TechWire

Dept of Comms: Cars, SUVs now need TV licences

Cars, SUVs, vans and motorhomes all need TV licences if gadgets used to watch telly are used in them. That's according to correspondence I've received from the Department of Communications. Even a tent needs one if you catch Seoige and Seoige on a Sinclair.

The Department also said that any premises using a laptop or home PC to catch a TV signal needs a licence. That is, unless it's accessing the signal online, in which case it's exempt.

Mobiles are exempt.

But using a Slingboxes would mean that any device that connects remotely to it will draw down a need for the host premises to have a TV licence. Wonder what happens if you use it on the bus, though?

Fastest free wi-fi hotspot in Dublin -- The New York Grill

8.5Mbs!! And free!! (Upload is just 0.6Mbs.) It's a grill and cafe in the docklands, close to Jurys.

Where mobile broadband speeds vary around Dublin

I spent lots of last week comparing all three networks' mobile broadband products in different locations around the city for a newspaper article. Speeds vary substantially. In Dublin 9 (Drumcondra), O2 reigns supreme with speeds of over 2Mbs. In Harcourt Street, though, it shrinks to under 0.5Mbs. 3, by comparison hits over 1Mbs in Harcourt Street but falls to about 0.6Mbs in Drumcondra. And it's a similar story around different parts of the city.

Incidentally, 3 is set to switch on its extra mobile broadband speed (x2) "any day now", according to executives in the network,

A heartbeat after winning DTT licence, Boxer set to delay rollout?

It has become the Irish way of doing things: promise a timescale and then deliver way behind schedule. Such is the mounting suspicion over Boxer's DTT licence win. It promised to be up and running in January. But according to (admittedly embittered) sources in RTE, who are in a good position to know, they haven't a hope.
But this is Ireland -- why should Boxer care? They've won the licence from the BCI now: what's been promised is water under the bridge. Besides, they can legitimately argue that the usual thing for BCI winners to do, once they've nailed down a licence, is to gradually ignore the bits of the licence application they don't like (and which probably swung it for them). For examples, see virtually all commercial radio licence applications in respect of commitments to Irish language and current affairs content and compare them to the diet of Coldplay and Christina Aguilera they actually deliver, sanction-free.
In Boxer's case, they'll blame some technical hitch and won't have the national network ready until at least six months -- probably more -- after they promised.
What will the BCI do? Nothing.

Spoiler for the Dark Knight