For the record 22 July

22-07-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Vodafone sees Irish customer numbers rise as ARPU falls | Sony Ericsson releases three new Walkman phones

Dr Jimmy Devins, Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, is representing Ireland at the European Space Council meeting in French Guiana this week. The meeting was arranged by the French EU Presidency to discuss further development of the European space sector. Members of all EU and ESA (European Space Agency) countries have been invited. "Ireland has been a member of ESA since 1975 and currently contributes EUR13 million per annum to ESA. This enables Irish companies and researchers to secure ESA contracts. In the past decade. over 60 Irish companies have secured ESA contracts," said Minister Devins.

Vodafone Ireland has posted a 2.7 percent rise in overall customer numbers for its second quarter. As of 30 June the mobile operator had 2.317 million customers, including 70,483 customers from its wholly owned subsidiary, Perlico. Vodafone Ireland says it's the country's leading mobile broadband provider with 84,000 mobile broadband customers at the end of June. Total voice minutes in the quarter increased by 15.4 percent year-on-year to 1,719 million and messages sent increased by 19.2 percent to 931 million compared to the same quarter in 2007. The mobile operator continues to see declining revenue per user figures, with blended ARPU decreasing 8.1 percent from EUR45.40 in 2007 to EUR41.70 in the second quarter of 2008. Vodafone Ireland claims this is a result of the better value it is offering customers. The mobile operator also announced a three-year sponsorship of the GAA Football All-Ireland Championship. This is Vodafone Ireland's largest ever sponsorship commitment in the Irish market, and is estimated to be in the region of EUR12 million.

Hotline.ie, a service whereby the public can anonymously report illegal material seen on the internet, has released its annual report for 2007. The service, which is run by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI), said it received 2,590 reports of suspected illegal material on the internet in 2007. The figures show that the number of reports confirmed as child pornography and similar material has risen by nearly 62 percent on 2006. The report goes on to say that the type of child pornography Hotline.ie encounters is increasing in severity. On a more positive note Hotline.ie notes that no illegal child pornography has been found to have been hosted in Ireland.

Sony Ericsson has announced three new Walkman phones to coincide with the Walkman phone's third birthday. The W902, W595 and W302 have been added to the Walkman range. The W902 boasts improved sound quality as well as a five megapixel camera and video capturing and sharing capabilities. It also features an 8GB Memory Stick Micro that's capable of storing more than 8,000 songs. The W595 Walkman is aimed at those who share their music with their friends. Users can store over 1,900 songs and using the 'sharing jack' can listen to their music with a friend or Bluetooth their music to wireless speakers. Meanwhile, the W302 Walkman comes with a two megapixel camera, FM radio, TrackID and a 512MB Memory Stick Micro.

IT staff spend an average of 44 minutes on each PC or laptop every time software needs to be upgraded, according to a survey by Citrix, reports VNUnet.com. The study found that medium to large enterprises have an average of 3,700 PCs, meaning that companies have to spend around 2,744 hours on every software upgrade. This would take one person working round the clock up to 16 weeks to upgrade all the PCs in a company of this size. Four out of five survey respondents said that cost was the biggest factor in deciding how frequently software and hardware resources are upgraded.