ISP News Archives for September 30, 2014

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) has told the Government to do more to improve Internet connectivity in Schools across the United Kingdom, after their annual survey of ICT capabilities found that poor WiFi provision was a “major problem” in 65% of primary and 54% of secondary schools. Meanwhile 42% of primary and 31% of secondary schools also considered themselves to be “under-resourced” in broadband provision.

The £15.47m state aid supported CSW Broadband scheme has today announced the next batch of areas that will be upgraded with access to BT’s “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network in Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire (England).

A new study of 1,770 Internet users in the United Kingdom, which was conducted by Tata Communications, has revealed that a desire for “light speed connectivity” came top of the list when respondents were asked for their thoughts on the most inspirational opportunity that the Internet will facilitate in the next 3-5 years.

The latest State of the Internet Q2-2014 report from Akamai has claimed that average world broadband Internet download speeds increased by an impressive 21% in Q2 to hit 4.6Mbps. By comparison the UK saw its performance jump by 12% to reach 11.1Mbps, making us the 16th fastest country (down from 15th in Q1); although our peak speeds rank a place higher.

Thousands of homes and businesses in the London boroughs of Croydon and Sutton have had their broadband and phone services disrupted after criminals pulled 140 metres worth of BT’s valuable copper telecoms cable out of the ground last week.

Customers of mobile giant EE (Everything Everywhere) will be pleased to know that the network operator has finally fixed the incorrect reporting of Mobile Broadband data usage, which resulted in some users being asked to upgrade or buy more data when they actually didn’t need to do so.

The potential security risks of accessing a public WiFi hotspot are nothing new and yet a new F-Secure study of consumers in London has discovered that many users are continuing to connect themselves, without first checking the hotspots validity, to so-called “poisoned” wireless Internet access points (designed to steal your data).

As expected BT has been chosen as the supplier for a £12.2 million Broadband Delivery UK based project in The Black Country (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton – England’s West Midlands), which aims to make fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) speeds available to 98% of local premises by mid-2017.