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July 23, 2001 - July 29, 2001

News - July 29,2001

BT Could Sell Local Loop

By:rich.p @ 5:29:PM - Comments (8) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

A group of banks has put in a bid of £8 billion for the BT Local Loop. These are the wires which link customers to the BT exchanges. According to THIS report in the Sunday Times:

"A CONSORTIUM of banks and finance houses has approached British Telecommunications with an £8 billion offer for the group's local-loop business - the lines and exchanges that link people's homes to the phone system.

The bid, codenamed Project Alchemy, is being led by Babcock & Brown, the American asset-finance house, and by Chancery Lane Capital, a small New York merchant bank.

Lethbridge first wrote to BT telling it of the consortium's ambitions on May 9. Under his proposal, BT would get about £8 billion in cash and then pay a fixed rental fee for each line it used to service its customers. It would retain the relationship with its consumers and would issue bills. The new owners would also offer the use of the system to other phone operators or cable companies.

BT rebuffed the offer last week but the consortium believes this is a ploy to stall the bid and that the phone company will enter negotiations soon. BT declined to comment."

If BT were to accept the bid it would help relieve the current debt problem and make it easier for other companies to use the LLU.

ISP Review Weekly Update

By:mark.j @ 10:26:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Once again the often-pale white (damn clouds) skins of we native British folk has been turned to brown and in some cases, RED =). Yes that's correct, we've actually got some sun! I'll be keeping this weeks update short because of it.

Aside from all the usual updates, we're presently working to make a few changes on the front page. This will hopefully improve navigation of older news items (by type) and streamline content in with some newer (future) sections.

Sadly the new forums have suffered a slight delay, we're still waiting on a hugely important piece of code before the final merging process can begin. Until then we've been concentrating on trying to refine the new forums layout, something that’ll continue into next week.

The new Readers Top 50 system has also been delayed, a fair portion of bugs were discovered during internal beta that seem to be taking longer than expected to resolve. Typically we always allow for such eventualities and so it's no great problem.

Expect a longer update next week, when it'll probably be back to a normal British summer - raining.

News - July 28,2001

Pipex First To Cut R/ADSL Prices

By:mark.j @ 9:18:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Although a little earlier than expected, Pipex has become the first major ISP to drop the cost of its ADSL service by the expected £5 per month amount. Much as we predicted, Pipex is one of the more expensive ADSL providers and thus has the flexibility to drop prices:

PIPEX Announces Price Reduction For Home Professional 500 USB ADSL Service - With Immediate Effect

27/07/2001 - PIPEX, the UK's first commercial ISP, is pleased to announce that, with immediate effect, it is reducing the cost of its ADSL Home Professional service from £49.99 to £44.99 a month, representing a saving of £60 a year to users. Both new and existing customers will benefit from this price reduction.

PIPEX is able to offer this new price as BT announced today that it would be reducing the cost of its 500 USB broadband circuits by £5 a month from 1 September 2001.

David Rickards, Managing Director of PIPEX, commented "At PIPEX we are committed to the promotion of broadband services to SMEs and home professionals. We believe this technology will prove to be the most significant advancement in the evolution of the Internet as it offers super fast connection, is always available, no dialling is necessary, there is no waiting and no on-line call charges - all in all, a win:win solution for businesses".

He continued, "We believe this price reduction will help boost broadband connection take-up, and are therefore very pleased to be able to pass this significant saving on to our customers immediately, rather than waiting until September".

PIPEX offer a range of ADSL services, including the Home Professional 500 USB service. For further information, please visit our web-site at http://www.dsl.pipex.net .

We'd expect similar announcements leading up to and on September 1st 2001, mostly from the more expensive providers. It'd certainly be interesting to see a cheaper one (BTOpenworld) drop by £5, if a little risky.

News - July 27,2001

PlusNET Introduce Updated Referral Scheme

By:mark.j @ 3:52:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

There aren't many providers with a referral scheme, although those that use one seem to prosper. One of the UKs most popular ISPs, PlusNet, has today issued an update to their own scheme - full Press Release follows:

Much more than your usual referral scheme. Why it pays to recommend PlusNet

PlusNet announce further improvements to their already popular customer referral scheme.

(Friday 27th July 2001, Sheffield UK) Customer referral schemes: once you’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all, you might think. That is, until now. PlusNet, the popular UK Internet Service Provider today announced an exclusive new method of generating new business based upon word-of-mouth recommendation.

Four weeks ago, PlusNet first announced to their customers the launch of ‘My Referral’ - a scheme whereby a discount is offered against a customer’s subscription for every signup generated upon referral. Applying to a range of PlusNet’s unmetered ‘Connect’ and broadband ADSL products, this scheme enables a customer to effectively get free Internet access when they recommend enough people.

Unlike most referral schemes, the discount is not a one-off payment but continues for as long as the recommended party remains a paying customer. “The ‘My Referral’ scheme has been well received from the outset”, stated Alistair Wyse, Product and Service Development Director for PlusNet, “Already, upwards of a third of our new subscribers are coming directly from referral”.

Today however, PlusNet announced that they are going one step further and encouraging their customers to actually MAKE MONEY on the deal! Once the total amount of discount generated through referrals becomes greater than the cost of your subscription, the difference is credited to you.

Wyse continued, “From the outset we have always generated most of our customer growth through referral. Today’s further enhancement to the scheme should go a long way to ensuring that this continues well into the future”.

By logging in to their state-of-the-art web site portal, PlusNet’s customers are able to make referrals with the aid of a simple form, and check on the results of their previous endeavours. They can see, at a glance, which of their referrals have signed up, how much discount this gives them and how much in total they are making from the scheme.

Plus.Net – The Smarter Way to Internet
http://www.plus.net

BT Blames Rivals For LLU Failure

By:mark.j @ 3:44:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Friday has been one of turbulence for BT, while shares seem to be creeping up and the cut of ADSL wholesale prices is likely to spur up-take (hopefully), job culling announcements still managed to drag things back down.

Then more bad news today as BT admitted they'd only handed out 163 local exchanges as part of LLU (Local Loop Unbundling). Anticipating an angry response, BT have been quick to blame their rivals for not taking anymore exchanges:

A BT spokeswoman told ZDNet that there are currently 40 exchanges where rival operators can install equipment, and that a further 50 will be available soon. "We've only handed over 163 lines, because that's all that the operators have asked for," she said. "We have the capacity to roll out 1000 lines per week".

However, with only 40 exchanges available so far BT has not managed to achieve what it has promised. Before the cross-party trade and industry select committee, chief executive Sir Peter Bonfield promised MPs that BT would make 600 exchanges available to competitors by June 2001 and 1,000 by the end of this year or early 2002.

According to BT, one reason for the slow rollout of ADSL is that other operators are still working on the technical side. "Most of those 163 lines are being used for testing. ADSL is new to BT, so it's even harder for the operators to get everything working," said the BT spokeswoman.

We're quite surprised by the ZDNet item and had hoped more exchanges would've been taken up, instead very little has changed in the past few months. Expect the usual angry response from rival operators and ISPs etc. over the weekend and into next week.

Brightview Buys IC24 - Preps Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 3:35:PM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to Net4Nowt, users of IC24 should be pleased to know that ‘Brightview’ (MadAsAFish owners) has purchased them for £4.5Million.

Sadly the new owner isn't going to re-introduce the original off-peak unmetered package, although they do have something else planned:

David Laurie, the managing director of Brightview, said, “It’s all going to be migrated over from Cable & Wireless to BT at our new facility in Rochdale. The ic24 subscribers will get a £12.99 24/7 offer which will go live beginning of September. The service will maintain the ic24 branding.”

He added, “As far as the ic24 subscriber is concerned, they are going to get a cracking service. They are not going to lose any of their familiarity with ic24”

In other words existing subscribers can either stay with their current 0845 dialup or invest a little in the new unmetered offer. Nobody really expected the originally offer to come back, it's now too economically unviable.

ISP Review Site Updates

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

Another Friday and yet another spate of general site updates, this time the 'Broadband', 'Complaints' and 'Unmetered ISP List' have seen the hand of change.

On the complaints front, SupaNet is once again the ISP seeing most problems and it seems they haven't managed to fix things, in fact they're getting worse. With no sign of improvement we've had to mark it down in our review. Avoid them until service improves.

The Unmetered/Freecall ISP list has also been split into three pages instead of the previous two pages; as yet we haven't made similar changes to the forum listings (may do later). So on top of a few updates and changes to the list itself, this should now make it load a little faster.

Finally the broadband page has been given the option to see 'ALL' the news posts for the past 200 days under any given type (ADSL, Satellite etc.). Simply click the '[More]...' link to see them. We'd integrate this into the main page as well, but time is short.

BT To Cut 6,000 Jobs

By:mark.j @ 10:29:AM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Due to their recently announced 70% fall in underlying first-quarter profits, it comes as no surprise that BT now plans a major culling of jobs. They'd recently proposed a 5,000 strong cull, although the new financial data means a 6,000 cut is more probable:

The company said on Thursday that its job cuts could total 6,000 this year rather than the 5,000 previously indicated, with 1,500 jobs likely to go at its Ignite corporate data business in Europe.

Given their other announcement below, none of this would seem to affect the pricing of R/ADSL. In fact it strengthens the ideals for using 'Wires-Only' / 'D.I.Y' R/ADSL installations, since there'll probably be less staff to do it anyway. More @ ZDNet.

BTs SHOCK USB ADSL Price Reduction!

By:mark.j @ 10:17:AM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Hats off to ADSLGuide this morning for bringing the top news of the hour, BTwholesale are to drop prices (to ISPs) for their BTipstream 500 service by £5, taking it from £35 to £30 per month.

We've been rumouring this to happen from internal contacts within BT for sometime, yet had thought BTs recent and poor financial results would've killed it. More so given today’s announcement of a potential 6,000 job loss @ BT.

Despite this and as predicted, the cut will take place from 1st September 2001:

In addition they have announced plans to run a field pilot in the next month for self-install ADSL, i.e. micro-filters which combined with the 'wires-only' option is intended to increase the demand for the service.

Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, said: "This pricing initiative is part of BT Wholesale's ongoing commitment to stimulate demand for broadband services in the UK."

The press release doesn’t mention whether the price cut will be passed onto ISP's for end-users who are currently in their initial 12 month contract term.

Sadly you shouldn't be expecting the savings to affect the cost of end user packages, although no doubt some ISPs will take advantage. If anything the cheaper providers will remain the same and the most expensive ones may drop slightly.

R/ADSL is still a 'knife edge' technology with ISPs making very little profit, thus most will probably use the savings to invest in further promotion and or service quality. Never the less it's a big step in the right direction, pity it only affects the USB 500 services.

High GPRS Pricing To Cause 3G Failure

By:mark.j @ 10:03:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

With all the major operators fighting tooth and nail to build the biggest and best 3G Broadband Wireless mobile networks for 2003, it’s no surprise the new GPRS technology is being eclipsed by the media.

Worse still, a new report by ‘Yankee Group’ spreads concern that unless GPRS prices fall fast, 3G could flop:

The Report examined the various pricing strategies employed for mobile data, including SMS, WAP, and i-mode, with a particular emphasis on GPRS, given its role as a test bed for future 3G applications and pricing models. It also makes recommendations on optimum pricing paradigms to stimulate demand, and ultimately, profitability for future data services.

"In most cases operators are still assessing market requirements through service trials, so strategies are still being refined, but the favored model at present is to charge by the amount of data consumed," according to Farid Yunus, senior analyst for the Yankee Group's Wireless/Mobile Europe research and consulting practice.

"This has been determined for the most part by legacy billing platforms and capabilities," he acknowledges, "but given the diversity and range of future data applications, this approach will prove inadequate both in the long term and in stimulating demand right now. While we understand the need for operators to recoup 2.5/3G network and service development costs as soon as possible, without lower and more flexible pricing we seriously doubt that consumers will be enthused and that a mass market will be created."

The item @ Infosync presents a problem that the industry must address if it's to succeed with 3G, especially given the gamble they're taking.

However despite the report, operators are unlikely to lower prices further given the debt mountain incurred by 3G licenses and network building. Certainly the mandatory option of having to pay for data traffic is putting most customers off, us included.

BTs Free Telephone Answering Service

By:mark.j @ 8:57:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

BT sent us along a short PR regarding their new-ish BT Answer 1571 service, which is an automated answering machine based on their digital exchange (DLE) technology:

With BT Answer 1571 you need never miss a phone call when you're surfing the net. Or when you're out and about, or already on the phone.

BT Answer 1571 greets a call with a pre-recorded message. In fact, it can answer at least two calls simultaneously. Then it takes the messages for you and plays them back when you're ready. *

The other good news is that BT Answer 1571 is absolutely free, even when you dial 1571 to retrieve your messages.

If you already have an answering machine you can still switch it on when you go out. But the beauty of BT Answer 1571 is that it will pick up messages that your answering machine can't - while you're on the phone or surfing the net.

* Messages cannot be accessed remotely and customers cannot change or personalise the BT Answer 1571 greeting. BT Answer 1571 is not available to customers on some exchanges in a small number of remote rural locations. Messaging service available from other suppliers. BT Answer 1571 is not compatible with the Net Chat software at present, so you will not be able to use BT Answer 1571 if you subscribe to Net Chat.

Apparently BT is investigating a way in which the technology can be integrated and accessed through their website, although this is still someway off.

News - July 26,2001

Oftel finalises plans for Telecoms Ombudsman

By:mark.j @ 4:19:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Hot off Oftels very own press page is their latest press release regarding the finalisation of their plans for the new Telecom Ombudsman. It's a fairly short PR and the important part follows:

Final plans for setting up a new Telecoms Ombudsman, in the first half of next year, to resolve disputes between consumers and telecoms companies have been published today by Oftel.

The Ombudsman will provide a new independent and impartial service, enabling consumers to resolve disputes with their telecoms company more quickly and easily without having to go to court.

Oftel has today set out the timetable for the introduction of the Ombudsman. The following are the key stages for implementation:

*The appointment of a Governing Board made up of public interest members;
*The Governing Board to appoint an Ombudsman;
*Agreement of the Ombudsman’s Terms of Reference and detailed Memorandum of Understanding with Oftel;
*Publicity campaign to raise awareness of the Ombudsman’s existence;
*Operational launch of Ombudsman.

Oftel believes that the industry will accept responsibility for establishing and running the scheme. This will ensure industry ownership and commitment and allow for greater flexibility in the detail of the scheme.

Oftel will work closely with the industry and consumer groups to ensure effective implementation and will take any necessary action to keep the project on track.

What follows that is the usual comments from Oftels director general, David Edmonds, about how happy he is with the plan, to be completed by summer 2002. Up until now Oftel hasn't been very good in dealing with direct consumer affairs and mostly handled business complaints/recommendations etc.

Hopefully the new system will open Oftel up to handling some of the more general problems than can inflict so many, yet often go unnoticed.

WonkyPig Refunds & Live Chat Update

By:mark.j @ 4:09:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

After going through more changes than a riverbed, the new unmetered ISP WonkyPig seems to finally be returning to some sense of normality.

The first good news from the ISP follows on from the refund issues raised after BigBlueSky's unmetered suspension, which WP once used before signing a new deal with BT Ignite:

Refunds
Posted Thursday, July 26, 2001
Customers who cancelled their service due to the Big Blue Sky closure, will be pleased to hear we have now refunded all customers today - Money should appear back in your accounts within the next 3 - 4 working days.

WP has also opted to go one step further, into a realm most ISPs have chosen not to take due to risking the ever-present wrath of any unhappy customers. They've added a live chat room for conversing with customer support staff and avoiding the expensive phone line:

Its Good Good To Talk
Posted Thursday, July 26, 2001
You can now contact us live via the web using our new liveperson software, our support team are available from 9am to 6pm on the web and phone as always - save your self 60 per min and use the web!

It's a bold move and we'll be interested to see whether it's a success or not, it's also good to hear that those waiting on a refund should finally get it. Hopefully this 'upward' trend will continue into future days, weeks and months. So if you think it’s “Good Good? to talk with WP live over the web then check their front page.

Industry Pressures ISPs Over File Trading

By:mark.j @ 3:55:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Freedoms of speech activists are likely to bite again following pressure on ISPs from the movie and music industry to crack down on post-napster illegal file trading (piracy):

ISPs say the last few weeks have seen a sharp upturn in the number of requests they're getting to pull the plug on subscribers who are using file-trading software, such as Gnutella or iMesh.

Driven by a combination of high-profile summer movie releases and a growth in the business of independent piracy hunters, these requests are putting service providers in an awkward position. Even as they avoid facing media-industry lawyers, these ISPs risk losing their customers to competing Internet access companies that may be less aggressive about curtailing the use of file-trading software.

High-speed Internet provider, Adelphia, a cable company based in Pennsylvania, is one of the latest to join the list of ISPs cracking down on file swapping in the post-Napster world. Like many other ISPs, it has started suspending accounts of people who have been identified by record companies or movie studios as file swappers.

The ZDNet item is long and well worth a read by anybody concerned for their personal online privacy. What worries us is not the current system of 'Inform and remove/suspend', but that it could lead to ISPs being allowed to monitor online users without regulation.

In essence we're back to square one with ISPs being made the police, something they're not trained to be. This is an issue still well open to debate.

BT Blames Loss On Broadband & Mobile

By:mark.j @ 3:41:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Nobody was expecting a huge improvement from BT given the current market conditions, although the national Telco was quick to blame its broadband and mobile services for much of the loss. This follows the publishing of their latest financial results:

Last year's £45m profit for the same period at BT's mobile division, BT Wireless, turned into a £95m loss. The company is expected to spin off its wireless division later this year. BTopenworld and BT Ignite continued to lose money.

Analysts believe that BT should have demerged its mobile division before now, and that the delay has wiped away a quarter of its market value.

As the VNUNet item states, they may have shaved a colossal £10Billion off their £27Billion debt, but there's still someway to go. This only serves to cast further doubt over hopes that BT might drop the monthly rental on consumer R/ADSL lines a little by Christmas.

The UKs Largest Internet Kiosk Network

By:mark.j @ 9:46:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Yesterday it was Bill Gates and Microsoft, today it's the government bringing enhanced Internet services (Kiosks) to various places around London for all to use. Touted as being designed to help stop the digital divide, 12 such Kiosks have now been placed around the city:

The i-plus points -- a joint initiative between technology company Cityspace and street furniture firm Adshel -- will provide free and accessible online services to residents and tourists, offering a convenient way for people to obtain local information, or communicate concerns about the area with their town councillor. It will also encorporate a free email service for incoming messages only.

"Westminster is one of the busiest areas of London, with an average daytime population of one million people, and the information points will provide them with up-to-the-minute, convenient information," said Robert Davis, chairman of customer services at Westminster City Council.

The flagship kiosk was opened in Oxford Street this morning, with a further 11 to be piloted in busy locations such as Bayswater and Victoria Street, and residential areas like Queen's Park and Pimlico. Local councils will host services on the i-plus points along the lines of Streetscene, which allows locals to alert the council to faults in the area such as out of order streetlights or litter problems. A further channel called e-street will contain details of events in the area and information about local shopping and entertainment facilities.

Although the ZDNet item doesn't say it, we'd like to think the new kiosks won’t go the way of the phone booth; used as an 'after hours' toilet.

BT Ignite Starts Promoting D.I.Y R/ADSL

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

Following BT Ignites recent meeting (Tuesday) with ISPs and operators regarding future ways of installing consumer R/ADSL, it would seem they have now started openly promoting the 'under trial' methods:

There is currently one trial going on that is "wires only", meaning that you are responsible for the modem and a BT engineer will install a service plate. What's a service plate? "It's a front plate that goes on your phone socket," a spokesman explained.

Why do we need an engineer to put a plate on the socket? Well, that's trial number two - soon to start - that will see a "microfilter" delivered to your home, which you put into the socket and enables phone and data traffic to be split.

The word "trial", especially coming from BT's mouth, may send a bolt a fear down your spine (ADSL was "trialled" for four years before the current sub-standard effort to make it available was started) but it reckons that they will be finished by the end of this year and you might get a DIY DSL pack in your Christmas stocking.

The Register goes on to explain how it won't help you get R/ADSL any quicker if your exchange isn't already enabled, but it should save both parties some time and money. Despite what the item states, BT is actually moving very fast (they have debt to cut) and as previously reported, a second meeting is set for 31st July.

Rumour has it that we should start seeing some early pricing details among other information on or before September 2001, the date when the first stage of BTs R/ADSL rollout will complete.

Entertaining New Blueyonder Promotion

By:mark.j @ 9:24:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It was bound to happen sometime, as part of Telewest's £2.5Million broadband marketing campaign they've hit upon using 'police' methodology. DigitalSpy reports that the latest promotion for the cable modem based 'blueyonder' service is like a speeding ticket:

"Speed: 512kbps; Offence: Exceeding the speed limit by nearly 10 times"

Chad Raube from Telewest said of the new initiative:
"The mailer looks realistic and may leave people guessing for a few seconds, but, although we warn people that blueyonder is nearly ten times faster than a standard 56.6k modem, we do point out that it is perfectly legal!"

Whether it'll work or not remains to be seen, what we find most interesting is the use of 'nearly 10 times'. In fact even the PR guy uses 'nearly' in his language, possibly a sign the last 'Advertising Standards Agency' investigation (it failed) had some slight impact.

News - July 25,2001

Invasion Of The 'ANNOYING' Worms

By:mark.j @ 3:51:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Internet Worms are best described as a form of Trojan, meaning something that’s hidden behind something else, usually under a malicious pretence.

Over the last seven days several new Internet E-Mail worms have found their way on to the Internet, steadily causing chaos wherever they go. Although the majority of them are moderately harmless, there's no doubt that hundreds of thousands of sites and people around the world have been hit by one in the last few days.

They usually arrive as a .vbs / .bat or .exe file attachment with strange E-Mails, often from people you know. Apparently when run (never execute such things!) the Trojan will propagate and send itself on to all the people in your address book.

We ourselves have already seen a mass of these come from readers and some ISP E-Mails. What's worse is that if you don't remove the worm then it just keeps sending. We know several ISPs have had their customer support computers affected and that's part of the reason for today’s lack of ISP news.

We always say this and can't stress it enough, having a virus checker alone isn't enough to keep you safe; you must be vigilant. NEVER open attachment files on an E-Mail unless you can be 100% certain you know what it is, once you're infected it's difficult to remove.

Vodafone Pushed Into Third Place

By:mark.j @ 3:33:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

With the ever-present cost burden of 3G broadband wireless technologies, the last thing one of the UKs major operators needs is more bad news.

Today it looks as if Vodafone have now been pushed into third place behind BT and Orange following the admittance that 16% (out of 12.5Million) of their subscribers were inactive:

The admission came on the eve of Vodafone's annual meeting today, which could see chief executive Chris Gent refused a proposed record bonus by shareholders.

The telco has cut inactive subscribers to bring its reporting into line with Orange and BT Cellnet. Both have previously moved to tighten up their subscriber numbers by eliminating those who do not make or receive calls for a number of months - usually three - when they calculate their customer base.

Orange is now leading the market with 11.9 million subscribers, followed by BT Cellnet with 10.9 million and Vodafone on 10.5 million. Vodafone had led the UK mobiles sector since early 1996, but now ranks ahead of just One 2 One and virtual operators like Virgin Mobile.

The VNUNet item only highlights the business end of the problem, but what of the 16% inactive subscribers? If you're paying so much for a phone then you might as well use it.

Impressive New Search Engine

By:mark.j @ 9:50:AM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Google is generally recognised as the Internets best search engine and is even used as the primary system for some groups such as Yahoo. However news has started to circulate regarding a better system called Teoma.

http://www.teoma.com

We gave the system a quick test and found it to return better results than others, although typically things will probably get worse as more data comes online and the database slowly saturates. Until that time, give it a try.

MS Backs UKs Poorest Areas With Internet

By:mark.j @ 9:38:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Microsoft) have kindly given £2.7Million to British libraries in 350 of the most deprived parts of the country. The Times Newspaper states this to include the London boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich:

Yesterday the list of libraries that will benefit from the American billionaire was published by the body responsible for distributing the money: Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

A spokesman for Resource said the decision had been taken to help the most deprived areas to go online at their libraries, providing Internet services for residents who do not have a computer.

A spokeswoman for the Gates foundation in Seattle said the donation had been granted with only one condition: that the computers had to be for public use.

Lets just hope they have the sense to install Windows 2000 on any of the computers and not '9x' or 'ME', which have more bugs than an anthill. Still we'd like to think that in amongst the crashing and technical support, somebody gets the benefit.

EU Online Shopping Continues To Grow

By:mark.j @ 9:29:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Online shopping in Europe may have double in the last year, but a new report from Forrester Research warns that retailers must now focus on targeting the right products and markets. The industry is predicted to reach 103 billion euros in gross profits by 2006:

Contrary to expectations, the dot-com crash has not eroded consumer confidence in e-commerce. In the past six months, the share of Europeans online grew by 20% from the previous six months. Thirty two percent of Europe's population over the age of 16 is now online. In the UK and Germany, the percentage of consumers online reached 40% and 39% respectively.

But Forrester is warning Europe's larger Internet retailers that in order to succeed, they must target the right product for their country, and compete for a portion of sales in a market that has already become a "dog fight". The study draws attention to online spending patterns that are predicted to mirror offline retail spending more closely once consumers make purchases across more diverse product categories.

"When consumers start spending online they stick to purchasing low cost and low risk items such as books, but once they gain more confidence they spend according to higher risk categories such as airline tickets," explains Woodham-Smith.

In essence the ZDNet item is talking about market saturation, when there are so many online retailers that it becomes difficult to separate them from each other. Of course this can only be good news for the consumers, competition helps.

News - July 24,2001

Online Electoral Voting

By:mark.j @ 3:53:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It wasn't long ago that a less than favourable portion of people stood at polling stations around the UK in an attempt to choose the next government.

Sadly an extreme case of voter apathy caused roughly half of the population to stay away, something the current government is keen to resolve without blaming themselves. Now The Electoral Commission has proposed a number of changes for the future, including online voting.

"Perhaps the single most important issue arising from the 2001 General Election is the need to address, urgently and radically, the decline in public participation," Sam Younger, chairman of the commission, said in a statement. "The commission is determined to press forward at once with an agenda for making voting easier and more user friendly."

The report suggested looking at the viability of voting over the Internet and by telephone, holding polling over several days and making registering to vote easier. It also suggested further promoting the system of postal votes on demand, brought in for the June 7 election, saying there had been no significant increase in fraud.

The commission then recommended a redesign of ballot papers to allow voters to make a "positive abstention", signalling that they want to vote but don't favour any of the available candidates.

However, the commission maintained that ultimate responsibility for reversing voter apathy and modernising the electoral system rested with politicians. Typically we'll have to wait and see, although online/Internet based voting systems were under trial in the last election, perhaps they'll become the norm for the next?

UK Sites Fastest To Respond

By:mark.j @ 3:41:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Hewlett-Packards (HP) free web site performance checking service for corporate clients has found that out of 2,000 UK sites surveyed, 87.6% responded within 10 seconds, which is apparently good:

The company has received 5,000 requests for checking, and data from the first 2,000 surveyed sites shows that 87.6% of the Web sites responded within 10 seconds.

HP believes that customers will only tolerate eight seconds maximum wait to show something on the page, 20 seconds to complete the page, followed by six seconds before deciding to stay or leave.

The service, which watches each Web site for a 24-hour period, received requests from across Europe. In the UK, less than 1% of the surveyed sites exceeded a delay of 10 seconds to respond.

Typically the CW360 item is based off of HPs own findings for HPs own clients, thus you can expect the results to be 'favoured' in a particular direction. Another thing we'd like to know is what speed of network they were using for the test, we doubt any of your common garden modems were used.

ISP Review Server Problems

By:mark.j @ 12:03:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

A quick apology to the majority of you whom have been unable to connect to ISP Review since late last night. While the web server was running fine, one of our primary links to the DNS/HTTP servers broke.

Consequently almost nobody could see the site for nearly 12 hours, although a few readers weren't affected due to connecting through an different link. The problem now seems to have been resolved by the admin and all should be back to normal, although don't be surprised if some forum posts are out of sync.

Sadly things like this do happen and it's our first real downtime in roughly two months - back to work.

BTIgnite Begins xDSL Install Talks

By:mark.j @ 11:56:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

According to ADSLGuide, BTIgnite has today begun talks with various ISPs and modem manufacturers regarding new methods of installing xDSL (R/ADSL) broadband connections. The second set of talks will be on 31st July, it’s hoped this will save BT and the customers some cash:

Ignite with wires-only intend to NOT supply any modem with the connection, leaving the selection of this to the ISP, therefore we should see further differentiation between ISP's, e.g. some will offer better modems or a total user choice perhaps. Fingers crossed this will bring a reduction in the install fee.

The self install product is planned to allow users to install the DSL service in any room that has an existing phone extension and remove the need for a BT engineer to visit, hence reducing costs and hopefully the install fee. The filter faceplate would be replaced by a plug and play microfilter - similar to what some US DSL providers use.

The talks seem designed to gauge any savings that could be made and how practical a solution either method would be for ISPs. It remains unclear quite which method will ultimately be adopted (could be both) and how much this would save BT, the ISPs and the customers.

Glenworld Unmetered – LIVE!

By:mark.j @ 11:55:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

For sometime now we’ve wondered whether the Glenworld unmetered ISP, previously billing itself as a Connect 25 replacement, was actually live.

Despite hearing reports of people using the service and whom often found it offline for several days at a time and the site still reading ‘1st JUNE 2001’, it’s now apparently live.

According to the Admin from Glenworld:

"Our ISP is live and running successfully!"

Given some of the current bad reports and the fact they can’t seem to be bothered to update their website, we’d question the use of ‘successfully’. We’d love to hear from people using the service whom haven’t had any problems, or for that matter, anybody using them at all.

Note there's some general discussion on Glenworld in our forums HERE, there may be more in the 'Specific ISP Forums'.

Serious Cable Based ISP Security Hole

By:mark.j @ 11:53:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Checkpoint, an Israeli security company, has reveal a potentially very serious security vulnerability caused by the shared architecture of the data channel that carries internet traffic within fibre networks (NTL/Telewest etc.):

The result is that a hacker could exploit the flaw to access data or take control of any remote computers sharing the same local node. Effectively local users can click on their Windows Network Neighborhood icon and see the computer names and addresses of their neighbours on the service. It is possible for cable modem users to protect themselves against these threats by using security measures such as firewalls, however experts warned that most cable consumers are generally unaware of the danger.

Both major UK cable players, NTL and Telwest, say "they take security very seriously" and always advise their customers to disable file sharing on local computers. Although neither NTL or Telewest supply firewalls to their customers, both advised that users should purchase them to protect themselves. NTL provided vnunet.com with a statement saying: "PC security is the responsibility of each individual customer and NTL does not endorse any particular firewall." The company added that its broadband internet service signal is encrypted.

Despite what the VNUNet item states, this is not a new problem and in fact almost all-modern Cable Co’s are aware of the potential for trouble. Thankfully modern technologies such as broadband cable modem connections (as stated above) come with encrypted data channels.

Having said that it’s also wise to make sure you understand the basics of LAN (local area network) networking, which will enable you to disable file sharing etc. for any remote connections without damaging your own LAN, if you have one.

New Package Delivery System For Net Orders

By:mark.j @ 11:52:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

To be honest we’ve never had a problem with ordering goods over the Internet and then having them delivered to the door, most of the time it’s by special carrier anyway.

Having said that some people often find the Internet useful, yet annoying because they’re never around to sign and or pickup for their deliveries and work won’t take it for them. Thankfully the post office has come up with a new solution for e-commerce package collection:

Local Collect allows customers to collect their e-commerce deliveries at 16,000 of the 18,000-strong network of Post Office Counters. Retailers sign up to use the service. About one-fifth are located in convenience stores that are open for extended hours. A number - such as those in petrol stations are open 24 hours a day. The service supplements encryption and warehousing services that are already being offered.

In September, Consignia plans to begin experimenting with unattended delivery services boxes that keep deliveries safe until the recipient can retrieve them.

While most people probably won’t find the ZDNet item that interesting, it should be good news for all those shopping online and who frequently miss their posty.

NTL Changes Some DNS Servers

By:mark.j @ 11:51:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

DigitalSpy has confirmed with NTL that the following DNS servers no longer respond to requests - 194.168.4.220 / 194.168.8.220:

Customers who have previously specifically configured their systems to use these servers will need to change their settings to ntl's caching servers, 194.168.4.100 and 194.168.8.100. These servers are automatically assigned via DHCP.

News - July 23,2001

Quick ISP Review Site Update

By:mark.j @ 4:03:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today we began moving some forums from the 'General Discussion Forum' to the newer 'Specific ISP Forum'. The Website Discussion and Announcements forums were the first to move and can now be accessed accordingly.

We also enabled a temporary Reader ISP Reviews forum in the same section of the new forums, this will remain until our dedicated system arrives in the autumn. We don't expect to be moving any other forums until some needed code arrives, which is required before the next stage.

G8 Agrees Digital Divide Action Plan

By:mark.j @ 3:55:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While full details aren't yet known, news has filtered out through the final days of the G8 (worlds eight biggest powers) summit regarding how they plan on tackling the world’s digital divide:

The cover of the action plan document shows a photograph of two black children, their bodies covered with ceremonial paint, squatting next to a laptop computer on a dusty plain.

The idea is to help those in poor countries gain better access to information and communications technology, if not on the desert floor then perhaps at communal sites in villages, and to promote the use of these technologies in reducing poverty.

The World Bank's director of investment in digital technology in poor countries, Mohsen Khalil, said the Bank invests about £1bn annually in information infrastructure and in projects using such technology, and the new action plan could leverage more funding.

Whether giving children Laptops instead of housing, medicine, food and water is a good thing remains to be seen, although we doubt it's quite that extensive a plan. More @ ZDNet.

EcosseTel Introduce Third Unmetered Package

By:mark.j @ 3:48:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following on from a recent spate of price increases, EcosseTel have today sent us their latest press release regarding BcomLite. Yes you guessed it, it's yet another new FRIACO based unmetered package:

INTRODUCING BCOM LITE

EcosseTel Internet are expanding the number of unmetered internet access packages they offer by introducing BcomLite. This package aimed at small business gives unmetered access to the internet between the hours of 6am and 6pm Monday to Friday for £8.52 per month + VAT. Access outside of these hours is charged at 0.5p per minute plus VAT. The package is charged quarterly in advance, and VAT invoicing is available on request. Initially only 1,000 BcomLite packages will be available, and the start date for this service is August 1st.

Each account includes five POP3 email accounts and access to newsgroup servers. There is no time cutoffs and an idle line drop time of 10 minutes. The system uses the new Webport FRIACO access ports and as such is limited to customers with BT lines. Access is available for up to 64k single channel ISDN lines.

Operations Director Spencer Pryor said: "We are introducing BcomLite as a cut down version of our Bcom Xtra business package to primarily balance the traffic profile our network is carrying. We have had a lot of customers sign up for our residential off peak packages which means that we have excess capacity during business hours. BcomLite should encourage small businesses to use some of this capacity."

EcosseTel have also confirmed that their previously announced price rise on their unmetered residential package Vroom2 will rise on August 1st to £99.99 per annum for 24/7 access and £69.99 for off peak access. These new prices will apply to all completed applications that arrive after 31st July.

Websites: http://www.ecossetel.net

The new package seems to fall in-line with similar offers coming from several other providers, the difference being that most are more expensive when aimed at SME business customers. Our lists will be updated ASAP, until then we suggest checking the EcosseTel Vroom2 unmetered ISP forum to see what existing customers think.

BT Wireless To Share More 3G Networks

By:mark.j @ 3:39:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Having already hooked up a network infrastructure development and sharing deal for the UK and Germany, BT Wireless is now turning its 3G sights to the Netherlands. They've suggested sharing just two networks rather than building five separate infrastructures:

The idea of infrastructure sharing has already been taken on board in the UK and Germany, where several companies have teamed up to save on costs. The Netherlands operators are the usual suspects (albeit it through subsidiaries) - BT, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone. Such deals are likely to spread over the rest of Europe.

A sharing scheme makes good sense thanks to the large number of new mobile masts that will have to be built for 3G networks to work properly. Not only is building an infrastructure costly (and after the huge sums paid for 3G licences, anything that saves operators money will be a good thing) but with public opinion turning against such masts over health fears, limiting the number of new masts will save them a public relations headache.

Another issue The Register fails to mention is that of building too few networks and thus making it hard to distinguish between the various operators. Never the less, 3G (broadband wireless) is moving forward somewhat faster than we expected, mobile Video-To-Video links here we come.