16% of UK adults have never used the internet:

Figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that 7.82 million adults in the UK – 16% of the total adult population – have never used the internet.

The ONS statistics for the second quarter of 2012 show a 10% decline in the number of adults who have not used the internet.

Almost all 16 to 24 year olds (99%) have used the internet but only 29% of adults aged 75 years and over have used the internet.

A total of 87% of men have used the internet compared to 82% of women, said the ONS.

The research revealed that disabled people are three times more likely never to have used the internet than people without a disability.

London and south-east England have the  highest rate of internet use with 88% of adults, while Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of internet users, at 77%.

Solar shades Concept

Solar shades Concept 
(by designers Hyun-Joong Kim and Kwang-Seok Jeong)

It is called Infinite Energy: SIG, the sunglasses are designed to turn the rays that it blocks out into electrical energy, providing protection and power all at the same time. The sunglasses have a wire sticking out of them that you can plug into your gadgets....!!!!

Olympic Games 2012: Preparing for a mobile data deluge

This year’s Olympic Games in London have been touted as the most connected in history. 

With an estimated one billion people set to watch the events and millions more expected to log on to keep track of all the action, all aspects of connectivity had to be examined in the lead-up to the event.

But the real difference with London 2012 is the mobile aspect. 

The increase in adoption of smartphones and tablets over the past four years has been enormous, and the number of devices that will be used to access Games coveragehas posed a huge challenge for the organisers.

There is little they could do about the connections of mobile networks around the world but, when it came to the Olympic venues themselves, mobile operators have been hard at work with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to make the experience as seamless as possible for visitors.

A report published today by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) gave us a behind the scenes glimpse of the planning involved.    

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Data traffic of Olympic proportions

Planning began back in 2009 when the UK mobile industry met for a BBC workshop to try to establish what the rise in mobile usage, both for normal phone, text and web activities, and media consumption, during the Olympics would be.

This included a number of areas, such as mobile web usage, visitor numbers, data traffic, new device types – namely smartphones and tablets – and the need to support those running the Games.

Operators even had to consider the queues outside the venues and how much mobile traffic there would be as people waited to enter the park.

They concluded the volume of traffic would be 10 times greater than that at similar venues in 2010.

There was also the problem of customer expectation, as even by 2009 users expected to have their mobile phone working as they saw fit, with customised apps at a low cost. Also, with the number of events going on simultaneously, people attending one event would also want to check what was going on at other events.

Enhancing 3G performance

The mobile companies considered fighting for 4G spectrum, but Ofcom had already allocated the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands to broadcasters, which left 3G to take the brunt of the traffic.

They decided the best answer was to increase the number of cells at traffic hotspots within the Olympic Park. By careful planning of the cells, ensuring there was no overlap, all the channels of 3G could be reused within each cell site, enabling more people to use the spectrum in that area.

Of course, this needed to be tested, so mobile operators chose Twickenham as their experimental ground. Deployment of equipment took place in 2010, so by the time the Six Nations rugby tournament came to the venue in 2011, the operators would be ready to test out their ideas.

To boost capacity by 10 times, the operators decided to increase the existing four cells at the stadium to 40. The capacity of Twickenham meant this equated to 2,000 spectators per cell. This was much larger than what they expected for the Aquatics Centre at the Olympic Park, which has room for 17,500 spectators, but on this basis they could establish what the number of cells needed on that site would be.  

Many large deployments of such technology use obstacles, such as buildings – known as clutter – to help define the boundaries of each cell. This is difficult in an open-air stadium, so operators tried instead to use the tiered seating to split the cell areas vertically.

Each sector needed to have the signal boosted to be more dominant over interference and outside signals. Rather than having an overall large antenna, antennas needed to be brought closer to the cells to make the signal more concentrated, making the footprint smaller and reducing interference.

To preserve the dominance there also needed to be a line of sight between the antenna and the mobile device. As such, the operators decided attaching them to the roof seemed the best adoption to avoid any interference from other spectators, chairs, etc.

They discovered, however, that traditional antennas they had hoped to use weakened the definition of the cell boundaries when positioned at this level, which could have a major effect on connectivity.

Instead, the operators got to work on using an innovative antenna specially designed for use in stadia, but not previously deployed on such a major scale. These antennas were flat panels, which prevent roll-off and cover wider sectors without bleeding into others.

Testing was carried out with these antennas on one-quarter of the stadium during a rugby game in 2011, which previously would have only been covered by one cell. This worked well, but was interfered with by the old system they were still running across the rest of Twickenham.

As such, they decided to roll it out fully across the ground, leaving the previous antennas there as back-up.

The trial established that, due the odd shaping of many new stadia, with curves, arches, roofs, etc, and the effect of distance on the antennas, only 30 cells were needed, rather than 40, to give the optimum coverage.

Diving into the Games

Once this had been established and deployed, the operators were pleased with the results and were ready to look at transferring this to venues for the Olympic Games. However, although this trial was a success, it was understood that there was no-one-size-fits-all possibility, as each venue varies in size and shape.

Also the temporary nature of the infrastructure needed to be considered, because as with the seating, it will be removed after the games.

The focus the organisations decided on was the Aquatics Centre. The swimming pool itself caused some difficulty, as there was the opportunity for cells and antennas to interfere with one another due to the lack of clutter, as well as external interference as a lot of cellular infrastructure was being deployed externally.

During the planning phase, a 3D model of the centre – both a computerised version and a wire model – was created to help predict what the issues would be.

However, this enabled them to take the lessons from Twickenham and test them out, working out exactly where to deploy the new cells and antennas, and optimise the equipment for the best signal possible.

With the Olympics in full swing, and swimming one of the major focuses, it will quickly become clear whether all the careful planning has paid off.

Valuable lessons

The key learnings that the mobile operators and the Olympic Delivery Authority took away from the long planning process were to establish what amount of coverage was needed, be aware of the geometry of the building you are trying to deploy antennas and cells in, and to focus on high signal dominance through a joined-up approach with external operators to make sure coverage doesn’t clash.

Overall, the importance of a trial and everyone working together to achieve the final outcome was the most valuable of lessons.

Hackers steal personal details of 8.7 million mobile subscribers

Hackers have accessed the personal details of 8.7 million mobile phone subscribers to South Korea's second largest telecommunications company.

Police have arrested two people for allegedly hacking into the network system of KT Corporation, formerly Korea Teleco, and selling the data.

The suspects are believed to have stolen the personal information of more than half of KT's 16 million subscribers since February, according to local reports.

South Korea's National Police Agency's cyber terror response team said seven others were charged with buying the leaked data for telemarketing purposes.

Police suspect the telemarketers used the data to contact customers whose contracts were close to expiration or were considered likely to change mobile phone plans.

"It took nearly seven months to develop the hacking program and (the suspects) had very sophisticated hacking skills," an official at the cyber response team is quoted as saying.

KT has apologised for the data breach, saying it has taken steps to prevent further leakage.

"In light of this incident, we will strengthen the internal security system and raise awareness of security among all employees to prevent causing inconvenience to customers," the company said.

Highlighting the reputational damage caused by data breaches, market commentators have said angry subscribers may mount a class action lawsuit against the company.

The KT data breach comes a year after a spate of hacking attacks which targeted South Korean government departments, financial firms and a social networking site and web services portal run by SK Telecom.

In the worst breach in South Korea to date, hackers accessed 35 million user accounts in the attack on SK Telecom, which has links to the state monopoly phone company, Korea Telecom.

The breach was revealed by the Korean Communications Commission, which claimed to have traced the source of the incursion back to computer IP addresses based in China.

Vodafone appoints new CEO of Cable & Wireless Worldwide

Vodafone today announced a new CEO for Cable & Wireless Worldwide (C&WW) following its acquisition of the global telecoms giant.

Nick Jeffrey, who began his career back in 1991 at C&WW, will take on the role with immediate effect, leaving his current post as the head of Vodafone’s global enterprise business.

His replacement will be the enterprise business unit director of Vodafone Germany, Jan Geldmacher, who will also begin his new job straight away.

Jeffrey will work with Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence to integrate both C&WW’s commercial and back office operations into the Vodafone group, while the acquired company’s network and technology assets will be taken over by Vodafone CTO Steve Pusey.

This will leave C&WW’s CEO, Gavin Darby, out of a job, but he will work with Jeffrey to help the transfer of power until October.

The sell-off of the firm will also see its CFO, Ian Gibson, acting CTO, Dave Broady, and acting human resources (HR) director, Jane Little, move on, to be replaced by Vodafone Turkey’s CFO Diego Galli as finance director, Vodafone network services unit director John Thompson as technology director, and Vodafone Netherlands’ HR director Francesco Bianco as C&WW’s HR director.

Mark Allison, currently head of the Vodafone global enterprise commercial team, will take on the job of integration director. Again, all these roles will begin with immediate effect.

“Nick [Jeffrey] is an excellent leader with a deep understanding of enterprise customers' needs, a track record in value creation and familiarity with C&WW's business,” said Vittorio Colao, CEO of the Vodafone group. “Similarly, with his strong background in multinational client leadership, Jan [Geldmacher] will be well-placed to succeed Nick as CEO of Vodafone Global Enterprise.”

Vodafone bought C&WW in April this year for £1.04bn. India’s Tata Communications was though to be the front runner, but it dropped out of the bid just a week before the deal was finalised.

Networking the least understood element of IT, says HPNetworking the least understood element of IT, says HP

Networking the least understood element of IT, says HP

A strong network may be the main stay of cloud computing, but its complexity has left it out in the cold when it comes to development.

This was the belief of Nick Watson, vice-president of networking in EMEA for HP, who said that, while servers and storage have transformed over recent years and adoption rates have been high, networking has remained at the back of the queue for attention during the cloud era.

“The reason is networking has always been the least understood element of IT,” he told Computer Weekly. 

“It has been an impediment for 30 years, leaving people thinking the network wasn’t significant and, in turn, making it lagging behind.”

“I absolutely believe the network should be considered the fundamental building block for cloud computing, as it cannot be just down to the datacentre. With the need for access wherever you are and the increasing trend of bringing your own device to work, the network has to be looked at as a priority.”

Watson himself has a long history in networking. Before starting at HP last May, he worked for 15 years at Cisco, in the global enterprise market and running the channel business in the UK.

watson said he moved to HP – which touts its “converged infrastructure” model, bringing together storage, servers and networking under one umbrella – because it offered exactly what his customers at Cisco had been asking for.

“I kept being asked by customers to simplify things, as it was becoming increasingly difficult with networking,” said Watson. 

“They wanted vendors building a single unit, something they were willing to stand behind, as everything at the back-end was converging. HP was a great bet.”

Cisco is going down this route, investing into its own server and storage products as part of its Unified Computing System (UCS) portfolio. However, Watson felt the company didn’t have the best range and was still fundamentally a networking company.

“HP is an IT company and has all the different elements needed for IT solutions,” Watson said. “Other silos, for want of a better word, were biased to one technology area, even if they were providing other technologies too.”

“What I was hearing from customers is they wanted to integrate their infrastructure and HP has the ingredients and the maturity to do this.”

The difficulty is Cisco is known as a networking company, whereas HP has a different reputation altogether.

“Part of the attraction was the opportunity to build up the networking business, as previously it had been relatively small, focusing on Procurve in the SMB space,” claimed Watson. 

“HP found the missing ingredient when it acquired 3COM. Many in the industry agreed it had lost its way, with large companies reticent in investing. The technology was still there but it did not have the financial backing or the go-to-market strategy. 

"Now we have found the key.”

Watson admitted prospective customers had a moment of disbelief when HP approached them about its networking portfolio. But he said that, by giving them the chance to prove the concept with its kit and see evidence of its performance, it was beginning to win users over.

Watson said he knew it would be a slow process, as no-one was interested in ripping and replacing network infrastructure.

“People can’t suddenly throw a network out,” said Watson. “Everyone has to take time to migrate from what they have to what they want to have. 

"Apps, including video, we have begun to take for granted, but something like Microsoft Lync will entirely change the environment and the network has to be able to work with that. You can’t do all that in one go.”

“Most networks evolve and are not designed from the ground up,” he added. 

“When they are continually added to, they are infrequently looked at from a lifecycle management perspective. When you set up a network, legacy errors occur and as a result people are reluctant to change the network.”

Watson has his work cut out for him, not only to build up the interest and reputation of networking, but to prove HP can cut it with the big guns in the industry.

“For 10 years there was no other option and the solid bet was Cisco,” said Watson.

“Now we are running proof of concepts to go beyond the PowerPoint and prove these solutions work for them.”

 

The technology behind the BBC's Olympics coverage:

The Olympic Games on home soil will be the final instalment of the most operationally challenging period in the BBC’s history, and the broadcaster’s chief technology officer (CTO) John Linwood told Computer Weekly’s CW500 Club about the “terrifying” challenge of providing live coverage of all events at the Olympics, thinking the unthinkable and balancing this with his day job as a corporate IT chief.

The BBC has this year faced several major challenges, from broadcasting the Diamond Jubilee and the European football championships not to mention the Proms, and live music festival the Hackney Weekend, all while moving large chunks of its operation from London to Manchester, and into its newly expanded Broadcasting House location. “This year has been the biggest operational challenge we have had,” says Linwood.

For example, the corporation is running 24 live high-definition (HD) TV channels ensuring that every second of the London Olympics can be watched live or recorded from multiple devices.

While his day job of running IT at the BBC goes on with things like bring your own device schemes and upgrading Microsoft Exchange being planned, it is the fact that the London 2012 Olympics is set to be the most digital and technology enabled event in history, with all sports available for viewing from multiple devices, that keeps him awake at night.

“This is the biggest digitised event ever and has been terrifying me for years,” says Linwood. “The terrifying thing for us is the fact that everybody will be watching this during the day on lots of different devices.”