News

Networking hardware

December 04, 2009 04 Dec'09
Government and BT fund high-speed broadband in Northern Ireland

The government and BT are to invest £48m in Northern Ireland's telecommunication network.

The Next Generation Broadband project, a partnership...
December 04, 2009 04 Dec'09
Cisco will buy Tandberg despite falling short on shares

Cisco says it will go ahead with the purchase of Tandberg despite receiving preliminary acceptances of its cash offer for only 89% of the Norwegian video...
December 03, 2009 03 Dec'09
Technology options for centralised UK smart energy network

Britain's root and branch revamp of its energy supply system can now begin, after the government announced it will push for a centralised "smart grid" communications network to link some 47 million smart gas and electricity meters by 2020.
December 02, 2009 02 Dec'09
Government picks centralised network for £10bn smart meter project

The government has opted for a centralised communications network to control information flows to and from 47 million smart meters that will replace the...

December 01, 2009 01 Dec'09
TfL offers IT contracts worth £150m

Transport for London has issued tenders for two contracts with a potential combined value of £150m.

The first seeks suppliers to "ensure successful...
November 30, 2009 30 Nov'09
BT expresses sympathy as villagers slam chairman's broadband

Villagers in Hambledon, near Henley-on-Thames, are outraged because a local resident who happens to be the chairman of BT is the only person in the village with broadband.
November 30, 2009 30 Nov'09
Soaring demand for mobile video threatens UK 3G infrastructure

Demand for video and TV on smartphones is threatening to take down the UK 3G mobile infrastructure, according to reports.
November 23, 2009 23 Nov'09
Ciena picks up Nortel units

Network infrastructure supplier Ciena has won the auction for Nortel's optical networking and carrier Ethernet business with a bid of $769m (£463m).

The...
November 20, 2009 20 Nov'09
Digital Economy Bill supports creative and digital industries

The UK digital economy accounts for nearly 10% of the revenue produced by the whole British economy each year, according to business secretary
November 19, 2009 19 Nov'09
Facebook stock value up 42% to $9.5bn

The price of Facebook stock has jumped as much as 42% in the past four months. Membership is topping 300 million users to take Facebook into profit for the first time.

November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
O2 to build 1,500 more network sites

O2 will build 1,500 network sites across the UK next year, with 200 sites planned for London alone.
November 18, 2009 18 Nov'09
Ofcom opens up TV spectrum for rural broadband

Ofcom has cleared the way for spare television spectrum to be used to provide broadband internet connections to UK rural areas.
November 12, 2009 12 Nov'09
HP to buy 3Com for €2.7bn

Hewlett-Packard is to acquire 3Com for €2.7bn, making it the dominant force in the strategically important Chinese networking market and increasing the...
November 11, 2009 11 Nov'09
UK mobile web surfers top 10m

UK mobile web surfers now top 10m, research has revealed.
November 06, 2009 06 Nov'09
Tories promise to review broadband tax

The Conservative Party will prioritise a review of the business rates tax on fibre networks if it comes to power.
November 06, 2009 06 Nov'09
EU weakens net neutrality to pass telecoms reform package

A net neutrality revision has allowed European legislators to implement long-awaited reforms that will introduce a single competitive market in telecoms...
November 06, 2009 06 Nov'09
T-Mobile and Orange to merge

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom have signed contracts to set up a 50:50 joint venture that combines their UK operations, T-Mobile and Orange.
November 05, 2009 05 Nov'09
Ethernet switch for WAN could cut telecom bill by 30%

Most firms could save 30% of their telecommunications bill by optimising their wide area networks and switching to Ethernet, according to research.

The...
November 05, 2009 05 Nov'09
Recovery has begun for Cisco, claims CEO

Cisco CEO John Chambers is certain the economic recovery is a reality after hailing the highest sequential gains for Q1 revenues and profits in five years....
November 05, 2009 05 Nov'09
Cisco reports 13% drop in sales

Network equipment maker Cisco reported a 13% drop in year-on-year sales to $9bn for the first quarter of its 2010 financial year, which pushed down earnings 19% to $2.1bn.
November 04, 2009 04 Nov'09
How the government taxes UK’s broadband future

In 2003, Vtesse Networks, a small UK fibre network operator, challenged the Valuation Office Agency’s assessment of BT for business rates in British and European courts. It argued that the VOA’s assessment amounted to an unfair subsidy to BT
November 04, 2009 04 Nov'09
Second Life launches standalone firewall

Second Life has launched a standalone firewall, boosting the number of possible business uses of the service.
November 04, 2009 04 Nov'09
Cisco partners with EMC to take on HP and IBM

Cisco Systems has formed an alliance with EMC to combine computing equipment and services. The move is aimed at challenging market leaders Hewlett-Packard...
November 03, 2009 03 Nov'09
Digital Britain: UK in broadband 'time warp', says FSB

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has slammed government broadband...
November 03, 2009 03 Nov'09
Cisco resists calls to raise £1.9bn Tandberg offer

Cisco is resisting calls to increase its £1.9bn bid for Norwegian videoconferencing firm Tandberg, its first European acquisition.
November 02, 2009 02 Nov'09
Eutelsat service to boost Ireland's rural internet access

Ireland's National Broadband Scheme is to use a satellite broadband service to deliver high-speed broadband
October 30, 2009 30 Oct'09
VOA preserves networks' advantage in rates draft

The proposed business rates on optical fibre networks for the next five years preserve the present 11% tax advantage enjoyed by large network operators over smaller ones and new entrants.
October 29, 2009 29 Oct'09
Business rates are killing Digital Britain

The government's Digital Britain policy may fail to meet its original goal unless it changes the way it values broadband networks for business tax, a Computer Weekly investigation has revealed.
October 26, 2009 26 Oct'09
802-11n WLan standard to take off after ratification

Enterprises can now consider replacing high speed networks with wireless equivalents with the recent ratification of the 802.11n wireless standard, says wireless Lan management firm AirMagnet.
October 23, 2009 23 Oct'09
BMC tackles virtual server sprawl with Tideway

BMC has acquired UK IT management tools firm Tideway as it builds its strategy to support IT management for cloud computing.
October 22, 2009 22 Oct'09
Spectrum reallocation is key to Digital Britain

Ofcom must resolve uncertainty around the reallocation of mobile radio frequencies if the government is to realise its dream of a Digital Britain.

Much...
October 19, 2009 19 Oct'09
BT overcharged network operators £41.7m

BT will have to refund and pay interest on £41.7m it overcharged fellow network operators for rent on 2Mbps trunk services between 24 June 2004 to 30 September...
October 16, 2009 16 Oct'09
Mobile network owners to get indefinite licences - if they fill in the blanks

Mobile network owners will get indefinite 3G licences in return for giving mobile broadband access to more people, but they face caps on how much spectrum...
October 15, 2009 15 Oct'09
Stephen Timms guarantees minimum broadband speed

The government has promised consumers a guaranteed minimum broadband speed of at least 2MBs.

Communications minister Stephen Timms said that the 2MBs...
October 14, 2009 14 Oct'09
Should the UK spend £10bn on smart meters?

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is expected to reveal its decision this month on how to implement a £10bn plan to replace 47 million gas and electricity meters with new smart energy meters.
October 14, 2009 14 Oct'09
Cisco goes mobile with $2.9bn Starent buy

Network equipment maker Cisco today said it would pay $2.9bn to acquire Starent Networks, a supplier of IP-based networking equipment for mobile and converged carriers.
October 13, 2009 13 Oct'09
Cisco adds IPv6 support for carrier networks

Network equipment maker Cisco today announced support for a carrier-grade version of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
October 13, 2009 13 Oct'09
Enisa leads trickle to IPv6 for web addressing

The European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) has become the first EU Agency to delivers its web site content over the new internet protocol...
October 12, 2009 12 Oct'09
Nortel's former boss wants $12m pay off

Nortel's former CEO Mike Zafirovski is trying to get millions of pounds from the insolvent networking equipment maker.

Zafirovski, who...
October 09, 2009 09 Oct'09
Cornwall villages trial 50Mbps broadband

Up to two million businesses and homes in remote rural areas could get high-speed broadband if trials of a 50Mbps broadband service in two Cornish towns proves its technical and commercial viability.
October 09, 2009 09 Oct'09
Qualcomm joins net neutrality debate

US mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm has called for measures to limit heavy data users as wireless networks reach capacity.
October 08, 2009 08 Oct'09
Highlands and Islands could get £480m fibre broadband links

Scotland's Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is considering spending up to £480m to provide fibre-based broadband connections to premises throughout...
October 06, 2009 06 Oct'09
Italy joins ITU's cybersecurity network

The International Telecommunications Union's Impact global cybersecurity alerting system ...
October 06, 2009 06 Oct'09
CSC seeks new $2.bn deal with Zurich Financial Services

Zurich Financial Services Group has entered exclusive negotiations with IT outsourcer CSC 10-year contract valued at $2.4bn.
October 05, 2009 05 Oct'09
Consumers wait for government investment in next generation networks -ITU

The recession had failed to dent demand for information and communications (ICT) services, but governments needed to support the roll-out of next generation...
October 01, 2009 01 Oct'09
Firms warned to guard data on extended networks

UK businesses need to have fine control over their data to ensure they tap into the benefits of the goverment's Digital Britain strategy, a research report warns.
October 01, 2009 01 Oct'09
UK slips down broadband world leaderboard

Delays in executing the Digital Britain recommendations may have caused the UK's slip in world rankings as broadband leaders increased their lead in broadband quality.
October 01, 2009 01 Oct'09
Broadband group presses VOA on network tax

The Broadband Stakeholders Group (BSG) is seeking clarification from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) of the business rate tax rules the VOA would impose on next-generation networks.
October 01, 2009 01 Oct'09
Politicians gain control of the internet

Non-US governments will have more control over the governance of the internet as the US gives up its exclusive control of Icann, the body primarily responsible for managing internet domain names.
September 30, 2009 30 Sep'09
School saves £17,000 a year on IT

A school in Swindon has saved £17,000 a year after deploying a systems management appliance which allows it to control and update its suite of 600 PCs and...
September 29, 2009 29 Sep'09
Europe may ask Enisa to coordinate network security

The future role of the European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) is in question...
September 28, 2009 28 Sep'09
Virgin Media seeks London listing

Virgin Media said today that it plans a secondary listing on the London stock exchange.
September 23, 2009 23 Sep'09
Broadband tax will be law before next election

Stephen Timms announced that broadband tax will be made law before the next election at a British Computer Society debate today.

The 50p per...
September 23, 2009 23 Sep'09
Nokia buying Palm?

The internet is rife with rumours that Nokia is about to bid for mobile handset manufacturer Palm in a deal would give Nokia a PC operating system to rival...
September 22, 2009 22 Sep'09
European states queue for €1bn broadband cash

European member states and other stakeholders have welcomed new rules for state aid for broadband networks.

The European Commission published...
September 22, 2009 22 Sep'09
Internet must remain neutral, says FCC chairman

The principle of net neutrality was confirmed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski yesterday in an effort to preserve...
September 22, 2009 22 Sep'09
Nominum puts intelligent DNS in the cloud

Nominum is to use cloud computing to make its updated domain name service (DNS) software accessible to small and medium enterprises.
September 22, 2009 22 Sep'09
Cost of network crash could equal banking crisis

We don't want a digital 9/11.
September 21, 2009 21 Sep'09
GENI internet replacement undergoes testing

The first building blocks of the network that could replace the internet were laid this week.
September 21, 2009 21 Sep'09
LTE networks threaten cabling firms

Nokia Siemens and China Mobile last week demonstrated the world's first indoor TD-LTE femtocell communication for indoor coverage of high-speed mobile calls.
September 14, 2009 14 Sep'09
Avaya victorious after lengthy Nortel auction

Avaya has emerged victorious from the protracted bidding process for Nortel's enterprise unit, walking away with the prize after forking out $900m with an additional pool of $15m for employee retention.
September 14, 2009 14 Sep'09
3 UK pushes for lower mobile prices

The UK's smallest mobile operator, 3, has called for regulatory reforms that will enable its business to grow in the face of consolidation of the UK mobile...
September 11, 2009 11 Sep'09
US mulls $38bn broadband investment

US telecommunications companies could enjoy a $38.5bn windfall for building broadband networks, but they will get just $1.6bn for now,
September 11, 2009 11 Sep'09
Cisco rivals to bid for Nortel enterprise business today

Canada's Nortel Networks, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, is to auction off its enterprise networking business in New York today.
September 10, 2009 10 Sep'09
Ex-Vodafone boss Sarin rejoins Cisco

Former Vodafone boss Arun Sarin has rejoined the Cisco board that he previously served from September 1998 to July 2003.
September 10, 2009 10 Sep'09
Get on with Digital Britain, consumers tell government

The government needs to implement its 2mbps universal broadband commitment by 2012, stimulate investment in next-generation broadband, and promote digital...
September 10, 2009 10 Sep'09
BT pushes super-fast broadband

BT is trying to raise awareness of advanced super-fast broadband technologies such as fibre-based connectivity, its BT Vision TV service, and other home...
September 10, 2009 10 Sep'09
Colt crash affects nine European cities

London-based network operator Colt Telecommunications crashed yesterday leaving customers in eight European cities without services from the early morning.
September 09, 2009 09 Sep'09
Gartner predicts broadband growth in cities

US cities will enjoy increasing access to higher speed broadband, leaving rural areas stuck in the internet slow lane, a report from market analysts Gartner claims.
September 08, 2009 08 Sep'09
T-Mobile-Orange deal is bad news for kit merchants

It is too soon to say who will benefit most if Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom win approval to combine the T-Mobile UK and Orange UK mobile network operations.
September 08, 2009 08 Sep'09
Traders to get sub-millisecond responses to stock deals

Stockbrokers that trade on Chi-X Europe, a pan-European equity multilateral trading exchange (MTF) will in future have responses to matched buy and sell orders in less than a millisecond.
September 08, 2009 08 Sep'09
UK lags behind fibre to the home leaders

The UK is still absent from the top 10 list of countries that enjoy optical fibre-based broadband to the home or business, a report published today said.
September 07, 2009 07 Sep'09
Executive pay down at Cisco

Cisco boss CEO John Chambers will receive a bonus of just over $2m this year.

Cisco said directors will have to get by on sharply reduced...
September 07, 2009 07 Sep'09
T-Mobile subscribers worth £210 each to Vodafone and O2

Vodafone and O2 have both offered Deutsche Telekom around £3.5bn for its UK mobile network operator T-Mobile UK. The bids value T-Mobile's subscribers...
September 07, 2009 07 Sep'09
Video: Cisco access points give away network secrets

Cisco wireless routers may still be vulnerable to remote attacks even if remote management is disabled, a wireless engineer has warned.

As...
September 02, 2009 02 Sep'09
US could get slower broadband than the UK

The US could end up with slower broadband speeds than the UK if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accepts submissions on the definition of broadband...
September 02, 2009 02 Sep'09
Nokia ties up with Facebook to take on Google

Nokia today took on Google with a service that will let Nokia smartphone users update their Facebook accounts with location and status details on the fly.
September 02, 2009 02 Sep'09
Mandelson joins debate over radio spectrum and 2mbps broadband

The chief executives of the UK's five mobile phone network operators (MNOs) met business secretary Peter Mandelson yesterday to thrash out the reallocation...
September 01, 2009 01 Sep'09
Video: Opera 10 web browser speeds slow surfing

The free Opera 10 web browser was released this morning for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, offering a compressed "turbo" mode to boost web surfing speeds over slow internet connections.
August 28, 2009 28 Aug'09
Vodafone upgrade cities to 14.4Mbps

Vodafone is to upgrade network speeds in its most congested UK areas to 14.4Mbps, the mobile network operator said today.
August 27, 2009 27 Aug'09
Mobile steadies France Telecom results

Steady growth in the number of mobile customers helped shore up France Telecom's first half sales, which dropped 0.5% to €25.5bn for the first half of 2009 against an average 2.9% drop in GDP in the countries in which it operates.
August 27, 2009 27 Aug'09
Fujitsu £700m Whitehall dispute heads for secret deal

Fujitsu is said to be seeking £700m from the Department of Health after the department ended its £1bn contract as the local service provider on the NPfIT for the south of England.
August 26, 2009 26 Aug'09
Broadband could save UK £17bn on salaries and perks

Fitting Britain with a universal broadband service could allow most people to live closer to their work and save the country at least £17bn a year from...
August 25, 2009 25 Aug'09
Cisco APs at risk from SkyJack attack

Businesses using Cisco's Over-the-Air-Provisioning (OTAP) may be at risk of a hacking attack which targets access points to gain control of a corporate...
August 24, 2009 24 Aug'09
Future of the internet: networked society stands in peril

Judging from the books received for review by Computer Weekly, the debate over the future development and use of the internet is intensifying.

First,...
August 21, 2009 21 Aug'09
FCC seeks definition of broadband

The US communications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is trying to define the meaning of broadband so it can create a $7.2bn national broadband plan by 17 February 2010.
August 18, 2009 18 Aug'09
MS Society reverses cloud back-up decision

The Multiple Sclerosis Society has bucked the trend to outsource its back-up data storage by...
August 18, 2009 18 Aug'09
EC to spend €18m on 1Gbps LTE mobile networks

The European Commission is to spend €18m on research into the future mobile communications technology that promises speeds a thousand times faster than today's handsets.
August 17, 2009 17 Aug'09
Video: A history of computing in 147 seconds

Who says IBM doesn't have a sense of humour? Here, beekeeper Seamus McManus invents the mainframe, personal computing and cloud computing, all in two-and-a-half...
August 14, 2009 14 Aug'09
Party people spread viral internet memes

The way images, videos or concepts can abruptly spread across the web, using e-mail and social websites, is online culture's most unique phenomena.
August 13, 2009 13 Aug'09
Digital Britain implementation plan: Government seeks control of UK internet domains

The government wants to reserve the right to allocate internet domain names under the implementation plan for Digital Britain published today.
August 11, 2009 11 Aug'09
Nortel stable, says departing CEO

Nortel Networks' chief executive Mike Zafirovski, who yesterday announced he is to step down, says the company has stabilised since filing for creditor protection.
August 07, 2009 07 Aug'09
Identity and privacy at risk on new internet

Boil it all down and last week's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas discussed just two things - identity and privacy in cyberspace. Both are at risk as the internet enters a period of massive expansion.
August 07, 2009 07 Aug'09
Twitter and Facebook victims of a 'massively co-ordinated attack'

Twitter was downed by a DoS attack yesterday and took nearly three hours to restore services after it experienced connectivity problems.
August 06, 2009 06 Aug'09
Virgin Media in recovery as it returns to profit

Virgin Media's prospects for a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange improved as it turned a year on year loss into a profit for its second quarter as average revenue per user grew nearly 4%.
August 06, 2009 06 Aug'09
Cisco's sales plummet but cash reserves grow

Cisco's sales sagged almost a fifth as profits plummeted in the fourth quarter, dragging down the world's leading communications equipment maker's full...
August 05, 2009 05 Aug'09
Avaya is top contender for Nortel’s corporate networking business

Nortel Networks has been given the go ahead by US and Canadian courts to auction off its corporate networking business in New York on 11 September.

The...
August 04, 2009 04 Aug'09
Research Council UK cuts cost with tiered San

Research Council UK (RCUK), which is responsible for co-ordinating all scientific research at UK universities, has updated its storage area network (San) with mutli-tiered storage to lower costs.
August 03, 2009 03 Aug'09
Comtek launches Nortel customer rescue programme

A rescue programme for former Nortel Networks customers has been launched by IT infrastructure repair firm Comtek.
July 31, 2009 31 Jul'09
Business rates stifle investment in broadband infrastructure

Legal uncertainty about how the Valuation Office rates optical fibre networks is depriving the UK of new investors in high speed fibre networks, says...