UK gaps in broadband coverage continue: Broadband deployment in the United Kingdom is progressing, but there are notable gaps in coverage even in areas of the country with a higher number of broadband lines, Point Topic says in a new report. Approximately 13 percent of UK premises are only getting speeds up to 2 Mbps. Residents and businesses in the northern part of the UK are most likely to suffer from slow speeds, but there are pockets even in big cities like London. Planners need to improve their deployment strategies, Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson said. "There are still going to be coverage gaps if you analyze the plans to date," Johnson said. "There are currently 3.7 million premises--residential and business--outside the 2Mbps fixed footprint and we are projecting more than two and a half million still outside the reach of superfast broadband in 2016." News release
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Top bandwidth available (Mbps), Jan. 2012 |
Demand density, Jan 2012 (Images: Point Topic) |
VoIP competitors run neck and neck: BT's (NYSE: BT) VoIP service is getting a run for its money in the Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) region, where Norway incumbent Telenor, mobile giant Vodafone (LSE: VOD.L), and northern Europe provider TDC have moved ahead of BT on Infonetics Research's EMEA Business VoIP Services Leadership Scorecard. "The leaders of our 2012 EMEA hosted VoIP scorecard--Telenor (Nasdaq: TELNF), Vodafone, and TDC--all offer strong mobile or FMC capabilities as part of their hosted VoIP services," said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics. "These offerings are particularly compelling to small businesses that rely only on mobile phones without sacrificing business-class features." News release
Enterprise video has bright future: Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM), and LifeSize Communications are dominating the enterprise video market space, according to Research and Markets, which predicts that worldwide, enterprise video will grow at a CAGR of 19.3 percent between 2011 and 2015. The "growing globalization of enterprises, which encourages companies to use video conferencing for communication" is a key factor in this forecast growth. However, reliable Internet connections in many parts of the world are still not the norm—an issue which could impact enterprise video growth. News release