For the record 13 December

13-12-2006

by Jonathan Farrelly

Irish Broadband promises to double speeds over Christmas | British Army texts its soldiers

Irish Broadband announced on Wednesday it is doubling the speed of all its residential customers' 1Mb Breeze connections to 2Mb -- free of charge. "Now, all Irish Broadband business and residential customers using our Breeze product suite will benefit from increased speeds and improved contention ratios. This doubling of the speed for our residential 1Mb customers to 2Mb will allow all our customers to experience the benefits of our expanded network through faster connectivity," said a spokeswoman.

The Nintendo Wii has become most search for gaming console online, according to a Hitwise survey in Britain. Internet searches for the Wii rose 147 percent last week and it has even overtaken the iPod to become the most searched for gadget in the run up to Christmas. Released in Britain and Ireland last week, the Nintendo Wii reportedly sold out rapidly with 50,000 consoles selling in 12 hours, equating to one sold every second.

ABC News will now provide expanded daily video content packages for Yahoo News. The packages will include breaking news from a wide variety of categories. Scott Moore, head of news and information at Yahoo's Media Group said: "Video streams on Yahoo News have increased more than ten-fold over the past year, so we have no doubt that additional content from one of the most recognised brands in news will be met with great enthusiasm by our audience."

The British Army has unveiled plans to allow soldiers to communicate with their families and officers through a two-way text messaging service. Called ArmyNET, it transmits messages through a secure web portal provided by PageOne. The service is part of an ongoing trial involving several regular and reserve units. A statement claims the facility offers operational servicemen and woman a secure, web-based portal through which they may access a plethora of non-classified information anywhere they have internet access.

In a new round of proceedings against possible infringements of EU telecoms rules, the European Commission has opened two new cases against Poland. The Commission is sending Poland two letters of formal notice concerning the independence of Poland's national regulatory authority following new legislation passed in August. The second letter concerns the unavailability of caller location information for mobile calls to the Europe-wide 112 emergency number. The Commission is also referring Poland, along with France, to the European Court of Justice; France regarding the designation mechanism for universal service provision, and Poland because of an alleged incorrect transposition of the EU's Access Directive.

RaboDirect has appointed Martin O'Leary as its new online marketing manager. RaboDirect is Europe's largest online bank and is based in the Netherlands with over 58,000 employees worldwide. It entered the Irish market in May 2005 with an online instant access deposit account product.

The number of full and part-time students in higher education in Ireland has passed the 170,000 mark for the first time. In HEA-funded institutions the total enrolment is now in excess of 80,000. The details are contained in the HEA publication entitled 'An Overview of Applications and Acceptances to Higher Education'. The report challenges what it refers to as a certain media perception over the suggested "end of the point's race". While the number of school leavers has shown a drop since 1998, no significant further decreases are expected, according to the report.

IT suppliers are expected to be hit hard as large British-based organisations continue the current trend of streamlining their business operations. A Matrix Communications survey of senior IT managers found 53 percent wanted to reduce their number of contracted IT suppliers and solutions providers. "This marks the death knell for any complacency remaining in the UK IT sector," said Andy Mills, sales director of Matrix communications. "The technology services industry may well be booming, but only for those providers offering genuine value and innovation. Large enterprises are rightly scrutinising all of their costs and processes, but this evidence demonstrates that they are putting IT under the spotlight and believing there is no small measure of waste to throw away." Matrix Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Calyx Group; an Irish IT and Telecommunications Company.