Ofcom's yearly report – A quick look at the NI numbers
Posted: August 25, 2010 Filed under: Belfast, Business, Government, Internet, Social Networking, Tech, Telecoms, Wi-Fi | Tags: 3g ni, broadband, dsl, mobile phone coverage ni, ofcom ni 1 Comment
For the 5th year running, Ofcom have split off from the main report, number’s relating to our little country, better known as Northern Ireland and they make for some interesting reading.
37% of households now use some form of social networking site
38% watch TV online and some
15% make voice and or video calls over the Internet.
72% of rural homes now have a broadband connection, compared to 69% in urban area’s
90% of rural homes have a mobile phone, compared to 87% in urban area’s (seeing a trend here) and
51% of rural homes have a satellite TV connection compared to only 40% in urban area’s
Coverage for 3G was only 40 per cent, well below the UK average of 87 per cent and represented the lowest figure among the UK nations
The use of mobile broadband has increased by 6 per cent from last year and is now used in 14 per cent of all homes Read the rest of this entry »
Silicon Valley says no to Wi-Fi
Posted: August 19, 2010 Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, Government, Interesting, Internet, iPhone, Mobile, OpenCoffee, Restaurant Reviews, Retail, Social Networking, Tech, Telecoms, Web 2.0, Wi-Fi | Tags: bitbuzz, Free Wi-Fi, free wifi, hotel free wifi, limited free Wi-Fi, too bust for Wi-Fi, turning off wifi 1 Comment
“We had big parties or family groups who wanted to eat but had no room,” said Jean Paul Coupal, who runs the cafe with his mother, Nancy. “They were getting upset about it. They felt the whole place was being taken over by techies.”
Coffee shops were the retail pioneers of Wi-Fi, flipping the switch to lure customers. But now some owners are pulling the plug. They’re finding that Wi-Fi freeloaders who camp out all day nursing a single cup of coffee are a drain on the bottom line. Others want to preserve a friendly vibe and keep their establishments from turning into “Matrix”-like zombie shacks where people type and don’t talk.
This issue doesn’t just occur in Silicon Valley the mothership of all techies. It is an issue being encourted more and more by cafe’s and hotel lobbys here in Ireland and the UK. With the shift to mobile internet, the fact more of us are online now than ever before (The 5th Billion Internet device is about to connect to the ‘web‘) and with mobile opererators restricting the amount of data we can pull from cell towers, it is easy to see why more people are seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots during their working (and resting) day. Read the rest of this entry »
Russell McQuillan 