For the record 11 December

11-12-2006

by Angela Mullin

Dempsey rows in behind EC's mobile roaming proposal | Europe resurrects plans for in-car emergency service contact technology

The European Commission has proposed a new action plan to get in-car emergency call technology -- eCall -- back on track. The eCall system works by sending a signal to emergency services as soon as it senses the vehicle it's installed in has been in an accident. Last year's proposal to have eCall installed in all cars by 2009 has halted, due to refusal by some member states to invest in the necessary infrastructure. EU Commissioner Viviane Reding has called on the 25 member states to take action to make Europe's roads safer "sooner rather than later". When installed, the Commission hopes eCall will help reduce road fatalities by 2,500 each year.

Responding to the latest ComReg quarterly survey reported on by ENN, the Labour Party's communication spokesman Tommy Broughan TD has called on Communications Minister Noel Dempsey to urgently outline his plans for 100 percent broadband enablement, and how much he intends to spend on the project. "Eircom has stated that this could cost up to EUR 200 million, yet Minister Dempsey has set aside just EUR 10 million for broadband enablement in last week's budget," he said.

Dublin-based mobile marketing firm Puca has unveiled its latest technology combining the mobile phone with shopping. The TxtLink kiosk allows shoppers to input their mobile phone number in order to receive updates and money-off coupons for stores they express an interest in. Puca currently has a kiosk set up in China's imaginatively-named Super Brand Mall on the Shangai River, and said the kiosk had processed 500,000 transactions since being installed there two months ago.

British television station Channel 4 has selected Irish software company Cape Clear to provide the integration platform necessary to power its new PC-based Video-on-Demand (VoD) services. Dublin-based Cape Clear's Enterprise Service Bus platform is expected to manage over a quarter of a million digital assets for the broadcaster which last week announced it was making much of its programming available online.

Noel Dempsey TD, Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, has called on the European Commission to go ahead with its proposal to protect consumers from excessively high roaming charges, despite opposition from other EU States on the issue. In July this year the European Commission brought forward a draft proposal for regulation of roaming charges on public mobile networks within the EU. It provides for the establishment of European maximum price limits on charges that mobile network operators may levy for the wholesale provision of mobile roaming services for voice calls.

Hewlett-Packard chief financial officer Bob Wayman has annpunced plans to retire later this month, ending a 37-year career at the computer and printer giant. Wayman will also step down from H-P's board in March. H-P named its treasurer, Cathie Lesjak, to succeed Mr. Wayman as CFO.

Irish businessman Denis O'Brien's Carribbean mobile telecommunications operation Digicel has acquired Bonaire telecoms provider TELBO's mobile business. Bonaire Minister of Economic Affairs, Burney El Hage issued a statement: "This is a positive development for TELBO and the people of Bonaire, as it enables TELBO to focus more closely on developing other sides of their business while Digicel will bring Bonaire mobile customers additional choice in addition to increased support and involvement in our community."

Leinster Rugby's podcast service is now the number one sporting podcast on music download service iTunes Ireland. It has been downloaded and listened to more times than Off the Ball, Hook and Popey and a variety of other sporting podcasts according to the provincial rugby team. To date, four podcasts have featured in depth interviews with Felipe Contepomi, Ronan McCormack, Jamie Heaslip and Shane Horgan. If that's not enough, Leinster also has a presence on Bebo and Myspace.

Irish mobile data synchronisation company SIMchronise announced that it has chosen mobile open source company Funambol to provide core technology for its European suite of mobile data synchronisation and management products. SIMchronise's services are completely wireless and require no additional devices, software programs, cables, Bluetooth or infrared connections. They allow users to backup all the contacts on their mobile phone online. The user can retrieve saved contacts anytime, from virtually anywhere in the world, eliminating the headache of losing valuable personal and business contacts whenever the user's mobile phone is lost, stolen, damaged or upgraded.

Profileheaven.com has been selected as the UK's "Best Website of 2006" based on content, navigation and design. The gaming site Zylom.co.uk was again chosen by the public as the UK's "Most popular website of 2006" with more than 6000 votes. This year, 359 websites were nominated in over 20 consumer categories.