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THE EUROPEAN UNION is to consider plans that would make it illegal for mobile phone companies to ban some internet services which users can use to cut down on costs.
Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner responsible for the ‘digital agenda’, says she will propose that mobile carriers be barred from selectively choosing to ban certain services which can undercut their own profits.
The moves come amid complaints that a growing number of mobile carriers throughout Europe are banning users from using services like Skype to call friends, or WhatsApp for text messaging, instead of making traditional phone calls or sending SMS messages.
While mobile carriers are powerless to stop customers from using those services when their phones are connected to a WiFi network, they often block those services so that customers cannot use those options while connected only to the cellular data network.
This morning Kroes told a European Parliament committee that services like Skype or WhatsApp “offer real innovation for consumers”, and said internet providers who deliberately blocked them to ringfence their own profits were simply seeking “to avoid the competition”.
She said the Commission would propose “a safeguard for every European, on every device, on every network: a guarantee of access to the full and open internet, without any blocking or throttling of competing services”.
Kroes’s speech did not refer specifically to mobile networks – meaning traditional broadband providers could also be banned from blocking torrent services, as is practised by some providers to try and cut down on piracy and file-sharing.
Ireland’s communications regulator ComReg has previously confirmed that it has received complaints against one Irish phone network for blocking access to Skype over its data network, which means customers lose the option of using their monthly data allowance to make free calls to other users.
The phenomenon is relatively rare in Ireland – where one network, 48, now offers an internet-only option where customers can use only the likes of WhatsApp or Skype to contact others – but more commonplace in other EU countries.
If it was extended, owners of Apple devices which can send ‘iMessage’ alerts to each other using their data allowance, or users of BlackBerry’s internal messaging service, could also find themselves unable to use some data services and forced to send more expensive SMS messages.
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Anything RTE touch will turn to shit. What are the bets Twink will be hosting it or Marty Whelan.
Brain Ormand, Derek Mooney,you see this sharp knife here….
It’s not “Blind Date” there are no hosts on this show…
And what bets it will fold by series 3.
I hope it’s the same production company behind it, rather than some crappy Irish version.
Cue a bunch of attention seeking wannabe’s who will degrade themselves as much as possible to gain Z list celebrity status.. Just like that waste of Tv space “Tallaghtfornia”
Dude have you seen the show?
Sit down and be quiet there like a good lad til you have.
You’ve no idea what you’re talking about
^^^^^ Tallaghfornia fan above!
Pity tv3 are not doing it, they turned take me out into a comedy show
There were some wagons on that TV3 one….the show where foreplay is an exchange of insults
the ch 4 show has a “maitre d”, who talks about love and looking for love at the beginning of the show, so they’ll be looking for someone to do something like the ch 4 host, I’d say Brian Dowling
He’d be a good fit I’d said, but I bet you a bag of chips, it’ll be Dáithí Ó Sé or some other such person.:P
once its not that fecking Miriam o Callaghan and her 16 children, yawn yawn yawn, same old, same old…
Anyone that goes on this show is in all probability a giant bell end
how do I apply
Probably be set in Coppers.. Couple of bags of chips after from Harry Ramsdens.
I’d actually give this a shot. I’ve seen the channel 4 version and the folks on there come across as being fairly decent and down to earth. Granted, you could very well get a few bell ends on there, but you get that wherever you go in life. Many people, from what I can tell at least, want to go out for the date and see what happens.
You can practically get next day sex on tinder,will this app beat that?
not for you, leon – keep practicing on tinder m8…
Next day? You’re doing tinder wrong.
More bollocks!
First dates are in restaurants now? How awkward and cringey. Does no-one go to the pub, get locked together, then go back to hers for a bit of slap and tickle? The Irish have turned into some shower of saddo wannabes.
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