INTERNET
Esat network upgrade nears completion
11-12-2000
by Aoidin Scully
Esat Digifone has denied claims by the Irish Independent that the company is carrying out urgent maintenance work to its network.
Last Tuesday, the paper reported that many customers in the East and South-East coasts had experienced technical problems with the Esat Digifone mobile network, including missing test messages, dropped calls and difficulty in reaching certain numbers. It was alleged that because of these problems, maintenance work, which had been scheduled for January and February, was brought forward to November and December.
However, a spokesperson for Esat has categorically denied these claims, and said the technical problems were due to a network upgrade programme.
"That was an absolute inaccuracy by the Irish Independent. That work was always scheduled to start at the end of October and run for approximately six weeks. It is now nearing completion," said the spokesperson.
She added that Esat had attempted to notify its customers of the possible problems by advertising in all the national papers for weeks before that it was happening. The network upgrade will give Esat a huge amount of extra capacity for customers.
The company claimed to have 825,000 mobile customers in figures issued at the end of September, and expects to have greatly increased that number when it issues new figures in the New Year.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Vodafone has agreed to buy 15 percent of Japan Telecom as part of a strategy to take majority control of J-Phone, JT's fast-growing mobile phone subsidiary. Vodafone would pay approximately USD2.5 billion (EUR2.9 billion) in cash for the stake.
The deal, expected to be announced next week, is likely to shake up the Japanese mobile phone market, which is dominated by NTT DoCoMo. It would be the second largest investment in Japan by a foreign company. The investment would put Vodafone into the same rank as BT and AT&T, which each own 15 percent.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 