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March 21, 2001 - March 26, 2001

News - March 26,2001

Tele2 Launch New Residential Wireless DSL

By:mark.j @ 10:48:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The UKs only residential and business to PC providing broadband wireless ISP, Tele2, has announced a new unmetered package for home/residential users. The previous £9.99 Per Month offer (150/150Kbps) came to an end during early March 2001 after a highly successful trial:

High Speed Internet Access for the Home Unlimited 24/7 Broadband for only £19.99 per month Are you fed-up with slow Internet speeds and unpredictable phone bills? If the answer to this question is yes, then take a look at Tele2's Wireless-DSL at Home service.

The service offers unlimited 150Kbps high-speed Internet access for only £19.99 (inc. VAT) per month.

Best of all, the service is transmitted to your PC via an aerial rather than by a conventional dial-up modem. Therefore, you do not require an additional phone line, while leaving your existing one free for incoming and outgoing calls.

The full details of the service are:

'Always on' 24-hour permanent connection Upload and Download speeds of up to 150 Kbps

-No tie-up of telephone lines
-Ethernet or USB connection
-A flat monthly fee of only £19.99 (incl. VAT)*
-Installation only £99.99 (incl. VAT)

Clearly £9.99 was a little too cheap for such a service, although many might agree that 150Kbps @ £19.99 is expensive compared to the cheapest ADSL offer from BTOpenworld.

The other problem for Tele2 is that their coverage is still seriously limited and that most of the areas they do cover already have xDSL or Cable Modem options, which are cheaper and more stable.

That said and some say Tele2 are a lifesaver for the more rural locations covered by the provider (not many). You can find out much more about this provided in our broadband section.

FreeChariot, Where Have They Gone?

By:mark.j @ 10:35:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Ever since FreeChariot suspended their unmetered services roughly two months ago the ISP has gone downhill. In fact they'd been getting worse for sometime before that, finally realising that even under FRIACO unmetered access was economically difficult.

However in recent weeks things have continued to worsen for the ISP/Telco provider, support no longer seems to exist (no reply’s) and service quality continues to fluctuate for many customers.

Today we've had a rush of E-Mails asking whether or not the group have finally died. After a visit to http://www.freechariot.co.uk we noticed the following:

"Site will be live soon so keep checking"

The provider, which seems backed by http://www.link-connect.com, appears to be temporarily off-line. In typical FreeChariot style their customers have been left in the dark guessing as to the reasons for this.

For now at least it does seem as if this is just a temporary glitch in the system or some kind of update. If anybody knows more then please contact us.

BTOpenworld To Be Scrapped - Kind Of

By:mark.j @ 10:25:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Also spotted in the Sunday Telegraph was an item on BTOpenworld, one that doesn't exactly make BTOpenworlds future look very rosy:

BTOpenworld, which is BTs consumer internet business, was one of a family of new businesses announced amid a blaze of publicity by Sir Peter Bonfield, BTs chief executive, along with Ignite, which offers broadband services for business, BT Wireless and Yell, the directories company.

BT has since abandoned plans to float 25% of Yell and is expected to scrap the proposed flotation of BT Wireless. Although no final decision has been taken on lossmaking Openworld, analysts say BT can no longer justify the costs of having an independent Internet unit addressing the same customers as the main consumer telecoms arm. The company may retain the Openworld brand name.

Despite what analysts may say, BTOpenworld was a company that started life well aware it wouldn't make it into profit until at least 2002. BT certainly can't kill such an important element and this seems to suggest BTO may have to be absorbed into BT as a whole.

However this is unlikely to be a moved favoured by other ISPs and Oftel given the current investigation surrounding their competitive edge. Absorbing BTO into BT directly would only serve to worsen the situation. The most likely course of action is for BT to do nothing at all or remove any links with the BT brand name.

It'll probably be a little while before we know more, although existing customers shouldn't be too worried, as their service wouldn’t be affected by any such changes.

Glimpse @ The Mobile 3G Broadband Future

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

Japan is typically seen as the technology capital of the world, always innovating and often the first to develop and take advantage of newer technologies.

They're also the first to properly make use of 3G (Third Generation) broadband wireless technologies and have announced one of the first such devices called 'eggy':

With an LCD screen housed in a white-and-grey oval case, the 9,800 yen (55.5 pounds) gizmo looks like a cool pocket TV. Don't bother searching for the antenna though -- the eggy downloads videos via the Internet.

By linking it to a mobile phone or plugging in a wireless communications card, the eggy can play video clips from 47 news, music and entertainment channels that run just long enough to show the headlines or a tournament-winning golf putt.

It may not be perfect, but as an example of what mobile companies might do with so-called third-generation (3G) services, it is a revelation.

"It's a kind of a marketing experiment," said Yuki Isono, spokeswoman for Japan's wireless telecoms leader NTT DoCoMo Inc , which launched the eggy in December. "We're trying to get some feeling for the type of things that might be attractive for 3G services."

In May, DoCoMo plans to usher the world into a new era of communications by switching on the first 3G network, bringing high-speed Internet access and a rich mix of data, video and CD-quality music to wireless devices.

That makes Japan probably the best place right now to get a feel for what 3G will bring, and whether telecoms companies stand a chance of recouping the 100 billion euros they have gambled on 3G licences in Europe.

Before long all we’ll need is a sub-notebook and wireless broadband will do the rest, forget bulky PCs and TVs.

Breathe ISP To Be Closed By GUS

By:mark.j @ 10:05:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Retail group Great Universal Stores is preparing to close the Internet service provider of http://www.breathe.com just three months after buying it, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Such a move would be a further blow to the British new media sector, which has suffered a series of closures and lay-offs over the last few months.

GUS was expected to say later in the week that it bought Britain's sixth largest ISP for 1.4 million pounds solely for its technology, the British newspaper said.

Breathe, with 400,000 customers, came financially unstuck at the end of 2000 along with many rival dot-coms. It had once hoped to achieve a 100 million pound flotation.

Clearly any remaining staff at ISP will be feeling quite angry and let down that such a big group was only after the technology and not the ISP. Sadly this is what happens in the real world, businesses often have a tendency to play rough.

Telewests Full Year (2000) Statistics

By:mark.j @ 9:50:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In case it was missed last week, CableNews is reporting that Telewest have released their full year (2000) statistics. Nothing new in the way of Internet statistics, which were pre-released sometime ago.

News - March 25,2001

ISP Review Weekly Update

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

It’s certainly been a busy week for news with all sorts of changes and introductions to unmetered ISP services and prices. Broadband Wireless (3G) has also managed to push itself ever closer to launch, although most will just adopt GPRS and be happy with that.

On the flip side of things and I must confess to having been seriously distracted by the PS2 demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 found in with the Zone Of Enders game. It's the first good PS2 game I've actually seen and played since most are very poor.

Back to ISP Review and the end of March/Early April looks set to be quite interesting. The new 0845 listings are now almost done; we've cleared the 'private 0845 ISP' submissions from ISPs and are about to move the existing list across (won't take long). We've found many of the older 0845 FREE ISPs to now be dead (we check each of them) and so the list will be shorter.

We also plan on merging the 'Worst ISP' page into the 'Complaints' page, however that won't be done until after the listings and forum changes we have planned (above / below).

As hinted above, we did finally get the new forum software working and have been testing it for the past week. We've also decided on how we'll introduce them, with the new forums being for ISP specific comments and discussion. This will cover all unmetered and broadband ISPs, with the possible addition of some subscription 0845 ones later.

The old forum will remain the same, but without the unmetered ISPs and focusing more on general discussion for specific broadband mediums and ISPs. Hardware, Software (Drivers), help and other issues will be covered for each style of broadband ISP. We'll also cover other operating systems more.

At present we're waiting for some special code additions/hacks to be released by third parties before we make it all public. Sadly both forums won't be directly compatible and thus private messages, searching and members cannot be shared directly. However we do get one chance to copy over existing member files and re-build them, so make sure you sign up to the old one before April - saves time.

We hope to solve this more in the future by upgrading the old forum, at present this is not possible due to the way it's integrated into ISPr and the code it uses. In summary, expect a lot of big changes in the next two or three weeks.

Freeserve Charging For Unmetered Calls?

By:mark.j @ 10:42:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It would seem that several Freeserve unmetered customers (that we know of) have been finding their unmetered calls charged at standard 0845 rates by BT. James Bland was one such customers and he states:

"I'm signed up for Freeserve Anytime, I've phoned them up to confirm I am calling the correct number and my account is active, yet BT is billing me for all my calls to this number. I've run up about 150 pounds onto my bill so far which I haven't received. I've called BT and they should be sending me a list of my calls through the post."

As many will recognise, Freeserve apparently still uses a system where by you put several 'prefix' numbers in front of the 0845 number. This then re-routs/directs the call through the unmetered Telco network Freeserve have chosen to use.

James continues to explain what BT had to say when he discussed the issue further: "I phoned BT, they said they don't know what a ****** number is and that I should phone Freeserve. I phoned Freeserve, they checked my details and told me it was a freefone number and shouldn't be showing on my bills, call BT."

We advised James to wait until his BT bill came so we could get a physical picture of just what was going on. With credit to BT they did sent out the details very quickly and James as swift to comment:

"Well I got my last months bill this morning and it has 115 pounds ex VAT of calls to Freeserve Anytime. The number on the bill shows 0845 as the area code, the ****** (prefix) has been missed out however I am 100% sure my system is setup to dial out correctly. I just used the .ins file orginally and I've checked it yesterday and today, it's dialling the extra numbers on the front."

Following that James spoke to Freeserve who requested a copy of the bill so they could investigate further. It's important to remember at this point that James works for PCWorld (linked group) and so has heard of this problem before.

Unhappy with waiting (who wouldn't be) James decided to ask somebody of some importance at his local office:

"Well I think I know what the problem is now, I popped into work and had our store Freeserve rep phone up Freeserve. Being part of the company he gets the full low down.

Anyway it's a few cases, not too many. But the problem as he was told is in certain BT exchanges they are dropping the extra digits infront of the 0845. As far as I know it should be routed straight to the Energis network, however it's not happening.

I and others can still connect as the 0845 and following number is just Freeserve's standard new dialup number. So I need to get onto BT again tomorrow."

We've heard of this before and even experienced it once ourselves using a COLT Telecom ISP, it's rare, but does happen and is obviously more prominent on larger ISPs. Taking all this into account James decided to voice his findings over to BT:

"I've called BT again and yet again the manager has fobbed me off. They insist that the calls and bills are correct. They blame Freeserve (Energis) for the problem of not setting up the routing correctly. Really not going to have any luck with them at all.

I asked why then if it wasn't working did they not drop my call? She didn't have much to say to that. Extra money for them is why I imagine. *sigh*."

While it may have been Energis who routed all the calls incorrectly and so should be the ones to pay, equally it could be BT who has to front the cash. Clearly they allowed the call to go through and weren't intelligent enough to drop the line, something that would save a lot of others having the same problem.

Sadly for James he's stuck back at square one, waiting for Freeserve to respond to his bill and preying for the refund he so desires. We'll be keeping in contact with James, although would like to hear from BT, Freeserve or Energis on the subject ASAP.

Vispas Public Service Announcement

By:mark.j @ 10:13:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Vispa have asked us to post their public service announcement, which is very important if you're using their services:

This is a public service announcement.

Vispa Internet would like to bring to the attention of current and old users alike of a massive upgrade and phasing out programme of old accounts; the end result that all vispa.co.uk accounts will be terminated in 45 days and replaced with our 2001 package range, based on our more international accepted vispa.com addresses.

If you're a current or old Vispa customer and wish to upgrade your account to our new server farm and want to keep your username alive for use with our new products, such as Unmetered Access, then visit https://secure.vispaconnect.co.uk/upgrade/ and follow all on screen instructions.

If you have any problems upgrading then please email our support team on support@vispa.net

News - March 24,2001

EXCLUSIVE: 4theNET To Launch Unmetered

By:Ross14 @ 6:40:PM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

4theNET have exclusively revealed to ISPreview that they will be launching unmetered products. Here is the full un-edited press release:

4theNET Unlimited

4theNET is very excited to announce that the service that we have always wanted to launch, with NO CALL CHARGES, will be available within the next 6 weeks. We will be introducing three new unbeatable services. Our popular PAYS service will still be available for those who prefer a Free account at Local Call Rates.

4theNET Unlimited 24/7 - £12.99 per month
Surf the net anytime of the day or night without worrying about the cost of the call. For a single monthly fee of £12.99 and NO CALL CHARGES. This service is designed for domestic, not business, use - and is subject to a 2 hour cut-off period, after which you may re-connect immediately. Free webspace and email come as standard.

4theNET Unlimited DayTime - £4.99 per month
Surf the net 7 days per week between 12 noon and 5pm with NO CALL CHARGES, outside of these hours you will be charged at less than the price of a local call. Free webspace and email come as standard.

4theNET Unlimited Business - £15.00 + VAT per month
The access package for small to medium business. Unmetered access to the internet between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, with no cut-off period.
Outside of these hours the following call charges apply:
Evenings (Mon-Fri 6pm-8am) 1.3p/min (excl VAT)
Weekends (Fri 6pm - Mon 8am) 0.85p/min (excl VAT)

Technical support will be available 24/7 via a 50p/min phone line.
Billing and Administration can be contacted 7 days a week between 9am and 8pm via a National rate phone line.

Regards
Kevin Peel
4theNET Internet Ltd

You can pre-register for any of the services @ http://www.4thenet.co.uk/unlimited.htm

There are a good few packages here, especially the daytime surfing (noon to 5pm) option at only £4.99. And, the 24/7 option at only £12.99 a month, giving Freeserve a run for their money.

Bulldog Communications Put DSL Into London

By:mark.j @ 9:48:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Bulldog Communications are to make their new broadband DSL services available to business customers in the London area by the end of this month:

The network is based on BT's (quote: BT) Option 4 DSL service, IPStream over Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), which offers customers downstream links up to 2Mbit/s and upstream links of 256kbit/s, and covers the entire London area.

"We're the first operator to use L2TP, which lets us manage secure domain names over a single pipe. This gives us economies of scale, and adds a range of support services, from call centres to VPNs [virtual private networks] and billing, for instance," commented Bulldog's chief operating officer, Peter Hall.

According to Hall, another of the advantages for buying DSL bandwidth from Bulldog rather than BT directly is that Bulldog offers volume discounts for service providers buying 1,000 lines or more.

While the move will be a welcome one for IT Managers in the region, many believe such DSL services will have a shorter than expected lifespan. As the cost of networking and links call it's feared that 100Mbit/s and or 1Gbit/s connections may well eclipse DSL before too long. More @ ZDNet.

More Free Information Asking For A Fee

By:mark.j @ 9:43:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Unless you're still in school then the poor stability of the global economy is unlikely to have passed you by, yet this instability is starting to have a bad effect with the online world. With advertising revenues drying up, Internet media companies are hoping they can get away with charging Web users for information they are accustomed to getting for free.

Many analysts are sceptical.

The Web, once the bastion of free content and services, is seeing many Internet media companies charging users for news and information in an attempt to contend with a deteriorating ad climate that has been exacerbated by growing economic uncertainty.

"This is certainly a move out of desperation or necessity," said Geoffrey Sands, a partner in consulting firm Booz Allen & Hamilton's media and entertainment practice.

"I don't think over the long-term they will be sustainable, but it may be enough to keep the business afloat until the ad market rebounds," he said.

Internet media companies had been big fans of free content, using it to woo users to their sites and provide advertisers with an attractive base for marketing.

Companies such as online financial news provider TheStreet.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s online magazine Slate tried charging at first but now give away most of their stories and information for free. That said and other sites such as tactical gaming and information site CombatSim have had better luck, finding the subscription model to be very stable.

Ultimately advertising revenue is expected to climb back up this year, but by how much remains the important issue. If it continues to stay low then a once free Internet could become increasingly commercial.

PlusNETs New Unmetered Offer Update

By:mark.j @ 9:33:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following the news later last week that PlusNET were to delay the launch of their FRIACO product due to customer complaints, they've now issued a date for the new package proposals (thanks to Richie):

Further to our announcement yesterday, regarding the delay in launching our
FRIACO-based services.

We can confirm that we will be proposing our new product range to all of our customers on Tuesday 27th March. We will be requesting your feedback on these products before we confirm the final range of FRIACO-based services next month.

As we have previously indicated, BT will be providing service to us via their Surfport24 product but with updated pricing. This new cost structure allows us to offer the sort of fixed-cost services that we originally envisaged FRIACO would allow. We think you will find that these products and services will be consistent with what you have come to expect from PlusNet, i.e. quality service, providing superb added-value benefits and offering good value for money.

We are of course aware that a small percentage of customers have already indicated their intention to discontinue their PlusNet accounts when the SurfTime-based service is discontinued. It goes without saying that some of these customers may have made arrangements to move to alternative ISPs already.

Because of this situation, we will of course be providing affected customers the opportunity to confirm their intentions. We will place the means to confirm your intention in the same location as the new proposed product information at our Portal Web site. These pages will be made available from March 27th. Any customer that reaffirms their intention to discontinue their PlusNet account on April 1st will be able to do so, and under the terms that have been previously established.

We look forward to receiving your feedback from the 27th onwards when we announce our proposed set of FRIACO-based services, and we look forward to your continued custom with us.

Regards,

PlusNet Customer Services

As mentioned previously we believe the new packages will follow in roughly the same line as the £9.99 (Off-Peak) and £14.99 (24/7) offers from other providers. However we’ll have to wait until next week to find out just what they plan on offering.

News - March 23,2001

Connect25 Change Pricing Structure

By:mark.j @ 7:09:PM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Slipping in under the Radar this afternoon is the popular unmetered ISP Connect25 who've quietly managed to raise their 24/7 charge from £49 per year to £8.95 per month.

No press release or public information has been widely circulated yet and so we don't know whether this affects existing subscribers or not. Hopefully this isn’t the case since C25's appeal was to the 'light usage' customers and not the newly targeted 'medium usage' area.

The price rise in itself is quite excessive by comparison to the original model, which they once claimed could be sustained. Clearly our predictions for such ISPs, including BigBlueSky, have been proven correct. The economic model simply wouldn't have worked long term.

However the good news is that the previously used hourly cut off seems to have vanished (could now be 1:30 or 2hr), the modem to users ratio remains at a very respectable 1:3 and the website has been given a welcome face-lift.

If the new price does carry over to existing customers then that could make for a lot of very unhappy people, otherwise we welcome the increase. It's much closer to being a realistically sustainable service and has so far done quite well - keep it up.

English Language Still Strong Online

By:mark.j @ 4:24:PM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Speaking at the Royal Society of Arts in London, Dr David Crystal was keen to state that destruction of the English language by perceived abuses on the World Wide Web was "not remotely likely":

Although seemingly spared the cruel fate of death at the hands of geeks and chat room devotees, Dr Crystal stated that although English currently accounts for around 70 per cent of Web content, this would fall as speakers of other languages acquired Web technology and expertise.

One positive result of this trend would be the international dissemination of endangered languages. There are currently around 1500 languages represented in cyberspace.

The Register highlights another area many of us take for granted, online language. Perhaps the reason is that while 70% may speak/write English online, anything else can easily be read using online converters.

You can't help but wonder whether the Internet will eventually end up breeding its own language, although even now some parts of such a vision already exists. BBIAM.

NetGamesUK Reach Unmetered Limit

By:mark.j @ 12:56:PM - Comments (22) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The unmetered gaming ISP (gISP) NetGamesUK yesterday announced that they'd reach the ceiling for subscribers to their freecall offer:

0800 ACCOUNT LIMITS REACHED
Posted by TopBanana on Thursday 22nd March @ 13:04 GMT

We are not currently taking any more applications for our 0800 24/7 dialup account as we have now reached our intended ceiling of users. We wish to thank all those who have already registered and made the service and the dialup such a success! We will keep you informed as to when the 0800 signup will recommence - for those users wishing to go on a waiting list for 0800 accounts, a web based form will be available shortly.

The announcement couldn't come sooner for many of the ISPs subscribers who've recently seen the service quality drop drastically. Apparently it's now very difficult to get a connection and the quality of the connection itself seems to vary.

This is only the latest in a series of problems and 'downtime events' to hit the ISP in its so far short existence. However the general manager was keen to stress their official line:

"We have reached our initial port limit for the time being, and have taken immediate steps to reduce the "busies".

Strangely enough, we are only at a contention ration of 3/1 at the moment, but some geographical locations seem to experience MANY more then others."

Hopefully service quality should now start to improve, we'll keep tabs on the situation.

BT Casts Doubt Over 3G Spending

By:mark.j @ 12:26:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Future broadband wireless mobiles took another beating today when BT (British Telecommunications) cast further doubt on operators' hopes that increased spending by mobile customers will justify the investments in third-generation (3G) licences.

Chris North, chief operating officer of BT Japan, said he did not expect a dramatic increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) after 3G services start in the country in May.

His comments follow a warning by Japan's number two wireless company, DDI Corp, on Thursday that 3G would not increase customer spending and that some European operators could go bust as a result.

The operators are gambling that 3G's provision of high-speed Internet access, video downloads and CD-quality music will encourage people to use their phones more, helping them recoup their 100 billion euro (62.5 billion pounds) bill for licences.

"I think we should be looking for trends of increasing ARPUs but not dramatically increasing ARPUs," North told Reuters in an interview.

North said the increase in data traffic over 3G will be offset by falling prices for voice calls, which we said would drop to the same level as fixed-line prices.

BT and other mobile operators are expecting a big boost to ARPUs in Europe following the launch this year of so-called 2.5G services, which will provide "always-on" connections to the Internet for the first time. They believe the more sophisticated 3G services will then provide a further increase.

But in Japan, where 2.5G-style services are already available, operators are not expecting the transition to 3G to deliver another significant rise in customer spending.

That raises questions about whether the European operators should have invested so much in 3G instead of focusing on 2.5G.

TR Confronts Net Privacy Contradictions

By:mark.j @ 10:20:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Register has done an interesting article on how media groups are being unwittingly used by world governments to help promote to use of stronger Internet regulation, effectively eliminating online privacy:

That said, responsible citizens may well be alarmed by efforts to exaggerate the danger of on-line sexual exploitation and contamination of children as a pretext to justify increased government surveillance and censorship on the Internet.

Indeed, an extremely complex struggle over Internet privacy and content restrictions is underway in courts and legislatures around the globe; and make no mistake, child-protective rhetoric echoes loud throughout.

Because the United States possesses the most loudly self-proclaimed 'tradition' (many would say 'myth') of individual liberty, along with some of the most Draconian, anti-libertarian initiatives pending in its courts and Congress, it serves handily to illustrate the almost schizophrenic battle between two universal human instincts: our natural tendency to protect children, and our natural tendency to seek privacy and to confront un-edited information and evaluate its significance for ourselves -- along with the cynical ways that governments and 'family-values' advocates are using the former as currency to bribe us into surrendering our rights to the latter.

We do indeed need to protect children, but the sheer overreaction by world governments is being used to penalise Internet users as a whole. Surely we can better help children by educating them to the dangers of the electronic world and making better use of existing technologies.

One again it's everybody else who gets effected while the paedophiles will no doubt use more discrete methods to avoid detection anyway. Is it a clever way for governments to jump on the bandwagon and further invade our private lives with their spying technology? Or do you think they're actually doing the right thing?

UK Chat Room Usage Doubles

By:mark.j @ 9:56:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Another popular online service, chat rooms, has seen their usage double in the last year according to new research from NetValue. Apparently 487,000 used chat rooms last year, where as 900,000 use them this year:

Despite growing concern about the risks for children using internet chatrooms, more than 51,000 of the visitors to chatrooms last month were aged 14 and under, NetValue found. Four out of ten users are aged 35 and over and 68% are male.

In Europe, chatroom use is greatest in Spain with more than one quarter of Spanish internet users visiting chatrooms in February, followed by Norway with 16%, France with 12% and the UK with 7%. Chatrooms are less popular in Germany and Denmark.

The netimperative.com article highlights one of the reasons parents and teachers are so worried for the safety of their children. The usage increase also appears to be roughly in line with the Internets global growth. It even helps to dispel fears that chat rooms are a dieing breed, instead they continue to grow.

PlusNETs FRIACO Delay – Official

By:mark.j @ 9:48:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Just as we rumoured would happen yesterday afternoon, PlusNET have today started sending out 'Official Delay' E-Mails relating to their forthcoming FRIACO packages:

As a result of an impending major change of BT's wholesale FRIACO offering (BT Surfport 24) and after listening carefully to you, our customers, over the last couple of months, we would like to announce the delayed launch of our FRIACO-based Internet access services.

We recently have made a number of announcements regarding our intention to move to FRIACO-based services. However, recent developments regarding wholesale FRIACO pricing at BT have meant that we can now expect to be able to add even greater value to our forthcoming range. We would ask therefore that you disregard any correspondence you may have received over the past month or so from us regarding this.

In order to be able to pass this extra value onto you, the delay in launch is unfortunate but necessary. We believe that the new products and pricing structure will make an already cost-effective fixed-cost access account even better value for money.

This means that if you are currently using a SurfTime-based service, that you will be able to continue using your existing service right up until the new service launch date. Any decision you have made regarding the change to FRIACO-based service will not now be implemented.

The new launch date is 31st May 2001 and, based on us establishing the new products and services over the next four to six weeks, we see no reason why this date should move again.

We will shortly be e-mailing you once more with further details of our new products and we will, of course, be listening to all our customers' feedback regarding this. Once we have settled upon a range of services that has been designed in line with our customers' requirements, we will then give you a final opportunity to choose which FRIACO offering you want to migrate to or confirm that you wish to discontinue your PlusNet account.

Please note, that we have updated the online FRIACO FAQ consistent with this latest development (available from the main page of our Portal www.plus.net) and that all other elements of the FAQ still apply.

We thank you for your continued custom and look forward to receiving your feedback on the new products and services.

Regards,

PlusNet Customer Services

It’s extremely good to see PlusNET actually listening to their customers instead of just denying there was anything wrong with the FRIACO offers, which there clearly was. PlusNET will likely be a unique ISP taking advantage of BTSurfport24 directly from BT (not VIP style), yet we still expect to see them following the same price line as other BTS24 ISPs. We’d guess a £9.99 Off-Peak, £15 24/7 and or £25/£30 Business 24/7 package would be in the mix, or something very similar.

News - March 22,2001

Telewest Comments On LLU Pull Out

By:mark.j @ 3:52:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following the publication of Telewests net loss for 2000, £706 million, comments have been made that they could have done better had they stayed in the LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) process. However Telewest has today been quick to squash such comments:

According to Adam Singer, CE of Telewest Communications: "The success of SurfUnlimited [Telewest's unmetered narrowband Net access service] and the hi-speed product and the strength of demand for our digital TV service convinced us that it was right for us to concentrate on increasing the penetration of these products within our franchises rather than entering the uncertainty of DSL supply over BT's unbundled local loop."

He added: "We have successfully launched our blueyonder hi-speed internet service and we have already installed 16,500 customers to date."

"We are selling this product steadily and carefully - trying to ensure that we iron out the inevitable technical issues as more and more customers connect," he said.

The Register highlights an area TW have been sensitive of and we'd have to agree with the comments. Choosing to concentrate on their own services will ultimately be very beneficial to old and new consumers alike.

PlusNET To Postpone FRIACO Packages

By:mark.j @ 10:33:AM - Comments (9) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The latest 'UNCONFIRMED' rumour doing the rounds has filtered down from one of PlusNETs support staff and through some other people to us. This was reported by Jerry in our forums today:

Having right royally frustrated most of their customers by trying to migrate them to the more expensive FRIACO offer I've just heard today that they are about to announce a "couple of months" delay (They originally planned to go live on the 1st April).

This might sound like good news for those that never wanted it anyway. But there's a clever twist to it.

They changed their T's and C's earlier this month to (amongst other things) remove the customer’s rights to refunds. However they had agreed to provide refunds on the 1st April to those who didn't want to move to FRIACO (the vast majority by the sounds of it). Now with the delayed introduction of FRIACO presumably they will be able to hang on to more money from customers trying to leave.

Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, however it seems strange that PlusNET would delay the service due to customer’s anger over the ridiculous prices. More likely they'd choose to delay it because the infrastructure has yet to be implemented, although we'd prefer the first option.

Madasafishs New Personalization Services

By:mark.j @ 10:21:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Iomart backed ISP Madasafish have sent out a new press release regarding some very special member services. We cut the feature descriptions out due to the crazy length of this release:

news release - use immediate March 22, 2001

This Time It's Personal

A major new alliance struck between lifestyle ISP, Madasafish and mobile
Information Management specialists Future Internet Technologies plc (FIT) will give Madasafish members a host of exciting new personalization and WAP communication tools on their desktops.

iomart-powered Madasafish (www.madasafish.com), which specialises in MP3 music, movies and online games, are reinforcing their already strong Internet offering with online Organiser features and WAP messaging after joining forces with FIT's core product Anytimenow.com.

The new Madasafish functionality represents a complete online toolbox to help their members organise their busy lives and get the most out of their computer and Internet experience.

As well as being able to access vital personal information from any computer in the world, Madasafish members will also be to do so from the latest generation of WAP mobile phones

There are nine components to the Madasafish personalisation of FIT's flagship AnytimeNow Information Management and communications tool kit: a personal online address book, an interactive calendar to oversee your schedule, a 'to do' list, 20MB of secure web space to share files, online bookmarks for when you are on the move, text to mobile phone messages, group accounts with private bulletin boards, browsing by WAP mobile, and online-PC synchronisation of contacts, calendars, tasks and bookmarks/favorites.

Madasafish Product Manager, Forrest Duncan said: "We're really excited about these new developments, and we're sure our members will be too.”

"With the increase in broadband and WAP connections, the way people use the Net and Madasafish is changing too. We are pleased to be in the forefront of offering members applications that take advantage of this increased bandwidth".

AnytimeNow's Business Development Manager Ziad Salem commented: "FIT is delighted to add another quality partner to the growing number of carriers, ASPs and ISPs that use our AnytimeNow product as the heart of their Information Management solution. Its scalability and support for multiple deliver technologies ensure that users get the information that is relevant to them and in a form that is appropriate to the device that they are using. We look forward to helping Madasafish's customers get more out of their lives by managing and sharing their personal information more efficiently."

The key features are:

Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Files, Bookmarks, Messaging, Groups, WAP, Synchronisation

Wireless Multiplayer Gaming Standard

By:mark.j @ 9:46:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

With higher speed wireless Internet access just around the corner and broadband like technologies two years away, it comes as no surprise that mobile makers are now looking to bring multiplayer games to your phone.

Motorola, Ericsson and Siemens's wireless unit said they expect to make specifications for a universal mobile games platform, using existing and emerging standards, to use on such devices as cell phones and personal digital assistants by the third quarter.

With sluggish growth in cellphone sales, and numerous telecom companies laying off employees and ratcheting back growth estimates, the new games standard would be a way to make mobile phones more attractive to consumers and more profitable for the providers, officials said.

Entertainment desires will push mobile phones and other hand-held communications devices toward larger screens, more colour and better graphics, raising the question why consumers would need both mobiles and Nintendo Game Boy game devices, Tim Krauskopf, vice president with Motorola's Internet Software and Content Group, told Reuters. The more technology-heavy devices would in turn mean higher profits.

"Since you're already carrying around an electronic device that has a chip in it -- and the next- generation will have a bigger screen -- why carry around a Game Boy as well," he said in a telephone interview. "You have a hand-held that can be very versatile, that can be used for both stand-alone and network games."

The objective of the proposed initiative is to allow a broader selection of fun, interactive mobile games, which would in turn drive demand for next-generation networks and devices, the companies said. The potential market for the standard could amount to billions of dollars, Krauskopf said.

It certainly sounds like an interesting idea, but do excuse us for not having much faint in a corporate company built around a very different market to that of the GameBoy/GameBoy Advanced gamer.

That said and companies in Japan have been able to make it work, whether this scales to the UK is another matter - very different people/market. We'd take a GameBoy Advanced over a mobile phone any day of the week.

Orange Preps Summer GPRS Launch

By:mark.j @ 9:37:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The latest provider to announce their wireless Internet support for the new GPRS standard is Orange, who today claimed they'd have such a handset on the shelves for the summer.

Orange said its controlled customer base had risen to 30.5 million, a rise of 68 percent, while turnover had risen to 12 billion euros, up by 59 percent.

They also claimed the launch of Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS) services would be in Britain and France, with plans for a range of between 10 and 15 GPRS handsets by the end of 2001. Now if they could just speed up their website servers for once then we'd be happy, even on broadband it can take several minutes to load.

Realistic Solution To Cleaning Up The Net

By:mark.j @ 9:32:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The lengths to which certain groups have gone in order to clean up the Internet for children have in some cases been far too extreme or at least a serious overreaction.

Conflicts between freedom of speech groups and the Australian government trying to pass a law that makes it illegal to post anything not suitable for a child are just the tip of the iceberg.

So far the UK has managed to escape suicidal regulations, probably because they've already slipped R.I.P in quietly under our feet anyway. However most seem to have forgotten that there is another solution, the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA):

Stephen (ICRA Chief) is noticeably very keen to make and reiterate the point that the ICRA believes in protecting kids AND free speech AND is against using legislation to tackle the Net. An impossible dream?

The ICRA dream works like this: Webmasters visit its site. They click on its questionnaire and fill in the details (5-10 minutes to complete). They rate their own content on a scale of zero to four. ICRA then holds this information in its database. It then sends a spider out to test some of the content. You can then proudly display an ICRA logo on your site.

Meanwhile, parents have downloaded its free software (it only works with Explorer or Navigator 4.6 and below). This software refers to the ICRA database when a site is visited and compares the rating with the chosen setting to decide whether to show the site.

It's a clever system and The Register is keen to highlight how it blocks any sites that DON'T register with them. If the solution were to be more widely used then it could be very beneficial, with teachers and parents alike knowing only selected sites could be seen.

Nokia Announces GPRS Phones

By:mark.j @ 9:22:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today it's the turn of Nokia to unveil its GPRS based phones at the European CeBIT show:

The Nokia 8310 is to include GPRS and WAP and has an on-board FM player. The 6310, meanwhile, apparently offers support for WAP1.2.1 – the latest standard spec – as well as GPRS, HSCSD and Bluetooth. The two phones represent Nokia’s long awaited assault on the GPRS market.

Nokia also announced the Nokia Music Player, a handsfree unit with FM radio and capabilities for digital rights management protection, and the 3330 WAP phone, which should allow the downloading of games and picture-viewing.

The netimperative.com article also talks more about Nokia’s other WAP phone and its competition from Motorola. We may have to wait a little while for this, but it's always good to see consumers having a choice.

Eurobells New ISP Tariff

By:mark.j @ 8:59:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Eurobell is one Cable ISP (not unlike NTL and Telewest) we rarely mention, however today they've updated their ISPs tariff to be a little more modern:

From April, Eurobell residential telephone line customers will be charged 1p per minute to access the internet through Eurobell Internet. A call connection charge of 3.5p is also made. Technical support will be charged at the standard local rate.

You can read more @ CableNews, although there's not much else to know.

News - March 21,2001

EXCLUSIVE:Vispa's Unmetered Offer

By:mark.j @ 4:04:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In an E-Mail to one of their customers (Hugh) Vispa Internet (now known as Vispa Connect - One of our associates) let slip about the launch date and official prices of their future unmetered products. The relevant part of the E-Mail is as follows:

The past 2 weeks has seen some massive updates at Vispa, all with the long-term aim of providing the framework of Internet services from Vispa during 2001.

Let me first take you back to what we launched on March 1st. One of our growing areas of requests from customers has been improved and better selection of packages. The technical team went away and listed all these ideas that we had received from customers and then set about developing these into working products, installing several thousand pounds worth of new equipment along the way. March 1st saw the launch of the Vispa WebStart and WebPlus packages, offering complete dial-up and hosting solutions including PHP and CGI-Bin support. WAP enabled Webspace with Usage WebStats, Frontpage Extensions, Dedicated Mailboxes, FREE domain Names and much more.

For the more technical minded, every one of our web servers are based on the Linux Platform, powered by Dual 933Mhz Processors and with 1 Gig of RAM. If you want further details on these accounts either visit our web site http://www.vispa.net or email a member of our sales team on sales@vispa.net

That out the way I will now move onto the future. I can confirm that 4
months ago we signed an exclusive agreement with Norweb Telecom to not only provide the phone lines for new services, but also form the building block for our Unmetered Access solutions. We have since been working with Norweb Telecom on a daily basis to deliver these services.

I am happy to report that all has gone really well, and April will see the launch of our FRIACO based Unmetered Access if all goes to plan. The prices for these are yet to be fully fixed, but talks with Norweb have positioned us with an area of £9.99pm for offpeak and £15.00pm for 24/7.

This leads me on. At the moment you have just pre-signed up with an
interest in our services, however my advice is get your usernames while you can, as an official Vispa user your be given far more updated information on unmetered services in the coming weeks, it costs nothing to join our entry level package..you never know we might even impress you.

Vispa have long been one of the most popular free 0845 providers due to a good set of web services and a stable and fast network, they also came in as a runner up for the best consumer ISP award (ISPA). The new packages are in-line with the current market pricing and should make them very competitive given their strong network infrastructure.

Now we're allowed to talk about this officially since the information has been publicly released it means we should have more soon.

AOL Claim EU To Follow Unmetered UK

By:mark.j @ 3:46:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

At a briefing in London today, AOLs International president, Michael Lynton, was keen to say that the UK's success at introducing flat-rate Internet access is a model other countries are trying to follow:

Lynton said that the UK's FRIACO-based flat rate wholesale product was setting the standard not just for Europe, but for countries in Latin America and the Far East.

As a result of the introduction of flat-rate access, AOL UK users were now online for more than an hour a day - the same as the US.

The Internet giant believes that the time AOL Europe members spend online is the "best measure of consumer loyalty and satisfaction, and drives revenue growth".

Of course the model isn't perfect, but for the most part people would agree that the newer generation of ISPs are better priced and of a higher quality than the last.

We still have a long way to go, ISPs need to adapt their prices and service quality to a more even tandem, while FRIACO/BTSurfport24 needs to be more flexible towards smaller ISPs. By the end of this year we should finally see a stable market place with competition based on services and quality rather than price. More @ The Register.

Gov Joins Vorderman In Giving Advise

By:mark.j @ 3:38:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The government has joined up with Carol Vorderman in order to provide schools with advice over how to approach the Internet:

The Superhighway Safety pack follows on the heels of recent controversy regarding the use of Internet chatrooms by paedophiles to "groom" young children. Several leading figures have applauded Ms Vorderman's publicising of an important issue but warned against hysterical over-reaction.

The government advises that schools pay special attention to school Web sites, pupil email addresses and chat rooms. It also offers advice on filtering software for their IT systems.

Pupils should be given an email address based on a class rather than an individual name when dealing with the outside world, the guidance suggests, since this allows a particular child to be targeted. Individual names are fine when dealing within a school system.

This makes for a good read if you're a parent or schoolteacher interested in the message they're trying to present - keep the kids safe. More @ The Register.

ASA Upholds Freeserve Advertising Complaint

By:mark.j @ 3:20:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) upheld a complaint against Freeserve that stated their advert was miss leading about the costs involved:

A complainant objected to a national press ad for Freeserve that was headlined “Freeserve Home Time. No charges until March 2001”, on the basis that the ‘no charges’ claim was misleading because users had to pay BT for its BT Surf Together or BT SurfTime packages in order to take advantage of the Freeserve offer.

Although a smallprint footnote stated that the BT charges would apply, the ASA considered that the footnote contradicted the headline claim, and that the ad did not make it clear enough that consumers would incur the BT charges if they wished to take up the Freeserve package.

The authority concluded that the Freeserve ad was misleading.

It's a good thing BT are finally moving on to BTSurfport24 and slowly doing away with Surftime’s dual payments, now the ASA has upheld this complaint we could highlight several similar ones for the same problem. More @ netimperative.com .

New Article @ ISP Review

By:mark.j @ 1:53:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Today we've added a special article (guide) that takes a look at the new v.92 modem standard finalised late last year (2000). It shows why the technology is better than v.90 and also explains why it has yet to be widely adopted:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/v92

This should be an interesting read for anybody interested in fast connections and multiplayer:

"The new v.92 standard is different from previous modem standards and incarnations in that it doesn't improve downstream (download) speeds. Instead it improves upon existing technologies present in v.90 (hence the v.02 increase) in order to enhance upstream (upload) transmission among many other things."

Quik Internet Gets Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 10:43:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As spotted on Net4Nowt, Quik Internet (business ISP) have launched their own unmetered access packages aimed at the business sector. Unlike most other unmetered ISPs they've designed their packages for business use, however the options are less than impressive:

Surf 10
10 hours of internet access for just £15 per month.

Surf 25
25 hours of internet access for just £35 per month.

Surf 50
50 hours of internet access for just £60 per month.

Surf 200
200 hours of internet access for just £225 per month.

Other ISPs such as CloudNine and Demon Internet offer unmetered business options much more versatile and proven products for drastically less in the price.

Siemens Axe Power Socket Broadband

By:mark.j @ 10:34:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Known here in the UK as Powerline, the broadband communication technology that uses your power instead of phone lines, today Siemens have chosen to halt work on the technology. This is likely to come as a blow to utilities hoping to break the telephone companies' grip on Internet access.

The German electronics and engineering group, which was one of the developers of the powerline technology, said it was temporarily pulling out of the project because there was no chance of a mass market developing in the short term.

"Because of regulatory delays, there is no chance of an immediate mass market application for this technology," a Siemens spokeswoman said.

Powerline technology has been envisaged for decades but technical, regulatory and market hurdles have denied it the opportunity to compete with telephone and cable communication in homes.

Siemens said it saw better business opportunities in high-speed telecommunications via traditional telephone networks and expected rapid growth in orders and sales for fast-access Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services.

"We decided to exploit those business opportunities and to shift staff into that area rather than waiting for uncertain growth opportunities (in powerline)," the spokeswoman said.

Much as we predicted when ISP Review first started, the market conditions and regulation requirements are just too great to allow enough freedom for such a technology to develop. It's a pity because many would relish the chance to plug in a fast Internet connection rather than the Kettle.