Thank you.

Source: The LTC News Clipping service has now come to an end. Thank you to the fine people who have worked assiduously over the years to provide us all with up to date links to relevant telecom sector and technology news…

The LTC News Clipping service has now come to an end.

Thank you to the fine people who have worked assiduously over the years to provide us all with up to date links to relevant telecom sector and technology news items: Judith, Sarah, Lorrie and Penny.

Thanks to all our customers who have used the service and thank you for your kind comments about the value of a human-mediated clippings service.

But things move on. When we started the LTC clippings service automated news feeds were unreliable, repetitious, and stuffed with irrelevancies. Some still are, but it is now much easier to obtain useful information from a plethora of web sources. So we have decided that we have other things to do with our time, and with regret, we’re closing down the LTC clippings service.

Bye for now.

Posted by Trevor — 6:19 PM

And Finally.

This is my final entry in Press Clippings as the time has come for me to retire.

Posted by Judith — 5:00 AM

BT announces significant fibre progress.

Source: BTplc.

BT has announced two thirds of UK premises will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2014, one year ahead of its original target of 2015. To help achieve this, BT will recruit a further 520 engineers to assist with the deployment, most of whom will be ex-armed forces.
BT is bringing forward approximately GBP300m. of investment over the next few years to fund the accelerated roll-out. These funds form part of BT’s total investment of GBP2.5bn. in commercial fibre broadband.

Posted by Judith — 2:27 AM

Motorola Mobility announces 800 Job losses.

Source: cellular-news.

Motorola Mobility has announced that it has decided to cut some 800 jobs from the company. The firm is currently in the process of being bought by Google.
Both of the Company’s business segments (the Mobile Devices business and the Home business), as well as various corporate functions, are impacted by the action.

Posted by Judith — 1:29 AM

Clear Mobitel sets its sights on NZ LTE concession.

Source: TeleGeography.

Clear Mobitel NZ, the New Zealand arm of the UK-based company of the same name, has confirmed plans to put itself forward for a mobile concession when LTE-suitable spectrum in the 700MHz band is auctioned off by the government in 2012.

Posted by Judith — 12:23 AM

Google takes another shot at the TV market.

Source: Reuters.

Google Inc is making another push to bring its Web savvy to television sets, hoping to tap into a vast new market despite consumers’ lukewarm reaction to one of its initial offerings.
The Internet search engine unveiled a revamped version of its Google TV service and announced plans to create about one hundred online “channels” of original video programming for its YouTube website.

Posted by Judith — 2:19 AM

FCC agrees USF, interconnection reforms.

Source: Telecompaper.

The US FCC has approved major changes in the country’s Universal Service Fund aimed at focusing more on broadband expansion. The move will set aside US$4.5bn. of the annual USF budget for the Connect America Fund, to award funding for broadband expansion in underserved areas.

Posted by Judith — 3:03 AM

Samsung overtakes Apple in smartphone sales.

Source: BBC.

Samsung overtook Apple to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones between July and September.
Research showed that Samsung sold 27.8m. smartphones in the three month period, compared with 17.1m. from Apple and 16.8m. from Nokia.

Posted by Judith — 12:57 AM

Sony buys the rest of mobile phone firm Sony Ericsson.

Source: BBC.

Japanese technology giant Sony has bought full control of mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson from Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson.
Sony has agreed to buy 50% of the firm for EUR1.1bn. (US$1.5bn., GBP964m.), making the mobile handset business a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony.

Posted by Judith — 3:07 AM

Sprint and Clearwire to extend partnership into LTE.

Source: Converge.

Sprint will continue to work with Clearwire as the companies roll out their respective LTE networks.
In its quarterly conference call, Sprint executives confirmed a non-binding cooperation agreement with Clearwire to work together on the technical specifications of the Clearwire LTE network. Specifically, the cooperation extends to the design and operations of the network.

Posted by Judith — 12:56 AM