Search

The article presents information on the increasing use of Voice over IP (VoIP) services by companies. A switch from the telephony approach of the last 100 years to VoIP is inevitable in the next 10 years; even traditional phone service companies and private branch exchange manufacturers say so. Over 60% of Great Britain IT managers questioned by network consultancy Telindus believe VoIP will carry at least half of all Great Britain business voice traffic within 10 years. A research by communications integrator Affiniti shows that the number of IT directors that understand IP convergence has grown from 59% to 70% in 18 months. Cutting costs is still the biggest reason mentioned by 65% of IT directors in the Telindus survey. The benefits of implementing IP telephony include greater efficiency on the network, which helps drive down access costs, as well as simpler administration. Executives on the move and people working from home can have their phone numbers follow them to wherever they are and can access company data and systems and work-collaboratively through video or conference calls as if they at the office. Indeed, productivity is now a key reason for moving to VoIP, being mentioned by 42% of IT managers in the Telindus research.

Reports the benefits of carrying voice communications in Internet Protocol (IP) packets in Great Britain. Pros and cons of voice over IP; Reduction of the cost of telephony management; Numbers of local area network nodes equipped with electrical power. INSET: Case study: VoIP on the Consumers Association's Wan..

The article presents the findings of a study conducted by CPP Inc. on security of Wi-Fi networks which provide wireless signals in Great Britain. It reveals that around 40,000 networks are at high risk and open up the personal data of thousands of persons to hackers and identity thieves. It informs that nearly 200 people unsuspectingly logged onto a fake Wi-Fi network in just an hour. It mentions that around one third of private wireless networks have no password protection.

The article reports on the statement of Research in Motion Ltd. vice-president Alan Panezic citing that chief information officers (CIOs) in Great Britain are facing increasing communications costs to support their internal work forces as they go mobile but their budgets are static or reducing. He cites that by turning to Wi-Fi access via Voice over Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled phones, CIOs will drive down communication costs. He states that there are 75 million IP phones installed globally.

The article reports on the application of a next-generation Internet Protocol network by Harlaxton College in Great Britain. It reveals that the move aims to cope with the growing numbers of students of the institution. It also indicates the plan of the school to improve its telephony network in meeting the needs of the students.

The article reports on the plan of Cisco Systems to acquire PostPath, a Linux-based replacement to Microsoft Exchange providers in Great Britain. The author stated that PostPath aims to eliminate the need for full-time Exchange server administrators which is beneficial to Exchange professionals. In addition, PostPath's product supports Exchange's low level network protocols without using plug-ins. Meanwhile, Cisco is building a Web 2.0 software-as-a-service collaboration portfolio.

The article offers news briefs related to technology in Great Britain. The author stated that the new contest being run at the Nerdcon hacker has been criticized by the anti-virus suppliers. Meanwhile, the other inventions that Wi-Fi watch may want to turn his attention to include the battery-powered battery charger, undersea toaster and Braille speedometer. On the other hand, Microsoft UK is developing a senior PC, which will simplify interface.

The article reports that Scotland is conducting the first Great Britain trial of an advanced telemedicine system. This telemedicine system could enable health services to reach island and remote communities around the country. The Scottish Centre for Telehealth is collaborating with National Health Services (NHS) Scotland to trial the HealthPresence virtual clinic system, which links patients and doctors through videoconferencing without the need for medically trained assistants on site. The system, developed by Cisco Systems Inc., is being evaluated by doctors at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. The system uses an IP network to combine high definition (HD) video and audio with medical information.

The article reports that British Petroleum Co. PLC. plans to bring together more than 530 employees in the next two years from its IT, corporate and physical security divisions worldwide, to devise plans to protect the business globally. The company said that this would allow it to manage security threats that begin in one part of the business but could go on to affect another area. Robert Martin, manager of digital security services at BP, said that a challenge in securing the company's back-office networks would be mapping all possible connections to the IP networks used in processing oil.

The article reports on the announcement given by the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry body, that products supporting the Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) Protected Setup (WPS) standard are expected to be available in Great Britain in June 2007. The WPS specification developed by Wi-Fi Alliance member companies is designed to ease the deployment wireless networks and encourage their use within smaller businesses. Frank Hanzlik, managing director of Wi-Fi Alliance, asserts that Wi-Fi has become one of the most pervasive wireless technologies, however, customers have wanted it to be easier to set up and protect.

The article presents information on the Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware (Dash) network initiative, introduced by the Distributed Management Task Force in Great Britain. Dash is a standard initiative for remote management of desktop and mobile systems that will deliver a set of specifications, providing architectural semantics, industry standard protocols and a set of profiles to standardise the secure management of desktop and mobile systems. It is informed that it has the capacity to integrate desktop and laptop management in an end-to-end management system.

This article reports that Peter Kirstein an unsung hero in the international development of the Internet has been made the 24th BCS distinguished fellow. Kirstein, director of research and professor of computer communications systems at University College London (UCL) and a BCS fellow, has been involved with the development of the Internet since the early 1970's. The impact of the web on everyday life would be a pale shadow of what one see today without his relentless pursuit of connectivity outside the U.S. In the 1970's the goal was to interconnect computers in Great Britain and Europe to the emerging US Arpanet. This led to the idea of a concatenation of networks run over the wide area, including the Satnet Atlantic packet satellite network, the Arpanet and others. However, administrative and security problems caused by interconnecting multi-agency networks in the 1980's led to the need for policy control of routes and to the development of BGP, the protocol used to interconnect all the world's Internet service providers. UCL contributed to the development of BGP.

This article focuses on the computerisation of public transport system in Great Britain. Public transport group Go-Ahead is rolling out a high-speed IP network to support new applications including smart ticketing kiosks and centralised payroll. The group, which operates services such as Thameslink trains, Metro buses and passenger handling for the airline British Midland, is investing£ 6.8m over the next five years on a 300-site wide area IP network operated by Cable& Wireless. The investment will see the consolidation of a Frame Relay infrastructure into a single IP network. Go-Ahead also expects the network to enable its operating companies to provide more information to its customers regarding the status of train and bus services and the whereabouts of their baggage. These are being replaced by an IP virtual private network offering quality of service control, which will allow the transport provider to prioritise applications on the network. The network provides a link into Sita, the global ticketing system, to support worldwide bookings for airline passengers. INSET: Improved service.

This article reports that chemicals company BASF Corp. is implementing a managed network from BT to cut costs, improve network flexibility and cope with future data requirements. The Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based network is being used to connect 200 BASF sites around Europe, including major sites in Great Britain. MPLS allows BASF to ensure that the most important users in the business get the bandwidth they need for their applications, and offers better service than a standard configured network. By allocating bandwidth according to users' needs, the new network will reduce BASF data traffic costs, as well as freeing up bandwidth for the most business-critical processes. As part of the contract, BT will also help BASF migrate some sites to a voice over IP system, which will help the company reduce the cost of voice calls. BT has one of the biggest MPLS network capacities in the world and BASF plans to extend its MPLS network to include the U.S., Africa, and Asia.

T-Mobile GmbH has launched a 3G data card service that allows users to get high-speed Internet access via public Wi-Fi hotspots. T-Mobile users will also be able to get 1mbps access at more than 500 T-Mobile hotspots in Great Britain. The service is aimed at corporate users, with a £70 monthly access charge for unlimited use of 2.5G, 3G and Wi-Fi data.

Information technology (IT) staff who want to learn new skills overseas can apply for an expanded secondment scheme run by the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) of Great Britain. The DTI Global Watch Secondments scheme aims to help small and medium-sized enterprises improve their productivity and competitiveness by supporting their efforts to keep abreast of the latest scientific and technological advances worldwide. To qualify for one of the secondments, which range from three months to one year, IT professionals have to show that the technology and skills they are learning overseas are not readily available in Great Britain. Examples of previous technology-based secondments include a one-year placement with a U.S.-based company to learn about the impact of Wi-Fi wireless network technology on mobile communications, and a four-month secondment to learn about network diagnostics. Benefits of the scheme, according to the DTI, include increasing the chance of transferring technologies at the right time and in the right way and reducing the risk of adopting new technology by sharing experience and skills.

Wireless broadband supplier LocustWorld has added support for Session Initiation Protocol to its mesh networking equipment. As a result, LocustWorld's mesh boxes, which link together to form a wireless network, will become voice over IP switches. This means that people using a wireless network running on LocustWorld's mesh software will be able to make voice calls over the Internet, rather than paying landline rates. The London Internet Exchange, which handles about 90% of Great Britain Internet traffic, and telx, a major interconnection point in New York, have signed a partnership agreement. T-Mobile has teamed up with Texaco to provide broadband wireless Internet access at 100 roadside service stations across Great Britain. A team comprising researchers from CERN and the California Institute of Technology have broken the world record for data transmission. In its latest "ready for service" exercise, BT has set 185 dates to roll out broadband to parts of Great Britain, of which 62 will be next year. The company said the delay was an inevitability of the increasing popularity of broadband.

This article presents news clippings related to business enterprises. BT Openzone is to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots at 15 railway stations in Great Britain. Stations offering wireless Internet access will include London Euston and Waterloo. Birmingham New Street, Leeds City, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime Street and Edinburgh Waverley are due to have Wi-Fi hotspots by the spring. Last November, Darren Mckenzie, director of IT operations at Egg and computer gaming enthusiast, challenged fellow gaming fans in other IT departments to take on Egg in a mega showdown. Commuters will be able to e-mail the office to let the boss know when they are going to be late because of leaves on the line.

The article reports on the planned comeback of the Fortran computer program language with the release of its new international standard called Fortran 2003 which is expected by the end of 2004. The programming language was devised at IBM in the 1950s. Peter Crouch, chairman of the BCS Fortran Specialist Group, comments on the efficiency of Fortran. Some of its users include the Meteorological Office and the Ministry of Defence in Great Britain.

Travel agent Thomas Cook AG expects to reduce annual network costs by £1m after rolling out a high-speed IP data network from British Telecommunications PLC. The network forms part of Thomas Cook's £120m co-sourcing agreement with Accenture and will connect the company's headquarters, four call centres, two datacentres and 17 airports in Great Britain. It will integrate into 643 high street Thomas Cook stores using ADSL and ISDN, in one of the country's largest deployments of broadband. Third generation mobile services will not take off until at least 2006, according to research from telecoms research group Analysys.

This article discusses how information technology departments in Great Britain should prepare to adopt the computer networking technology Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The advantage of IPv6 is that because it uses 128bit addresses instead of 32bit addresses a lot more addresses are available —34 x 1038 of them instead of the theoretical maximum of 4.3 billion that exists in the present incarnation IPv4 as of April 29, 2003. INSETS: Glossary;Summary.

Focuses on the capabilities of the Nokia D211, a general packet radio service and Wi-Fi card in Great Britain. Ability of the card to support Windows CE 3; Unavailability of infrastructure for Nokia D211; Restrictions on the use of Wi-Fi for public-access local area networks.