AT&T Technicians Recieve CPR Training: [8th Feb 2012]

A technician who works for AT&T has recently saved the life of a baby during an installation visit. Andrel Reid was in a customers home when the baby of the owner started to choke. He had been taught during his training how to save the baby and was able to stop the choking using back thrusts. All technicians are given CPR training by AT&T and over the years a few lives have been saved by AT&T workers.


Broadband supplier Sprint has released the details of its earnings for the last quarter this week. It shows that they have suffered a loss of $1.3 billion during the three months leading up to the end of 2011. This compares to a loss of just $301 million the previous year. However the loss has been put down to the fact that the carrier is now offering the iPhone and must subsidize the cost of each one. The deal which Sprint struck with Apple was that they agreed to purchase at least 30.5 million of the iPhone over the next four years which will cost them Ј20 billion. Despite all of this, Sprint did increase its subscriber numbers with 40% of these coming to Sprint for the first time. 1.8 million new subscribers purchased the iPhone.


Research by ComScore has shown that during the last quarter of 2011 online spending in the US has increased 14% from the previous year to more than $49 billion. This makes the ninth quarter in a row where online spending has gone up. The last quarter of 2011 saw several days where online spending was expected to do well. This included Cyber Monday, Monday December 5 and Green Monday on December 12. The most popular purchases were for digital content and subscriptions followed by jewelry, consumer electronics and toys. Each category saw an increase of at least 18% in online sales. Customers were also more likely to use a smartphone or a tablet to do their shopping during the period. Over all of 2011 online retail in the US increased by 13% to an incredible $161.5 billion.


Internet traffic in the US dropped by as much as 20% during the Superbowl this week. It is thought that more than 111 million Americans watched the Superbowl live on Sunday on the television. This is despite it being shown online by NBC. Just 6.2% of watcher choose to use the free download service online from NBC although the numbers of people using NetFlix dropped considerably. Those who did watch have complained that there were buffering delays and that the ads which were shown during half time were different to the TV action. Network equipment maker Sandvine have reported that most people preferred to watch the game on their TV and that this created a "super-dip" in Internet traffic. Although Facebook and Twitter saw a surge as users logged in during the game to share a commentary with friends.


The latest Instat research has shown that just 7% of those people who take wi-fi equipped flights choose to use the service. This is a slight increase on the 4% which was reported in 2010 it is still low and is causing problems with making the service profitable for airlines. It is thought that the fact that wi-fi is a highly priced service on flights is putting customers off. This may be because wi-fi is generally free elsewhere. Just 16% of North American airline companies offered wi-fi during 2010 and $155 million was collected in charges for the service during 2011. However this is expected to increase to $225 million this year.