Virgin Media Prepares for 100 Mbps Service Launch

Virgin Media has announced the rollout timetable of its 100 Mbps broadband access service, which will priced between £35 a month (about $56) when bought in a bundle, or just £45 per month (about $72) when bought as a stand-alone product.

The 100 Mbps service will go on sale from December.

The average download speed in the United Kingdom was 5.2Mbps in May 2010, up from 4.1Mbps in April 2009. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of U.K. residential broadband connections had a headline speed of above 10Mbps in May 2010, compared to eight percent in April 2009, according to Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator.

Virgin Media

Why Don't All Users Buy the Broadband Equivalent of a Lexus?

Faster is better, where it comes to broadband. But so is a Lexus, right? But there's a reason we have vehicles in all sizes, optimized for different applications, at different price points.

We do different things with vehicles, and for most of us, money is not unlimited. Were it not so, perhaps most people would drive a Lexus. If one assumes there is very little a single cannot do with 15 Mbps, then a family can well benefit from 50 Mbps, if it believes it will have three or four users online, all at the same time, all watching video at the same time.

Lots of households will find that overkill, at least for the moment. In some cases, users can buy 50 Mbps service from Comcast, for about $100 a month. That's a better deal than $145 a month. But the issue for many users will be how much those users really want to spend for service, when they are paying their own money.

Just for Fun: Time Traveler Using Mobile Phone in 1928 Chaplin Film

Just because we all need a break from serious pursuits....

Mobile Gmail Now "Feels" More Like an App

Google has improved the performance of Gmail on an iPhone, suggesting that the performance gap between native mobile apps and web apps will grow smaller over time.

The new improvements make scrolling faster. In fact scrolling speed seems to match swipe gestures. This is helpful for long conversations where a few quick flicks will get you to the information you need much faster than before.

Also, toolbars stay on screen while users are scrolling, rather than moving down after each scroll. Being able to access toolbars from any point on the page should make it easier to triage email and move around the app.

Gmail in mobile Safari: now even more like a native app - Official Google Mobile Blog

Aro Mobile Launches in Beta, Unifies Mobile Contact, Social, Email Information

Aro Mobile , a mobile application now in beta mode, aims to simplify mobile use by unifying information stored in the mobile that relate to people and contacts. It's another example of consumer "unified communications" that illustrates why it has been harder than many thought for business-oriented UC solutions to take root: there are lots of ways to unify specific parts of the communication environment, without unifying "everything."

Accelerating Hosted PBX Services

Steve Gleave talks about accelerating sales of hosted PBX services

Many service providers I talk to would often prefer their sales teams to sell hosted PBXs over premises based alternatives. But the reality is that market adoption for hosted business services can be hindered by sales strategies, pricing models and marketing pitches that don't stack up when compared next to premises-based solutions.

If this is your dilemma you may find that:

* your existing sales teams are too familiar with premises PBXs' familiar features, benefits, and pricing
* there is a much stronger organisational structure built to sell and support in-house PBXs than for hosted services
* individual salespeople have deep, field-level relationships with PBX vendors, many of which provide sales incentives
* general suspicion towards hosted PBX as an inferior product.

Read the full article here: Overheard: Water cooler talk from the Metaswitch office, July 2010

Verizon Business Adds Global Managed Ethernet Services

Verizon Business is expanding its Managed Services portfolio with the addition of "Global Managed Ethernet." Now, multinational organizations can use Verizon Ethernet services in a managed network environment containing just those services, or in combination with other network services for a complete end-to-end, global managed network solution.

New managed offerings include Ethernet Private Line Service, Ethernet Virtual Private Line Service and Virtual Private LAN Service. Customers who employ Private IP Layer 2 will also be able to choose a managed service.

'For the first time, our customers can combine the power of MPLS and Ethernet in a fully managed end-end-to-end global networking solution,' said Anthony Recine, vice president of networking and communications solutions for Verizon Business. 'Together our Private IP and Ethernet services deliver an ideal business communications platform to handle big-bandwidth applications in a similar fashion, no matter where they are located around the world.'

These managed services support a variety of applications including VoIP, storage and business continuity, large file transfers, distance learning, content delivery and unified communications.

Verizon | Verizon Business Adds Global Managed Ethernet to Managed Network Services Portfolio