October 6, 2000 - October 11, 2000

News - October 11,2000

Oftels Unmetered Report

By:mark.j @ 1:50:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Not long ago Oftel began an investigation into UK unmetered net access and the outcome of that is to be published in a report this week! So far nobody knows whether the report will swing in BT's favour or the consumer/ISPs - either would have a dramatic impact:

An Oftel technical committee had been charged with carrying out a technical inspection of BT’s regional exchanges that are core to the arguments over whether BT is able to charge operators unmetered rates for traffic passing through its network. The lack of such a payment package has led various operators, including AltaVista and LineOne to abandon their unmetered access packages.

BT has continually maintained that it is unable to charge operators flat rates for traffic travelling between its local exchange and its regional exchanges because of concerns that its network will be flooded by calls to the internet: metered access will allow it to predict and pre-order capacity in order to better control the flow of traffic through these regional exchanges. Because of BT’s concerns, it has only proposed a wholesale hybrid FRIACO (Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination) payment plan that will allow operators to pay flat rate fees from homes to the local exchanges with metered access further into its network. This option has been rejected by most of the industry apart from WorldCom, which wants fully unmetered charges throughout the network.

Oftel’s technical report is expected to decide whether BT’s concerns are justified. Should its technical committee disagree with BT, many operators will be expected to launch more viable unmetered access packages.

The article @ NetImperative also goes to a good length of explaining how AOL is able to offer such a low priced unmetered service. In fact this entire article is worth a read and we are deeply looking forward to the report itself.

Of course Oftel is just as likely to swing in BT's favour and help fuel the fire against them both. We'll just have to wait and see, fingers crossed.

FRIACO Status Update

By:mark.j @ 11:06:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Currently the only ISP to actually have any kind of FRIACO access is AOL, while many others are forced to wait. FRIACO itself is actually active on around 70% of exchanges, however ISPs have to wait for their side of the kit before it can be used.

We last predicted that from an official Point of View (POV), the needed ISP/Telco side FRIACO gear would start arriving on 1st October 2000 and thus see ISPs go live around mid October at the earliest. On the other hand ISPs such as ClaraNet and several others claim December or early 2001 is more likely.

Well the good news is two of our internal sources now say that the needed kit will arrive in a matter of days (slightly late). One such ISP that's missed many dates (NoCallFee) is finally sure they can go live on October 16th.

Quite what dates other Telco's and ISPs have been given we're not sure, but it does indeed look like things are finally starting to move for some. We'll keep you updated as we hear more.

Half of Net Users Fear Insecure Sites

By:mark.j @ 10:59:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to research just published this morning, nearly half of all net users are put off websites due to questions over security. When asked to enter credit card information or personal details, most will just click away:

The research, commissioned by e-commerce firm Equifax, says 47 percent of those questioned have clicked away from a Web site when asked to enter credit card information. Eighty-seven percent of those admitted they it was due to concerns over security.

The statistic follows a spate of high profile Web attacks or security blunders from high profile names including Powergen and BT. The research suggests Internet shoppers have taken note of the incidents, preferring to put their trust in traditional means of spending their money.

The article @ ZDNet is also an interesting contrast against a similar survey we did, which seems to claim nearly the opposite:

[How do you feel about Online transactions?]
Happy to use them 62.3% - (319 Votes)
Little nervous 25.1% - (129 Votes)

However we'd have to say that people taking note of recent security problems means there is a growing awareness of such issues. Nothing can be 100% secure, but if you look at most online security systems (even some banks), they are totally out of date.

Perhaps now people will start to see this and some kind of mandatory standards will be set for commercial companies, we'll have to wait and see. As an example, many still use 32Bit and 64Bit encryption (just one area of many), when 128Bit and the newer 256Bit are modern day.

BT Delays SDSL Trials

By:mark.j @ 10:42:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

SDSL is touted as an alternative to ADSL and one, which Redstone Telecom has already invested in. The idea being that SDSL bypasses enough of the BT exchange to be sold for more competitive prices, unlike ADSL, which remains firmly held by BT.

Of course in typical BT fashion NOTHING is ever on time and crucially important trials have now been delayed. Knowing BT we might never see SDSL until the entire LLU process is done and ADSL is everywhere anyway, mark our words - anti-competitive:

Plans for an SDSL trial were announced in August but internal communications within BT’s various departments, including BT Wholesale have revealed this week that the trial had been set back. BT has blamed its suppliers for the change of schedule saying that standards for SDSL, which guarantees the same data rate in both directions, has only just been ratified by ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

Neil Armstrong, broadband product marketing manager for BT Ignite, BT’s IP services division said: "We are experiencing some trouble getting the equipment from our suppliers. We are working with them to rectify the situation. Our suppliers have to develop kit in our exchanges using the standard."

The trials were due to have begun at the start of next year. According to Armstrong, there have been a large number of requests to trial the new service. He said: "There have been more applications than we will be able to fit people on the trial."

The article @ NetImperative doesn't say it, but you could assume the high interest in SDSL denotes people’s upset at ADSL. Further down the line we also have FSDSL, but if BT has it's way most of you reading this will be around 60-100 years old by then =).

Oh not to mention Aliens will have made contact and we'll all be using ULTRA Modems or something like that. All the while BT still touting ADSL =).

News - October 10,2000

1,000,000 & Counting

By:mark.j @ 4:37:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Only a few minutes ago the counter rolled over from the 999,000 range and onto 1,000,000. That's 1,000,000 unique hits since about 1 year and three or four months ago. No prizes for the 1 Millionth visitor as there are always quite a few people on the site at any one time (including me).

In terms of pageviews, that's around an estimated 3,000,000. From hear on there are no more real targets and its back to work as usual, although we'll say another word @ 1,500,000 =).

Liberal Democrats Hacked

By:mark.j @ 2:33:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Trouble for the Labour Party this lunchtime as The Independent Newspaper reports they hacked into Lib Dem E-Mails =).

The breach was discovered during an inquiry into a leak to The Guardian. The source of the information was traced back to a Labour party employee who allegedly read one of the emails concerned.

The newspaper quotes the memo that warns of security breaches: "We do know the Guardian leak was the product of a parliamentary email hack (Labour was the culprit) and alert you to continuing problems with the security of the network."

The article @ The Register shows us that even government officials can break the law (like we didn't know that already!), but as usual they will no doubt get off scott free!

Watch TV On Your PC & PAY

By:mark.j @ 2:28:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

For years now some boffins have got away with not paying their TV license by using PC TV cards, your PC not technically being a TV you see? However thanks to the advent of broadband and video on demand it looks like the BBC could be finding more ways to make money:

But now, adds the Post Office's Michael Collins of their Customer Services department, "If your computer is capable of receiving live broadcasts, whether on-line, through an aerial or satellite dish, then it is classed as television receiving equipment..." You're OK if you already have a TV licence, but what about companies where staff are ogling Paxperson online?

"Your point concerning all on-line users requiring a licence maybe incorrect as a licence is only required if individuals use their PCs to receive programme services (i.e. Newsnight)," replied Mr Hardwell. "If (even though they have the capability) the individual chooses never to access such programme services a licence will not be necessary."

And, just in case you were wondering how on earth they'll know you're watching the news online, Mr Hardwell adds, "Finally our detection equipment is capable of picking up television reception via computer. And no, the BBC do not look at IP addresses for licence fee evasion."

So if you're getting TV over the Internet and watching it with 'intent', that means you have to pay =(. The article @ The Register also mentions that a way around this is to use an LCD monitor, which can't be detected.

Raw deal if you're not even getting TV from the UK and instead via ADSL from say - Iraq, what's the case in that circumstance?

ISPreview Site Update

By:mark.j @ 2:09:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We're only around 1,400 visits away from the big 1,000,000 mark; still that's not the reason for the update. Nope, just letting you know that we've done a big update to the broadband listings and unmetered listings.

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

Richard (Zeon) has also placed our joint (The Scream!) World Online interview into the usual ISPreview format and that can be found here:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/articles/wolqa.shtml

On top of that if you fancy learning about two of our new staff (possibly a third soon) then have a look in the 'about' section:

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

After all that it's time for a late lunch and some beer at the local pub =).

BT Poaching Customers, allege Demon.

By:Rob.W @ 1:41:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Demon are alleging that BT are poaching customers by telling them that Demon will not be offering an unmetered Surftime package, ZDNet are reporting.

Speaking at TMA 2000 Monday, a Demon spokeswoman said: "BT has been advising customers that we won't be offering SurfTime and this has led to a loss of customers. We are seeking legal counsel on that," she said.
You can read the rest of the article at ZDNet.

If Demons case can be proven, this is going to be another example of how BT are using their position of power and trust to mislead net users, but it will be interesting to see if BT are really at fault, and if this has anything to do with the announcement that Demon unmetered Surftime service is being delayed, reported by Zeon on October 8th.

BT Not To Be Broken UP?

By:mark.j @ 10:43:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Yesterday we saw BT's finance director quite and spokesmen claiming BT would be broken up, a combined force that saw share prices rocket. Yet today we're starting to hear exactly the opposite out of the BT camp.

The Times Newspaper claims that BT Chief Executive Peter Bonfield had once again ruled out a break-up of the group and a merger with U.S. giant AT&T. This in turn helped douse a burst of interest in the stock, pulling it down 16p (2.2%) to 720p early this morning.

The comments dented hopes that incoming finance chief Philip Hampton raised the chances of a shareholder/friendly corporate dismemberment. Or as Peter himself puts it:

"Hampton's expertise in the restructuring of British Gas will be useful. But this is a very different industry and a different regulatory point of view"

There is nothing new in this kind of behaviour, it seems to be a tactic companies use just to get a rise. Well it works doesn't it?

Irish BT Tastes Its Own Medicine

By:mark.j @ 10:34:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Ireland is somewhat different from the UK when it comes to Telco's, although BT is stationed there; it's Eircom that runs the game. So try to imagine a situation where the Irish telco takes longer than BT over LLU (Local Loop Unbundling):

Neil Parkinson, chief executive of Irish telco and BT subsidiary Esat, has gone on record moaning about Eircom dragging its feet over local loop unbundling.

In an interview with the Sunday Business Post he said: "Eircom should not be blocking development either for corporate or residential consumers but it is hindering access to leased lines, which is damaging the economy at the end of the day."

The article @ The Register just goes to show that sometimes what goes around comes around. Although this is hardly going to have any impact in the UK itself =(.

DPA Hits Back @ E-Mail Monitoring

By:mark.j @ 10:25:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Over the last few weeks a wave of civil liberty’s groups and of course the now lawful human rights act have hit back at a controversial E-Mail monitoring system. Today it's the turn of the Data Protection Act:

The government's new rules on employers being allowed to monitor their staff's email have been contradicted by the Data Protection Commissioner Elizabeth France, who intends to produce a Code of Practice condemning it.

Patricia Hewitt, ecommerce minister, said people were making a fuss about nothing, saying that businesses would still have to operate within "limits they must not go over, such as intercepting personal calls for unjustified scurrilous interest". Lizzy France is having none of it. Good lass.

She says that routine monitoring of staff is likely to go too far and should be used only as a last resort. She also feels that emails that are "clearly personal" should never be opened and all staff should be made aware that monitoring is going on. Covert monitoring should only be used in order to detect or prevent a crime.

The article @ The Register sights the key concern that we all have over this and RIP, the obvious potential for abuse. Without any regulation everything could so easily swing out of control, not that you should be sending personal E-Mails during work anyway =).

Ultra FAST Broadband

By:mark.j @ 10:16:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Thanks to a new method of transmitting information with pulse lasers on a point-to-point basis, business and potentially even consumers could soon find ultra fast broadband alternatives only a step away:

PAV Data Systems Ltd has unveiled plans to rollout a wireless broadband network across Europe over the coming months. The service is to provide access to UUNET fibre at speeds of up to 150Mbps, although the company said that most SMEs will probably be using more conventional links of 8Mbps.

The company claims that the solution is scaleable up to 1Gbps, which will be available next year. Trials of the network will begin in Manchester over the coming months, with around 25 SMEs registered for the service. Pricing and tariffs are not yet available, but the company said that they would be a third of comparable technologies.

PAV Data Systems has developed a point-to-point optical transmission method using low-powered pulse lasers in the Infra-red light spectrum. The base units are capable of synchronous broadband transmission at distances of up to 2km, although this distance can be exceeded in unusual cases. Also, due to the distributed nature of the network resilience is high, while bandwidth degradation is low. Previously the technology has been used for secure VPN-type deployments in built up areas, for companies including Societe Generale in London.

Now there's something we'd all like to have replace that satellite or TV aerial on the roof. The Article @ NetImperative goes on to say how the system is already widely used and should soon be offered on a broader basis.

News - October 9,2000

NTL Preps ADSL

By:mark.j @ 6:08:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Strange, a cable operator planning to launch ADSL services, most unusual and quite original. Apparently NTL have had enough of BT's delays and taken matters into their own hands, good on them we say!:

Fed up with waiting for BT, cable operator ntl confirmed Monday plans to roll out its own consumer ADSL service by February.

Despite signing up as one of the operators wishing to take over BT's local loop when it is unbundled next summer, sheer frustration appears to have forced the company to take matters into its own hands.

The article @ ZDNet shows NTL is technically going it alone with ADSL, but how exactly do they plan to do it is the real question? Redstone got around it by avoiding the BT exchanges altogether with SDSL, offering ADSL causes problems.

BT & Oftel Hit Back @ Critics

By:mark.j @ 5:56:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Pressure for both BT & Oftel has seemingly risen to a peak today, it seems both the winged watchdog and the debt laden Telco have had enough:

First, though, BT's defence. It's pretty poor to be honest. Robin's all het up that BT is being called a monopolist. It's simply not true, he says. "The fact is that there are more than 200 licensed alternative telecommunications providers operating in the UK covering every sector of the market," he says in the FT. It's hard to tell whether your average reader will know how disingenuous this statement is. But the point had already been made by Hewson and fortunately replied to by Pauley.

"It is also untrue to say that 'Every domestic provider of call services' touches BT at some point, pays a poll tax for every second it is connected and quietly passes that onto your bill.' Providers often don't need to use BT. Where does an NTL caller connecting to, say, an Energis-hosted ISP have to deal with BT at all?," he said. Oh come on, Robin, is that the best you can do? This is like saying you don't have to get a plane to get to San Francisco from London. You could, for example, get a boat and then a train, or a Greyhound bus.

Or to clarify what the article @ The Register is trying to say, you don't think that copper phone wire owned by somebody other than BT do you? Or that the exchange hardware magically transports phone calls over the astral plane to NTL and away from BT =).

It's a very long article and we really don't want to spoil the rest of the jokes so nip over and see for yourselves.

BT Brings Broadband FORWARD!

By:mark.j @ 5:45:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Just when you thought BT was dragging its feet more than a man stuck in the desert, they suddenly go and release some impressive new broadband options:

Its business 1000PLUS (£129.99 a month exc VAT) and business 2000PLUS (£159.99 exc VAT) services are available for SMEs and offer Net access of between 20 - 40 times faster than a 56 kbs modem.

Both are subject to a one-off charge of £260 (ex VAT).

Ben Andradi, president and COO of BTopenworld, said: "The availability of bandwidth at such low cost represents a significant saving for small businesses, removing a barrier which many of them face."

Although the article, found @ the Register, shows BT is forward facing, it doesn't help those still waiting for their exchanges to be given the ADSL treatment. Not to mention the delays in actually installing ADSL on compatible exchanges.

It's also just business that benefits from today’s announcement, BT aren't likely to make any dramatic residential price shifts until they breakeven.

LineOne Cleared By ISPA

By:mark.j @ 2:09:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Finally, after over a month of waiting the ISPA has finally published the results of its investigation into LineOne. They decided that LineOne did not act unreasonably when it withdrew its unmetered package:

Initially ISPA criticised LineOne for behaving in breach of its code of conduct. According to a leaked email from ISPA in July, the body's council recommended that customers of LineOne be "provided with the option of accepting a full refund of the £20 they paid to receive the service, alongside the other offers of compensation".

But now, more than two months since the investigation began, ISPA has ruled that LineOne did not breach the body's code of practice.

"On the basis of evidence provided by LineOne, the ISPA Council believes that LineOne used 'reasonable endeavours' to comply with its obligations to its customers, thereby acting 'decently, fairly and reasonably' as the code requires," said ISPA.

The article @ VNUNet and ISPA's findings that they didn't act unreasonably might be true, but they did act poorly by starting a service they should have known couldn't be maintained. The decision isn't likely to help customers left in the dark and never would have, but should they really have escaped punishment?

BT Finance Director Resigns

By:mark.j @ 2:01:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Despite BT claiming that Robert Brace would not leave and that such rumours were unfounded and untrue, he has:

Finally. Following months of heavy criticism from the media, City and shareholders, BT's finance director Robert Brace has resigned. The announcement immediately put EIGHT per cent on BT's share price, meaning his departure was worth around £4 billion.

Brace ostensibly wants a change - he's been at BT for 11 years - and intends to head off to North America, although he has no job as yet. He will leave in December and receive £300,000 in compensation. He'll be replaced by Philip Hampton, from that other former "British" monopoly, British Gas.

The article, which can be found on The Register, fails to include the fact that BT has also decided to separate itself out. So the increased share price is unlikely to be just his doing, but no doubt plays a big part.

It's amazing to think that a single person could even have 10% of the impact he has, just what was he doing to make people so pleased to see him go =)?

Anger Over VisualDepth Refunds

By:mark.j @ 1:51:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Several readers have been concerned that when they try to get a refund from VisualDepth the system gives them an unfair reply, or as Mike puts it:

Below is e-mail I received from Visual Depth today regarding refunds. Now by my calculations I paid £100 and got 3 months service which means a refund of £75.00..and they are offering £34.99:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your refund request.

Your refund request has been evaluated and our system has generated a refund of £34.99. This evaluation is made upon how much you have been charged by us and how long you have been using your account. This amount has been personally evaluated by a member of our billing team. If you feel the evaluated amount is unacceptable, please contact us by e-mail.

We have submitted the request to our accounts department who shall issue a cheque for the above amount within 30 days.

Many Thanks,

Tech. Support

Visual Depth - See The World Our Way

http://www.visualdepth.com

If you too have suffered a problem like this then do give us an E-Mail and tell us how long you've been with them and what refund they've offered. Perhaps now’s the time for VD to remove, "Visual Depth - See The World Our Way", well we're trying to guys but it's pretty twisted =).

Also refund problems or miss billing can be complained about through our complaints page, but that’s the only exception to the usual system service problems rule.

Customers Angry @ NTL & C&W

By:mark.j @ 10:01:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've been asked once again to mention the situation that thousands of Cable & Wireless (C&W) customers are currently facing. It's an utterly ridiculous one and as Colin best describes:

NTL recently took over Cable & Wireless cable operations and as such subscribers like me are now NTL customers.

Now the bad news, you are not allowed access to the NTL World package due to 'entered into agreements'. NTL doesn't say who these agreements are with and nor can OFTEL shed any light on the matter. As far as I can see there are no ISP's offering any packages that use NTL lines and if NTL won't or can't supply me where do 1,000's like me go?

The strange part is that if I changed by telephone line to BT they would gladly sign me up!! So being the logical kind of guy I said to NTL what if I bought the telephone router and paid the same amount as a BT customer and the answer was still no!!!!!

I can't think of any other company that would be stupid enough to treat its 'non clients' better than it's own.

Nope neither can we Colin; we’ll keep looking at this and update on it in the future. If you're really keen to switch then pay the money, go back to BT, pay some money again and get on NTL =) - MADNESS!

Of course so far NTL puts the issues down to capacity, of course if C&W merged the networks and terminals then that wouldn’t be a problem. So from our perspective it’s once again about poorly managed unmetered ISP access.

BT To Be Broken UP

By:mark.j @ 9:36:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to several Sunday Newspapers and a few Monday papers, the mighty BT could well start separating its business up Microsoft style. The contradiction of fast growing mobile and wireless apps vs business services is not doing shares any good, it’s felt a break up would stabilise BT.

British Telecommunications (quote: BTA) could announce as soon as next month a phased break-up of the group to help its slumping share price, media reports said on Sunday.

The Sunday Times and Sunday Business newspapers said the company plans to separate its regulated domestic business from its faster-growing Internet and mobile phone arms. Sunday Business said the first step would be the flotation of part of BT's European mobile operations under the Cellnet brand name. It said BT will sell between 25 and 30 percent of Cellnet to raise £10bn to cut its debt.

The article can be found @ ZDNet and this has been rumoured to happen for quite some time. It seems like a logical next step for the falling Telco, although whether further break-ups are planned is not yet known.

CA Hits Back @ Freeserve

By:mark.j @ 9:27:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It seems some people (most of ISPr for one) have had enough of ISPs punishing those who use the Internet for longer, The Consumers Association (CA) claims Freeserve are:

"more interested in increasing their customer numbers than in delivering the services that consumers were originally promised when they signed-up"

As many readers would say, if you offer a 24/7 unmetered service then you should make provisions for it being used as such:

The accusation follows last week's decision by Freeserve to bar a minority of "abnormal users" from using its flat-fee Internet access service. The Free Internet Group went a step further, threatening to prosecute flat fee customers who were, contrary to their Ts&Cs, were using its service for commercial purposes.

In an interview with channel Web site Inside-it.com (reg req'd), Adam Scorer, CA senior public affairs officer, said Freeserve was "caught out by the heavy usage of its customers... (it) should accept the blame."

"The ISPs have got themselves into a mess," he added. "Rather than luring consumers in and then kicking them off schemes, what is needed on their part is better planning, realistic projections of customer usage and clearer advertising for new schemes."

The rest can be found @ The Register, but this all seems fairly obvious to us and yet not the ISPs? However you could say that if unmetered was cheaper (FRIACO) then there'd be more capacity and better provisions for such concerns.

The fact is there is no way to stop unmetered ISPs doing this unless you can stop it occurring in T&C's. Such ISPs simply can't be prosecuted unless it truly is outside of their T&C coverage.

News - October 8,2000

Demon Unmetered Delayed Again!

By:zeon @ 4:04:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Thanks to David for informing us that Demon are going to delay their Surftime products again. The launch date is now October 16th. Here is part of the e-mail:

"As you will be aware we had hoped to launch our Surftime access
products on Monday 9th. October.

I regret to inform you that, after extensive testing, we are
not yet satisfied with the reliability of the service.

Whilst we share and understand the disappointment this will
cause, we believe it would be wrong to launch a service that
does not provide the quality of service expected by our
customers. We do however firmly believe that we will be able to
launch in the coming week."

Well hopefully after the extra 7 days of waiting Demon will launch a good unmetered service.

ISPreview Weekly Update

By:mark.j @ 10:50:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It's seems to be one of those weekends, you know the ones, where you have to visit relatives and at the same time should be doing work. Spent a good portion of the weekend re-installing the office server, so if you haven't had an E-Mail reply then that's the reason.

Back to ISPreview and the annoying comments bug still occurs, that leaves one last thing to try. As well as that the production of our separate article/review comments system is well under production and should be done soon enough. We're still waiting for the quote on the ISP Listings service so more on that next week, hopefully.

Only this morning there’s been a bit of a shake up on the ISPr Freecall offering, it looks like you won't need to switch Telco but our package will stay the same. As we've said before we're using FreeChariot for the network, however the package is totally separate from theirs and offers a much longer cut-off and other changes.

The original Telco option that's the same should also remain for those who want the long cut off and FreeChariot free local calls option. Aside from that the heavy user reseller deal with another ISP should go live next week and have no cut offs, but again most of this is BT dependant.

Onto the Staff and as we revealed in our general newsletter this week, Daniel has taken leave to finish up college, but remains active in some aspects. We've also got two new staff members that I’ll be sorting out on Monday and through the week, Matt and Rob.

Finally, we're still trying to work out how best to implement our plans for the new style of reviewing ISPs. Sometimes the simplest things take the longest and there isn't likely to be time to sort things this week. So I'll see you all next week for the usual update and watch the page for interesting changes and additions.

PS"We'll make 1,000,000 unique visitors early next week! Now that’s an achievement in any sense"

News - October 7,2000

News Layout - Have Your Say

By:mark.j @ 10:41:AM - Comments (15) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We'd like to speed up the loading of news a little more and at the same time make it more compatible for Mobile Computers/WAP phones. To do this we'd have to make the news into a 'summary' form, or as a very quick example:

ISPreview Update - 07/10/2000
Another week passes and blah blog moo ming mosss mat poo'n'loo stuff passes by the window. Is this rubbish, why of course BT said to Oftel and babies were made..
By : Mark.j [More]

The final result would look nothing like that, but it's given as a general example of what we're looking at. This would allow an extra few posts and also take up less space, so allowing the page to load faster.

We'd like to know plain and simple, how many would rather have the summary and a faster loading page and how many the current style? Post comments with your thoughts, but please stick to the basic question =).

Freeserve Termination Update

By:zeon @ 8:46:AM - Comments (10) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Several hundred people have received this e-mail from Freeserve informing them they are terminating the account because of heavy usage:

"Dear Freeserve member,

As part of our commitment to deliver a high level of service to all our members we continually monitor the network performance and usage. We have identified that a very small percentage of our members (less than 1%) are using the network for an average of nearly 17 hours each day, everyday.

The affect of this abnormal usage is that network performance suffers for the majority of Freeserve members which is not acceptable.

We have identified that your Unlimited Freeserve Time usage is in this category. As a result, and in accordance with Clause 3.1 of our Terms and Conditions, from 6 November 2000 your Unlimited Freeserve Time account will be terminated. You will however, be able to continue to use Freeserve with the standard Freeserve `No Ties' connection where phone calls are charged per minute.

For those Freeserve members who need to use the Internet for a significant amount of time the new home user High Speed service from Freeserve would be more suitable. The service offers high-speed, `always on' Internet access, all for a flat fee of 39.99 per month. Please visit www.freeserve.com/plus to find out more about this service.

You can contact us by email at time-enquiries@freeserve.com or telephone us on 0845 0700066 between 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday.

Is there anywhere heavy users can turn? Well a number of ISPs have now cut-off or restricted heavy usage. Breathe, Freechariot, World Online and now Freeserve. If you want to use a service heavily then you'll have to pay around £20 per month, so an ISP like 24-7Freecall would be ideal.

What is particularly worrying with these ISPs cutting user off is that there is no warning just an e-mail informing you of your account being terminated. If ISPs want to lower the usage of these customers warn them.

Freeserve might not quite being telling the truth about how many hours these people were using as this user tells us:

"I have to say I would question their figure of me having over 17hours usage a day, hard to see how when I'm at work for nine hours a day."

If you've received the e-mail how many hours were you using per day. From looking around the news groups it looks like a few other people who were at work or just used it for 4 hours a day have been cut.

News - October 6,2000

ISPr Staff Update 2

By:mark.j @ 6:11:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Ok we aren't accepting any more staff requests from now as we have enough to be sorting through and already selected one person, which just leaves one more - possibly two. We hope to have it all done by this afternoon.

UPDATE:
We've accepted two people out of 30 and have E-Mailed them the app form, there may be one more, but we're awaiting some clarification from him.

Thanks to everybody that applied, you ALL had excellent details and it was a tough decision. Looks like we'll be able to cover broadband ISP reviews as well a bit in the future =) - hint.

Kingston Cons

By:mark.j @ 5:45:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Disgruntled (a new word used for poor performance ISPs) Kingston Telecom / ISP customers have set-up their own website dedicated to helping other people with the same concerns and issues:

http://www.kingston-cons.co.uk/

It now seems that since the Company was floated on the stock exchange, a series of policy alterations have led a number of customers to coin the phrase Kingston Cons.

This site exists purely to provide dissatisfied customers with a means to make their voice heard in a world where commercial pressures to satisfy shareholders seem to exceed the original desire to offer a quality service.

Much like The Scream! is to Screaming.net and WorldOnline, imaginatively titled Kingston Cons hopes to do the same for Kingston.

Oftel Review UK Dial-Up Access

By:mark.j @ 5:38:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Here we go again, Oftel is trying to prove it can still 'REGULATE' by conducting a review of the UK Dial-Up ISP market, oh hurray.. :

The review will consider how competition has developed in the Internet access market and whether consumers are getting the best deal possible - look, I just said don't laugh - through effective competition.

The results of the review will be taken into account when Oftel takes decisions - look, will you please stop sniggering, what have I just said? - on the appropriate level of regulation for the Internet access market.

The review is part of a series of Oftel market reviews to see whether effective competition delivers the best deal for consumers.

That's the problem with these 'Official' channels, for some reason you always have to conduct and in-depth review to find an answer that's staring you directly in the face. Still pop over to The Register for more.

Conservatives Want BT Broken Up

By:mark.j @ 5:31:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to a spokesman, the Shadow Chancellor 'Michael Portillo' is rumoured to have called for BT to be broken up (LLU):

Today's Telegraph reports that at a meeting yesterday, Michael Portillo said: "We've been looking and talking about unbundling the local loop for too long."

"We have to dissolve the old monopolies and make sure we have a deregulated environment."

The article found @ The Register and in the Telegraph, doesn't seem to take light of the fact that the EU recently forced BT to do just that. Still the conservatives aren't exactly fond of Europe, so we guess that's their excuse for not being so up-to-date.

Connect25 is GO! ?

By:mark.j @ 5:23:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Two readers have told us that today they received their login and password details for the much questioned ISP, Connect25 - John writes:

My connection date is 23 October 2000.

Internet access telephone number will be given after signing and returning terms and conditions form.

Customer services telephone number will be live on Wednesday 11 October

0702 111 3530

There's still far too much speculation about this ISP to go jumping on the bandwagon until we have proof it's actually working.

One For the Telco's - CONFERENCE

By:mark.j @ 11:00:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

This is one for the business users and Telco's, there's an interesting conference on that you might like to visit:

Outsource Billing for Telecoms Operators
Le Meridien Hotel, London
4th - 6th December 2000

URL: Information

WOL Go UK ADSL Broadband

By:mark.j @ 10:38:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

World Online have today announced its intentions to shift into the UK broadband market following LLU with their own ADSL services by December 2000:

World Online, which entered the UK market through the acquisition of alternative residential telecoms and ISP, screaming.net in March, said that the move reflects its commitment to providing always-on broadband IP services across the UK. Enhancements of the network, which will be initially launched in December, will be rolled out during 2001.

The initial products will be based on BT’s wholesale ADSL offering, following local loop unbundling and the implementation of World Online’s own backbone.

The new services and network will cost a tidy £50 Million and you can find more over @ NetImperative. Clearly WOL are sticking true to their belief that today’s unmetered users are tomorrows broadband.

C.U.T - Who Benefits From LLU?

By:mark.j @ 10:28:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Everybody’s favourite unmetered campaign group, C.U.T (Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications), have done up a very interesting article that looks at more than the norm. This time they ask the question, who is more likely to benefit from LLU, the business or residential market/group?:

Over the past couple of weeks the process of local loop unbundling (LLU) has erupted; there have been denunciations (from a former Committee member!), mixups, threats, attacks, defences and just about every other emotion expressed.

Standing back from the boiling tumult, we have already asked one question; will everyone in the United Kingdom ever have broadband access? That proved to be accidentally prophetic, as broadband coverage has become a big issue.

Now for our second question: who will LLU benefit? How many of the telecommunications operators participating will, in the end, supply residential services and how many business services?

Sadly the article doesn't really come to any conclusion and how could it? Until LLU is actually done and people finally start to make good use of it we simply don't know what to expect.

Judgement Day For LineOne

By:mark.j @ 10:20:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today the ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association) is set to reconvene and decide once and for all what is to be done about LineOne. You may remember the ISP abruptly pulled out of its primary unmetered offering, much to customer’s dismay.

This also broke certain ISPA regulations and as such the day of judgement has finally arrived. Hopefully we should hear later today what has been decided, but you can never tell.