August 26, 2000 - August 31, 2000

News - August 31,2000

ISPreview Site Updates

By:mark.j @ 12:20:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Our usual monthly updates have now been completed (Unmetered list and forum still need to be fixed up) and so here's the usual update. Oh by the way, check out the newspaper 'The Guardian' (Online Section - 8 to 9) as we're in it today.

Firstly the Top10 has had quite a shift with the likes of 24-7Freecall pushing up and several others going out. The same can be said for our Readers Top50, VisualDepth, CallNet0800, Ezesurf and AltaVista have all been thrown out. Good news is we replaced them with FreeChariot, Demon, FreeUK and Affinity - get voting.

The complaints page got an update, which has obviously seen EzeSurf and VisualDepth go out and RedHotAnt get refined. The Worst ISP is amazingly Freeserve by a hairs length from BTI, the recent slow speeds and engage tones don't seem to have made people very pleased =(. Also more complaints are coming in that 24-7Freecall has still failed to fix the 'Random Cut-off' problem for ISDN users, we'll contact them ASAP.

The results from last months poll are:
[How do you feel about Online transactions? ]
Happy to use them 62.3% - (319 Votes)
Little nervous 25.1% - (129 Votes)
Totally insecure 6.2% - (32 Votes)
Never used one 3.7% - (19 Votes)
Not bothered 2.1% - (11 Votes)
Online what? 0.1% - (1 Votes)
----------------
Total Votes: 512
----------------

This month’s poll asks if you own a PDA (Pocket Organiser) and if so then what type is it? The Forum has had a change; this is because we've introduced ISP specific sections for a future update to the unmetered listings.

That's about it for now, although we'll be doing some more general site updates soon.

Vispa Halt Unmetered Service

By:mark.j @ 9:16:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The ISP Vispa has just privately announced to us that their unmetered service has been put on hold. The service hasn't yet launched and was due to any day, however in a pre-statement E-Mail to us the MD explains his reasons:

"Advice from our Telco's is wait until late November/Early December before reviewing the situation again. The current situation (and I will call it stupid) of overpriced 0800 costs per minute, needs to reviewed by BT, and in turn allow us worth in a better range of figures to make a workable solution."

The full statement is likely to arrive later today or perhaps in a day or twos time. So as you can see the new FRIACO Hybrid system is still managing to annoy Telco's as well as ISPs who aren't happy with it.

It'd actually be cheaper to run a small ISP off a business ADSL line, just a pity BT won't let you do that, but it's a good example of the problems being faced.

Freeserve ADSL Live

By:mark.j @ 9:05:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

You may remember Freeserve put its ADSL services over to the people on August 20th, well today they officially went live according to UK.Internet:

Freeserve will begin rolling out its broadband services next Monday claiming that it will be able to sign up over 100,000 eager users in the first year.

The asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service promises speeds of 500Kbps and will be piped over a BT network. Initially, the Freeserve Plus service will debut at £40 per month, but the company itself has admitted that it is "an expensive price". Peter Cowley, head of Freeserve's broadband services, said: "We hope to get to £30 per month in 2001 and eventually below £20."

According to Cowley, once the prices start dropping the users will come flooding in. "We're looking at the price coming down before we get into the millions," he said. But he added that the shifting process for existing customers from narrowband to broadband would be a long process, and could take as long as four years.

Freeserve remains optimistic despite BT's delayed roll out of ADSL. "I think ADSL is going to be the dominant high-speed platform," said Cowley.

BT will roll out broadband to local exchanges covering over six million homes in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, with 80 per cent of the country expected to be covered within 18 months.

We can't help feeling that Freeserve is over estimating how many ADSL subscribers they will get, could it be the ISDN mistakes of the past all over again? Not to mention that in two years a new ADSL standard will be introduced and what's this about 80% in 18months time? Wasn't that 75% (+5% of the country is a big change)?

Still wishing them luck we hope they do get a lot of subscribers because that'll mean cheaper access costs for the rest of us.

Bandwidth on Demand (DSL)

By:mark.j @ 8:56:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Satellites, they are the only devices that are truly known to associate themselves with payments for Bandwidth usage. However that could all change with a radically new program being pioneered in the USA and hopefully make it into the UK late next year.

USA FreeDSL customers languishing at 144Kbps to 384Kbps speeds can get a taste of truly high-speed digital subscriber line access with Winfire Inc.'s, Bandwidth-on-Demand, announced on Wednesday.

The patent-pending product by Winfire gives DSL customers a one-click speed boost of up to 1.54Mbps, depending on the condition of the copper line running from the home to the central office. Available in three-hour increments up to 12 hours, the service starts at $4.95.

Winfire is an "upsell" Internet service provider, offering free DSL Internet access in the hopes its customers will upgrade to premium services at speeds up to 1.54Mbps. The model is based on the success of Juno Online Services, Inc., which took its initially-free dialup service and became the nation's third largest ISP.

Chad Steelberg, Winfire chairman and co-chief executive officer, said his product shows customers the advantages of the true capabilities of DSL.

"Winfire is committed to offering our DSL customers the latest technology that improves their overall experience on the Internet," Steelberg said. "Bandwidth-on-Demand is the first Winfire offering that provides users with seamless one-click access to a faster DSL connection, for a significantly lower cost, when they choose."

Don't go jumping for joy, as we said at the start the service won't find its way into the UK anytime soon. However we would like to point this quote out:

"offering free DSL Internet access in the hopes its customers will upgrade"

That's nice, although here in the UK we have to pay through the roof, still that's life and it's not going to change for a while. No wait, that's BT not life.

0800 ISP That Pays YOU?

By:mark.j @ 8:39:AM - Comments (14) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Our friends over @ Net4Nowt have discovered something that simply doesn't make sense, a freecall ISP that pays you?:

The company involved is http://www.0800unlimited.com with the service due to go live on 4th December. A sign-up page is available from 1st September. They are paying agents £25 commission for every customer they sign-up as well as ongoing payments while the customer uses the service.

They claim the service offers unlimited email accounts and 24MB of webspace with no need to change telephone companies. They also boast that there are no monthly fees, time limits or connection fees.

Now how can they afford to pay out £25 for every customer as well as fund the 0800 access?

For more check out Net4Nowt, the whole thing seems to be a little dodgy to us. However a quick visit to the site shows that they haven't even announced service details and there is no mention of the issues or services raised above.

Considering there are also no contact details we suggest you take what's been said with a pinch of salt. Until we see actual service details, everything reported could be false.

Linx Hits 3Gbps

By:Daniel @ 2:21:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Register had reported that the linx's traffic is around 3 gigabytes per second at peak times. This shows that the internet is becomming more popular and with more and more unmetered ISPs around the corner the 3Gbps will soon be 4.

The Register also says:

"Linx broke the one Gbps barrier just before the end of 1999. And though the rule of thumb is usually a doubling of traffic every 100 days Linx has been slightly cautious and just predicts it will break 5Gbps by the end of 2000"

The linx(London Internet Exchange) is a building which has the primary connection point for UK based ISPS to the States.

News - August 30,2000

Ex-Ezesurf Staff Interviews

By:zeon @ 11:38:PM - Comments (10) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Vincent Paul Wilton/The Matrix have an interview with some former employees of Ezesurf. Read it HERE. We did chat to Kenny - Office SysAdmin today, he agrees with all of what the other staff have said. He still hasn't been paid but he hopes the former Ezesurf employees can get together and form a new and better ISP.

Trading Standards and Ezesurf

By:zeon @ 4:45:PM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today, we spoke to Trading Standards who are now involved with Ezesurf. They say that their investigation into Ezesurf is ongoing. Ezesurf should be appointing a liquidator today. If you want to complain about Ezesurf you should contact your local Trading Standards office as all of them have been informed of the current situation. This can be found by entering your postcode on HERE.

If you are looking to get a refund and you paid Ezesurf over £100 pounds your credit card company have to give you a refund. You still might get a refund for a lower amount but it depnds on CC Company policy. Otherwise you probably won't have a chance, as the biggest creditor (Energis) will get the first pick at the money left. If you want to write to the liquidator send your letter by registered post to Liquidator, Ezesurf, 11-19 Buchanan Street, DUNDEE. DD4 6SD.

If the service was never provided to you or you don't think you got the service described on the Ezesurf website then Trading Standards do want to here from you as a Criminal Investigation might be possible. Trading Standards do read ISPreview to get information about Ezesurf so if you want to E-Mail us then we will pass it on to them.

If you want to contact the staff of Ezesurf E-Mail eze@eezypeezy.net or visit Ezesurf.org.

SniffOut Beta Test and Delays

By:zeon @ 3:13:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Sniff Out are looking for 500 beta testers for their range of Open Road packages. The launch has been delayed until mid-September due to a problem on the BT network (Not very suprising most Surftime ISPs seem to have been delayed by BT). The beta testers will be picked from those already pre-registered and they will be informed in the next few days. If you want more information call 0845 458 2356 or visit Sniff Out.

Mitchell Quits AV

By:zeon @ 11:35:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Andy Mitchell, MD of AltaVista UK and Ireland has quit according to reports on ZDNet and The Register. He handed in his resignation yesterday and AltaVista are due to issue a full statement shortly.

Ezesurf Round Up

By:zeon @ 11:17:AM - Comments (21) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The statement can still be found HERE. After everything that happened yesterday some of you might be left in a difficult situation. Some questions you might want answered:

Which ISP?
IGClick , £50/Setup, £30 PA, No Cut-Off, 2 Hour idle timeout.
World Online , £20/Setup, £15PM (Including Line Rental), 3 hour cut-off.
24/7 FreeCall , £19.99PM, No Cut-off, ISDN problems.
PlusNet , A range of BT Surftime Packages.

Refund?
The best option is to try and get a refund back from your Credit Card company. If the credit card company refuses then you probably won't see any money. As long as you got a decent amount of time out of £39 then there is no point in wasting time getting a refund.

Energis
Energis have issued a revised statement. The basic point being that they have a statutory obligation to their shareholders and they can't just forget two million pounds. But they were also glad that many people thought the access to the service was good.

Dogma MD Attacks UK Unmetered Internet

By:mark.j @ 9:24:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The MD @ Dogma has sent us a personal statement on the state of Internet access in the UK and what it all boils down to. I pondered posting it and decided to as it's nothing less controversial then things we've talked about recently:

Dogma MD attacks the useless.

As one of the UK's most innovative Internet Service providers, we have the honour of working with several independent Internet companies, ranging from http://www.instantname.co.uk to the http://www.1jena.com group, and through out the Dogma Groups existence ( a mere 7 months to be exact) we have seen many companies, idea's and visions washed away with info hungry net junkies. Give ISP's a break, they try to offer a service not already offered and fail. One such companies, which has gone against all odds is IG Systems. Keiron Butcher, is one of the UK's most experienced Business Men. He believes in Direct contact with the customer. IG Click has been extremely successful to say the least but, Can IGClick keep this up? The Public, who indeed are the end-user are often mis educated by a service. IG Click is a service for everyone and in my view, will be around for years to come.

As for EzeSurf? What can one say, 08004U collapsed and so has Ezesurf. They did offer a service but because of BT control and hold on the market, they could not sustain it. It was a shame!

BT

BT is a company that is Greedy...truly. They have no real affections for the end-user. They could, but it would mean that their pockets would be less lined.

We think EzeSurf might disagree and blame everything on Energis, although their staff would say differently and have done (see below). As for BT, yep we think the guy said it better than we ever could =).

BTOpenworld Woes

By:mark.j @ 9:14:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Not a day after it officially launches (apparently some three months early?) BTOpenworld has come under fire from all angles. Everybody from Net4Nowt, The Matrix, The Register, ZDNet and several other sites have posted issues of their own:

Firstly came N4N Reporting on what they had seen @ ZDNet:
"BTopenworld has already warned users there could be a waiting list, claiming a shortage of engineers and a backlog of 100,000 pre-subscriptions will mean delays of up to two months before equipment can be installed in homes."

"BTopenworld is a separate company from its parent telco and BT is obliged to offer ADSL to any ISP that wants it. Easynet, Supanet, Madasafish and Demon have all committed to roll out ADSL services imminently. Demon has accused BT of being anti-competitive by offering openworld ADSL at a preferential rate."

Now considering that The Register reported the service had launched three months early (what?), that would just about set the timeline strait for BT.

Then The Matrix goes on to take a personal look at those port-blocking issues we highlighted not long ago:

"The service supports most protocols including Telnet, SMTP, HTTP, FTP, TFTP, VDO, RealAudio, Cu-SeeMe, QUAKE (2.8.0) The service does not support… H.323-based applications, Netmeeting, ICQ (community chat)."

No ICQ... hmmm that'll upset a few people...

Meanwhile, they further detail what home users get with this statement:

"Unfiltered internet access (no manual proxies or restricting firewalls)."

"no manual proxies or restricting firewalls"

I await a more "detailed and accurate" reply from BT on the subject of exactly what they mean by "no manual proxies" or "restricting firewalls"...

Couldn't agree more, although the firewall issue isn't likely to be big as BT already started recommending the use of PERSONAL FIREWALLs (See out 'Safety & Security' article). The Matrix go on to show that BT seem to have refuted their original statement about contentions and moved their service back to the standard 50:1 from 80:1.

ISPreview thinks it'll wait until the local loop is unbundled and we start to see some REAL competition. Ack… they are blocking ICQ!

Breathe Less?

By:zeon @ 8:08:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The latest update on the Breathe status page:

"breathe hereby give notice that the "Inactivity Time Out Period" and "Continuous Connection Time Out Period" will be changed as from 5th September 2000.

As from 5th September 2000 the Inactivity Time out Period will be 30 (thirty) minutes.

As from 5th September 2000 the Continuous Connection Time Out Period will be 120 (one hundred and twenty) minutes.

Under Clause 12.2 of the Terms and Conditions of the Breathe Freely Service you may terminate the contract if any material modification of the service is not acceptable to you, any notice of termination must be in writing to breathe. If you continue to use the service following this notice you are deemed to have accepted this modification.

It is important that you refer to the "Acceptable Use Guidelines" for the breathe Freely Services for further information regarding inactivity time out periods.

The breathe team"

Breathe now have a 2 hour cut-off. How long will they last? After the ezesurf announcement and the non appearance of AltaVista things aren't looking good.

Ezesurf Staff

By:Daniel @ 4:04:AM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Just a quick note to say if anyone would like to see comments from the Ezesurf staff then check out www.ezesurf.org .

News - August 29,2000

RIP Bill Defended

By:Ross14 @ 5:35:PM - Comments (8) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

RIP Bill Critics were struck a blow this week after it was defended by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).

"The organisation, which works with governments internationally and recruits from MI5 and the Metropolitan Police amongst others, said the suggestions that civil liberties were being curtailed were “wrong and scaremongering,” and that it is the criminals that are infringing civil liberties - the civil liberties of their victims.

According to the NCIS, crime costs the UK approximately £50bn every year – and says that it seeks the “modern tools to do a modern job.”

The organisation continued: “Conspiracy theorists must not be allowed to get away with the ridiculous notion that law enforcement would or even could monitor all emails.”

This latest remark just fuels the debate over the RIP Bill. If only certain changes were made to it then more and more people would start to accept. We agree with most: "It's far to snoopy."

Source: netimperative.com

NTL Ready For 2,000,000 Subscribers

By:mark.j @ 4:56:PM - Comments (23) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

NTL have one of the more popular unmetered (freecall) ISP's and aren't afraid to show it. As a snub to BT and AltaVista they've just announced that the golden goal of 2,000,000 subscribers is now within reach - The Register reports:

The cableco-cum-telco outfit claims 250,000 people are currently using its ntlworld unmetered Net package.

The service was announced in March this year at the same time AltaVista made its pledge to offer unmetered Net access in Britain.

According to Barclay Knapp, NTL CEO: "NTL remains 100 per cent committed to our free ISP strategy."

"Our Internet strategy is to offer an unmatched portfolio of Internet services: from narrowband surfing to high-speed cable modem."

"As a result, we’re on track to have over two million Internet users across our variety of platforms by the middle of next year," he said.

It's always good to see one ISP raising above the mass graves and trying to do something right. Thankfully it's no longer just NTL as more unmetered providers are starting to break through the recent chaos.

Oftel Slaps BT over leased lines

By:mark.j @ 4:50:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Here we go again, this time Oftel have decided to slap BT over leased lines according to The Register. So in other words we'll have to wait another year before anything actually gets done, wonderful, just get freecall:

BT is anti-competitive and has been abusing its monopoly position, according to the winged watchdog Oftel.

A review of the leased lines market found that "competition was not effective in the retail market resulting in prices higher than they would be in a competitive market."

One of the proposals on the table is to force BT to offer leased lines at competitive wholesale rates so other telcos can get in on the act.

David Edmonds, DG of Oftel, said today: "Greater competition in the leased lines market will mean a better deal for UK consumers."

However, to get to that point Oftel will have to go through a long-winded, drawn-out, tortuous, laboured, tedious, time wasting, slow, unhurried, bureaucratic consultation process before finally...finally laying down the law.

We all know BT is anti-competitive and we've heard this all before, even a child of 10 could sight the reasons. So why do we have to wait for Oftel to takes ages before actually doing anything, don't just say it, do it! Ah well that’s the life of a regulator that tries its best but ends up making things worse (FRIACO Hybrid).

Ezesurf Liquidation OFFICIAL

By:zeon @ 4:08:PM - Comments (54) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

A FULL Statement by Matt Bryson has now been place on Ezesurf @ 15:38 BST. It is too long to post in the news so here are some of the vital parts:

"Ezesurf was intended to last for many years, however we have no alternative but to enter Voluntary Liquidation. We are very sorry to our past and present customers and would like to explain why this has happened.

>>>>>

Little did we realise what was about to happen. Around the sixth of August we started to receive communications from Energis Squared. We were informed by telephone that there has been an error at Energis Squared and that we had not been billed for several services. This being 0808-freecall access.

We were informed that between February and July 2000 we had accumulated over 1.7 million pounds in charges for freecall access. Now, as with any small company, this was a major amount. Every bill we received from Energis Squared was paid. However, with this unexpectedly large bill suddenly sprung on us, we naturally hoped that Energis Squared would give us the standard credit terms. But no ; just a “payable upon receipt” footer on the Invoice. That’s six months of billing all to be paid at once.

>>>>>

For Ezesurf to stay alive we would need at least 55,000 (fifty five thousand) new users. Remember, we actually offer (sorry, offered, past tense) everything that major companies wanted to provide, namely 24/7 freecall access. They get lots of publicity for being about to launch services, which later they say they have launched, and then retract the claim. If we had AltaVista’s mailing list, we really could, within a matter of days, deliver everything they “promised” but failed to deliver.

>>>>>

All we would like to say is sorry, we tried to stay alive, but never had the time to pay such a big bill, which including VAT totalled £2,083,351.21 . Remember, Ezesurf could re-open within days if every user was to introduce 5 friends to it. We would love to be there for you and provide you with a better service. It would be great for the public to help us as it will prove to the likes of larger companies that smaller companies can compete as well in this world.

The Full Statement can be found on Ezesurf or on ISPreview.

This explains most of the happenings with Ezesurf over the past 9 months. It is sad to see them go as it was such a good offer but if the £££ don't add up then there won't be a service. We hope to have some more comment shortly.

If you are looking for another provider ISPreview recommends you use IGClick, Freeserve, 24/7 FreeCall or World Online. These are currently the top ISPs in our Readers Top 50.

*Update*
Energis were unable to comment on specific account details as they are confidential but they said:

"As of 12.00 Thursday 24 August 2000, we are no longer providing an 0800 service to Ezesurf"

This was what we were told before. But we questioned them about Ezesurf continuing to have the Webspace and E-Mail. They told us that as long as they continued to have a contract with Ezesurf to provide the services. The services would stay.

How long that contract long the contract lasts is anyones guess but ISPr advises all Ezesurf customers to try and move all vital e-mail away from Ezesurf.

If you want to retrieve files from your website use 08451 287424 which was working last time we checked.

Ezesurf Finally Dead?

By:zeon @ 12:54:PM - Comments (65) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to Ezesurf.org:

"Matt just called the office. Ezesurf has been liquidated."

Well it looks like they might have finally thrown in the towel. The phones aren't being answered in Dundee or in the call centre. If anyone does get through let us know.

VisualDepth Discussion

By:mark.j @ 9:30:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We realise a lot of people will now be concerned and contacting various authorities about VisualDepth after we revealed our investigation and their reply in full. As such we'll be helping to address as much of the issue as possible by maintaining an active state on our forum.

Through the day we'll be monitoring THIS TOPIC and discussing the issue with anybody that wants to join in. Please post constructive comments and not abuse so we can keep it clean, thanks. Click the link to join in.

Despite going to ECTS'2000 this weekend we'll also try and open up a general chat come Saturday, date and time to be set (not too late, some of us need beer).

Nothing from EzeSurf

By:mark.j @ 9:19:AM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As Richard (Zeon) recently predicted would happen, EzeSurf has failed to go live again. Not only that but their 48Hour statement hasn't arrived and that period has now long gone. If you believe the page then that 48hours is an infinite loop as they didn't state a start time (although we knew it was Friday =]).

Rumours are flying around E-Mail, Newsgroups and IRC today, everything from claims that Matt and Keri have run away with £70,000 to a bomb being exploded @ EzeSurfs offices =). We're fairly confident none are true, but they're always funny to read.

We truly hope they don't die as they had a good thing going. Expect a situation update from a certain legal body later today, possibly even EzeSurf themselves - we hope.

Dogma Prep ADSL Launch

By:mark.j @ 8:56:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

If you haven't seen the film yet then do, although the chances are it won't help you much in the ADSL stakes. Thankfully following on from Vispa and BTO, The Dogma Group have pushed their launch forward as well:

Update Press Release.

The Dogma Group

The Dogma Group has just completed a major upgrade to it's network backbone, resulting in far more bandwidth across the network (155Mbps). For this reason, Broadband access, which was scheduled for September, has become viable. Customers can now pre-register for ADSL up to 2 Mbps from the website (http://www.thedogmagroup.co.uk).

Also, The Group's unmetered strategy http://www.onlineserve.co.uk is set to be launched later this year. It will be based in the FRIACO model and will provide support for ISDN up to 128K. The Company has also dropped its web hosting pricing by 50% to create competitively within the market.

So it's still not quite live yet but it should be any day and lets not forget they've announce a FRIACO supporting ISP that has 128Kbps ISDN, nice. That's of course if BT and Oftel can ever get FRIACO right.

News - August 28,2000

IGClick Asks For Ex-AltaVista Users

By:mark.j @ 6:56:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've just recieved a new press release from another one of several unmetered ISPs that seem to be climbing rather than drowning. It's of course IGClick and this time they want all those Ex-AltaVista subscribers to come on over and join up:

IGCLICK gives ALTAVISTA customers first through the tape offer

At IGCLICK we have been monitoring the demise of several free ISPs recently and most importantly the failure of the free access Altavista service to materialise after much cloak and dagger propaganda.

We have now set out our stall and are progressing well into this market and are still continuing to do so at a time when the free ISP group seems to be receiving increasing scepticism, which was not surprising considering the customers were herded up in great numbers and loaded onto a system that could not support them. At IGCLICK we have limited our start up customer numbers to avoid this problem and have now successfully upgraded to a new type of system, which will provide far better service for our customers.

IGCLICK, as a result of this would like to announce that we can accept the first fifty thousand (50,000) disappointed ALTAVISTA customers to join.

We are fully aware that there are many free ISP followers out there that have lost their accounts with free ISPs that have turned their backs on them and need to find an ISP that will look after them as they expect. IGCLICK aims to be that ISP. We pride ourselves on an honest and forthright approach to the market and our customers needs do come first. Our teams of staff work extremely hard from the ground up to provide a service that inspires confidence in the customer. I doubt that one of our customers could be found that disagreed with that and the quality of the service.

Priced at only £80.00 to join. Made up of a one off Registration fee of £50.00 and an annual recurring charge of £30.00 thereafter, the price is almost unbelievable for what is being offered.

We are sincerely attempting to dispel the negative advertising that members of the free ISP group seems to be giving itself.

IGCLICK believes that it is the fast and reliable internet access method of the present and future. It is what users in this country have been after for many years and we believe that it is what they deserve.

We are also rolling out delivery of ADSL right now and response has been positive.

At IGCLICK, we look forward to giving up to 50,000 ALTAVISTA customers a chance to get what they believed existed.

Keiron Butcher
Director of IT Operations
IG Systems Ltd

http://www.igclick.net

To date ISPreview hasn't received any complaints about IGC, although nor have we reviewed them, so can't really comment. It's good to see some ISPs are making the most of other failures.

Vispa ADSL Services - LIVE

By:mark.j @ 5:04:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following BTOpenworlds announcement today, Vispa have also done a press release regarding their ADSL services. Here it is in full and as usual, un-cut:

Press Release - Vispa switches to High Speed

After months of waiting Vispa Internet is pleased to announce that it will switch on it's fixed-rate Home version on Tuesday August 29th. Priced at £45.00 a month, all packages are equipped ready to go solution which include 512k Downstream / 256k Upstream, Unlimited POP3 Email Addresses, 15Mb of Webspace for Personal or Business use with Frontpage Extensions, Full 51,000 Newsgroup feed and much more.

Vispa Connect ADSL Home version is the introduction package of a range of ADSL based solutions from Vispa Internet Limited. Two weeks ago Vispa Internet launched it's business based solutions with up to 2Mb Downstream speeds and prices more aggressive than other main stream Internet Service Providers.

Martin Pitt, Managing Director of Vispa Internet said "I strongly feel that offering more aggressive pricing will be warmly excepted by business owners around the country. ADSL offers businesses a 24 Hour a day connection to the Internet allowing customer relations to become more effective and professional".

If you live within the following areas, your telephone exchanges were
upgraded to ADSL this week and now ready to work with Vispa Connect ADSL: Aberdeen, Aldershot, Bradwell Abbey, Cambridge Central, Cannonbury, Chingford, Chiswick, Dean, Earls Court, Ewell, Horsham, Low Fell, Lower Holloway, Maida Vale, Mary Hill, Muswell Hill, Parsons Green, Pudsey, Shenley Church End, Shepherds Bush, Sloan, Stockport, Surbiton, Twickenham and Woking.

Vispa Internet Limited
http://www.vispaconnect.co.uk

Some may be slightly cautious with the £45 per month price, but right now it's either that or less and an 80:1 contention through BTO. Good if you’re not near a big town/city, bad if you're in the middle of one. We expect other ADSL providers to make their systems live in the coming weeks.

Just remember, in our recent interview BT claimed you'd NEVER get lower than 128Kbps on 80:1 ADSL.

New Article @ ISPreview

By:mark.j @ 3:58:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Well after nearly three months (since June) we've posted our public version of the 'VisualDepth Investigation'. It's an 8 page long read and so it's wise to get a drink and some cake before you start =):

"On 3rd of June 2000 a private investigation was launched into the possible wrong doings of Visual Depth; a newly started unmetered (freecall) ISP. Now nearly three months later we can finally conclude it and bring you our official verdict, but before that we’ve done a littler history lesson."

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/vd/

Women avoid men with laptops - Official!

By:mark.j @ 3:49:PM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Somewhat off-topic but we couldn't resist posting this article from Internet Works and proclaim our relief that we all have steady Desktop systems:

According to a recent survey carried out by Internet retailer buy.com, a woman can find out quite a lot about a future partner from the computer he owns. The Internet superstore asked 1,500 of its unmarried male customers a series of questions about computer ownership and relationships and found that there was some definite correlation.

For example, 77 per cent of men who owned a laptop admitted that they weren't looking for a steady relationship and were more interested in playing the field - three times as many as those who only owned a desktop PC.

"These days a PC can give as many clues about a person's personality as the car they drive or the clothes they wear," explained Sidney Crown, consultant psychologist. "Mankind has always subconsciously used cultural signifiers such as clothes to give them an insight into anyone new they meet. Now we live in a technology age, this is extended to the gadgets we own and the mobile phones we use."

Not surprisingly, men who update their computer regularly are also more likely to update their partner regularly, whereas men who stick with their old clunky machine are happy to stay in a long-term relationship. So next time a man wants to scare off an eager woman, he just needs to whip out the latest laptop and watch her run.

Despite notable opposition that desktop machines are not old and chunky, unlike laptops you can upgrade them (ironic, survey is wrong etc.), we can't help but wonder what this means if you have a PalmTop? =).

Mind you, anybody silly enough to whip out a Laptop in the pub are more likely to have it nicked then anything else. That or some nutter spills their beer all over it, yes, "Har har," indeed - or not.

EzeSurf Update 6

By:mark.j @ 11:23:AM - Comments (33) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to some readers who rang EzeSurf, their service will be back up and running again on the same number this afternoon. This is what was mentioned last Friday as well, the only thing we know for sure is that 48hours is up - statement pending.

However these readers could be wrong as Deputy Editor - Richard gave them a bell and states:

"Afraid not! Just rang them, they told me Matt Bryson still hasn't announced anything to them. It would be very hard for them to move anywhere as all their hardware is run and owned by Planet. It would mean everyone would have to signup again."

Once again another paradox of information slips through the cracks, for now the only certain thing is the paragraph quoted above. 48Hours has passed, we await the statement.

*Updated* by Richard
After speaking to Ezesurf 4 times this morning it still doesn't look likely they will be on soon. The last communication the people had with Matt Bryson was on Friday evening but one of the people in the call centre apparently received an SMS message from him this morning.

What they are now telling people is that it might be back on Monday afternoon under a different company which seems very unlikely as all the accounts are held on Planet servers and it would mean everyone would have to signup again. The people in the call centre seem as uninformed as the customers of Eze so take anything they say as being unreliable until we have some real proof.

BTOpenworld Launches

By:mark.j @ 10:04:AM - Comments (15) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Hold on, haven't we heard this before? Well yes but this time the Telegraph is claiming that BTOpenworld will start connecting consumers to its broadband (ADSL) service this week!:

BRITISH Telecom will this week start connecting consumers to OpenWorld, its high-speed, fixed-rate internet service.
BT announced the service, which costs £39.99 a month, in April and has since received more than 100,000 expressions of interest. The service, which uses high-speed ADSL technology over the copper wire network, will enable viewers to quickly download video clips and listen to their choice of music over the internet.

The high-speed service will act as a precursor to video on demand services, which are currently being tested in conjunction with YES TV. BT has spent more than £250m on the technology in an effort to head off the commercial threat posed by similar services from rivals such as Telewest.

BT expects to double the availability to 70% of the nation by the end of 2001.

Of course it'll be interesting to see how many of its 100,000 interest group will actually sign-up. Knowing full well that BT has actually disadvantaged its own service with a residential 80:1 contention.

Not to mention that a large portion of the interested people are likely in areas not covered by ADSL. For those in such areas (us) it'll be a long wait before broadband spreads.

World Web Servers Fail

By:mark.j @ 9:54:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Most people don't care about what's actually behind the Internet, but perhaps they should as it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain in its present state. The issue was highlighted recently as 12 key servers that held the Internet together, failed, VNUNet reports:

Four out of the 12 servers that control the world's internet traffic suffered a 35 minute failure this week causing them to stop responding to requests for links to web sites ending in .com.
A senior executive at Network Solutions (NSI), one of the organisations that run the so-called root servers, described the failure which happened on Wednesday as a "major, major incident". Web addresses ending in other suffixes, such as .org and .net were not affected.

According to NSI the incident was caused by a glitch in the Berkley Internet Name Domain (Bind) server application which connects IP addresses to web site names. NSI said the affected computers were using a relatively new method to update directory information from a specially designated transfer computer.

The four root servers are located in Tokyo, California and Virgina and are run by NSI, the US Defence Department, the University of Southern California and an organisation in Japan.

Web chiefs are somewhat divided over just how serious the problem was, claiming that most wouldn't have noticed it. Either way it does point out that the Internet is steadily heading towards the same chaos as Air Traffic control systems the world over.

The good news is that Internet2 and a new IP standard are on the way, specifically designed for broadband as well as modems etc. The bad news, it's still several years away (2005 predicted launch date).

NTL Reveal Broadband Plans

By:mark.j @ 9:37:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

NTL has revealed some sparse, yet interesting, details on how they plan to spread out broadband in the future. CableNews reports:

Barclay Knapp, CEO of ntl, has revealed the company's plans to increase revenue from their internet services:

"Just as you can buy more TV channels on the TV side, we are going to price our broadband services incrementally a la carte for higher and higher speed and richer and richer content," he said.

Knapp spoke of his desire to see full integration of the television and internet at the Edinburgh International Television Festival - and made it clear that he intends for ntl to be at the heart of this revolution.

Part of this will undoubtedly involve tempting subscribers from the free ntlworld, which offers free 56K dial-up, to the higher speed broadband cable network - expanding its cable modem customer base from "just a few thousand" to "tens of thousands" by the end of the year.

What can you say? At least the cable companies are actually trying to do something with broadband and succeeding, all the while BT's market diminishes while we are forced to wait longer and longer. Part of being competitive is the ability to bring out competitive products, or didn't they realise that? Pop over and read the rest @ Cnews.

News - August 27,2000

ISPreview Weekly Update

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

Its certainly been a busy August, we've done everything from change the main layout to appear in several key magazines (.Net etc.) and newspapers (Sunday Times etc.), not to mention on several TV BBC News bulletins. We were going to speak on the Radio, but that message came while I was out, so missed the chance.

ISPr ended up having exactly the same popularity surge since May'2000 when we saw similar publicity levels. Normal visitor levels of 7K - 10K a day shot to 22,000+ and continue around that level. Sadly our VISIBLE counter is a stricter system (can't cope with multiple visitors) and counts unique visitors. That's 1 visit by 1 person per 24 hours, usually using cookies to track.

In other words, when the visible counter at the top reaches 1,000,000 (hopefully before the end of the year), that'll mean 100% unique visits. The internal system is currently stating 1,247,189, which is the re-occurring total (if a person comes back again later but with the a different IP) and used by just about everybody.

Anyway enough about that and onto the update, firstly some bad news, the people writing our 'Reader Review/Article Comments' system have failed to reply. We can no longer wait and are looking at other alternatives, have to say I'm not very happy with such behaviour.

Our primary goal for the coming week is now set to finish the 'Visual Depth Investigation' article and get it up. Unlike previous weeks we can now devote everything to getting it done, so expect it around Wednesday or sooner. On top of that we'll be talking to 4 or 5 ISPs/Networks about our own Freecall ISP; things become clearer everyday.

The other thing for the coming week is that it's the monthly changeover; so expect several pages to be updated as such. Richards also been working on the new ISP list most of the summer and we should see something soon.

Finally, we haven't mentioned any 'Get Paid To Surf' systems such as the only good one, AllAdvantage, for awhile, but Richard (Zeon) signed up with GetPaid4 and tells me it's quite good (That's his ref on the link). Another good one that's just out of testing (Pays in GBP) is PaysU, they give out about £0.20 per hour (from what I've been seen anyway) and pay you offline as well as online.

Remember CashFiesta, well so many people were cheating them that they put a temporary halt on the service for Julys payments and possibly August.

That's it for this week and because the people coding our 'Reader Review/Article Comments' system have vanished, we suggest you try CIAO. They list several hundred popular ISPs and once signed up you actually get paid for every comment you place on them =). £0.30 per comment, £0.05 to you for everybody that reads the comment and £1 when you signup; beats the Paid To Surf programs anyway.

Energis to Get Cheap Access Deal

By:zeon @ 8:08:AM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Energis could be given cheaper access to the net after they agreed a deal with BT. This report is from the Sunday Times:

"Last week AltaVista, the American search engine company, abandoned its much-publicised plans to offer unmetered access for £60 a year. Ezesurf, of Dundee, also pulled out of the market.

Energis is the only company, apart from MCI Worldcom, that has agreed a deal with BT under the new flat-rate regime demanded in May by Oftel, the telecoms regulator. ISPs have complained that flaws in the new arrangements and profiteering by telecoms companies are delaying unmetered net usage.

The deal with BT will enable Energis to offer its ISP customers a service that takes some of the financial risk out of offering unmetered access. Freeserve, Britain's biggest ISP, relies on Energis to handle its traffic. Freeserve offers a cheaper version of Surftime, BT's unmetered product, but each customer costs it about £2.50 to £3 a month. With 140,000 customers having switched to this service, it costs Freeserve about £400,000 a month. Although details are not yet available, the Energis deal may enable it to introduce a more profitable service."

You can read the full article HERE. Thanks to Dave for pointing us to the story. This deal should mean Freeserve can keep it's current deals for longer as they should become more profitable. The future still doesn't look bright for Ezesurf as the Sunday Times said "Ezesurf, of Dundee, also pulled out of the market."

News - August 26,2000

Virtual ISP's - The End Is Nigh....

By:Ross14 @ 8:11:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to an Analyst report this week by Forrest Research, small and medium sized ISP's will gradually fade away in the background over the next few years as they have no chance of competing against the giant telco-backed ISP's such as Freeserve and AOL.

The analyst, in its report UK Virtual ISPs: RIP, said that the virtual ISP (VISP) model rolled out by nearly all UK service providers has had its day, and that over the next five years, VISPs will be forced to hand over dominance of the access market to eight or nine large telco-backed providers.

Shobhit Kakkar, associate analyst at Forrester, said that after the launch of Freeserve in 1998, subscription-free access quickly became the standard model. "Offering a VISP was a simple way for traditional companies to tap into the growing online population, but the time to profit from this strategy is over," he said.

The report indicated that the market is changing rapidly, driven by customer churn and aggressive moves by telcos. It found VISPs don't have the scale or the scope to compete in this increasingly competitive environment. Although a variety of access pricing models exist, led by the unmetered model, unmetered narrowband will eventually give way to broadband services accomodating 4.5 million UK households by 2005.

Kakkar said that VISPs would split into two camps: the big players, with over 100,000 accounts; and the small players. But he predicted that the large VISPs will sell out to surviving telco-backed ISPs with sufficient scalability. The result of this shakeout will set clear differentiation between online access and online services. Companies will no longer look to telcos for help in strengthening consumer relationships. Instead, they will concentrate on arranging distribution through portals and ensuring presence across multiple access channels.

It's no real big surprise with unmetered access, ADSL and these giant ISP's taken an obvious hold in the UK net market. There will always be a few small ISP's around, but not as many as there are now =(

Source: UK.Internet

Ezesurf 0845 Access Through General POL Number

By:zeon @ 2:16:PM - Comments (36) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

*UPDATED*
It appears that this number is just a general Planet access number as Freeserve and Ezesurf accounts can log in so it is still not looking good.
-------------------
We've received some interesting information from MerlinUK who spoke to ezesurf over the phone. The new number is 0845 1287424. This is an alternative 0845 number to the normal one but is still on the Planet Online backbone and works with Ezesurf accounts.