In the papers 19 December

19-12-2006

by Sylvia Leatham

NTL defends late payment surcharges | eBay shuts down Chinese website

The Irish Times reports that Intel Ireland has said the company "is not announcing the sale of any business unit" at this time, in spite of recent speculation in the US that the chip giant is about to sell its loss-making flash memory business. In an interview with the newspaper, Doug Freedman, an analyst with American Technology Research in the US, said his information was that Intel "was getting ready to separate the business from its normal operations."

The paper also says that cable company NTL has defended its decision to impose a surcharge for late payments on customers and forcing them to use direct debit mandates. The company has been criticised by the chairwoman of the National Consumer Agency, Ann Fitzgerald, for deciding to charge customers an extra EUR2 per bill if they do not pay by direct debit. Customers who do not pay their bills on time will be charged an extra EUR7.68. A spokeswoman for UPC Broadband, the parent company of NTL and Chorus, said Chorus was already operating the late payment fee and it was being introduced to NTL to standardise both operations.

The Irish Independent reports that Three has launched a high-speed uplink packet access (HPSDA) mobile broadband service. Read the full story as reported by ENN on Monday.

The paper also says that Enterprise Ireland has advised Irish firms to invest more in technology licensing. Read more on this story on ENN.

The paper also reports that passport applications can now be tracked through a newly designed Department of Foreign Affairs website. The site also offers up-to-the-minute travel information for Irish citizens travelling abroad.

The Irish Examiner notes that Hermes SoftLab Ireland is expected to recruit more than 60 Irish IT professionals by the end of 2007, a story that was reported on ENN back in September. The paper also says that the firm won two awards at the H-P Business Partner of the Year Awards, as noted by ENN on Monday.

According to the Financial Times, Vodafone has sold its 25 percent stake in Swisscom Mobile for STG1.8 billion to Swisscom, the Swiss group's largest shareholder. The sale will generate a financial gain of just STG100 million for Vodafone, which acquired the holding in January 2001. Proceeds from sale will be used to pay down Vodafone's debt. The deal is the latest in a series of sales that has seen Vodafone reduce its holdings in established mobile operators to focus on emerging markets where mobile phone ownership is at lower levels.

The paper also says that AT&T's USD86 billion takeover of BellSouth was dealt a significant setback on Monday after a potential ally in its fight to gain regulatory approval at the US Federal Communications Commission said he would abstain from deadlocked negotiations that will determine the deal's future. Robert McDowell, a Republican commissioner who formerly served as a telecommunications industry lobbyist, ended weeks of speculation by announcing that, following his "own personal sense of ethics", he would disqualify himself from the matter.

The Wall Street Journal says that eBay is closing down its main website in China and replacing it with a site that would be largely run by a Beijing-based internet company, according to sources. The company plans to announce as early as Tuesday that it is taking a 49 percent stake in the new site, in partnership with online portal and wireless operator Tom Online. Tom Online would hold the other 51 percent.

The paper also says that Google and NASA's Ames Research Center said they have finalised an agreement to deliver more of the space agency's imagery and information through the search engine. Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google its weather forecasting information, 3D maps of the Moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights; these pictures and data will be available to anyone with an internet connection. The collaboration marks another step in a partnership announced 15 months ago when Google unveiled plans to build a campus at the NASA centre.