March 2010 - The Insider

Just when you thought it was safe to move over to Cloud computing a number of warning flashes have appeared from industry experts that may raise concerns. I’m never sure if these reports are based on real concerns or just headline grabbers that lead to detailed reports that must be purchased to get the full story. Nevertheless, the points raised in the UK and Australia over the last week should probably be considered objectively. The first, reported in Computing.co.uk comes from Steve Prentice a...

Forget the ‘last mile’ disputes of the past, consumers in AsiaPac can’t even get the last hundred metres. We are seeing the beginning of a new disorder which I will affectionately dub, the ‘NBN Syndrome’. You will know when you are the victim of NBN Syndrome when your CSP tells you it is no longer laying copper wire or any other wire for that matter, to your new home or apartment, because it’s uneconomical or they prefer someone else to foot the bill, presumably the national broadband network builder...

A report released this week by Arbor Networks states that Google now boasts a network bigger than all but two of the world's ISPs. Don’t say you weren’t warned! The search giant looks like it’s just one step away from becoming an ISP itself. If it were, hypothetically speaking of course, it would now be the fastest growing one in the world and the third largest globally. The two leaders carry substantial volumes of Google transit themselves. More than half of its own traffic over its own network...

Maine (USA) legislators continue their determination of a bill requiring mobile phones to carry health warnings about the dangers of brain cancer. Supporters of the bill claim that Ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic, despite the fact that there is little scientific evidence supporting the claim. "We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That's what happened with smoking before warnings on cigarette packs were mandated”, David Carpenter, director...

I’ve just read a heart-wrenching story about a Somali man robbed of $200 then shot dead by his assailants, no doubt a common story in a country racked by over 19 years of anarchy. However, a new mobile money transfer and banking system being introduced by mobile operator Hormuud Telecom could have saved this one life and is set to save many others. Hormuud Telecom is the biggest network in Somalia with more than a million subscribers. It designed the software for its SAAD money transfer service,...