VoIP News: October 2008

A new version of a network diagnostic tool released last week includes extra support for VoIP phones. BBX 4. 5, from Integrated Broadband Services (IBBS), also has other newly-added features, including the ability to examine subscribers' in-home wiring remotely.

Passengers in the quiet carriages on train company C2C's services will no longer be bothered by mobile phone users, thanks to new hi-tech windows. The company is to coat the windows in the carriages with a special film which can block mobile phone signals, while still letting in light. Every one of its trains, which do commuter runs into London from Essex, has a quiet zone where all electronic devices are banned, but many passengers said that this was not being enforced sufficiently.

Broadband takeup in the UK has been hit by the economic slowdown, despite having previously been unaffected by it, according to an analysis firm. Point Topic said that the number of new lines in the third quarter of 2008 was 20 per cent below predictions. In its April forecast, the company expected 800,000 to be added in the second half of the year, which was backed up by figures for June which were ahead of expectations.

Nearly nine out of ten (86 per cent) customers do not understand the limits on their broadband service, new research has indicated. A YouGov poll, cited by uSwitch. com, shows that 6.

The European telecommunications industry does not need lighter regulation, according to the EU's telecoms commissioner. Viviane Reding told attendees at a European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO) event that many in the sector had asked her to relax or completely remove regulation as the financial crisis has unfolded, reports Reuters. However, she felt that the world's economic problems had increased the argument for, not against, regulation.