May 22, 2000 - May 29, 2000

News - May 29,2000

Visual Depth on Cut-Off Periods

By:mark @ 8:59:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

http://www.net4nowt.com have gotten word from Visual Depth about the imposed 2hour cut-off that wasn't there when 90% signed up:

"Our service does have an official cut off period of two hours, this applies to all accounts. However, we do have plans to implement stronger security systems therefore allowing us to either extend this or allow unrestricted access. We have seen what has happened to other ISP's such as Red Hot Ant when not implementing security measures correctly and we do not want this happening to Visual Depth.

The performance of our network is excellent at present and we would like to keep it this way and not begin implementing security measures after they have already happened."

VD's good, but it just goes to show that even an ISP trying to be perfect has to impose restrictions to keep their service level. So sadly VD have failed to be unique by imposing the cut-off, will nobody introduce an ISP without one or is this now becoming common practice?

News - May 28,2000

Fantasy ISP

By:Daniel @ 1:39:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As you may know Fantasy ISP was originally owned by Ashley Evans and me, we then sold it to British Bulldog Software and since we sold it they have been making Fantasy ISP all automated using cgi and perl scripts.

Anyway the new site is up and and you can sign up now.

Below is a quote from Fantasy ISP's website:
"If you ever thought your ISP is slow, has more problems than someone in your favourite TV soap and there services are the worst ever, then why not prove you can do better? Now with Fantasy ISP you can. Setup your own ISP, and for a 3 week you can control what happens and how it happens, add new services and features at a click of a button. The winner is the ISP with the most money at the end of the 3 weeks."

So what are you waiting for? Go to http://www.fantasyisp.com and sign up.

Remember keep to your budget while pleasing all your customers

ISPreview Weekly Update

By:mark @ 9:40:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

You know the staff rejoices on Sundays because they don't have to spend their time hunting down news nibbles. Indeed Sunday is considered a weekly holiday almost the world over. So before we disappear to sip from a glass of sangria or dive naked into a swimming pool, here's the weekly update =).

Attention is currently turned to look at all the news writer apps we have had and you should all get a reply sometime next week. On the other side of the fence are the ISP Listings, which are now being revamped and changed over the period of a few weeks according to reader's wishes.

That's basically it, other attention is on a WAP and AvantGO version of ISPreview, but that's not top priority right now. In general concentration has shifted to putting out more articles and reviews, something that should already be of notice to readers.

So have a nice (possibly wet) Sunday, the rest of us are off down the pub for a beer and some snacks to celebrate the fact we don't have to work =).

PS"We will increase the size of the text in the boxes on the main page this coming week, this should help out those ultra-res people"

News - May 27,2000

Visual Depth Offers..

By:zeon @ 5:54:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Latest VD News:

"As mentioned before we are now allowing current customers to refer new customers and claim a domain with us completely free of charge. This covers any domain of the customers choice including the suffix .CO.UK, .COM, .NET and .ORG. This covers the first two years registration fee and customers may use this domain free of charge with their 20MB of Web Space with us.

Also, We have a new improved sign up system allowing customers to sign up and have access within 48 hours when paying by Credit Card. We also accept Cheques and Postal Orders. Our web site is also on a new secure area now due to complaints when we were taking new customers previously"

The VD site can be found HERE

*Update*
The refer system works by the new customer filling in the form as usual but if they add the referrer's user name in the additional box on the sign up form, the customer will then be contacted and provided with a free domain.

VD have sent this to N4N:

"Our service does have an official cut off period of two hours, this applies to all accounts. However, we do have plans to implement stronger security systems therefore allowing us to either extend this or allow unrestricted access. We have seen what has happened to other ISP's such as Red Hot Ant when not implementing security measures correctly and we do not want this happening to Visual Depth.

The performance of our network is excellent at present and we would like to keep it this way and not begin implementing security measures after they have already happened."

More Unmetered Access After Ruling

By:zeon @ 8:59:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

An Oftel ruling means that BT has to let other companies such as AOL and MCI Worldcom supply unmetered access through its network from June 1st. This now means there is a possibility of AOL starting its own unmetered service.

There is a full article on it over at Yahoo News.

*Update*
The Oftel release can be found HERE

RedHotAnt on System Abuse

By:mark @ 8:27:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Ah yes, the obligatory http://www.redhotant.com newsletter has arrived in our mail and this week discusses 'System Abuse', something none of us really know much about:

"We have had many e--mails and calls from concerned ISN users requesting some information regarding, 'abuse of the system'. The most common question asked has been "What is abuse of the system?"

To answer this very important question, we have collated a few examples of what JAK Group, who own ISN, state in their 'Acceptable Use Policy'', which clearly defines 'abuse of the system'. Hopefully you can all relax knowing that you are not abusing our system.

The full text of the JAK Group Acceptable Use Policy is available here: http://www.internet-support.net/aup/

ILLEGAL USE.

The JAK Group network may be used only for lawful purposes. The transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or intellectual property right, used without proper authorisation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

It is important that the user is fully aware of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (UK). Any action that contravenes this act would result in immediate termination of the account and may be subject to legal action.

The user may not circumvent user authentication or security of any host network, or account (referred to as "cracking" or "hacking"), nor interfere with service to any user, host, or network. (Referred to as "Denial of service attacks").

WEB SPACE

When requesting web space from JAK Group you agree that the web space will not be used for any of the following purposes: -

To advertise, promote or in anyway encourage illegal activity of any description.
To suggest in any way, untruths or liable statements about another person, company or organisation. To display, publish or show in any other way, pornography of any description, either directly or indirectly. To deceive, by means of falsely representing another person, company or organisation by use of trademarks, logos or any other copyrighted information or material.

The user must fully understand that if any of the above are infringed upon then their account contained on the JAK Group server can and will be terminated, and the offending web site can and will be removed without any prior advisement or notification.

NETWORK SECURITY

Unauthorised access to, or use of data of, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network, or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network.

EMAIL

It is explicitly prohibited to send unsolicited bulk- mail messages, ("junk mail" or "Spam") of any kind, commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements) etc. Users may not forward or propagate chain letters nor malicious e-mail.

NEWSGROUPS

Excessive cross-posting, (i.e. posting the same article to large numbers of newsgroups), is forbidden. Posting of irrelevant material to newsgroups, (also known as USENET Spam), is also forbidden. Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup is forbidden.

This, by no means, covers all the 'Acceptable Use Policy' and users should go to: http://www.internet-support.net/aup/ to view all the actions prohibited by the JAK Group."

So pardon our arrogance (if there is any) but when an ISP limits the connection hours because of 'System Abuse', what on earth does abuse have to do with global limiting of system hours!? That's the question we wanted answers to but it's now clear the limiting the hours has nothing to do with system abuse in the 'official manor'.

Instead of helping to clear things up, RHA have cleverly managed to interject an increased level of confusion =). It would seem to us that ISPs are hiding behind the official 'System Abuse' word, something that still doesn't explain what abuse is related to the limiting of hours.

"Hopefully you can all relax knowing that you are not abusing our system."

It's obvious really, we all know they limit hours because their system can't handle it and it would mean more money being spent to increase capacity if they didn't. Considering the above quote, shouldn't we now see an increase of hours (after another upgrade, obviously)? So many words and so little space, you guys can make some comments as I'm going back to bed =).

Snooping Websurfers HD

By:mark @ 8:10:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Remember that article we did on 'ISP Censorship' just recently? Remember how we mentioned that the government could monitor you in more ways that you thought possible? Well Yahoo News have become one of the first to get some more information on the problem:

"Plans to allow the security services to monitor Internet traffic will not create an all- seeing cyberspace spy, the government has said.

Civil liberties groups have said the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) bill would give police free rein to snoop on Internet users and could lead to people being jailed for forgetting their computer passwords.

But the government said the bill only updates police powers to intercept and monitor communications, bringing them up to speed with increasingly techno-savvy criminals.

"We've seen the growth of very strong encryption codes, virtually unreadable in fact, which are good for e- commerce security but can be used in other ways," a Home Office spokesman said.

"Criminals are innovators, and paedophiles, for example, could disguise their activities thorugh encryption."

He confirmed that people who refused to reveal encryption keys to police -- allowing them to read coded information -- could face a two-year jail sentence under the bill.

FORGETFULNESS NOT A CRIME

"The police have to prove the encryption key was deliberately withheld," the spokesman said.

"We're not talking about people going to prison for forgetting passwords."

The bill had its second reading on Thursday in the House of Lords and should go to a final reading in mid- June, the spokesman said.

Home Secretary Jack Straw introduced the bill earlier this year to a chorus of disapproval, mainly over its power to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to grant police access to a huge amount of information on internet users."

It's scary stuff, the strange thing is that despite the bill not going through yet, some ISPs already have the technology installed AND RUNNING on YOU. This was learned around a month ago and still stands today because we have not heard otherwise.

I'd don't agree with the whole principal on offer here but I can understand them wanting to give security forces greater power. After all, other than the obvious, who wouldn't be happy if they could catch more hackers and stop more paedophiles?

However as with everything political, the government never manage to reassure us that they actually know what they're doing =). We need restrictions that say they can't even so much as look at our DataStream unless they have enough evidence to do so, just like in real life. The obvious problem is that this new bill has no such restrictions and unless it does then we should all oppose it. Comments please.. (should be good)

News - May 26,2000

BT enjoy being 'Always On'

By:mark @ 4:43:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Wouldn't it be nice if your mobile could remain connected to the Internet without excessive charges being incurred? Yes it sure would and BT are about to introduce a system to do just that according to this 'Yahoo News' article:

"The world's first application of "always-on" mobile Internet technology will link travelling salespeople to their desktop PCs starting next month, BT Cellnet said.

BT's mobile operator is introducing GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology in the form of a small card that plugs into a laptop to give it a permanent connection to the Internet.

Cellnet is offering the technology, which it will later use in fast mobile Internet phones, to companies that need to link travelling executives to their corporate computers.

BT will charge a monthly subscription to the service, which goes live on June 26, based on the amount of data downloaded. It has been running trials with companies including Halifax bank and retailer Littlewoods."

Ignore my total lack of information regarding WAP and Mobiles, but I can't see why you couldn't just change the WAP technology into a 'teletext' style system for phones?

Of course the answer is simple, money, but what ever happened to good old-fashioned consumer satisfaction? Still the new system sounds good, although you could have a better time connecting to a FreeCall ISP (supported) through a colour WinCE PDA using a GSM system =).

Unmetered support, or lack of

By:mark @ 4:34:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We'd really like to know what you 'our readers' think about the dire situation with support from unmetered ISPs? Do you think its got out of hand or doesn't it bother you in the slightest?

ISPs such as EzeSurf are wonderful for service and speeds, however come to change your 'Caller Line ID' or ring support and there's NO CHANCE. Likewise, trying to get a reply via E-Mail is a little like making a whole in some stone with your finger as the hammer.

This is something that 80-90% of unmetered ISPs echo and we think it's about time they stopped this nonsense and got their act together. So the question is, what do you think? Some of your comments may be used in a future article.

RedHotAnt cooling off again?

By:mark @ 4:27:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In the last week the number of http://www.redhotant.com complaints seems to have steadily been picking up. In fact even we noticed a degrade in service quality over the last 7-14 days, more engaged tones and once all the kiddies get home at around 4:30pm, the situation worsens.

Bandwidth may not be perfect but the brunt of complaints is to do with engage tones, try connecting on or after 10pm and it's next to impossible. One user said:

"ISDN is usually pretty good on RHA and avoids most of the engaged tones but recently its been getting worse again. I get back from work at 6pm and getting connected is just nightmare."

Another goes on the point out:

"Why are people allowed to offer services this bad, if it wasn't an unmetered ISP then we'd all be even more angry, why should we even have to distinguish. I mean shouldn't we be able to expect the same quality from an unmetered as we do a standard ISP? No sense in offering an unusable service."

We tried contacting RHA and as yet have received no reply; hopefully RHA will add some more terminals before things degrade further.

New Listings - LIVE!

By:mark @ 4:13:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Well it took quite awhile to put together, but our new listings section is on-line. We've got a special section for 'FreeCall' ISPs that covers the details such as 'cut off times', 'tech support numbers' and 'service comments' that nobody else really does, alongside all the usual stuff.

Right now the main FREE (0845) and Subscription ISP sections are off-line yet viewable in their old form. This is because it may be awhile before a totally automated system is installed to deal with them (one is in the works). Most of you have no idea how much work goes into putting such large lists together and this is just a 'spare time job' =).

We hope you find the new listings section and unmetered list (manually updated unmetered list due to the extensive details involved) useful, we even learned a few things while doing it:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/list.shtml

LibertySurf Problems Being Resolved?

By:mark @ 2:53:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Our good friends @ http://www.net4nowt.com have clearly been watching to much Teletext of late as they have found this update from the as yet 'not 100% operational' ISP LibertySurf:

"The rush to get the LibertySurf offer has meant that some people have not been able to get through to our helpline and we would like to apologise to them for this.

This is obviously a great concern and we are therefore more than doubling the number of people manning our phones. We will also have a new helpline number available today which will greatly increase our capacity - this will be given to consumers immediately when they call the existing technical line."

There's quite a bit more where that came from, it's also worth pointing out some confusion surrounding LS. While the off-peak package IS LIVE, the 24/7 unmetered one doesn't come into action until the 29th May, something quite a few people haven't noticed on their site.

This can explain some of the problems and the update above helps explain some more, it just hasn't explained everything yet =(

Will prices fall after Unbundling?

By:Ross14 @ 1:43:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Unbundling the local loop has been an issue that most of us have known about since last year. What it means in short is that BT will be forced to open local exchanges to rival operators. This would mean that operators would be able to provide cheaper services to the consumer.

But, an article in ZDnetUK says that experts believe that prices may not fall. Here is a snippet from the article:

On Wednesday, the telecommunications watchdog Oftel, announced that operators will pay £105 per year per customer to rent a line from BT. According to Ovum analyst Tim Johnson, this is a standard price but represents just a fraction of the total cost of taking over the local loop.

"The real issue is the co-location costs," says Johnson. "Compared to what BT is talking about as a wholesale price for DSL, it is pretty fair but operators will have in invest in co-location. They will have to pay for equipment, pay for the facility and pay a connection charge per line, which will be at least £230."

Johnson believes that with these additional costs, the likelihood of prices falling is slim, at least in the short term.

You can read the rest HERE.

Hopefully, prices will go down for the consumer, as Oftel hopes. But, as with all things, we usually have to wait and see.

New News Editors Update

By:mark @ 9:43:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Just to let you know that we are looking through all the offers, however we do things in an A - Z fashion and right now the new listings section is at A with new members being at B. Hopefully at least part of the new listings page will go on-line today, that's if I can get this bandage off my typing finger after a cat injury =(

BT Cutting Cords

By:mark @ 9:40:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Register is reporting that BT has made quite a serious error after they cut a mains telephone cable. Apparently some 2,500 BT customers were without phones due to the incident:

"Around 2,500 BT customers were left without a telephone service after a cable-cutting blunder.

BT said it had been working "flat out" to repair the cable, which was severed on Wednesday afternoon, affecting users in the Milton Keynes area. It declined to reveal if the damage had been caused by a worker at a rival telecomms company or by one of its own lackeys.

According to BT, the cable was unlikely to be fixed until late yesterday evening- depriving local businesses of phone or Internet services for around 36 hours."

Seems to us as though this is the first "CUT" of any kind that BT has made in a long time =). Just a pity they used high-pressure wire cutters and not an accounting package.

News - May 25,2000

Cableinet Problems

By:zeon @ 9:41:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

All the POPs in the Midlands have gone down and the Cableinet website appears to be very slow. Here is the bit from their status:

"We are currently investigating some routing issues the
may be affecting service in the midlands.

We will post an update when more information becomes
available."

From looking at the Cableinet status page they always seem to be having problems.

UK Internet ahead of the rest?

By:mark @ 6:29:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Yahoo News has got wind of an interesting article about how the UK Internet does in comparison to the rest of Europe and some of America.

Apparently we are not only the cheapest for home Internet, but also for Mobile phones. Pity the survey didn't take into account the entire USA, but still:

"Internet access costs households less in the UK than in France, Germany or California, but British businesses are worse off, according to the UK's telecoms regulator.

A survey of telecoms prices showed the UK was also cheapest for mobile phone use but of average expense for fixed-line business calls, Oftel said.

It was the cheapest place for residential Internet access for both off-peak and peak rate surfing, said Oftel, quoting an independent survey that also included Sweden and Ohio.

"The UK's increasingly competitive telecoms market is delivering some of the lowest prices for all residential consumers," Director General of Telecommunications David Edmonds said in a statement.

The survey, by telecoms consultants Teligen, found 10 hours a month of off- peak access was 20 percent more expensive in the next cheapest country, Sweden, and 2.4 times as costly in California.

Ohio was slightly cheaper for 10 hours of peak-rate surfing, but 30 percent more expensive for 20 hours.

Business users paid considerably more in the UK than in Sweden and Ohio, and only Germany charged more."

Well sounds good, what we'd like to see is a survey of who offers the best speeds and services, hmm wonder what results that might bring =)?

NTL Unmetered Update

By:mark @ 9:28:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today it's also the turn of NTL to throw together a service update, thanks to 'Dan.B' for passing it along:

"Dear ntlworld customer,

I am extremely sorry that you are still waiting for your ntlworld disc. You deserve an explanation for why we are in this unsatisfactory position and I want to tell you what we are doing to resolve it.

We are having huge demand in some parts of the country - especially from our existing telephone customers. Hindsight is a great thing, and we now know that all of our research had underestimated how many people would want ntlworld. The number of people wanting to go online for the first time using ntlworld has caught us out especially.

To meet demand in some areas of the country, we need to get even more network capacity. We are working very hard to do this but the speed it can be done varies area by area. Because of this we have been sending out thousands of discs a week on a postcode by postcode basis. So some people have to wait longer than expected, while people in other parts of the country get a disc quickly. We have been working flat out for the last 5 months to be ready for the launch of ntlworld and continue to invest more than £1 million each and every day to make our network capacity match the hotspots of demand for ntlworld. I apologise unreservedly that these efforts have not proved enough for you - just yet.

We took a decision to control the number of discs sent out at any one time to a level that guarantees a high level of service to customers using ntlworld. It would have been very easy to launch an unreliable service - but we chose not to, because first and foremost people told us they wanted a high quality service. For the thousands of customers who have been using the service they have found it excellent and reliable. But I know this does not make you feel any better if you are still waiting for the service. Now that the picture is becoming clearer of how many people actually register their disc, when and for how long they go online, we will be doing everything in our power to bring on customers more quickly.

I'm sorry that I cannot provide you with a date when you will get your registration disc. I will keep all people who have pre-registered for ntlworld updated by email or letter on the progress until such time that they have a disc. We are in the process of doing what no other company has been able to do - to make accessing and using the Internet free for all. This is a mammoth task but we are well on the way.

Believe me, we are doing all we can to improve the situation as fast as is humanly and technically possible. You will receive a registration disc, in due course, and I hope to welcome you to the service soon. Bear with us and I assure you it will be worth it.

Robin Melvin
Head of Customer Communications
ntl"

Some customers have been quite pleased with NTLs FreeCall ISP, while others have been utterly frustrated. Same old excuses under a different name, nothing ISPreview doesn't hear of from every other ISP time and time again. At least things seem to be moving, don't they?

Vd Update

By:Daniel @ 12:17:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As you all probably know i haven't posted much lately. This is due to me being busy with my GCSE's but Visual depth emailed me this intresting bit if news

"95% of all customers are now connected to the service and we predict that the remaining customers will have access to our service
within the next 48 hours.

Therefore we are now allowing new customers referred by current customers or from our mailing list to subscribe to the service. If you refer a customer to us we will register a domain of your choice absolutely free of charge which can be connected with you inclusive 20 MB of Web Space. Please go to https://www.secured-space.com/Inpay/ for further details and a sign up form. When referring a customer, please make sure the customer includes your username on the additional section on the bottom of the order form and a representative will e-mail you with the relevant details regarding your free domain."

We think this is a very good deal that they are offering lets hope they can cope with the demand.

News - May 24,2000

General Site Update

By:mark @ 8:39:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

*UPDATE*
BBC have now pulled the article.

I don't care if all you're interested in is ISP news because you just have to read this BBC article! =):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_759000/759529.stm/

"UK technology enthusiasts have found a way to power a computer using potatoes.

The computer fans, who run a website called Temple ov thee Lemur, decided to build the spud server because someone bet them that it could not be done.

Although science kits that power a digital clock off a potato or two are available, few people have tried anything larger.

Steve Harris, spokesman for the group, said to lighten the load on the potato power pack the group had first to make a low power version of a web server."

Kudos to anybody who can make it this far without at least exerting a slight facial change that could be construed as a crude smile =). I suggest you read the full article, had me in stitches and since it's not April 1st I intend to try it on an even older computer! (Not enough potatoes you see) hehe, doubt it can play Quake3 though =(.

On a side note, whoooo look out as we are about to pass 300,000 visitors, not the 500,000 target we have set but always good to see another 100K floating by.

Buzzline Status Update No.2

By:mark @ 8:31:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Thanks go out to 'Richard.C' for sending us in yet another Buzzline update, it's a long one so we'll just cut to the chase:

"Firstly please accept our apologies for the delay in connecting you to our service. We do not want to make excuses but, the response from what we deliberately sought to make a low-key launch has been tremendous. We are connecting people as fast as we can, but we have had some technical problems to overcome at the same time.

We are now hoping to clear our current backlog within the next 2 weeks (by 7 June 2000).

We have had some complaints from customers regarding our charging their card before we are ready to connect them. We would like to take the opportunity of addressing this issue now. From lunchtime today we will only be accepting sign-ups on the basis that cards will not be debited until connection day. Please note if your card has been debited, your 12 months online will start from the day you are connected.

If you feel that the wait is excessive you may cancel your application
and, if your card has been debited, we will refund your money. Simply
email admin@buzzline.co.uk putting Cancellation in the subject box.

We do hope however that you will give us the chance to put this situation right.

We believe that our service offers excellent value for money and will make a pledge that if, upon connection, you find our service unsatisfactory simply cancel within the first month and still receive a full refund.

We will keep you advised of developments"

No comments from us this time around, if you have any then feel free to post away and let us know.

BT Announce Business Unmetered Packages

By:mark @ 4:10:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Unofficially any business can get unmetered access, however today BT have become to the first to announce an official one. Yahoo News is reporting that the package is a derivative of the HOME BTSurftime ones and will launch at the same time:

"British Telecommunications has announced retail prices for fully unmetered Internet access for the first time, saying it would charge business customers 31.99 pounds a month for unlimited surfing.

The dial-up service will be launched on June 1, and BT said an equivalent package for residential customers should be available around the same time.

BT has so far announced only an off-peak deal for home users, charging 9.99 pounds for unlimited nighttime and weekend use and two pence a minute at other times. A similar deal for business customers will cost 17.99 pounds and one pence a minute during the day.

The products are based on Surftime rates set by BT's wholesale arm. BT's residential ISP has not yet unveiled a package based on the unlimited Surftime deal, but if it priced in the same way as the off-peak scheme it is likely to cost 23.99 pounds a month."

You can read the rest @ Yahoo News and so finally business users can now get unmetered through their ISDN/Analogue lines, not that it'll be a huge amount of use at those speeds.

Visual Depth Update

By:mark @ 4:04:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Although I think we might have a similar mail in our box, you can always trust Net4Nowt to break up a slow news day and provide some welcome 'text' relief. This time N4N have received an E-Mail update from Visual Depth about the slow adding of subscribers to their system:

"We have now connected over 82% of all customers and we have received very good responses and comments from those who have access to the service a lot of which are related to the speed and connectivity of the service. We have now opened a secure ordering form for new customers to sign up, however this URL has only been given to people within our mailing list at present to help stop a big surge of customers therefore stopping us from accepting new customers again. However, we predict that the On-Line ordering form will be accessible from our web site on Friday providing all goes well.

Also, customers have complained about our lines at technical support always being busy so we are introducing double lines over the next 2-3 days therefore making sure people can get through, but their holding times will be longer."

So, still very similar to the last update a few days ago, things seem on-track and once everybody has been added then we might get around to reviewing them. Right now the only 'true' complaint is that VD have officially imposed a 2hr cut-off, something a lot of people who joined them joined because they thought that would never happen. Do you think it's fair to impose such limits AFTER allowing people to sign-up? Comments..

Buzzline Problems

By:mark @ 3:57:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Net4Nowt have been in touch with the Buzzline ISP who are currently causing some concern among new subscribers. Complaints vary from people paying the money but getting no account details, to the support staff not picking up phones:

"We have been in touch with Buzzline and they have assured us that they will be activating accounts as soon as possible. They hope to keep the delay down to 5 working days, but have been inundated with applications.

They will also be looking to employ more staff to handle the backlog, although a few accounts have been activated already.

For those who haven’t yet received sign-up details and are unhappy with the delay, they will refund your credit card if you email them. Buzzline will also be emailing everyone soon to let you know what the latest situation is."

As usual there's more where that came from, but you get the gist of things. The best advice is not to sign-up with 'Buzzline' until all their customers have been added and the service activates fully. In fact the same advice should be used for all NEW Unmetered/FreeCall ISPs.

Wap / HandHeld / PalmSize ISPreview?

By:mark @ 11:39:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Since there isn't much in the way of news today (complaints page is always updated though hehe), we thought we might take a few moments to ask some of our readers a little question. We are interested in knowing how many of you use or would be interested in a version of ISPreview for PDAs and Wap Mobiles?

Please only post a comment if you would be so as to avoid cross-conversation. We already have AvantGO (PP/PPC) and PocketIE (for PocketPC PDA's [WinCE3]) under consideration but will hinge any decisions on the response to this news item, post away.

News - May 23,2000

Care4free cut-prices

By:Ross14 @ 9:37:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Charity ISP Care4free has jumped onto the "bandwagon" of cheap Net calls by offering flat rate, 1p per min surfing from July.

Kelvin Trott, the Managing Director of Care4free said, "We studied closely the various new telephony deals announced by ISPs earlier this year and found them extremely confusing -- consumers really need to read the small print before committing themselves. We felt that a simple and easy-to-understand offering was desperately needed."

The good thing is that surfing with Care4free means your giving money to charity without even noticing it.

Source: ZDNet UK

Breathe.Net Improves

By:mark @ 6:27:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Breathe.Net ISP didn't start out to well with a fair few complaints about speed and connections, however things seem to be on the up. So far three people have contact us saying the service is now improving after a slight bandwidth upgrade and the addition of some more Modems.

ISPreview would like to hear the comments of ANYONE who uses the service to see if this improvement is global or not. It's certainly good to see unmetered ISPs actually getting better for a change, post away =).

Uk Business Internet Update

By:mark @ 6:06:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Business Internet sent us along an update on their current and future states, short but useful:

"Good News ... we are going to be offering ADSL access as a part of our new product line up. This alongside our 0845 "free" dial-up, unmetered 24/7, design, hosting and promotions services will allow us to become an even larger player in the small business targeted ISP market.

We have read your review of our site and although 7 out of 10 isn't bad, once the new ADSL and Un-Metered service comes online we shall improve the site to include better design/layout and small business news, features, etc. Other changes are in the pipeline, some good and some not so good ... a change in backbone provider will hopefully see an improved service from UK Business Internet in the not too distant future."

We wish them good luck and are waiting on yet another unmetered service, the more of these things we get the better the competition. Maybe then some unmetered ISPs will finally concentrate on improving services to attract more customers.

Complaints Section Update

By:mark @ 12:31:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've updated the complaints section yet again, we've had 40 complaints since Sunday and all those have gone into the page. CallNet0800 has finally made enough complaints to make it into the list as well =[ and Excite0800 (TheFreeInternet) is currently, 'The Most Complained About ISP'.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtml

*Update*
We also updated some reviews and introduced a new comments layout as well as increased the news post width, just some general information.

Forum Problems

By:mark @ 11:27:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The forum is a complex mass of auto-added CGIs and files, at the moment it consumes thousands of files and as such we always expected the server move would have an undesired affect on it. We are aware that some people have lost their accounts (hosters fault, not ours) and that in some areas, new forum posts don't appear.

We are working to resolve these issues but it's looking increasingly likely that we might have to start from scratch with it; we'll keep you informed.

PlusNet GO 24/7 Unmetered

By:mark @ 9:59:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

PlusNET, the people who supply Force9's bandwidth (could be a bad thing?) have gone unmetered. They are offering 24/7 access through; yes you guessed it, BT Surftime:

WHAT IS IT?
Get unlimited Internet calls at any time every month for only £9.99 (inc VAT) per month.
You will also need to subscribe to BT SurfTime which Costs £19.99 (inc VAT) per month.

WHAT DO YOU GET?
This account includes the following features:

Unlimited Internet calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
Unlimited Email addresses (whatever@yourname.plus.com)
Unlimited Webspace
eCommerce facility
CGI bin / Unix Shell
Fax2email
Unified messaging
Dedicated games servers
Web based Email
Support for Microsoft Frontpage extensions
24 hour technical support
Full uncensored newsfeed with over 58000 newsgroups
Static IP
Web stats
MySQL/PHP4/Perl

You can sign-up HERE and PlusNET also have a special offer on the go of £5.99 for the first three months if you are among the first 50,000.

Just remember that Force9's bandwidth is supplied by PlusNET and F9 hasn't exactly been providing top quality service of late according to all the complaints we are getting. It's also not looking as though BTSurftime 24/7 is such a good offer in comparison to all the other ISPs around, however it'll need a month or two before we can truly know.

BTSurftime Update

By:mark @ 9:50:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Contradictory to what has been posted below (slightly corrected) and seen on other websites, BTInternets offer is not all of BT Surftime. For a start BT Surftime(2) has been officially announced for two months on the http://www.bt.com website, so it's hardly new. Secondly BTInternet is not directly linked to BT as they constantly say (despite the obvious cross-add campagin on TV).

BTI are simply making use of one of the three possible Surftime2 packages that has been announced by so many others. This does not mean that Surftime excludes a 24/7 option because it does exist, but only to be taken up by ISPs that see fit to. BTSurftime packages officially go live on 1stJune'2000 in a couple of weeks, at which time around 20ISPs will launch their BTS based packages.

Remember, it's up to the ISP how they price the packages and what services are on offer.

News - May 22,2000

BTInternet Surftime

By:zeon @ 9:47:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

BTInternet's Surftime Offer...

"£9.99 per month, charged to your BT phone bill.

Free Internet call access every evening (6.00pm - 8.00am) and all weekend, as well as 2p per minute call access at all other times.

BT Internet with SurfTime is only available to customers with a BT phone line.

Subject to availability, please phone 0800 800 150 to check.

The BT Internet with SurfTime charge is comprised of a £4 BT Internet subscription and £5.99 SurfTime tariff per month.

Outside free access hours all call charges are subject to a 5p per minute minimum."

One reader Charles has pointed out the lack of 24/7. It seems BT aren't going to offer it? It might have actually put less strain on their servers and made a better service.

*UPDATE*
It appears I may have confused some of you the info was from http://www.btinternet.com/surftime/ which makes no mention of them offering 24/7 surftime option, as other ISP's are doing.

Visual Depth Update

By:mark @ 3:08:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Visual Depth were kind enough to send us a little service update, we'll print the part that's of public interest only:

"We hope to begin accepting new customers again before the end of the week and this will not affect out performance. A few customers have had problems with 128K ISDN, however we are resolving these problems as quickly as possible. The problem only seems to occur within Windows 98 Version 2."

By Win98 v2 we guess he means Windows98SE, as version2 is also the more technical title for WindowsME (Millennium, due July'2000), which we are testing.

Once VD are open for business we will start our review, so far we have been waiting because it's not appropriate to review an ISP before its service fills up.

New Articles @ ISPreview

By:mark @ 1:52:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've just put up two new articles to help with some interesting areas of the Internet:

Speed up IE5 Browsing:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/browsing/
A look at several basic methods as well as one newly discovered 'registry hack' that will help improve browsing speeds.

Unmetered ISP Options:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/articles/currentunmetered.shtml
We take a look at the current spate of UK unmetered ISPs and help you to make a choice between them.

Hope you enjoy the read, note that we couldn't get ALL the unmetered ISPs into the last article as we forgot a couple; it's good enough though.