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July 5, 2001 - July 11, 2001

News - July 11,2001

New Reviews @ ISP Review

By:mark.j @ 1:24:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've added two new ISP Reviews today and more should be following as we mow through our backlog, today's reviews are both unmetered providers:

Nut In A Nutshell:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/reviews/nutshell/

FreeChariot (Updated):
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/reviews/fc/

Easynet Target Triple In Customer Base

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

The Easynet Group, yesterday claimed that they intend to more than triple their customer base in the next couple of years.

Easynet's Chairman and Chief Executive David Rowe states, "One hundred thousand (customers) would be a nice target over a couple of years, but it's not something which is fixed."

The British company currently has 27,000 customers, of which more than half are in the UK and the rest in France, Germany and Belgium.

Easynet aims to become a leading supplier of high-speed Internet connections to small and medium-sized businesses using DSL (digital subscriber line) technology, which transforms ordinary copper telephone lines into broadband pipes.

In the UK, where it has 2,000 DSL users, it has the most aggressive plans in the industry, after most of its potential rivals dropped out following delays in ending BT's monopoly over the copper lines.

Rowe said it will need to install its equipment in up to 200 British Telecom exchanges to provide national coverage, and needs revenue of about 50,000 pounds per exchange for each of the first three years to break even. With customers on average spending 2,000 pounds a year, which equates to 25 users per exchange.

Despite widespread doubts over the economics of DSL, Rowe said most of the UK's 1.3 million businesses have no alternative way of getting broadband. "Copper's what we're stuck with for a while," he said.

Demon & Other ISPs Win Protection From Users

By:mark.j @ 10:06:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In what could be seen as a landmark ruling, Demon Internet has won a victory for Internet Service Providers nationwide. ISPs will no longer be held responsible if one of their users posts information or images that might identify the teenage killers of James Bulger.

In a landmark ruling, a judge backed changes to an injunction protecting the new identities of recently paroled Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who battered two-year-old Bulger to death in 1993. A judge slapped a ban on the British media from publishing recent photos of them.

The crime convulsed the nation and now officials fear for the safety of Thompson and Venables after threats to kill the pair by vigilante groups in Merseyside.

In an action led by Demon Internet, Justice Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss approved changes to an earlier court order aimed at protecting ISPs from contempt charges providing they "take all reasonable steps to prevent publication of banned material".

Demon claimed that the original injunction, imposed to protect the new identities and whereabouts of Venables and Thompson after their release, was unfair on ISPs.

It claimed that it could result in them being found to be in contempt of court even though they were unable to prevent the disclosure of contemptuous material on web pages. This may also help when government and MPs next try to label ISPs as 'Publishers' of their users information.

Freeserve Hits Back @ Oftels Survey

By:mark.j @ 9:55:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As many of you may remember, it was reported in Oftels latest survey that Freeserves market share of ISP users had slumped to 18%, putting it just 1% ahead of AOL UK.

Today Freeserve have responded angrily and it would seem they have reason to do so, highlighting Forrester Research's findings that showed them with a 35% market share; interesting:

Said Le Freeswerve: "The most recent survey from Forrester Research confirms Freeserve's UK ISP market share as 35 per cent."

"There are numerous studies into UK ISP market share and arguably none is satisfactory. The results of the various studies give different results due to differing survey questions, sample sizes, sampling and weighting techniques."

"In addition, Freeserve is the only UK ISP that publicly discloses our number of active registered accounts. It is interesting that none of our competitors choose to do this."

The Register's article confuses as much as it does try to answer any questions, instead making us question both Oftel and Forrester's research. More interesting still is that Freeserve claims other ISPs don't disclose subscriber numbers and even ends with AOL agreeing that they don't either.

We find this all very strange since AOL only recently issued a press release regarding their worldwide customer base No.’s, or something like that. In fact quite a lot of British providers disclose such information during 'quarterly and yearly etc.' results.

News - July 10,2001

Motorola To Supply Hutchison's 3G Handsets

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

With almost all the other providers having announced early partnerships with various handset makers for 3G phones, only Hutchinson 3G UK remained behind, until today:

Hutchison said it named Motorola as its preferred provider of 3G handsets for its planned networks in markets including the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Australia and Austria.

The 3G devices will be multimedia-capable, boast always-on Internet connections, and able to operate on existing and next-generation networks using the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service) standard, the companies said.

Hutchison, which also has holdings in ports, supermarkets and property, plans to launch 3G services in 2002 in each market where it owns spectrum.

As the ZDNet item states, the deal looks set to cost a cool $700Million and consumers should start seeing the devices sometime during 2003, with businesses getting first pick during at end of 2002. Having said that, it's still too early to accurately predict the rollout for any 3G devices.

Strange Response To NTLs Postcode Check

By:mark.j @ 3:58:PM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In what's likely to sound almost as arrogant as it is funny, NTLs website based Cable Modem postcode checker returns the following message if you're not in a C-Modem covered area:

We're sorry, but you don't live in a cabled area. Our database tells us that you live in non-cabled area, therefore we are unable to offer you the ntl broadband service. Why not try another postcode?

The Register highlighted the cheeky message along with a small item regarding the recently announced NTL & Telewest cooperation, which is already being widely questioned since so few are properly covered by either provider (Fibre Optics).

We can't help but wonder how many times the author of the message had been hitting his head against a wall before he came up with that one.

Should ISPs Be Responsible For Net Material?

By:mark.j @ 3:49:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Fears are growing that the identities and locations of James Bulger's killers will soon be published on the Internet. It's a factor that's led Demon Internet into a legal wrangle over whether they could be held responsible if it happens:

Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the Family Division at the High Court, will hear the ISP's argument that it could currently be held responsible for breaching the injunction through no fault of its own.

Demon has long felt that the law has not kept pace with the development of the internet ever since losing a libel case for defamation over postings to newsgroups on its servers.

As the VNUNet item tries to point out, the outcome of this case could have strong implications for ALL other ISPs in the UK. So should ISPs be held responsible for the actions of one of their users no matter where they are on the net?

More WonkyPig Details

By:mark.j @ 3:39:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As spotted by a multitude of readers, there's now some more details on WonkyPigs latest £13.99 Per Month unmetered package:

Other Useful Information

Line Required: BT Only
Cut-Off Period: 2 Hours
Time Out: 1 Min
CLI Lock: Service available to registered telephone line.
Modem Ratio: 1:1

As many of the same readers were quick to point out - a one minute inactivity cut off? Madness =). Some average net stats we saw a little while back showed that most idle for around 3-4 minutes between websites (including viewing time), making 1 minute a shore fire way to p*** your users off.

The 1:1 ratio is also questionable since a typical port for one user tends to cost just over £200 per month, with ISPs making use of contention ratios for their earnings. In other words there's no way this can be the true 'Guaranteed Ratio', which should be more like 16:1 given WP's pricing.

Having said that WP may have found a way to get services no other ISP in the UK seems able to, we'll be asking Oftel and BT whether any of this is possible. We're sure a lot of ISPs would love to offer a 1:1 ratio service @ £13.99 per month and would benefit from this.

Airships To Replace 3G Base Stations

By:mark.j @ 9:26:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Apparently the Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) believes it'd be possible and even practical to use Airships (blimps) as base stations for future 3G mobile technologies. The idea being to place them 20km up in a geo-stationary position, where they'd apparently stay for roughly five years:

The airship's payload would be a base station capable of bouncing on signals for next generation mobile phone networks or high-speed wireless internet services.

The company is banking on the communication industry's interest in saving some cash after the big 3G splash. By way of manufacturing and maintenance, airships cost a lot less than satellites or traditional infrastructure.

ATG reckons that less than 20 airships in orbit over the UK could provide almost total coverage, the equivalent of 4000 standard mobile phone masts, or 10,000 third generation masts.

The VNUNet item mentions that a 500ft up test flight of a smaller scale model has already been branded a success. It'll take a lot more than a small model to convince the big companies that such a thing could work.

Sadly operators are unlikely to adopt a new strategy so late into development, making this a failure before it's even begun. Having said that and nobody really believed Satellites could work to start with.

Expand Networks Boost Cache Speeds 400%

By:mark.j @ 9:18:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Networking firm, Expand Networks, has claimed they can boost network performance by up to 400% through a new web caching technique. The technology could also be applied to home and business broadband connections and help further speed up web surfing:

Expand's Accelerator product line works with a variety of network configurations including ADSL, ISDN, Managed Frame Relay and Wireless environments, boosting the capacity and speed on these connections by between 100 to 400 percent, according to Expand.

In a Web cache commonly requested web pages are held locally, and the technology will try to service user requests from pages held in the cache before looking for information at a remote site.

Similarly by placing Accelerator boxes at both ends of a private line, the units adapt to network patterns and protocols to locally store commonly transmitted patterns of data, which are represented by a token. When the local cache sees this pattern of information again (which Expand's regional manager Scott Dobson said could be anything from corporate expenses spreadsheets to VoIP headers) the Accelerator sends only a representation token to a remote site, where data is transformed back to its original form.

Despite the interesting item @ The Register, caching can never help improve a direct file feed and thus raw downloading won't be improved. Having said that this might find a very wide use in the 'big business' market where companies could easily save on bandwidth costs.

News - July 9,2001

WonkyPig Adopt 'Realistically Priced' Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 4:15:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

WonkyPig, the unfortunately named (new) unmetered ISP, has so far failed to get off the ground and been heavily criticised for their past pricing.

Today the provider has turned a new corner in their development with BT Ignites backing; finally some realistic and yet competitive pricing has surfaced:

Wonkypig is a subscription based unmetered ISP providing 24-7 0800 Internet access.

£13.99 a month

What you get with the service:

-0800 Internet access
-5mb of Personal Webspace
-Unique Email address you@wonkypig.net
-Support for ISDN 64k, V90, K56 Flex and 56K (128k coming soon)
-Access to our SMTP & POP Mail Server
-News Group Feed
-& Access to New Services as there Added

The new package is well in line with what other providers are offering and it's even quite competitive, although no mention of cut-off times yet. It's also another provider whom seems to be investigating the adoption of Dual Channel 128Kbps ISDN, something that will please many of our readers.

Sadly if you try to register for the new service then you'll be greeted with the following message:

To ensure we do not flood our system, we limit the number of registrations per day and there are currently no available accounts at the moment, please try again tommorow.

Strange since nobody has actually tried to join yet, although one of our readers (Keith) spotted the following update earlier on before it was removed:

Our appoligies go out to all those still waiting for registration details and for new signup's our carrier BT ignite is in the final stages of processing our requests for more ports and we are still writing our authorisation software for the new service.

So our time frame for the service currently is : > 3-4 working days @ 09-07-01

In other words WonkyPig should be introducing their new package before Friday.

Internet Takes Share Of TV's Market

By:mark.j @ 4:01:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Another report out today, this time from Forrester Research, has concluded that a further 10-15% of Europeans have chosen to use the Internet for their information over Television:

The study revealed that news isn't one of the initial draws of the Internet. Only 16 percent of those who have been online for less than six months state that the Internet is their primary source for national and world news. This figure increases to 35 percent for those who have two or more years experience on the Internet. 89 percent of the European online population still prefer newspapers as their main source of local news, whilst a mere 15 percent would turn to the Internet for this information.

"With the exception of travel, the Net isn't even close to the top source of information in the vast majority of our categories," claimed Jackson.

But heavy TV-viewing markets are being hit hard by increasing Internet take-up in Europe. The Forrester research finds that the more Net users gain experience online, the less they watch TV. In TV addict nations such as Britain and Germany, those with Internet access are watching between 10 and 15 percent less TV each week than offline users. Jackson predicts that TV watching will fall further with growing consumer adoption of broadband online access.

ZDNet's item is quite interesting due to the inevitability of what it's trying to portray. As broadband becomes more popular and the Internet advances to take advantage, plus the ever-increasing number of those online, no doubt some people will find it more attractive than TV.

This factor is compounded by future 3G Mobile phones, which could technically broadcast live TV/Video feeds directly to your phone as well as Internet streams. Somewhere down the line (4G?) the two standards will have to meet and merge, either that or die.

AOL UK Popularity Overtakes Freeserve

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

During last July 2000 the Wanadoo owned ISP, Freeserve, took an impressive 29% of the market; Oftels latest survey has now shown this to slump into a less powerful 18%. The door is now open for another of the UKs top providers to sneak in:

In contrast, AOL UK's share of home users has soared increasing its market share from 8 per cent to 17 per cent during the same period.

That leaves AOL UK just one percentage point behind Britain's biggest French ISP. And since the survey was carried out in May it's possible that AOL UK has already overtaken Le Freeswerve as Britain's most popular ISP.

In The Register's item, AOL claims the increase is down to the popularity of their latest unmetered offering. Freeserve have yet to make any comment.

NTL and Telewest Create Co-Marketing Initiative

By:rich.p @ 11:27:AM - Comments (14) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

NTL and Telewest have announced a co-marketing initiative designed to aid the take-up of cable within the NTL and Telewest covered areas. Here is the press release in full (This is from NTL):

"NTL Incorporated (NYSE: NLI; Nasdaq Europe: NTLI), and Telewest, the UK’s leading cable companies, have created a co-marketing initiative aimed at accelerating the take-up of broadband services throughout Britain. It will run until mid September and is designed to highlight the benefits of broadband internet to consumers throughout the UK and Ireland.

Telewest and NTL offer digital customers broadband internet which connects home PCs, via a robust cable modem, to their state-of-the-art fibre optic networks from around £25 per month. This always-on service produces internet access speeds of nearly ten times faster than a standard modem (512 kbps vs 56 kbps) and removes the current frustrations with dial-up internet. BT charges £39.99 per month for ADSL.

Broadband cable is available today in 9 million homes – covering 37% of the UK and Ireland – and by the end of 2002 this number will have increased to 11.6 million homes, representing virtually all of NTL’s and Telewest’s serviceable areas.

NTL has already committed to invest £50 million over the next two years to upgrade the London network it acquired from Cable and Wireless Communications which means that broadband services will be available from October 2001.

To confirm whether or not you can receive broadband cable today, or to register your interest, please visit www.ntl.com/telewest.

“Broadband cable is the best solution for high speed internet access and we have an unbeatable offer ” said Stephen Carter, Managing Director of NTL. “Most of us in the UK currently have to get the internet through a very slow telephone line which means we have all become familiar with the World Wide Wait. Broadband cable puts an end to all that wasted time, money and effort.”

Adam Singer, CEO of Telewest added: “This campaign is designed to bring the benefits of broadband internet to life. The combination of high speed, always on services and rich content means that home surfers can start enjoying the internet the way it should be. This is a shot in the arm for Broadband Britain. It’s great that the two of us are working together to promote digital cable, demonstrating it is the best technology for bringing the internet to life.”

The campaign breaks on July 28 and will target national and regional TV, national broadsheets, and regional press and radio, with new creative from JWT. Media buying will be handled by Carat and Media Insight. There will also be a high profile PR and promotions campaign and a ground-breaking on-line campaign.

Certainly an interesting move from the cable companies, it appears to be designed to move people to broadband cable before ADSL takes hold. Cable currently has the advantage of cheaper pricing within cable covered areas.

ISP Review Site Updates

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

Just a quick update to inform everybody that our ISP Complaints page has been updated, typically Supanet took the most complaints with BTInternet following close behind. BBS have been semi-removed due to the closure of their unmetered service.

We've also done some important updates to our Unmetered/Freecall ISP List, which should now show BT and non-BT supporting ISPs correctly as well as all the usual package price etc. updates. Do inform us of any providers we have listed as ‘BT only’ that also support NTL or Telewest etc.

UPDATE:
We updated the list again with changes to AOL and 08002Go as suggested by readers, thanks for the feedback.

Supanet Still Suffering Congestion

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

Following on from last week’s statement to us regarding congestion problems with Supanet's unmetered service, we've today been investigating whether the new ports have improved things.

Sadly within the last few days alone we've seen seven new complaints, all made AFTER the new ports were supposed to be operational; examples follow:

Lee Writes:
I would like to add my complaint about being unable to access the SupaHighway unlimited service. Anytime between 4pm and 10pm (when it is about the majority of the time I can use the internet) it is almost impossible to get connected. I have complained to their Customer Service, and they realise the problem, but were unable to give any details when, or indeed if, the problem will be resolved.

Joanne Writes:
Dear ISP Review

We signed up to Supanet's unmetered service at the beginning of May and for the first 10 days it was plagued with hardware problems. That was followed by 2 weeks of good access during which things worked well, but from the beginning of June, congestion left us so frustrated with up to 20 log-in attempts to get a connection during peak times. We've ended up signing up to BTinternet Anytime to get reliable service, so far it has delivered.

Some new ports are now available on Supanet, but it's still not good enough to be the default connection. I have asked to be released from my contract, but it's not looking good.

Sadly these two examples tend to express the overall feel and mood of complaints, a lot of unhappy customers and not enough being done by Supanet to improve things. Perhaps if they were to offer a business 24/7 option for the heavy users then things might improve?

Supanet actually has a fairly standard user to port ratio for its service, so clearly this is related to an element of over use.

More 0800OnlineServe Updates

By:mark.j @ 10:29:AM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

TheDogmaGroup owned unmetered ISP, 0800OnlineServe, has sent us yet another site update:

The site has now been fully updated and configured. An Online application form has been set-up, but this is only for customers who require the ISDN one week deal. Payment for this option must be taken via Direct Debit only.

The Form also includes the Installation file, or the configuration file for Windows, in the form of an .ins file. This will provide speedy access, as the customer only needs to retrieve their sign-in details to access the service.

The special ISDN 128K deal, which entails 12 months access for 10 is only on until this Friday. The cost for this service is £300 (normally £360), which can be paid by Direct Debit.

Remember, if you have the cash and want to save £60 off the cost of Dual Channel ISDN access then the deal will only last until Friday, after that it'll be back to the normal £29.98 per month price.

French Broadband Steams Forward

By:mark.j @ 10:23:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Although Britain is already below France in recent surveys of broadband Internet coverage and access, that gap now looks set to considerably widen:

The project, due to be unveiled on Monday, will allow local communities to draw on cheap loans worth some 10bn francs (£915m) to build high speed web connections.

In addition, a government agency will look into the possibility of using existing electricity networks owned by state utility Electricite de France as a piggyback for a fibre-optic network

Jospin's office estimated the total cost of high-speed coverage for the entire country was some 30bn francs, but recognised that private companies were unlikely to foot the entire bill because of poor profit prospects in low-populated areas.

Much like Oftels own plans for the UK; ZDNet states that France also has a rough 2005/2006-completion date, one year behind ours. It seems strange that France should take so much longer considering their pushing a vast amount more into the project (££) and they're already ahead.

10 Million Brits Online Thanks To Unmetered

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

Britain's telecommunications regulator, Oftel, has today published the details of its latest Internet access survey. Apparently 10Million Brits are now accessing the Internet, as opposed to the 6Million we saw 1 year ago, that's a colossal rise.

The reason for the rise is being put down to the increased regularity and stability of unmetered access providers. In February of this year they accounted for 18% of the market, since then the number has risen to 24%, nearly one quarter of the whole market.

The numbers look set to rise as more providers enter the arena, although don't look for any dramatic battles on price; unmetered access is still too expensive for the providers to do that.

News - July 8,2001

ISP Review Weekly Update

By:mark.j @ 11:12:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

No doubt many of you will be tipping off the edge of your seats trying to see whether they'll finish the Tennis Semi-final today with Tim Henman, so I won't keep you long - GO TIM.

The new Readers Top 50 system is coming along well and we might even be able to begin testing in just under two weeks time. All the new security and statistical data is apparently coded, although filtering out the bugs will be tough.

We’re still not sure exactly when it'll be done, but should have some REAL news on it for the end of the month. Possibly even a private reader test to help clean the code up.

Overall the forums have been the area we've seen most progress on and it looks like we may be able to merge the 'General Discussion Forum' into the 'Specific ISP Forum' sooner than previously thought. At present we've still got features to add and moderators to sort, although everything seems to be moving faster than expected.

More notices and info. regarding this will go up over the next few days/weeks and it'll be a very gradual process. In other words, we'll leave the old forum open for a week once it's all ready, just so people can get use to the new ones.

We should point out that the content from the old forums cannot be moved and it's taking 400mb of space, so that's impractical to do. Thankfully the new ones have been around awhile and are far from sparse.

We'd expect the actual process of moving to begin in a couple of weeks time, unless any unforeseen problems surface. At this point you'll notice all the forum and discussion groups (with some new ones) from the older forums to appear in the new ones.

0800OnlineServe Fix ISDN Details

By:mark.j @ 10:46:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following last weeks announcement that TheDogmaGroup's unmetered ISP 0800OnlineServe would support Dual Channel 128Kbps ISDN, there was a lot of confusion regarding the information and links on their website.

Thankfully the ISP was quick to listen and now the front page now has the following sentence under the £14.99 Per Month packages introduction:

And also, now supported is 128K ISDN at twice the standard fee: £29.98.

If you want to sign up you'll either have to give them a call or ask for the CD. Remember you can save £60 Per Annum off the cost of 128Kbps ISDN only for the next few days if you call them directly and subscribe for a full year (normally £360).

News - July 7,2001

Thus Brings Quarterly Results Forward

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

Thus, owners of Demon Internet, said that owing to the recent volatility in its shares, it was bringing forward the release of first quarter results to July 11, the same date as its annual general meeting.

"This will allow the company to give investors to give investors an early update on the current trading position and the company's confidence in its future trading prospects," the group said in a statement on Friday.

Shares in the group, which earlier hit a year low of 30p, were up 1p at 35-1/4p following the announcement.

News - July 6,2001

CloudNine Launches Unmetered EARLY!

By:mark.j @ 4:12:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

CloudNine have been pleased to inform us that their new FRIACO based unmetered dial-up packages have today gone online three days earlier than planned:

Following very successful testing the Cloud Nine service is now live - 3 days early. The pre-registration form has been converted to an order form for now.

Setups are still manual until Monday 9th July when we expect our new web site to go live (fingers crossed!!) simplifying the whole ordering process for all our products - you know how software and web site development always seem to lag behind everything else ;-)

Just to recap - our FRIACO products are:

HomeSurf Economy - including a .co.uk domain name registration for 2 years, 0808 99 FRIACO unmetered dial number, 10 x POP3 mailboxes with unlimited email addresses on your domain, 0845 backup dial-up number, low contention, 2 hour drop, email control panel, WebMail, free online support. This will cost £15.99 per month.

HomeSurf Professional Economy - including .co.uk domain name registration for 2 years, 0808 99 FRIACO unmetered dial number, 50Mb of web space, 10 x POP3 mailboxes with unlimited email addresses on your domain, 0845 backup dial-up number, low contention, 2 hour drop, email control panel, WebMail, free online support. This will cost £18.99 per month.

BusinessSurf Economy - including .co.uk domain name registration for 2 years, 0808 99 FRIACO unmetered dial number, 100Mb of web space, Frontpage 2000 and ASP support, form to email example scripts, 10 x POP3 mailboxes with unlimited email addresses on your domain, 0845 backup dial-up number, low contention, 2 hour drop, email control panel, WebMail, free online support. This will cost £24.68 per month.

As they’ve stated many times before, this doesn’t mean the existing Surftime based packages are to be removed; they’re there to stay. CloudNine seems an ISP more geared toward web developer/designers and SME Businesses/Home workers.

0800Online Offer Special ISDN Deal

By:mark.j @ 4:04:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Hot on the heels of this mornings news that 0800Online was to officially offer 128Kbps ISDN access to subscribers, they've now opened up a special offer for any such subscribers:

A one week only deal has been negotiated, giving customers two free months ISDN access @ 128k, if they subscribe yearly for £300 - saving nearly £60.

The details for this offer can be obtained from sales at the following address : sales@thedogmagroup.co.uk . This is a one week only offer, but special payment options need to be undertaken.

Now a word of warning, as expressed by many of our readers since this mornings article, 0800Onlineserve's website is very confusing. They don't seem to separate the old information from the new yet and consequently you could end up subscribing to the wrong thing.

The best advise is to call them directly until this is sorted out, Dual Channel ISDN should normally cost £360 per year or £30 Per Month (2 * £14.99 Unmetered Packages).

ISP SLAs Still Lack Credibility

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

While consumers find it hard enough making sense of complex Terms & Conditions, businesses buying their networking and Internet links are finding ISP Service Level Agreements just as tedious:

A report from internet breakdown company Iowatch, based on complaints from network managers about lack of service from ISPs, estimated that UK businesses could be owed as much as £35m from SLA breaches.

The figures are backed up by Mark Decker, product manager at Rainfinity, a company which recently launched ISP failover software.

"The service level agreements offered by ISPs today have no teeth," he said. "There is too much that could and does go wrong. A service provider would lose the shirt off its back if it applied real penalties every time something went wrong."

The VNUNet item highlights an on-going saga between businesses and Internet Service Providers that's unlikely to be resolved until tougher regulation comes into force. Of course it's only fair to say that the Internet as a whole isn't always stable and you just can't guarantee 100% uptime.

Ex-OnCue ADSL Customers Taken By iomart

By:mark.j @ 3:42:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Scottish broadband and network provider, iomart, has today paid a fair £200,000 for 600 ex-customers left in the dark following OnCue's departure from offering ADSL services.

In a brief message to the media, iomart expressed hopes that this would bring them an extra £1,000,000 in revenue per year. Moving the 600 customers onto iomart is expected to take between two and three weeks and should go without a hitch.

OnCue was the first broadband provider to leave the market, blaming a lack of knowledge, high costs and coverage (roll-out) for their demise.

ADSL Price Cuts - Don't Count On It

By:mark.j @ 3:32:PM - Comments (15) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While special DIY/Wires Only broadband R/ADSL installation packages may bring the cost of installing xDSL technology down, BT has been quick to refute claims that monthly prices might soon follow:

However, BT spokeswoman, Rebecca Webster, was unable to say exactly by how much costs could fall.

She also confirmed that there were no plans, "in the short-term", to reduce the price of its current wholesale single user DSL service, which costs £35 a month.

Defending BT's pricing for its wholesale DSL service, she said that it included the cost of hardware, a high quality service and offered "good value for money".

The Register points out that BT is starting to take a very different tone and admitting to past mistakes. Despite this we can't help but wonder exactly what 'short term' means in BTs language.

With cheaper networks for carrying xDSL coming online soon, there's certainly room for a cut, although it's more likely ISPs will use that to improve their economics first and pass the savings on to consumers later.

0800Online on 128Kbps ISDN & NTL

By:mark.j @ 10:17:AM - Comments (9) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Dogmagroup backed, 0800Online (0800Online Serve), have today issued us with a small update over some unmetered dial-up questions we posed recently regarding NTL and ISDN 128KBps support.

The ISP had claimed it would offer FULL support for NTL customers where others had failed to do so (Vispa etc.) and also allow 128Kbps ISDN subscriptions:

quick update
ISDN @ 128K is now supported, but costing twice the normal flat rate fee. It includes all the standard features of our single ISDN account, but with the ability to Multilink and bond.

You may sign up for this service via visiting, http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk and ordering your set-up disk.

NTL and cable update
NTL, and other cable operators are now supported with an unmetered option. A monthly fee is charged for access from these network @ £14.99 a month. These accounts mimick the BT based access plans. 0800 access is available 24-7.

To signup, please order your set-up disk at http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk.

0800Online is the first ISP to officially succeed in giving NTL customers an extra choice of unmetered ISP and also allowing 128Kbps ISDN. Despite this the provider recently had to make some changes following service troubles, we'll be reviewing them in the near future and hopefully things should then have improved.

We also know of other providers now investigating the ability to offer 128Kbps ISDN and so happily more choice for ISDN customers is finally on its way. Some such ISPs already support it in an unofficial capacity, although using that might be considered abuse until it’s made official.

BT Issues Statement Over BBS Allegations

By:mark.j @ 10:08:AM - Comments (11) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following the large mainstream media coverage of BigBlueSkys closure and their final 'BT Attacking' statement, BT have now felt compelled to issue their own counter-statement. The follow has been sent out to all news and media sources since yesterday evening:

BT STATEMENT IN FULL

BT is disappointed and angered by BigBlueSky's (BBS's) statement. In essence, we didn't supply BBS with any software at all, so how they can blame their authentication problems on us is beyond belief. It is only too easy to blame others - especially BT - when a company's business model is simply not robust enough to succeed in this intensely competitive marketplace.

* BT Ignite has supplied BBS with its WebPort product. This does not include any software so BBS's allegation that "BT provided the authentication software" with which they have had problems is simply not true.

* Similarly, BBS's allegation that "software provided by BT was allowing multiple users to sign on to the system concurrently" is again simply not factually correct. BT has provided BBS with no software whatsoever.

* BBS try to implicate BT in the problems they have experienced with users fraudulently sharing their user information. BT has no direct contact or relationship with BBS's end users and there is no connection whatsoever between BT and any fraudulent customers of BBS.

* BBS claim there were delays on the part of BT in connecting the company. The stated lead-time for WebPort is ten working days and we frequently better this. However, BBS's orders were delivered, on average, 2 working days longer than we state, but how this could lead to BBS's problems is difficult to comprehend.

* BBS claim that BT indicated that "even though they may be equally to blame, they are not prepared to allow BBS any opportunity or help in sorting out the problem". BT cannot confirm that any member of staff said that BT was "equally to blame" in these issues - as we did not provide BBS with any software, we can take no responsibility for these problems.

* BT would be very interested to see any outcome of BBS bringing this matter to the OFT or OFTEL.

The piece ends with a "my personal opinion" section yet gives no name, merely "The Directors" as a source.

The author says he or she thinks that larger telecom companies see small ISPs as "a threat to their existence in the marketplace" and that they "do their utmost to ensure the failure of an entrepreneurial system by squeezing out the smaller companies". BT wholly refutes these statements. We do not see any ISP - large or small - as a threat, we see them as valued customers. In fact, the WebPort product is designed specifically for small ISPs, and we are offering these companies an extremely good deal to help them achieve success.

Finally, yes, BT is going through a period of change. Our priority is, always has been, and always will be, delivering excellent customer service. Throughout our reorganisation, we have striven to ensure that our high levels of customer service remain so.

We had privately questioned BBSs original statement after being told BT didn’t supply any software and wondering why so many other ISPs didn’t have such problems, yet BBS did? This statement clears a things up and shows BBS in a light they probably wouldn’t like to be seen in, one of lying to the public – excuse after excuse.

Despite this we can’t agree with BTs last paragraph or two, Webport24 is more restrictive and doesn’t allow ISPs to control their own services as much as they might like (CloudNine given good examples). This puts them at a notable disadvantage when compared to larger ISPs, whom can afford the more expensive alternatives and thus flexibility.

Hopefully this will be the final chapter of the on-going saga related to this ISP, we can only feel for the customers stuck in the middle, the ones whom always seem to end up being forgotten.

Clara.Nets Latest Official Newsletter

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

Having launched their new unmetered package and redone their websites design, it seems only fitting for clara.net to issue a newsletter with some more bits and pieces of official info.:

1. 24/7.update

We have recently launched Freetime Anytime, our new 24/7 unmetered access package. Priced at £14.99, this package is primarily targeted at home users and has a user to modem ratio of 10:1.

We will be launching a second 24/7 package in the next couple of weeks, with a 5:1 user to modem ratio, that will be more suited to a home worker or SoHo user.

As with all our other Freetime accounts you must have a BT phone line in order to qualify for this account.

Freetime Anytime has initially been launched as a trial product that will be evaluated after 3 months.

Freetime Anytime is currently not available nationwide but we are hoping to offer national coverage very soon. To see whether FreeTime Anytime is available in your area go to: http://www.clara.net/homeaccess/options/anyclidcheck.phtml

If you are interested in changing your existing account to a Freetime
Anytime account please click on the ACCOUNT CHANGE option at
http://www.clara.net/members/

For full details go to:
http://www.clara.net/homeaccess/options/ftanytime.phtml

2. new.website

You will by now have had a chance to check out our new website. Site navigation has been improved and the new site has been redesigned to incorporate details for both home and business customers.

Although the main changes have been structural, the look and feel is very different and there is greater focus on our product offering.

If you want to take a quick look now, go to http://www.clara.net we hope you like it.

3. latest.figures

According to the latest figures from the Family Expenditure Survey, an average 9.2 million households in the UK accessed the Internet from home between January - March 2001.

23 million adults in Britain have accessed the Internet at some time, and as with the previous three quarters, men were more likely to have used the Internet than women.

For full details go to http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/int0601.pdf

As with any new package provided by clara.net, the unmetered one will be under trial until September 2001. Search our archives for details of the unmetered business dial-up offer.

News - July 5,2001

Supanet Issue Official Response To Problems

By:mark.j @ 4:48:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Many of you will be aware we've been chasing Supanet following numerous complaints regarding slow speeds and connections problems. In their unofficial response we learned that this was, as expected, down to congestion (too many users on the service).

Today the ISP has sent us a full and official response on the complaints we've been receiving:

supahighway....

As has been reported on ISPreview, customers have been suffering problems with the supahighway service. We apologise to everyone who has been affected, if you were previously customers of supanet you would know that we have always provided excellent pay as you go and subscription access to the Internet. The problems have been caused by some initial technical problems between us and our suppliers and then sheer weight of demand on the service - in short our offer was too successful.

Since the weekend we have seen even more new ports come online and also peoples usage of the unmetered service has settled down to a less euphoric level. We have a new supahighway customer service department on a free phone number, 0800 915 8181. This is there for customers to help users work the service and get the most out of unmetered access. For certain customers who have been seriously affected by our problems we have moved them back to other supanet services. In the near future we will be offering more diverse packages, which offer better contention ratios or usage at certain times when access will be assured.

These are things that we are going to do to ensure that the service is as good as we can possibly make it - however after running our unmetered network for the last 8 weeks the frustrations customers are feeling are because it is unmetered! It is not the Holy Grail that we would all like. Where we can switch on the PC and have anytime access to the Internet. An unmetered product is the cheapest way to connect to the web. In order to get the cost down the contention ratios have to increase. We currently have a contention ratio of 13:1, however on our metered packages we have been running at less that 3:1 for the last year.

I'm afraid that the while the unmetered packages offers a flexibility and fixed cost - because of the way it is controlled by third party organisations it is never going to provide 24/7 access to the internet. We will however endeavour to provide customers with the best possible service within this frame work, in order that our supahighway product matches the reliability of all our other packages. Once again apologies to those who have suffered problems.

We’re still seeing some complaints, although we won’t know if things have started to improve until we next update the complaints page tomorrow. Do let us know if you’ve seen any improvements and your comments on this update are most welcome.

One thing we would credit Supanet with is the fact they responded to the customer issues we had to highlight and did so in an honest way, if only more ISPs could follow by example.

Aramiska To Launch Broadband Satellite

By:mark.j @ 4:31:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As predicted, yet another group is following StarSpeeder, SkyStorm and Tiscali in attempting to bring broadband satellite Internet services to the UK.

Like Tiscali, Aramiska is hoping to relieve the coverage stress of xDSL by offing true Two-Way broadband satellite Internet services:

At the official launch of the fledgling company earlier today those behind the service said the company planned to target the UK first because "the roll-out of terrestrial broadband services has been so slow".

It plans to launch the service in Spain and Italy in Q3 2002, and Germany and France in the following quarter.

Said CEO Philippe Bodart: "The strong demand in Europe for broadband local access have been diminished by slow local loop unbundling, with current DSL offerings being openly criticised. Today we have launched a service that will dramatically reshape this broadband landscape across Europe," he said.

The Register points out that Aramiska's Two-Way satellite is currently under trials with SME's and probably won't make it into residential areas of the UK until early 2002. They also take a slash at Tiscali's offering; claiming it's not a true Two-Way service, let battle commence.

Telewests SurfUnlimited Gets Cheaper

By:mark.j @ 4:17:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The unmetered dial-up part of Telewests blueyonder Internet wing, SurfUnlimited, has chosen to remove the £10 minimum call requirement. Although not really a hindrance in the first place, light usage customers now only need worry about the £10 per month charge for the ISP itself.

Telewests reasons for doing this seems to stem from their hope that the service will now seem less confusing/redistricted and that more customers will be encouraged to join. It certainly makes them one of the most competitively priced providers in the UK, against the likes of 08002Go, which also seems to be doing well.

BTInternet Increase Off-Peak Price

By:mark.j @ 4:09:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The Net4Nowt team have got wind of some price rise information being spread around various BTInternet support groups. Although BTI have yet to issue a formal statement, customer should be seeing one from tomorrow.

In short they're planning to increase the cost of their Off-Peak unmetered package from £4 per month to £5.99, which combined with the off-peak surftime cost comes to a grand total of £11.98 per month.

It may not seem like much, but considering 24/7 access is just £3 away and most ISPs charge £9.99 for such access then they're not doing themselves any favours.

Powerline Finally Launches In Germany

By:mark.j @ 9:49:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The German utility giant RWE has become the first European provider to launch the new 'broadband through your power cables' Powerline technology known as RWE PowerNet.

In short, instead of just plugging your kettle in you can now add a high speed broadband connection for surfing the Internet and yes, it's that simple (kind of):

The power line technology will mean that RWE PowerNet can deliver data at a rate of two million bytes per second. This is three times the speed of the latest telephone connections offered by Deutsche Telekom.

The technology is deliberately aimed at competing with rival methods of high-speed internet connection, such as television cable networks and super-charged copper telephone wires known as asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL).

Customers will be charged per the amount of data they receive and rates range from DM49 (E25), which will supply 250Mb of data (a typical picture sent by e-mail uses 0.5Mb), to DM249 (E127.3) per month.

Europemedia goes on to show how the service is still quite small despite its obvious coverage advantage. Germany has new laws regarding the technologies, ensuring, for example, that the technology does not interfere with electrical appliances or radio frequencies required for emergency services.

Powerline was first turned into a practical system by the ingenuity of a British power cable engineer, yet sadly never took off here due to interference problems on British and Scottish cables as well as regulatory issues.