizona restaurateur, who was jailed last October after bilking Cisco out of $20m worth of fraudulent orders by submitting ...  Continue Reading

• Resellers, get into voice coaching, says Plantronics

  On Tuesday Network Noise sat down at UC Expo for an interesting chat with Plantronics EMEA vice president and managing director Philip Vanhoutte. As I'm sure you don't need telling, Plantronics made its name developing peripheral headset, microphone...  Continue Reading

• Comtek takes green network crusade to parliament

  Comms and networking repair services house Comtek, which you may recall we wrote about last November, has taken its campaign for a more environmentally sound approach to the nuts and bolts of the network to the Houses of Parliament.  Continue Reading

• Is Alcatel-Lucent up for sale?

  Could Huawei be lining up a bid for Franco-American network vendor Alcatel-Lucent? It could happen, if reports in the business press are to be believed.  Continue Reading

• Three new awards for networkers, so get your ACEs entries in!

  If you hang around here long enough, you might hear me pass some remark about how the network has become the true heart of the IT industry. It's a bit of a cliche, but I believe it to be true. But this year we plan on proving it.  Continue Reading

• Blimey Russia's got 4G! Is Britain in the slow lane while Yota's data network is Putin on the Bitz?

  Russian mobile broadband company Yota has clinched a deal with the country's main network operators that makes it the 4G network provider for the Russian telecoms market. It will roll-out an LTE network to cover 180 cities with a total population of...  Continue Reading

• World's least appetising headline event

  Anyone up for this?  Continue Reading

• Cisco tweaks partner accreditations in New Orleans

  Changes to Cisco's channel are once again afoot at the vendor's annual Partner Summit... During yesterday's keynote sessions, the vendor's global channel boss Edison Peres lifted the lid on a new cloud partner programme.  Continue Reading

• Boffins shift IT dimensions with photonic quantum computing

  This is a representation of a circuit for quantum information processing that makes use of multiport MMI devices. These circuits will be more compact and robust to fabrication tolerances compared to the current 2x2 ports devices.  Continue Reading

• Reseller views. The case against high speed rail

  With plans for High Speed 2, the proposed fast rail link connecting London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, now undergoing a five-week public consultation, home and land owners along the proposed route are voicing their objections.  Continue Reading

• Comms charity Télécoms Sans Frontières heads to Libya

  As a wave ofcivil unrest and revolution continues to sweep the Arab world, emergency telecommunications charity Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) is providing aid torefugees onLibya's border with Tunisiafollowing Muammar Gadaffi's ...  Continue Reading

• Vodafone forced off the air after break in

  The alarming dependence of modern Britain on technology has once again been laid bare after a break in at Vodafone's Basingstoke data centre, which is thought to have left over three million users without service today.  Continue Reading

• Go on then, have mobile access underground! See if I care!

  Network Noise knows when it is beaten. Today we doff our blogging cap to the fine people at comparison site Broadband Expert, who have been asking what the man on the Clapham omnibus thinks of Huawei's plan to enable mobile phone use on the Tube.  Continue Reading

• Did you even know Cisco did email?

  If your answer to the question posed in the headline is a resounding "no", then you needn't worry because they don't. As part of a shake-up of its collaboration business, Cisco is axing a hosted email service that very few people seem to have known ...  Continue Reading

• Azzurri gets Royal seal of approval

  Networking services provider Azzurri will be putting in a call to its stationer after being awarded a Royal Warrant by the Queen for provision of communications services.  Continue Reading

• New campaign asks techies to come out the wiring closet

  Techies lose a year of their lives, on average, trying to untangle their networks, according to a study by IT Footprint.  Continue Reading

• Twitter turns off business users! Pope in Catholic shocker!

  UC Expo's new research showing that business users are turned off unified comms because there are too many social media options out there comes as little surprise to Network Noise.  Continue Reading

• Huawei's network 'gift' is a poisoned chalice

  So, China is giving us the 'generous' gift of irritating loudmouths jabbering away on their mobile phones on the tube. That's if comms firm Huawei gets its way.  Continue Reading

• Libya: Internet was "probably switched off by The Great Satan" claims spokesman

  We thought the explanation for Egypt's Internet shutdown was creative. "A cleaner must have switched it off". It's back on again in Egypt now, according to Arbor Networks.  Continue Reading

• Are Bahrain's ISPs masking a new net crackdown?

  Following the deposition of the Egyptian government in a protracted and at times bloody revolution, the Bahraini government may have got itself into hot water as well, with international concern growing as the news filters out.  Continue Reading

• Alec Baldwin flogs Cisco TelePresence

  The news that product placement is to be allowed on commercial TV in the UK reminded Network Noise of a recent episode of US sitcom 30 Rock, starring Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey.  Continue Reading

• Google chief: Nokia should've gone with us

  As if yesterday's damning analysis by analyst Will Gibbs at IHS iSuppli was not clear enough on the subject, executive chairman and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, has now stuck his oar into the furore surrounding Nokia and Microsoft's decision ...  Continue Reading

• ShoreTel's Don Girskis reflects on time at the top

  Last week, Network Noise sat down for coffee and sandwiches with Don Girskis, worldwide sales vice president and erstwhile interim CEO at ShoreTel.  Continue Reading

• Microsoft deal will be bad for Nokia, says iSuppli

  In a damning assessment of the Nokia Microsoft smartphone tie-up, IHS iSuppli principal analyst Will Kidd has said that the troubled mobility firm would have made a "better choice" had it instead partnered with Google.  Continue Reading

• Royal Wedding smartphone case must surely appeal to someone

  Amid all the excitement of Valentine's Day and the spurious press releases that accompany that annual festival of tat, Network Noise had quite forgotten that just around the corner is the Royal Wedding.  Continue Reading

• Telco M&A predictions forget the little guys

  Over the weekend KPMG's telecoms head Joe Gallagher said that the sector is in for a wave of M&A activity over the next two to three years. "Big ticket players will be looking to joint ventures and partnerships just as much as acquisitions," he said.  Continue Reading

• Live tweet your Valentine messages with BT

  More news reaches us of networks being pushed into service on behalf of the lovesick, the lonely and the desperate. As Valentine's Day approaches, the PR world has already built up a good head of steam as techies rush to capitalise on our base ...  Continue Reading

• Microsoft and Nokia. A coalition of the losers?

  The deal between Nokia and Microsoft to make Windows Phone 7 the primary operating system for the mobile phone maker's products is opportune for both businesses, writes Billy MacInnes.  Continue Reading

• Cisco has got the consumer market all wrong

  Another quarter, and another set of disappointing results from Cisco, which did its best to spin its results positively, but couldn't disguise some serious problems.  Continue Reading

• We're backing Google in the Twitter acquisition war

  Loss-making social network Twitter is understood to be locked in acquisition talks with Facebook and Google, with the micro-blogging site thought to be worth around $10bn, says the WSJ.  Continue Reading

• HP kicks Palm brand into TouchPad

  When HP bought Palm last year, it made a lot of contradictory, flip-flopping statements over what it planned to do with the struggling mobility vendor, which culminated in a sudden u-turn over remarks made by the then CEO Mark Hurd.  Continue Reading

• Teenaged TalkTalk has growing pains, spots, is also an octopus

  Following a net loss of 25,000 customers and the axing of over 500 jobs, TalkTalk chief exec Dido Harding has thrown her hands in the air and admitted to the Financial Times that the business was like a teenaged octopus.  Continue Reading

• Should Microsoft hook up with Nokia?

  Should the also-rans of the smartphone space, Microsoft and Nokia, team up for market domination? Adnaan Ahmad, a London-based analyst with Berenberg Bank, thinks so.  Continue Reading

• PBX hackers cost businesses a billion

  If you were worried about your mobile phone voicemail being hacked by errant reporters, then worry no more. For a start, you're probably not famous enough, and secondly, you ought to be more worried about criminals breaking into your PBX.  Continue Reading

• BlackBerry user? Single? Love could be looking for you...

  February has well and truly begun, the days are lengthening and soon there will be a whiff of spring in the air... But first we have to make it through Valentine's Day.  Continue Reading

• BT goes beyond Infinity

  As everyone kind of suspected they might, BT has caved to the complaints of those that lost out, and will be rolling out superfast broadband to four other towns across the UK in addition to the six previously announced.  Continue Reading

• Egypt protesters turn to dial-up to beat broadband shut down

  The Egyptian government may have switched off the internet in panic last week, but this hasn't stopped ordinary Egyptians from taking to the web. Within hours of the shutdown, ISPs in Europe were springing into action.  Continue Reading

• Latest results from the Net: Internet Protocol 4 - Available Addresses 0

  We're now down to the last 16 million addresses on IP4, according to Ovum. Which, in internet address space terms, is more or less scraping the barrel. Despite all the warnings that have been given, many big companies and organisations have failed ...  Continue Reading

• Naturally Speaking could make an ideal home sobriety testing kit

  An application using Naturally Speaking voice recognition software could flush out drinks and those unfit for office. All we need now is someone to write it. As telecoms advocates, we're permanently aggrieved that the human voice is so underutilised.  Continue Reading

• The Cloud rains on O2's parade

  Newly-acquired public Wi-Fi provider The Cloud has hit back at O2's decision to launch free wireless net access... after a fashion.  Continue Reading

• Arbor Networks shows online impact of Egypt crisis

  Massive civil unrest in Egypt - prompted by the recent Tunisian uprising - has been hitting the headlines in recent days, and once again, the role of the internet in the developing situation has come under scrutiny.  Continue Reading

• Cleaner unplugs the Internet in Egypt

  Arbor Networks has sent us this diagram, showing us how internet traffic suddenly plummeted in Egypt on January 27th. If you want to know why this has happened, there are plenty of 24 hour online news resources, all cutting and pasting and ...  Continue Reading

• Who is Britain's biggest tax evader?

  Quiz Questions:1. Which mobile telecoms company enjoys the greatest patronage from the tax payer funded public sector?  Continue Reading

• Alcatel-Lucent's Ben Verwaayen talks green in Davos

  Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen has once again taken to the blogosphere from this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and high on his agenda is the revival of green networks as an industry talking point.  Continue Reading

• ShoreTel shows promise but keeps losing money

  IP comms vendor ShoreTel has report edits now customary quarterly net loss, this time losing $3.7m under GAAP. But could things be about to change?  Continue Reading

• SonicWALL boss wants to give power to the workers and the CIO

  This week, MicroScope met with Matt Medeiros, CEO at SonicWALL, the network security vendor that is currently gearing up to host 150 channel partners at its reseller event in Reading. During the course of the discussion Matt spoke about his desire ...  Continue Reading

• Buy and build outfit Corero fails to make a single acquisition

  Last summer we brought you news that Datatec's boss, Jens Montanana, had bought in to AIM-listed BPM software outfit Corero and was planning to embark on a roll-up of firms in the network security space, and parachuted in Logicalis' director Andrew ...  Continue Reading

• O2 shoots dead pay-as-you-surf Wi-Fi model

  This morning's news that O2 has taken the unprecedented step of committing to provide genuinely free Wi-Fi regardless of whether or not you're their customer is a mixed bag.  Continue Reading

• Clock ticking on network channel financing offers

  Networking distie Nimans is urging its reseller partners to take advantage of a series of 0% financing offers, which it has just extended to the end of March.  Continue Reading

• Ah, Houston? We have an iPhone

  Mobile phones do tend to wind up in odd places. I suppose it's down to their small size. Take the example of a Ukrainian named Rimma Golovko, who while taking a photo of a crocodile at a Dnipropetrovsk zoo, had her device ripped from her grasp by ...  Continue Reading

• Is The Cloud floating into BSkyB's sights?

  A nod to Richard Holway at Tech Market View this morning, who has delved deep behind the formidable Times paywall to bring us news that News International's brother BSkyB is planning to spend an as-yet undisclosed amount of pocket money to buy ...  Continue Reading

• 3 wins out in broadband sales race

  An uncommonly reasonable approach to mobile broadband usage has helped mobile network3 book the most broadband sales in 2010, according to figures gathered by broadband comparison website Broadband genie.  Continue Reading

• 'Bring your own IT' is a great idea, but can you trust your kids?

  A particularly enlightened CIO might be willing to risk his network and let employees bring their own devices to work, but how would you feel about trying the same exercise with a classroom of 14-year old kids?  Continue Reading

• Will a little wi-fi help Tesco shoppers?

  MicroScope's sister publication ComputerWeekly.com reports today that supermarket leviathan Tesco is planning to put free customer Wi-Fi in its stores. The firm's chief executive of retailing services, Andy Higginson, let the cat out of the bag at a...  Continue Reading

• iPhone shortages are the tip of a larger iceberg

  Buried within Apple's otherwise excellent results, released yesterday, came the admission that the vendor is seeing shortages of iPhones and doesn't know when it will retake control of the situation.  Continue Reading

• Mobile ringtone advertising sounds like a nightmare

  The world of Minority Report is moving closer... New research from the industry soothsayers at Juniper Research suggests that the ring back tone advertising market is set to increase in value to $780m per annum by 2015.  Continue Reading

• Tesco Mobile had a bumper Xmas - how much tax will they pay on that?

  Tesco Mobile reached the milestone of 2.5 million customers on Christmas Day this year after experiencing its best ever Christmas sales. Tens of thousands of Tesco Mobile handsets were activated on Christmas Day with the iPhone proving the most ...  Continue Reading

• A spoonful of Baggs

  Have you too have been left idle on a Wednesday night since The Apprentice finished? If, like me, you've been itching for more pearls of wisdom from our favourite contest ant off last year's show, one Stuart Baggs, then itch no more, for help is at ...  Continue Reading

• A hundred per cent market growth? Plenty would kill for that

  If I was told that a particular market was set to grow by 100% between now and 2014, I'd regard that as pretty positive news. Maybe I'm misinformed. According to IDC, 100% growth only represents a 'moderate" gain.  Continue Reading

• Cisco stock dumped in human rights outcry

  Over in the States, asset management group Boston Common LLC has taken the decision to dump over 160,000 shares that it holds in sector giant Cisco over its commitment to global human rights, reports Network World.  Continue Reading

• BlackBerry porn block is doomed to failure

  BlackBerry-maker RIM has given in to pressure from the Indonesian government and will put in place a filtering service to block online pornographic websites from its smartphone estate, reports ComputerWeekly.com.  Continue Reading

• T-Mobile backs down over data cap humiliation

  In an update to this column's earlier coverage of the T-Mobile data cap fiasco, we can report that after a long and unexplained silence a chastened T-Mobile has at last 'clarified' the situation. I use quotation marks because really, it has backed ...  Continue Reading

• Anger grows over alleged T-Mobile contract breach

  Anger at T-Mobile continues to mount as thousands of smartphone users face the prospect of having their data caps reduced by as much as 83% to just 500MB.  Continue Reading

• Good golly Goonhilly!

  This column is always happy to see networks being pushed into service for the advancement of science, and in this spirit we can report that two years after its dishes were mothballed, the historic Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall will ...  Continue Reading