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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Friday, June 11, 2010

An extra 74 percent of nothing is still nothing

Mark Bridge writes

Ah, the joys of multiplying by zero. (Not to be confused with the joys of dividing by zero; I remember an old Casio calculator that didn’t have an ‘overflow’ error message and would simply keep counting until the batteries ran out. But I digress).

I was reminded of my school maths lessons when I saw a news release from Orange UK this week.

Steve Wallage, Head of Sport Partnerships and Services for Orange UK was quoted as saying “Based on the surge in demand for mobile TV during the Ashes last summer, we expect viewing figures could rocket by at least 74% during the World Cup”.

The small print at the bottom of the page explained that Steve meant viewing sessions, not necessarily the number of viewers or the total viewing time, but let’s overlook that.

In fact, let’s overlook the statement entirely. There’s no mention of what the ‘viewing figures’ were in the summer of 2009, so the statistic is pretty meaningless.

Now, call me cynical, but I’m sure Steve would have mentioned those figures if they were any good. Yes, I know people do use mobile TV. And I know streaming over 3G is replacing the dream of DVB-H and DMB, offering much greater availability.

But an extra 74% of ‘nothing specific’?  That’s not real maths, is it?

 

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Categories: Networks and operators, OpinionNumber of views: 9622

Tags: orange television

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