October 2, 2000 - October 6, 2000

News - October 6,2000

BTInternet Trojan Alert

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

A Trojan is a program that hides under the disguise of another and can often do damage similar to that of a virus, several readers have informed us that BTInternet have such a problem:

03/10/00 12:30 Fake E-mail

Please note there is currently a fake e-mail being sent to some BT Internet customers which contains a Trojan Virus.

The e-mail is from "security@btinternet.com" and has the subject of "Security Update".

If you have received this e-mail, please ensure you delete this e-mail straight away and DO NOT OPEN the attachment. If customers have opened the attachment please contact our Technical Support helpdesk immediately on 0906 302 3456 (calls charge 50p per min) for further advise.

We are doing all that is possible to ensure this security breach is being dealt with and necessary action taken.

So be very careful, but what we really like is the way ISPs give you a 50p per minute number to call for serious problems related to or caused by themselves.

LibertySurf Dampen Unmetered Offering

By:mark.j @ 10:11:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to one of our readers (George), the following was printed in today’s Daily Telegraph:

It's new internet service will offer the first 4 Hours free per Month, and then charge 1p per minute after that. The CDs' will be back on sale later this month. Existing users of the unmetered service will be switched to the less generous service next May.

It may be sometime away, but this is likely to be quite a blow to users of the LibertySurf ISP when it actually happens. This explains the reason for CDs being recalled, so they could add the limited package for new users.

RedHotAnt Problems Continue

By:mark.j @ 10:02:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Nearly a month ago RedHotAnt finally got back on its feet and for a few weeks everybody could connect, despite some acceptable problems. Yet within the last couple of weeks complaints have been coming in again and slowly started to increase.

There seems to be random problems with authentication that are sometimes fine and others prominent for whole days. In fact generally no complaints bar one or two about engaged tones and speed, just this authentication bug.

It's now got to be so much of a problem that people are starting to wonder whether it's a 'manufactured' feature of RHA. In other words, they say they have system problems, when in actual fact they use it to keep the service costs to them - level. They wouldn't be the first to do this, yet RHA never seem to be forthcoming with more technical answers.

Some good news is that today the problems have been blamed on, and we quote:
"5th October 2000 16:50
Some users have been experiencing connectivity / Web access problems, This is due to a network outage at our backbone provider."

This is of course related to the UUNet problem, but doesn't explain the authentication issue, which has strangely been removed from the service status page. As such we're going to do some investigating to find out why RHA have had this 'authenticate' problem since day one and never fixed it.

News - October 5,2000

LibertySurf CD's Update 2

By:mark.j @ 5:06:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

You may remember a few days ago that LibertySurf announced you could now get the ISP CD's from related stores, well one of our readers (Ian) says otherwise:

I've just called Comet to ask when the new shipment of Liberty Surf CDs were due in. They told me that all Liberty Surf CDs have been recalled and everything has been put on the back burner for the time being. All they said was "it's a legal matter".

Oh dear, here we go again; customers waiting on the CD aren't likely to be happy. We tried to contact the store but it's apparently now out of office hours, we'll see what they say tomorrow.

UUNet Back Online

By:mark.j @ 5:01:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

One of the UKs biggest and most powerful network and ISP providers, UUNet, today experienced a huge slew of problems that saw 400 primary connections die.

One of our business readers told us of how he contacted them after the leased line went dead and they refused to believe it was there problem. Just typical, still they did finally acknowledge the problem and now all seems well:

A statement recently issued by the company reads: "More than 75 per cent of connections to UUNet's Docklands facility have now been restored following today's loss of service."

It claims all 400 bigwig corporate customers who got left out in the cold should be back online by around 2.30pm this afternoon... which is nice.

The article, which can be found @ The Register, shows that even the biggest can fall over now and then. Although we wouldn't be surprised if the more corporate ones decided to claim some compensation, many of the links are worth thousands of pounds.

NTL - Cable Modems For !ALL!

By:mark.j @ 4:54:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The mighty NTL have announced today that all new PC connectable Set-Top-Boxes will include Cable Modem hardware!:

In addition, NTL said it would include cable modems that can be connected to PCs in all digital boxes installed from now on. Customers will have a choice of using a separate cable modem or the embedded modem. The company said it is starting to upgrade ex-CWC networks for cable modems, but gave no launch date for cable modems in these areas.

The article over @ VNUNet certainly does a good job of putting them back in the game against Telewest. Considering the current cost of Cable Modems it's also likely to deal yet another blow for ADSL, which still appears to be in regional stasis.

Freeserve Chop 700 'ABUSERS'

By:mark.j @ 4:47:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Not including TFI, the latest ISP to get tough on people who over use unmetered offerings is Freeserve. Only minutes ago they announced that an E-Mail was being sent to those using the service in excess of 16Hours a day, oh dear:

Freeswerve - Britain's biggest ISP - is to get tough with Net users it believes are abusing its 24/7 unmetered service.

It's about to send out emails to up to 700 people it claims are using Unlimited Freeserve Time for more than 16 hours a day.

A spokeswoman said the ISP was entitled to get tough because of item 1.9.5 of Freeswerve's Ts&Cs because they are "using the service in a manner which, in our opinion, makes abnormal demands on the network from a single connection".

The article, which we found @ The Register out of many possible others, shows a typical unmetered ISP occurrence. To be realistic, 16Hours a day is a lot and highly excessive, but that doesn't make it right.

If you consider that the ISP 'Breathe' only recently did the same to those using +6hours a day, then Freeserve are actually being quite lenient. However that's hardly likely to appease the 700 people concerned, who will no doubt claim:

"If you offer a 24/7 ISP then it should be just that, all round unmetered net access regardless of use."

ISPreview Staff

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

In being a slow news day now seems like the perfect time to add some extra staff, we've been meaning to do it for awhile. Learning from mistakes of the past we've devote the rest of this week to sorting it out and those with experience will get priority.

This is not a paying job and more for those wanting to get a bit of experience and their name mentioned. As such there is never any real pressure at ISPr for the staff to do specific things, we just ask that you help us make it a better place by keeping news and possibly even reviews/articles up-to-date.

Generally though it's the news we need help with and are looking for two or three people with more flexibility during the day for the odd update:

1) Knowledge of HTML.
2) Somebody at college or university would be ideal due to flexible timescales. As such +16 only, unless you think you can still help and have good proof of that.
3) Good knowledge of English (Spelling + Grammar).
4) Understanding of computers/networking and excellent ISP knowledge.
5) Ability to work in a small online only team of friends, we basically just do this for fun in our spare time.
6) Good online personality is always welcomed for communication.

The news system itself is automated; you just login, put the subject and write the news in a box, that's it. Somebody joining and expecting to just do two posts a month isn’t likely best suited to this =). Although we do not pressure anybody, generally staff make at least two posts a week (I seem to do all the work hehe).

If you're interested then send a mail to staff@ispreview.co.uk and tell us why you would be good for ISPr, include any links to past experience, thanks. Also please use your ISPs E-Mail address; we tend to ignore free mail accounts in such matters.

PS"We use ICQ for team communications, so make sure you have it installed."

The Register Plays Dirty

By:mark.j @ 1:10:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While scouring the Internet and E-Mail for our daily dose of net news, an interesting article from ever popular, The Register, sprung up. Related to LLU it's asking anybody inside BT or Oftel to help expose what's really going on:

So, we want your help to slip open the kimono of LLU so we can take a good look at what's underneath the satin printed robe.

We want independent-minded whistle-blowers - or the downright mischievous - to spill the beans on LLU. We want people in BT and Oftel to come clean about what's really going on within the incumbent and the incompetent. We want anyone within the telcos bidding for space in local exchanges to dish the dirt on what's really going down.

We want anything we can get our teeth into - memos, reports, rumours, lies...anything...just so that we can remove this prudish veil and see the goods.

Sounds very interesting and lets hope somebody gives them the dirt and the players in this game can finally be exposed. However the bit right at the bottom is certainly cause for a laugh:

cc Sir Peter Bonfield, BT David Edmonds, Oftel ®

Game Fan Network Hosting

By:mark.j @ 12:55:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

This may not be of relevance to many of you, but the kind people at Games-World.Net asked us to post it. Those more involved in computer technology and games and who keep up-to-date with news, likely know that the Game Fan Network has closed its hosting doors.

Sites such as Reactor Critical and the vastly popular VoodooExtreme have been left without a home. In steps the UK Games World network:

Any former Game Fan Network hosted sites that need a home can apply to admin@games-world.net to discuss what they need and maybe we could come to some form of a hosting deal. We are a UK provider as you at ISP review know, but we offer superfast web hosting services.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards
Terry "Tezza" Brown
Games-World.Net Admin
www.games-world.net

Our own hosting system has already taken a couple of sites on, but the bigger ones should find Games-World.Net much more viable. Pass this onto anybody of relevance I guess.. now back to your regularly scheduled ISP news =).

FreeChariot Respond to N4N Concerns

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

I'm not sure why we were sent this e-mail as well, but ever since FreeChariot updated their T&C's and then introduced new pages, there have been concerns. Well the good old Net4Nowt team asked the questions and now FreeChariot appears to have sent us both the answers:

Q1) We receive many emails from ISPs who try to advertise their services by sending us "news items" which are more like advertisements, and are not really newsworthy.

FC >>>>> We understand that and we appreciate your high level of performance that provides unlimited amount of benefits to your readers. However,
a. if you listed our present service which involves some of your readers transferring from their telcos to join us.
b. if you carry news of other organisations' change of services.
c. if you carry the news of AOL offer of £14.99 unmetered internet access - which is not even available to the public for some weeks yet, we are sure you appreciate why we feel that our offer of the independent 0800 unmetered deals might get a mention for the benefit of the same readers, who up to now only see us as a "telco transfer unmetered ISP".

We offer in our new packages:
1. Independent 0800 unmetered deal (New) - Built around the FRIACO model - 24/7 costing £15 plus vat.
2. Pay as you surf (PAYS)– (New) - 0.9p/min - and none involve telco transfer. Therefore Cable customers can use them and ISDN customers can use them. Most notably, they are not for BT customers only.

Q2) Many consumers would rather like to know why the terms and conditions have changed so many times within the past few weeks.

FC >>>>>> Our terms and conditions were only changed twice in the space of 36 hours. The recommended but annoying terms and conditions was only online for 36 hours and we changed it - you can have a look at the new solid one yourself on our site. The changes were made first of all on the advice of consultants who stated that until there is a definitive FRIACO product, that first move to tie the internet calls to the phone calls will be the market trend. What happened to WOL has proved what they said, although our management felt that the first change goes against what Freechariot set out to do. They overruled the Consultants, and revert the terms and conditions to what it originally was with some minor changes. Our present terms now only include:

1. An increased of the minimum calls from £5 to £8.99, which is still the lowest in the industry after lineone packed up their service.
2. A new stipulation that disallowed games and streaming.

A very important fact that seem to be forgotten or neglected is that we are the only unmetered ISP that offers in addition "free unlimited and unmetered" weekend local phone calls which we have stated will be extended to "free unlimited and unmetered" off-peak local calls within a year.

Due to accusations of lack of clarity, we also emphasised that the telco transfer deal is for those who make calls. That is all the changes that now stays in our Ts & Cs.

Q3) If you could address the points raised in the Freechariot forum (http://pub4.ezboard.com/fnet4nowtfrm32) then I would be only too pleased in publishing your news updates.

FC >>>>>> Most of us forget that none of us have been here before. Not the media, not the internet users and definitely not the companies who are sticking their necks out to take a jump on the market. A lot of companies have had their fingers burnt, some have gone under and some are in recievership. Most importantly investors in these companies have lost a lot of money while most of the users have moved on to other providers.

When our company was being set up we had a few customers who showed interest in our service but asked if the could use us as well as other ISPs. We said yes they could, but with curiousity asked them why they will want to use more than one ISP? The reply was that
1. they used to spend £300 per quarter just for internet calls.
2. they could afford to use this amount to register with up to 3 different companies - i.e. ezesurf, thefreeinternet and freechariot for less than £150
3. they do not know how these companies could sustain these offers
4. they could afford to use these companies for a while and even if a couple of them go under, they will be still be ahead in money saved.

What most people know but seem to want to show indignation for, is that no investor, no management will keep throwing money into a black hole unless there is a benefit for the company and investors down the line. There has to be a middle ground somewhere for companies to survive offering a good service that benefits members but also afford a future return for the investors. We feel that we have been able to do this with our new offers and the second refinement of our Ts and Cs.

To this we quote from our Ts and Cs - "we believe that it should be free to surf for information, for education and to communicate on the internet", we are presently finding out the best way to do this and still run a profitable business. Those that have complained about the terms and conditions, have at the same time state that our service is good and reliable.

Two of the largest businesses in the industry - BT and AOL are even just now testing the waters. The main reason why AOL wants to offer the unmetered deal first to their existing customers is obvious. These are people whose usage they know and have monitored over a long period. Therefore they can reasonably project and plan out what the trend might be, for a few weeks, before they offer the service to those who they do not know. This is a smart and commendable move for AOL and their investors. In the meantime, people should appreciate what the smaller companies who are taking on the unknown are doing.

We on our part appreciate the time and resources being invested in the industry by all other organisations including the media to make unmetered internet access the launching pad for greater use and exploitation of the undoubted potential of the WWW in the UK.

Thank you

Best Regards
Keith Ajagun

URL: http://www.freechariot.net

Some very interesting points raised and talked about, however there's so much here that's it's kinder difficult to summarise. We'll let the readers do the hard work this time =). However you can't fail to notice this bit:

"which we have stated will be extended to "free unlimited and unmetered" off-peak local calls within a year."

That's quite a step, they wouldn't even need to offer an ISP if they did that! We could all dial into much fast local ISPs for free!

Bye Bye LineOne - A Users Story

By:mark.j @ 9:53:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Well that's it, no more 'REAL' unmetered access from LineOne and one reader (John) has sent us in a little story of his last few hours (days even) with the service. This is the same one that THIS article at the register mentioned, just never properly credited John or published it fully:

Are 0808 numbers really free? I certainly hope so. At last count I was connected for 62 hours to the supposedly disconnected Line One free internet line.

The end came during the night. Later than I’d expected, but sooner than I’d hoped. Looking back it was the obvious time for it to happen. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I should have stayed awake. It’s the first law of survival.

What started as little more than a joke, after I realised the usual 2-hour cut-off had been removed, had become more, much more. I was facing the prospect of going back to phone bills that would cause concern in Redmond, and here I was, connected to the internet, for free.

Like Joey and Chandler in Friends, with their free porn access, I had everything I wanted. A good, solid, 49k connection to the internet. I didn’t need my line for calls, I’ve got my mobile for that and, to be honest, in this day and age if you haven’t got email I don’t want to know you.

My main concern was that I’d never got round, as I’d promised, to moving my modem over to my linux box. Windows can’t last forever without a reboot. Sooner or later it would run out of resources and crash. The Resource Meter sat in my task bar, occasionally dipping to yellow, a permanent reminder of my folly, and of what was to come. If they didn’t get me off, I would inadvertently do it myself. Second law of survival, be prepared.

Quip, who ran the offer in conjunction with Line One, were adding £20 of call credit to user’s accounts as consolation for losing free access. I’d never even plugged my Quip box in, I didn’t see the point, I was quite happy to pay the minimum £5 per month for 24/7 access.

On Monday afternoon I received an email from Quip saying they couldn’t add the credit to my account as it was temporarily blocked. Would I be kind enough to give them a call to find out why? But, hang on, that’d mean disconnecting from the internet wouldn’t it? Nice try, but I didn’t fall for it. I could have called them on my mobile but then I’d risk being told to disconnect, and I’d already decided that was one rule in this game, once told to, I had to disconnect. Third law of survival, and probably the only one I didn’t break, never surrender.

When I woke on Tuesday morning I was pleased to still be connected, but less so perhaps than the day before. Like Joey and Chandler, I’d started to become complacent and weary. Too much of a good thing, and all that.

After a hard days work which, incidentally, is done from home and involves a lot of internet use, I left for some liquid refreshment and made plans with a colleague for my imminent move to ADSL. Being an NTL customer (ex-cwc), ADSL meant having to reconnect to BT, which I’d ordered last week. It’s due to happen on Friday. Then I’m placing an order for 512K Ethernet ADSL with Easynet. It can’t happen soon enough.

The plan was to stay connected to Line One until the ADSL was installed. Possibly for up to three weeks. Would it happen? Could it happen? It was certainly worth a try.

I went to bed, having checked the dial-up monitor, 62 hours and counting. On waking, as had become the norm, my first check was the modem lights. Were they still on? They weren’t. It was over.

I’ll never know exactly how long I was connected for, somewhere between 62 hours and 70 hours. Just short of my required 500 hours or so. I now face three weeks of paid for access. NTL will be pleased.

Now I just have to wait for my next phone bill. Getting back to my original question - 0808 numbers are free, aren’t they?

It's enough to bring a tear to your eye; still we think John must hold the record now and good on him. Just so long as LineOne don't try to charge him for the 0808 usage, thankfully yes, that would indeed be illegal =).

News - October 4,2000

BT Could Face Legal Action By EU

By:mark.j @ 5:21:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Yesterday the good old EC (European Commission) finally put out regulations that would force BT to unbundle the local loop by 1st January 2001. BT has yet to reply officially, however today the EU has issued a warning to BT about what could happen if they don't comply:

BT could face court action if it fails to open its local networks to competitors on 1 January 2001, and has been told that it can no longer use technical limitations as an excuse.

BT has previously said it would not be technically possible to fully open its local loops by January. But the EU said this week that telcos will not be able to delay unbundling for technical reasons, unless they can prove there is a problem.

But Haugaard left the door open for BT saying that if a telco could prove that it was technically impossible to meet the deadline, it might be lenient. "This is an obligation unless a request is technically unfeasible and there are clear facts that render the request impossible," he said.

All we can say is, success! What'll be really interesting to see is if BT can actually come up with a 'PROVEN' excuse for further delays. If they don't then people will know they lied and if they do then they face potential legal action, it's a loose loose situation for BT.

Looks like the European union is actually good for something aside from being slightly corrupt. Just kidding, read the rest @ VNUNet.

H.R.A vs R.I.P.A

By:mark.j @ 5:10:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

To anybody with half a brain it's fairly obvious that the RIP Act is in direct confrontation with the privacy rules in the HRA (Human Rights Act) that recently came into law. In fact you could go so far as to say that the people who published and approved RIP are themselves breaking the law.

Yet it seems strange that despite this the government don't seem to care, in fact the only political party to oppose it are the tax mad Lib-Dems. Worse still perhaps is the rumour that government has physically set aside £64million to deal with potential legal cases =):

The drafts, which come into force on the 24 October, state that businesses can access employees’ communications for reasons including ‘routine access,’ combating crime and monitoring service standards.

However, the passing of the Human Rights Act into UK law may well prove to be a complication. The HRA, which became law on Monday, states that employees must be informed if their communications are being intercepted, a legal issue that is not mentioned in the draft guidelines.

You can find news items like this all over the net today, although NetImperative has a good viewpoint. It's quite strange that such a serious thing has barely been given 5mins of airtime on TV so far, and even then it hasn't been mainstream news.

Why this is we don't know, but then it's a paradox much like the American prison system, which has some of the worst Human Rights Records in the world - yet nobody seems to care? What's the world coming to?

Freeserve Impose New Limits

By:mark.j @ 4:59:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

One of our readers (Gavin) has informed us of a new E-Mail Freeserve are circulating to all their customers:

Dear Freeserve User

In order to give effect to your enhanced rights under new Data Protection legislation, Freeserve has developed a privacy policy which sets out how we use any personal data you provide to us.

To view the new Privacy Policy now, please click
www.freeserve.com/privacy.

We have also taken this opportunity to revise our terms and conditions as it is now over a year since we last reviewed them. The main changes that we have made are as follows:

(i) we have incorporated the privacy policy into the terms and conditions;

(ii) we have expressly stated that our terms and conditions of use and privacy policy apply not only to our registered users but also to visitors to our site;

(iii) we have introduced a limit on mail box sizes as we have been experiencing difficulties with a small number of users who have extremely large mail boxes which has a consequential effect on the services for the rest of you. Our current limit is 100Mb or 1000 emails, whichever is the greater. In the event that your email box size exceeds this limit, we have reserved the right to delete older emails to bring the email box size down to an acceptable limit.

To view the amended terms and conditions now click
www.freeserve.com/terms.

These changes will take effect 7 day's from today's date and your continued use of the service will be deemed acceptance of the amended terms.

Regards

Victoria Robertshaw,
Customer Service Director,

Obviously it's the last item that's been cause for concern here, although it's only likely to affect a small group of people. However a quick look at some other ISPs suggests that 100mb per mailbox is actually quite large, many limit to 5 or 10mb. The best give you 500mb, although they are usually business ISPs.

E-Ministers Back Unbundling Plans

By:mark.j @ 9:39:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The new local loop unbundling (LLU) timescale set forward by the EC (European Commission) yesterday is today being looked over by leading UK Telco ministers (E-Ministers):

E-minister Patricia Hewitt welcomed an agreement made at a key meeting of telecoms ministers in Luxembourg Tuesday and denies that the UK is behind with unbundling of the local loop.

Telecoms ministers met to approve draft regulation on unbundling, which the EC is keen to see happen as quickly as possible across Europe. In a statement Hewitt claimed the UK is both "fully compliant" and fully supportive of European plans to shake up the telecoms landscape across member states.

Countering criticism that the UK is falling behind in creating a competitive telecoms market, Hewitt defended unbundling plans. "Far from dragging its feet, the UK has been accelerating local loop unbundling," she said. She also reiterated government support for telecoms watchdog Oftel which has been coming under increasing pressure from other operators to speed up the unbundling process. "We will continue to back Oftel in taking the tough decisions needed to deliver it [unbundling]," she adds.

Lets just hope BT play the game and don't lag behind, otherwise there could be consequences for the debt laden Telco (Debt in profit, go figure). The full article can be read over @ ZDNet.

Forget WAP & GSM - Here's mStrIP

By:mark.j @ 9:24:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

If you own a PocketPC, Laptop or perhaps one of those new next generation phones (not likely since they don't exist yet), then this could be for you. A company called WeComm Ltd. has launched mStrIP Financial, a clever product that can stream live trading data to a handheld/palmsize PC (PalmPilot, winCE3 [PocketPC]):

MStrIP Financial is a product derived from weComm's proprietary Mobile Streaming Information Platform (mStrIP). The product collates data from multiple sources and reconfigures it for transmission to the end user, irrespective of the user’s device and considering the available bandwidth, according to the company. This is achieved through heavy use of XML, which allows the specific coding of information to individual devices.

The product will provide services including prices for traded resources including equities, bonds and commodities as well as news, alerts, charting, real time trading, proprietary research distribution, instant messaging, and e-mail. The company said that the platform will also work with GPRS and 3G networks and devices, mainly due to its IP-based protocol.

The article can be found @ NetImperative and doesn't seem to mention GSM compatibility, so we believe there won't be any =(. Certainly a turn up for the books, now not only can accountants and traders bore you in the work place, they can do it on the streets too =)!

Still the prospect of checking your investments through live updates is tempting to others, such as home users who dabble in the market now and then.

New Domain Suffixes

By:mark.j @ 9:14:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

There seems to be a lot going on surrounding domains at the moment. Today Virtual Internet (UK Web Hoster) and NetNames have started bidding for some of the new suffixes on offer via ICANN:

Members of ICANN, the organisation that runs domain name registration, voted at a meeting in Yokohama in July to introduce new suffixes – or top-level domains (TLDs) – for internet addresses, a move that is supposed to make internet navigation easier. Companies can suggest new TLDs and apply to administer them.

Virtual Internet, the UK web hosting business, is bidding jointly with the US domain name registrar Register.com to administer a new TLD, .pro. The .pro domain would be allocated to professionals on the internet, with sub-domain categories being set up for specific professions, such as doctors, lawyers and accountants.

Separately, NetNames has announced that it is the only UK member of the Afilias consortium, which comprises 19 companies and is bidding for the .info, .site and .web TLDs.

The article, which can be found @ NetImperative, could signal the start of mass domain pre-registrations. Obviously on any new suffix (opposite of prefix, get it?) the highest-level names will be in great demand.

However under new laws such behaviour is potentially illegal, depending on what the domains are called. Don't expect to be the first with a high priority name, you can bet all the best ones have already been taken.

News - October 3,2000

Human Rights Hit Back @ RIP

By:mark.j @ 7:24:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Its been awhile since we last heard anything on RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers), but sometimes that's the carm before the storm:

The government's controversial RIP Act violates the right to privacy within the workplace under the new Human Rights Act, according to legal experts Tuesday.

Businesses monitoring their employees' email and Internet usage could be infringing the new Human Rights Act (HRA) published Monday, which codifies a person's right to privacy and private correspondence. As well as legalising government snooping, RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) enables an employer to legally monitor his or her staff if he/she suspects them of misusing the Internet.

Companies must obtain employees' consent to intercept or monitor their use of email and the Internet, or risk being sued under HRA 2000 say experts. In order to comply with RIP, legal experts predict that it may be necessary for workers to waive their rights to privacy and private correspondence while at work.

You can read more on this over @ ZDNet, it's certainly an issue we've seen before and the only difference now is that they are really starting to attack RIP. The problem is it's far too late to make any really changes now the bill has been made law and become an ACT =(.

RedHotAnt Press News

By:mark.j @ 7:05:PM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The ever improving ISP RedHotAnt has sent us a little update on their status, makes for a short and interesting read:

Sirs,

Just a quick note to let you know that we will be starting beta testing on another new dial-up number with our user base within the next 1-2 days.

This new dial-up number will terminate via a third telecommunications provider and we are hoping that this number will resolve the majority of the remaining connectivity issues our users maybe experiencing, primarily the ISDN connection issues.

This will additionally increase our dial-up platform by a further 30%.

We are also planning further network role out each month for the next 4 months, which will eventually increase our dial-up platform capacity by a further 100% to what it is right now.

In line with this, the backbone connection will also be increasing up to 2 full STM-1 resilient connections to the net, thus increasing the overall performance and fail-safe ability of the RHA network.

Regards

Kevin Wall
Managing Director

Sounds promising, although they'll need more users to subsidies this upgrade and that means good timing to avoid problems. So far it seems good but we'll have to wait and see.

Local Loop Forced Forward

By:mark.j @ 2:15:PM - Comments (11) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While BT Still Claims the local loop would be complete around July 2001, the European Commission has now enforced that it must be done for January 2001. Such a date isn't far off and means BT will have to do some serious thinking.

Spokesman Per Haugaard claimed EU ministers responsible for telecommunications (meeting in Luxembourg) reached a political agreement on the Commission's proposal to "unbundle the local loop".

" This proposal now has to be approved by the European Parliament. We hope they can do so at their meeting at the end of this month," Haugaard goes on to say:

"The proposal will hopefully be adopted by the end of this year and would then enter into force on January 1, 2001," he said.

The proposal would require full unbundling of the local loop by that date "in accordance with the wording of the regulation," he stated.

It'll be interesting to see the steam rise from the BT camp after hearing this one; we'll wait with baited breath.

Digital Radios For Your PC

By:mark.j @ 11:01:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Watch out, after numerous details and technical issues, PSION have stepping in to fix things up and provide the BBC with a small revolution. The Digital radio with pictures and text has finally arrived, but it's not exactly what we all thought it would be:

"Revolutionary" products are announced daily in the IT business, but Psion's latest, the Wavefinder, could genuinely merit the tag on a couple of fronts. The price is only a temporary breakthrough, because receivers from the consumer electronics outfits will ultimately match and then beat it, but the association with PCs is a smart notion, as is the bundling approach. The Wavefinder, a sort of 'soap on a rope' affair you stick to the wall behind your PC, is bigger than you expected from the pictures, but there are obvious advantages for Psion in presenting it with a simple USB connection that allows it to get display, control and power from the PC 'for free.' And when it ships in the UK in two weeks time it will be free, for people buying the right PCs from retail giant Dixons/PC World. That's a tempting bundle that should help Psion punch above its weight, and steal a march on Japan's electronics giants.

The broader revolutions, however, are more easily grasped when you consider what digital radio is, and the implications of it becoming a ubiquitous PC peripheral. Digital radio currently exists as high quality, multi-channel audio broadcasting (in Europe - the US seems to be two years behind, with an inferior system, again), but although that's cool, start thinking of digital radio as the ability to throw miscellaneous free broadband stuff at computer users everywhere and you see rather wider potential.

The full and rather long article can be found over @ The Register, although this certainly isn't what we all expected. Earlier issues of Tomorrows World depicted a portable radio with an LCD screen that used the same band as Digital TV to bring images and text to the usual sounds we know and love.

So the dramatic move of turning it into just another computer peripheral is most certainly not what we were expecting. But then since most people get garbled DigitalTV anyway, Digital radio with images and text could potentially be the same.

I really wish they'd install the new terrestrial transmitter down here on the south coast; you can't even get Channel 5 (woo what a loss) and thus most Digital TV channels.

Oftel Start the BT Investigation

By:mark.j @ 10:45:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Well you may remember the report yesterday about two leading Telco's that lodged the first formal complaint against BT to Oftel (more specifically, Kingston and Energis). Well today Oftel finally admitted it had the complaint (took them a day) and has started the investigation:

Oftel has launched a preliminary enquiry into BT's handling of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), a spokeswoman told Reg this afternoon.

The move follows confirmation from the winged watchdog that an industry group has lodged a formal complaint against the incumbent telco and its apparent reluctance to open its local exchanges to competition.

What will come of this is not yet known, expect the usual leaks and rumours to start seeping through the gaps within a matter of hours/days. Read the rest @ The Register.

Visual Depth General Press Release

By:mark.j @ 10:28:AM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Well after the last press release VisualDepth have kept their promise and issued a general one - here it is un-cut:

(This e-mail has been sent to all Visual Depth customers along with the Press)

Dear Sir/Madam,

First of all - We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all customers for the inability to connect to the Visual Depth service. We can confirm that this is due to the recent problems regarding Ezesurf. Therefore this service cannot continue, although an alternative is being planned.

For those of you who are not familiar with the UK's Unmetered Market at present, please allow us to explain. Ever since Unmetered Internet Service Providers have been introduced in the UK, almost all have had problems and many been quoted as having a poor quality service. This is caused by Unmetered ISP's becoming over subscribed and simply having too many people using them and spending too long on-line. Research proves this and people using an Unmetered ISP are much more likely to spend more time on-line therefore lowering the charge for the customer, but making the charge for the ISP higher.

Most telecommunication operators charge the ISP's on a per minute basis, therefore if users spend a long time on-line the charges to the ISP become greater. Most of this is caused by the very high charges by British Telecom (BT) who dominate the UK Telecommunication market. This explains why the majority of 24-7 Unmetered ISP's charge at least £20 a month or higher.

We are well aware of this situation, although we do believe that we shall find a solution to offer complete 24-7 Unmetered Internet Access at no more than £74.99 per year. We have approached many Telecommunication operators in the UK to offer us such a service and we have been offered a number of different options, however none so far would cost any less than £19.99 per month. In light of this, we shall continue to negotiate with many telecommunication operators to offer a very high quality service at a low price.

With the problems recently experienced by Ezesurf, Altavista and now Callnet. We know that this is a huge challenge, but we are sure a solution can be created. We are taking the challenge to provide the General Public of the United Kingdom an 24-7 Unmetered Service which has a long cut off period, a low modems to users ratio and a very low price.

We hope that such negotiations shall take no longer than a month to complete. We can almost guarantee a new service to customers, however we are un-sure of the timing this will take to become fully active and the price. Current customers who have already paid for the service shall be able to use the new service for whatever time period they originally paid for regardless of the new service price. Another Press Release shall be made on Tuesday 10th October regarding the new service.

Although we strongly hope customers will wait for the new service, we are creating an official refund process. Refunds can be obtained by filling in a form at http://www.visualdepth.com/Refund/ all details on this form are required and cannot be accepted by any other means of communication. We are therefore asking that customers that would like a refund, please fill in the form and follow the instruction son the form.

We understand that since the collapse of the service, customers have found it very hard to contact us. In light of this we are now accepting all enquiries for present customers at support@visualdepth.com and representatives can be reached by telephone on 0845 130 7080 (Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm). Alternatively you can fax us on 0870 741 8911. Although we would advise customers to contact us through our free 'HumanClick' service. This can be used to contact representatives throughout office hours along with outside office hours at http://www.visualdepth.com/Talk2Live/ We would ask that customers only contact us if they have a genuine problem that cannot be resolved.

On behalf of the Management at Visual Depth, I would like to thank all customers especially those waiting for the new service for their support.

Many Thanks,

Martin Case
(Managing Director)

Of course the obvious question is, after VD defrauded the public would you ever be able to trust them again?

News - October 2,2000

Questions and Answers From World Online

By:zeon @ 8:55:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Scream! and ISPreview have put a number of questions together submitted by posters on The Scream! and sent them off to World Online. We received the answers back today. They can be found on ISPreview or on The Scream!.

Totalise Shares

By:mark.j @ 8:23:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Tim has informed us of an important change in the Totalise ISP shares, if you have a SHARE based account with them then this is important for you:

Totalise have formally announced their known intention to move to the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market (AIM) from the OFEX. A prospectus is to be published later this month (October 2000).

Share price on OFEX up 1p to 22.5p.

See link on Totalise website
http://www.totalise.net/support/share_info.htm or check out the OFEX website currently on http://www.newstrack.co.uk/ follow 'prices'>' T-Z' links.

CEO of Totalise, Dr Peter Gregory will be interview on OFEX related website http://www.off-express.com soon. Questions to him can be posted on the site before October 5.

Connect25 Update

By:mark.j @ 8:17:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Still a great deal of concern about the validity of this supposed ISP (connect25) http://www.connect25.co.uk. Not long ago it was reported they had vanished, although when we checked it was still there (ISP problem?). Either way one of our readers (Simon) has sent an interesting update:

I've just done a WHOIS on Connect25.co.uk and it does appear that the they are in fact still with us. The WHOIS record was updated today (02 October) with a new domain hoster - www.webleicster.co.uk .

Here's a copy of the WHOIS record (http://www.nic.uk/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?query=connect25.co.uk)

===
Domain Name: CONNECT25.CO.UK

Registered For: Vince Caimano

Domain Registered By: WEBLEICESTER

Registered on 04-Jul-2000.

Record last updated on 02-Oct-2000.

Domain servers listed in order:

NS1.WEBLEICESTER.CO.UK 195.146.160.2
NS2.WEBLEICESTER.CO.UK 195.146.160.3

WHOIS database last updated at 17:10:01 02-Oct-2000

===
So the domain is now no longer hosted by freenetname. Perhaps this is why the website has been down over the past couple of days while they've been moving the domain off freenetname's servers onto webleicster's servers.

This has actually raised even more questions, when we contacted them some time ago they claimed the FREENETNAMES (Free Domains) hosting was part of a big deal with FREENETNAMES, not just a simple hosting set-up.

Not much of a 'BIG' deal if you change to another provider, we're still waiting to see if this supposed ISP can prove itself or not.

C&W Start Telecommunications Revolution

By:mark.j @ 2:27:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

People have known about software and hardware that uses the Internet and ISPs to call country’s @ local call rates for quite some time. However never before has an entire Telecommunications company taken the dramatic step of totally converting to the medium. That was until today when the NTL owned Cable & Wireless (C&W) made the historic move.

The corporate telecom company said it signed a £950,000,000 deal with Nortel Networks to change its global network to voice-over-IP (Internet protocol - VoIP), which routes telecom traffic at a quarter of the cost of electronic switches by using the Internet.

Both companies agree it was the most aggressive and impressive move by any company into VoIP, which is forecast to handle 900 Billion minutes of phone calls by 2006, compared to 675,000,000 minutes last year.

Nortel's chief operating officer (Clarence Chandran) told Reuters, he expected telecom companies to spend 9 Billion pounds moving to VoIP over the next four years. The company was also providing the technology to BT and France Telecom.

Clarence then went on to simply state:

"This is a landmark agreement, not just for ourselves and Cable & Wireless, but for the industry as a whole".

Quite right, the use of the Internet means that calls to anywhere in the world could be about the same as a local call is today, likely less. More so is the fact it'd be an international standard and cost less money to maintain (more technologically advanced etc.), we'd just need to change our phones and the Telco some exchange hardware.

It'll be interesting to see whether it's ready to roll come late 2003/early 2004.

BT & Oftel Chiefs To Step Down?

By:mark.j @ 2:15:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Rumours from yet more of yesterdays Sunday NewsPapers claim that key people @ BT & Oftel could well step down in the next few weeks. This comes after mounting concerns over Oftels handling of BT over LLU and broadband:

According to Sunday newspapers, the telco (BT) had been expected to announce within the next few weeks that Sir Iain Vallance would leave the company by the middle of next year.

The article, which can be found @ VNUNet, also goes on to state:

Separately, UK telecoms watchdog Oftel has denied reports that its beleaguered boss David Edmonds will step down, following increasing criticism about the regulator's performance. Oftel has come under fire for failing to ensure fair competition across the telecoms industry and has been accused of favouring BT.

Unless this is likely to speed matters (LLU) up then it doesn't make a bit of difference to you and I, witch-hunt take two.

Oftel Investigates BT

By:mark.j @ 2:07:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to yesterdays Sunday Telegraph, two leading Telco's have finally mounted an official complaint to Oftel over, yes you guess it, Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) from BT:

Britain's leading telcos have lodged a formal complaint with Oftel against BT over the way broadband services are being introduced, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The newspaper reports that Kingston Communications, Energis and Colt are among a number of operators that claim BT is not providing fair access to it local exchanges as part of local loop unbundling (LLU).

The telcos claim that while they are struggling to gain access to local exchanges in order to install their kit and offer broadband services directly to businesses and consumers, BT is busy rolling out its own broadband services effectively giving itself a head start.

While reading the rest @ The Register, we should be expecting to see a formal investigation into the matter shortly. Just so long as BT don't use it as another excuse to delay the LLU yet further and thus add insult to injury – apparently one of their many traits.

DTI Gives Oftel Support

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

With growing anger and doubt starting to surround the questioned Telco regulator, Oftel, the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) have given it a boost with their backing:

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has given Oftel a vote of confidence over its handling of local loop unbundling.

Despite mounting criticism against the regulator and a report that a number of telcos have lodged an official complaint with the winged watchdog against BT, a spokesman at the DTI gave the regulator two thumbs up.

"We're one hundred per cent behind them," said a spokesman for the DTI.

Good for Oftel, getting some support out of an otherwise un-favouring industry, although we'll leave any puns for the next LLU related post - there's always more than one a day =). Check the rest over @ The Register.

Telewest Undercuts BT

By:mark.j @ 1:51:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As the local loop slowly unbundles itself so that normal Telco's can have a slice of competition, the cable market remains dormant. Until today at least, when Telewest set out to undercut BT once more:

Telewest has unveiled a new range of digital TV and phone offerings, the cheapest of which is £9 per month.

Its Starter package will offer users access to multi-channel digital TV, a phone line, free local calls, TV email, games and online shopping and banking. Telewest emphasises that this undercuts BT’s £9.25 standing charge for a phone line.

So you get more than just a phone and for a lot less, not bad really. You can find lots more information and detail over @ CableNews.

Send Freeserve To The French

By:mark.j @ 10:46:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The UK's largest ISP, Freeserve, has had several recent bid collapses from major offshore parties considering them as an acquisition (T-Online etc.). Today the FRENCH ISP Wanadoo sets to raise FS share prices after they claimed to be considering it:

Wanadoo, the cash-rich ISP majority-owned by French Telecom, has "entered the race to buy Freeserve," Sunday Business claims.

Freeserve clearly has the for sale sign dangling over its head, but will it want to be owned by the French? In June, negotiations with T-Online, the German ISP giant collapsed, in disagreement over price and "culture".

At the time, it carried a price tag of £6 billion - now it is a more realistic £ 2.4 billion

You can read the rest over @ The Register, while our bid of £5 has stood sound since the beginning. This is the first active interest in nearly a month, a month which has seen Freeserve slowly loose out to overpriced unmetered.

The question is now; do we really care who owns them just so long as they do a better job?

ISPreview Site Updates

By:mark.j @ 10:35:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As usual the start of a new month brings in the typical update summary of specific sections, although we do now update them through the weeks. The Top10 was only updated recently, although we made another change today by dropping IC24 down several places over recent complaints.

The Worst ISP for October 2000 is undoubtedly Freeserve due to the mass of complaints we've had. General word of advice is to avoid them at all costs until things are fixed and this blows over. FS is currently 20 complaints away from breaking RedHotAnts 106 record.

As for the complaints page itself, Freeserve is obviously dominant, but IC24 has now been added in as well. Complaints over 24-7Freecall have dropped as things slowly improve and likewise for BTInternet. Generally the rest have stayed the same, although NTL is a hair away from making it onto the list and Telewests SurfUnlimited continues to have problems.

The Results of last months survey is.. (If you own a Pocket Organiser (PDA), then what type is it?):
PalmOS (PalmPilot) 32.1% (113 Votes)
Epoc Based (Psion) 25.5% (90 Votes)
PocketPC (WinCE3) 20.7% (73 Votes)
WAP Phone 9% (32 Votes)
WindowsCE (HPC) 3.9% (14 Votes)
Other.. 3.6% (13 Votes)
WindowsCE (PPC) 3.4% (12 Votes)
Pocket Linux (iPAQ) 1.4% (5 Votes)

Total Votes: 352

The new survey is titled, 'Do we need OFTEL to be removed/replaced?', and can be voted on over to your bottom right.

Finally we have the Readers Top 50, with the current Top 10 looking something like this:

1 IGClick
2 RedHotAnt
3 Euphony
4 FreeChariot
5 BTInternet
6 Prestel
7 FreeWire
8 Freeserve
9 Direct Connection
10 Care4Free

Certainly some interesting changes in the list, no sign of 24-7Freecall after their problems or World-Online since the price changes. Despite remaining problems, RedHotAnt have climbed dramatically and the same for IGClick, which remains No.1 since mid month.

God knows where Euphony and FreeWire came from, but the rest are fairly valid. The list will likely be re-set to update the security system sometime soon, it's about time anyway.

LibertySurf CD's Update

By:mark.j @ 9:28:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Most people have forgotten LibertySurf and its certainly been awhile since we had cause to mention them, that aside and one of our readers (George) sent an update:

LibertySurf have removed the Heading 'Join LibertySurf' from their Web Page and have also removed the banner saying 'The CD will shortly be back on sale, watch this space for details'. However, what they have now started is a PAYG scheme and CDs can be picked up freely from the usual stores.

We know some of you still haven't got the CD so perhaps now's your chance to get one.