Welcome to our News Archives page

February 7, 2001 - February 13, 2001

News - February 13,2001

Madasafish Adds Online Stock Trading

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

The Iomart backed consumer ISP, Madasafish, has today issued a new press release about some content additions to their portal system:

Madasafish Trading Online In The European Money Markets

The world of high finance awaits at lifestyle ISP, Madasafish (www.iomart.com) following the signing of a turnkey financial portal deal with Italy’s number one online financial services company, IMIWEB Trader.

Madasafish are further strengthening their content offering with a unique service that will enable members to trade stocks in any European market and put at their fingertips comprehensive information on the global money markets. The service is due to go live in March.

Said Madasafish’s Forrest Duncan: “Madasafish has enjoyed steady growth as an alterative ISP by being responsive to its users – the Net Generation. Our users are net literate and comfortable with shopping online, so the obvious extension for us was trading stocks online.”

Madasafish believe this latest financial feature, which they are debuting in Europe, will consolidate its reputation for offering first rate content and services tailor-made for their users.

Added Duncan: “Our stock trading service will be fully integrated into the site. It is fully transparent and outstrips even the likes of Schwab with its ability to trade in the major European markets all from one portal.”

The new Madasafish service will available to users in the UK and Ireland and utilises proprietary trading and banking technology licensed from E-financialdepot.com Inc. of Century City, California, USA.

END

It all sounds very interesting and shows that companies are really trying to make a go of the online world. Now if only they'd put some effort into refunding our two £27.99 payments (should be one, but they took it twice?) for a service we've never used or had details for, then we'd be happy with them, but they don't reply =(.

New Virus Threat - VBS/SST-A

By:mark.j @ 9:27:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

To all you wary and vigilant Internet users out there, both business and residential, be on the look out for a new virus that's spreading faster than The Love Bug ever did!:

Experts at antivirus firm Message Labs warned IT managers to prepare for a VBS.Generic virus contained in the rapidly spreading attachment, AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs.

Known as VBS/SST-A, the worm arrives in an email with the subject line "Here you have, ;0)" and includes the AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs attachment. But instead of displaying a picture of the tennis star the bug uses the Visual Basic scripting language to infect Outlook and mails itself out to contacts in the infected user's address book.

According to some anti-virus firms, the number of infections has been rising every hour. "We first saw the AnnaKournikova virus at 1.30pm today. In the first hour we stopped four instances. By the forth hour this was up to 1,376. It's spreading exponentially," said Alex Shipp, antivirus technologist at Message Labs. "This means it's spreading twice as fast as the Love Bug."

The virus is clearly spreading faster than the early British colonisation years, however the good news is that the virus itself isn't expected to do any harm. That said and as yet nobody knows for sure what it's supposed to do anyway, thus there's always a risk. More @ VNUNet.

Meltingpoint Preps Invasive Ad-Squatting Tech

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

It's almost as if every new day brings a fresh spate of problems for the Internet, this morning Plus.NET and now Meltingpoint are planning to introduce a hugely controversial advertising system. One that not only infringes privacy (has an opt-out option - thank god), but also invades and technically defaces the content of other websites:

Meltingpoint Technologies has launched Fotino, an ad-serving technology that will allow ISPs to deliver their own inventory of banner ads directly to a user’s browser - overlaying banners hosted on the sites that a user visits.

ISP customers who opt in will download a browser plug-in that collects data about a user’s active pages and sends it to a Meltingpoint server that can extract URL information. Meltingpoint software allows this information about user behaviour to be combined with personal data collected by the ISP to deliver targeted banner ads. Meltingpoint claims to have generated interest among ISPs, but declined to name specific clients.

The technology has certainly generated controversy, with concerns focusing on three main areas: whether overlaying banners amounts to defacing a website, how well the privacy of users will be protected, and whether this technology would put ISPs on a collision with publishers and advertisers.

There's no doubting that the technology is rather clever, however just like TV, much of the Internet is sustained through banners and advertising, at least to an extent. Last year saw the online advertising industry collapse, leaving thousands of sites around the world to close or go commercial by asking for a monthly payment.

While the industry is expected to grow again this year, the monopolisation and continued blocking of such online adverts by other companies could do serious damage. The question is, would you rather visit a site with a banner or visit a site and have to pay 50p/£1 per month for it and no banners? More @ netimperative.com.

Plusnet Fair Use Policy!

By:rich.p @ 7:44:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

PlusNet has posted some fair usage guidelines for their surftime packages. Thanks to Sean for sending it to us. It does seem a little over the top:

Subject: Fair and reasonable usage guide for Surftime accounts

From: Customer Support

Newsgroups: plusnet.service.customer-feedback
Fair and reasonable usage guide for Surftime accounts
Following on from the events of the last week or so and feedback we
have received from our customers we have produced a guide to what we
consider to be fair and reasonable use of our Surftime account types.
The guidance is separated by account type and is intended to give an
indication and does not set precise parameters.
In all instances we quote a maximum average, by this we mean the
maximum amount of time in a day a customer has been logged onto the
Surftime dial service, this average is measured across a week. Please
note this does not mean the maximum amount of time logged on in any
given single day as we appreciate that people's usage profile varies.

Biz+ accounts, this is split into two categories
Mon-Fri
08:00 - 18:00hrs
Design - 3 hours 40 minutes
Fair - 4 hours 20 minutes
Pushing it - 5 hours
Unfair - 5 hours 40 minute
......................................................... *
Out of order - 6 hours 20 minutes
Taking the Michael - 7 hours and above
* Customers who exceed these guides will receive warning and/or be
subject to punitive action

All other times
Design - 1 hour
Fair - 1 hour 10 minutes
Pushing it - 1 hour 20 minutes
Unfair - 1 hour 30 minutes
......................................................... *
Out of order - 1 hour 40 minutes
Taking the Michael - 1 hour 50 minutes and above
* Customers who exceed these guides will receive warning and/or be
subject to punitive action

24/7 accounts
Design - 1 hours 35 minutes
Fair - 2 hours
Pushing it - 2 hours 25 minutes
Unfair - 2 hours 50 minutes
......................................................... *
Out of order - 3 hours 15 minutes
Taking the Michael - 3 hours 40 minutes and above
* Customers who exceed these guides will receive warning and/or be
subject to punitive action

OffPeak accounts (Unmetered element only)
Design - 45 minutes
Fair - 1 hour 20 minutes
Pushing it - 1 hour 40 minutes
Unfair - 2 hours
......................................................... *
Out of order - 2 hours 20 minutes
Taking the Michael - 2 hours 40 minutes and above
* Customers who exceed these guides will receive warning and/or be
subject to punitive action

*** PlusNet reserve the right to review and update this guide in the
future
***
Best Wishes,
Customer Support
--

| Fixed cost Internet access available @
| http://www.plus.net/

| PlusNet Technologies Ltd

+--------------PlusNet - The smarter way to Internet-------------+

Well if this is genuine and everybody seems to think it is. Then I doubt PlusNet will see anymore business customers. If a typical business works an 8 hour day and PlusNet restrict them to 6 hours online then it simply won't work. Have PlusNet lost the plot? Comments....

News - February 12,2001

Oftels ADSL Findings

By:mark.j @ 4:34:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Oftels report, as mentioned briefly below, also has details on why and how people are reacting to the introduction of broadband ADSL services in the UK.

A previous report found that people were only willing to pay roughly £13 per month for the services; the new one presents a more up-to-date picture:

However, the majority of consumers, online and offline, said they were not interested in ADSL because they didn't use the internet enough, rather than it being too expensive.

Around 12 per cent of consumers not interested in ADSL said they were worried about the security risk of having a permanent connection to the internet. Others were concerned about the hassle involved in switching to ADSL, said Oftel.

Other findings show that 62 per cent of customers who have the internet at home are atracted to ADSL services because of the high speed access it offers, with two thirds of users attracted to the ability to make voice calls at the same time as using the internet on one single fixed line.

So in other words, if BT were to clear up the current issues with switching to ADSL (Eg: ISDN > ADSL / Swapping between ADSL ISPs) and providing lower cost variants, then lots more people would actually make use of the technology.

Checkout VNUNet for more, although we rather like the way NTL do it with their unmetered £9.99 64Kbps trial options. Not everybody needs or wants ultra fast speeds at high prices, why not make use of the broadband networks for cheaper/more attractive alternatives?

Ultimately the good news is that more are attracted to broadband than ever before, the bad is that it's still not quite what everybody wants or can afford.

Oftels Badly Timed ‘Consumer Demand’ Report

By:mark.j @ 4:22:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It's probably the worst timing in the history of Oftels existance, yet despite this, Oftel has published a huge report into the issue of growing consumer demand for various providers and networks (Telco's, Mobiles etc.):

Not that Oftel will be around for much longer. A Government White Paper, out today, calls for it to be combined with broadcasting watchdogs into a new Ofcom super-dog (a Rottweiler to the existing Poodles). This will then watch over the entire telecommunications market. Has Dave "the bureaucrat" Edmonds blown his chances of leading the superdog?

And is this why he lays out why he is indispensable in today's report? "A significant proportion of consumers aren't aware of the full range of choice available to them. This reinforces the need for Oftel's continued commitment to industry initiatives such as www.phonebills.org.uk" - something Dave is closely associated with.

It could be that we need the strong arm of Dave to help implement these life-changing initiatives in the future. Or it could be that he's out of his depth and we need a watchdog with teeth rather than gums.

It's fair to say that this will have struck a strong cord with almost anybody irritated by the government and Oftels lack of action. The Register explains little about the report itself, using it mainly as another irresistible media bullet to load a shoot.

Labour Gov Drop 'Broadband Britain' Pledge

By:mark.j @ 4:08:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Rumours abound this afternoon as speculation is mounting that the Labour Government are about to do a U-Turn on one of their election pledges by potentially scrapping the 'Broadband Britain' plans and promises.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the recent problems and bad publicity would make this a difficult area to deal with:

The threat last week of legal action by AOL and Freeserve - incensed at the apparent favouritism shown by BT to its subsidiaries - has made broadband a political hot potato and not one that Labour wants to handle in the election run-up.

In one sense, Labour has been lucky in the timing of the DSL argument - with the election most likely in May, Tony Blair et al have already started outlining their election stances. A few weeks later and the Tories could have been beating the government with a broadband stick right up to polling day.

Not only that but today in the FT, culture secretary Chris Smith has been watering down the claim that everyone in the UK will have fast, unmetered Net access by 2005. "We want Internet access for all by 2005 but that won't necessarily, even in a perfect world, mean broadband access," he told the newspaper. Did he blame BT or regulator Oftel? This time, it's Oftel's fault. "One of the problems with the present structure of regulation is that it has not allowed the process to happen as quickly as we might have wished," he said.

The Register's article is very worrying because without the added government pressure, Oftel would be free to allow the slow pace of LLU and broadband to continue. Ironically the government has with it the power to fix things, all it'd have to do is help subsidise the process and thus keep the prices level.

Invariably we very much doubt that a 'Broadband Britain' will be on any one of Labours promises. This makes them just as guilty of holding things up as Oftel and BT.

Ultra Competitive Market Threatens ISPs

By:mark.j @ 12:35:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

New research done by the Analysis group suggests that the ever competitive market of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the UK and EU could well be their downfall, at least to a point. Despite Internet usage growing on a dail basis, the research predicts that more consolidation and less choice will be the order of the future:

Analyst, Rupert Wood, who presented the findings, said that the ISP industry is experiencing difficulties, and cited a number of factors: stock market corrections, as a result of some high-profile failures; worsening economic conditions, and oversupply. However, he said that the biggest problem was ISPs competing aggressively on price, with some offering free services in an attempt to gain market share. "The drive to gain market share is leading to commoditisation," said Wood. "This is self-destructive to the point where ISPs are left as [nothing more than] custodians of the customer base." He said that rapid consolidation, which is already occurring, is likely to raise barriers to entry for new ISPs.

The Analysys report said that ISPs should diversify and differentiate their services. It predicted that total revenues from value-added services, such as e-commerce transactions, advertising, content and application services, would continue to grow, but it would account for a lower proportion of ISPs' total revenue - under 15 percent by 2005. Basic access would be the biggest revenue generator for ISPs, but the percentage would also decline - from 62 percent last year to 50 percent in 2005. The balance of ISPs' revenue will come from other services, such as Web hosting.

There's a lot of truth in the report and most of which we can agree upon, especially to the point of consolidation, which could see smaller name ISPs being put out of business. Unmetered plays a very big part in all this and recent issues as sighted by ISP CloudNine with BT's Surfport24 not being viable for SME ISPs, have only helped fuel the problems. More @ ZDNet.

Mistrals SME ISP Introduces E-Mail Protection

By:mark.j @ 10:31:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Mistral has become the next SME (small and medium-sized business) ISP to introduce free virus and trojan protection on to their E-Mail servers:

UK small and medium-sized business ISP Mistral Internet is to offer free anti-virus solutions to its leased line customers.

The Mistral mail servers located in London’s Telehouse will sit behind a virus-scanning server that will scan e-mail both sent to and received from it for security. If a virus is detected, the message is to be quarantined and warning notifications are sent to the intended recipient and to the sender.

The move, as highlighted by netimperative.com, will help make the ISP much more attractive to businesses concerned with their computer system security.

Mass C.U.T Update

By:mark.j @ 10:18:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We haven't seen a new C.U.T (Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications) update since the 27th January; that was until this morning when three news items suddenly appeared. Strangely the news items date back to the 2nd February.

The oldest article is to do with Oftels new price regulation, then the one from February 5th is a general update on the unmetered industry with some advice:

The UK is still in the early stages of moving to FRIACO based unmetered access plans: FRIACO is only partially implemented and many subscribers to FRIACO based plans are not yet connecting through FRIACO because networks are still being upgraded. If the dialup access number you are using is within BT's 0808 99xxxxx range you are using FRIACO; any other dialup number is not FRIACO.

The last and most recent article (today) takes a look at the trouble building up with Cable&Wireless on the Caribbean island of Barbados (been there). Apparently the company is poised to go from offering unmetered access to metered, if it happens there then it could happen somewhere else:

Barbados, unmetered paradise, has recently been threatened by Cable and Wireless with metering. In exchange for giving up its monopoly to provide telecommunications services in Barbados until 2011 and allowing the introduction of competitive services, Cable and Wireless has proposed introducing metered calls in order to increase revenues. Many of the island’s 50,000 Internet users (20 per cent of the population) were alarmed by this and protested loudly. Cable and Wireless has now proposed a two tier pricing system, one metered and the other unmetered, but the issue is still not resolved.

Through contact with one of the protesters, we will be keeping a close eye on developments in Barbados which, if Cable and Wireless has its way, will be going backwards from unmetered to metered.

As usual C.U.T covers almost all the angles, although we're surprised they didn't take up the complaint against BTSurfPort24 made by CloudNine and FN a week ago.

News - February 11,2001

ISPreview Site Updates

By:mark.j @ 5:52:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We do apologise for our usual monthly updates being a week later than normal, but due to the work on our new broadband section this was unavoidable.

Today such updates have been made, with the Complaints page being first on the agenda. This week has seen a constant battle between PlusNET (subscriber kicking, congestion issues) and Freeserve for the 'Worst ISP' of the month place, yet Freeserve have once again managed to win out for the reasons posted previously (below).

Our official ISP Top 10 has also been updated, with ClaraNET regaining the No.1 position from AOL and Freechariot being pushed out altogether due to the recent service problems. EasyNET have also now found their way onto the list, while Madasafish have dropped several places and Demon Internet quickly climbed into their position. IC24 was also included into the 'Subscriber No.' list.

On the other hand we have the Readers Top 50, which for once has proved to be more realistic than previous months:

1. Care4Free
2. Connect25
3. Games-World.Net
4. IC25
5. ClaraNET
6. X-Stream
7. Virgin.NET
8. NTL
9. Demon Internet
10. Telewest (SU/BY)

Finally we come to last month’s survey, which asked the question:

[What do you do most while online?]
Multiplayer Games - 31.8%
Web Site Browsing - 30.4%
IRC/ICQ etc. (Chat) - 15.4%
FTP / Downloads - 10.6%
E-Mail - 5.8%
Business - 3.8%
Other.. - 2.2%
Total votes: 585

The only result that seems out of place would be E-Mail, we actually expected people to use the Internet primarily for E-Mail communication over anything else. This months survey (being added now) asks the following:

What worries you most about the Internet?

Do keep an eye on ISP Review this week as we have some big changes and introductions planned.

FreeChariot Breaches Users Privacy

By:mark.j @ 5:19:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It looks as if the Telco/Unmetered ISP FreeChariot have made a serious mistake not unlike some banks did over a month ago. One of their customers was surprised to find private details from other clients had been sent to him in error through billing. Not to mention another client also had his details.

The customer, Talith, was trying to leave the service due to its poor quality:

Well, due to their terrible service, I have stubbornly refused to pay the bill sent by freechariot. The sent me a 'final reminder', with links to my 3 outstanding bills on their 'secure' server.

Unfortunately for our friend all was not as it should have been, especially when the call came from another customer:

I received a call from a guy earlier, saying he had 'my' bill - having checked the links, I actually have the bills for two other users - including their names, addresses, telephone numbers, all the numbers they have called in the last 2 months, etc...

Talith was clearly right to be concerned about this; such breaches of security and privacy have been known to make it into the mainstream newspapers. Lucky for FreeChariot then that they aren't big enough to bother with.

Over the past couple of months FreeChariot haven't exactly been having the best run of things, service problems and serious billing issues have dogged an otherwise good provider. However you can't ignore the serious breach of privacy mentioned and neither could Talith, who is now contacting his solicitor.

Freeserve Still Has Serious Problems

By:mark.j @ 4:57:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Don't say we didn't warn, but while getting ready to post some general site updates we checked the complaints system and what we saw was stunning - in the bad sense. Over the past five days alone the level of complaints about Freeserves new and old packages has been colossal.

Some examples include:

Haven't been able to logon to Freeserve Time Unlimited for a whole month (constantly engaged, "try later" etc.). No replies from emails sent to Freeserve Time email support.

Just started using BT Internet anytime (since Feb 4th) very good so far.

-----------------------------------------------

Over the last few months I have become increaingly frustrated with the service i have received from freeserve. I am constatly cut off, that is on the rare occcasions i can get on the internet. tonight for example i have been cut off at least six times. i am now going to terminate my membership as i can't put up with it any longer.

-----------------------------------------------

It is now virtually impossible to connect between 6pm-11pm Monday-Friday and i also have problems connecting at weekends. I have complained to Freeserve three times about this but each time they have failed to reply (except for sending me a standard reply e-mail which does not answer my complaint). The problem has become worse over the last two months.

-----------------------------------------------

I came back to Freeserve after not being satisfied with the off peak time deal previously, i'm now using anytime and its absolutely useless!

I'm paying for 24hrs a day access and i can only connect "anytime" between 11pm through to the next day before 4pm, all other times the service is engaged with BT messages. When I need to use the service most, "anytime" after 6pm-11pm, I can't!

In fact Freeserve Anytime is only good for using during peak hours and then use another ISP for an Off Peak service to get a whole 24/7 access that works!

-----------------------------------------------

In other words this is just as we warned our readership of previously, signing up to an ISP, which still has obvious problems, simply wasn’t going to work. Invariably Freeserve have made exactly the same mistake we predicted they would, they've signed thousands of new customers up before fixing the original problems.

So consider this an official warning, Freeserve's new packages may be the cheapest around, but they're also the worst. Even before doing the official count we can tell you they're up for this months 'Worst ISP' - again.

PlusNET On Congestion & FRIACO (Surfport24)

By:mark.j @ 12:27:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Over the past few days the PlusNET forums, newsgroups and support have been plauged with complaints over the current congestion problems. Yesterday the [Information Removed By Request Of Plus.NET], gave the following reply to all the recent criticisms - it's quite long:

People

The current situation regarding Surftime capacity is indeed not a good one and we are sorry for the impact this is having on our surftime customer base.

Before I go into further issue's I will confirm that we will be taking steps next week to ensure that customers who pay an appropriate amount of money for a service receive that service in kind.

I would now like to clarify a number of facts for you all:-

[1] We have never at any stage offer an "unlimited" internet access service. The only aspect of Surftime connectivity which we have advertised as "unlimited" was the BT part of the service (unlimited calls). This was done because we were able to sign customers up to BT through our portal. Our service was always subject to contention ratio and these ratio not only tell you how many customers can connect per port per product but you can also do the math as that relates to an equivalent "average time on line per day".

[2] Our un*metered* service was designed to deliver discounts on the cost of 0845 calls and we believe that each product if used in line with the product design delivers significant discounts.

[3] As previously confirmed - due to the service issue's of last year we chose not to impose our T's & C's or contention ratio's relating to connectivity. This was done through and until the end of Jan this year. During the early part of January BT we confirmed to BT that we were no happy that the service was operating as designed. We followed this up by announcing this to all customers and also confirming that we would now be enforcing our T's & C's etc.

[4] At the point of the above announcements being made we were utilising over 3000 ports at peak. Following this announcement the usage dropped to around 2250-2500. By the last week of January our usage was at around 2000-2200 at peak. We then kicked less than 50 customers for outright breaking our T's & C's etc and told a further 1050* approx that they were not using the service on a reasonable basis and in effect we did not "want their business anymore on this basis" and we removed their surftime dial component of the account and gave them the option to leave and get a refund with effect 1/2/2001 or change to a different account [Mr Dickie - this is not breach of contract or anything of the sort!]. As a result of this action the usage dropped to around 1000 ports a peak.

*These customers were all using the service for 24 hrs in the 48hr period that was monitored [any mistakes which were made will be / have been dealt with].

[5] Moving into Feb - BT implemented the 1000 port limit but unfortunately broke the Static IP part of the service. In order to re-enable the Static IP service temporarily the limitation was withdrawn by BT. During these events and following the general hysteria stirred up in this and other communication forums, certain customers have dramatically increased the demand being placed on our capacities and thus are denying service to other customers.

[5] Each Surfport port cost us £40 + VAT per month.

[6] There are now just over 10000 customers with Surftime access.

[7] Surfport does not allow for managing different qualities of service for different products. The only way we can manage abuse of the service is via reporting and dealing with the customers we identify as posing a problem to the whole customer base.

[8] Although we did update our T's & C's in the last week of Jan, on the one hand we have done this on a very regular basis since the business started and on the other we have not "enforced" these T's & C's amendments as it relates to the 1000 customers we dealt with over the last week. That said one thing that has been noted is the desire to be notified of changes to T's and C's and this will be done from here on in.

[9] Our products are not designed on the basis that the only value on the product is the connectivity. Significant value is delivered and accounted for via the value added elements of our whole service.

To be clear on the current situation - we do have enough capacity if customers behave reasonably and use the service as designed. Those that continue to significantly misuse the service in terms of contention ratio's will have action taken against them in whatever form that takes.

The only alternative to would be to increase the pricing to levels equivalent to other ISP's such as Nildram/ Demon etc. I would prefer not to do this as were are going to move to FRIACO anyway in a few weeks time.

It is our aim to deliver a fair service for a fair price and we anticipate being in a position to carry this through to the switch over to FRIACO, which by the way is on track for launching at the beginning of April [this year:-)]. Although strictly speaking I should wait for the full official announcements to be made next week, I can confirm that following our request which was made to BT to not hold any of our customers to contracts on Surftime that they have in fact updated their T's & C's (not sure if they notified anyone by the way] to reflect the fact that there are now no contractual commitments on Surftime / SurfTogether / Surf & TalkTtogether.

This will mean that we will be able to deliver service via Surftime right up to the point that we let customers onto the FRIACO service irrespective of whether BT meat the date we have agreed for the FRIACO build to be completed.

I would also add that we have already decided to offer accounts under the FRIACO service with reduced contention ratio's (including 1-1). Details on this will be made public nearer the launch. As part of this exercise we will be asking you all how many hours (in the form of time bands) per day you want to use the service for and setting you up with the appropriate product..

In the mean time I would ask everyone to utilise the Surftime service in line with price paid and contention ratio. If this is done then everyone will be able to get the service that they experience back in January and we will be able to mange the FRIACO service on the basis of buying enough ports to support the contention ratio's + a "burst" overhead.

I hope this clears up any confusion and I ask you all to cooperate in a reasonable approach to the service.

Regards

[Information Removed By Request Of Plus.NET]
MD - PlusNet

Some very interesting FRIACO information, although it looks like the concerns over congestion will not be easily put to rest anytime soon. However PlusNET customers shouldn't be too worried because the FRIACO based products will make things cheaper and improve services.

ISP Review Weekly Update

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

It looks as if the coming week could be quite interesting as far as new content goes, especially since the launch deadline for the broadband section is now set to Friday 16th February 2001 (next week). In other words it may go live sooner, but whatever happens it will be online for Friday.

The section may not look that wonderful and bare in mind it's only the first version. However the automation (updates daily), install guides, separated news items, forum integration, information guides, separated ISP lists and Reviews index should all help. In the not so distant future we're also going to add a forum for EVERY broadband ISP in existence (consumer level), but not right away.

We'll also introduce some other/smaller site changes to fix a few Opera v5 Java errors with the forum and make the top nav bar a little more comfortable to see.

The automated ISP listings will first be used with the broadband section and following that the 0845Free and 0845/Subscription ISP lists will also get automated and updated. Once all of the above is complete then we'll begin the final stage, Reader ISP Reviews. We have yet to finalise the script design for this section, although we'll try to make use of stats and have it easy to use.

In the mean time we have plans for other sections and content that I can't reveal just yet. Expect normal ISP Reviews and Articles coverage to resume from after next week.

Telewest Explains What Love Means

By:mark.j @ 11:22:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

In the latest press release to come out of Telewest, the ever-growing Cable Co. chose to reveal the results of their 'valentines day - love survey'. Apparently one in four lovers buy online:

Telewest, which commissioned the study to find out who would be buying their Valentine's gifts through PCs or their TV this year, found that one in four lovers will be buying online.

Survey director Rachel Turner said: "We found that the racier your relationship, the more money you 'll spend. Many of the more passionate couples say they'll buy on-line this year because they're short of time - we didn't ask what kept them so busy!"

Lack of time though was the main reason people risk their loved one's wrath by not getting a gift. But young love still sizzles with those aged 16 to 34 saying they will spend around £20 on gifts - twice as much as older lovers.

Men will invest around £16 to keep the fires burning on the most romantic day of the year while their partners will stump up just £9 - but women claim they buy more imaginative gifts.

And where you live is important too, with the research finding that:

- true love is most likely in the North East
- Yorkshire is the nation's centre of passion
- the South is most solid and safe

So there you have it, proof that men get ripped off by the opposite sex and it's been happening for some time now, we always knew it to be true =). CableNews have their own view on the press release, although we're still trying to work out what 'imaginative gifts' mean?

News - February 10,2001

ISPs Will Keep Consumers Safe

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

Sick of viruses, scripts and annoying Trojans finding their way into your computer through the E-Mail system? Tired of the software manufacturers pathetic attempts at trying to patch such issues to death?

If yes then you wouldn't be alone, although ISPs are already making plans to prevent such things from reaching you in the first place:

From a business perspective, virus checkers and firewalls are a sound base on which to build computer security; but they can't tackle the threats deeply embedded or disguised in email. Therefore ISPs need to turn to a more comprehensive e-security solution - one that can offer even more value-add to their customers by enabling their business and helping to establish and enforce email and internet policies to manage this wider spectrum of security threats.

E-security can help tackle spam and large attachments clogging bandwidth and reducing productivity, unsuitable communications resulting in lawsuits and damaged company image, and loss of confidential information costing business both financially and operationally.

The Western European market is currently served by 3,000 ISPs but is expected to consolidate dramatically over the next three years. Only the ISPs who offer a range of value added services, in particular e-security services, will successfully win out in the market consolidation.

E-security is a good idea, but it's important we don't end up agreeing to something, which could later be manipulated into working against us. Not everything is as transparent as we like to think, more @ VNUNet.

BT Hits Back @ AOL & Freeserve

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

Although BT has yet to disclose the figures, there's still a lot more to the recent legal threats from AOL and Freeserve than meets the eye. Yesterday BT hit back, claiming that everybody is treated equally:

BT claimed in a statement that its "allocation scheme", introduced because of excessive demand, is applied equally to all its 100 broadband company customers, including BT’s own ADSL consumer service, BT OpenWorld.

The statement attributed any disparities between customers’ allocations as due to changes made in January, which require businesses to forecast their predicted ADSL demand on a weekly basis, and can thus differ between companies.

The defence follows the revelation that AOL and Freeserve are considering legal action over what it suspects is unfair bias on BT Ignite’s part towards BT OpenWorld. Freeserve has not confirmed its stand, saying that press reports have been based on "speculation".

It's beginning to look as if AOL and Freeserve may have made a blunder and are trying to cover it up, we should know the facts next week. More @ netimperative.com.

News - February 9,2001

Madasafish Resolving Service Problems

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

If your a Madasafish unmetered ISP user and have been following our forums of late, then you'll know the ISP has had some serious problems with congestion. The good news is that according to some reader reports and a new service update, it shouldn't be long before things are back to normal:

Friday 9th February 2001

We are currently experiencing technical problems with our services. Signups will not be available for the time being but we are looking into the problem and will be running again soon.

We are aware that some members are experiencing problems accessing the mail server. This problem is proving difficult to resolve as it is intermittent and is not affecting many members at any one time. We advise closing down your mail package if you are having difficulty and trying again in a couple of minutes. Our apologies to all those affected, we hope to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

Madasafish are pleased to inform all TimeZone users that they have been able to greatly reduce the congestion problem currently being experienced but are aware that there will still be some problems being caused by the current BT nationwide congestion. BT have issued a statement saying they are aware they have congestion currently and are working to resolve this. Unfortunately they do not put any timescale on this resolution but we will press them for one.

Once again, should you experience severe difficulties with this we recommend you contact BT and report a fault when dialling the TimeZone number (1690 0845 350 5550). Hopefully they will have a resolution for you soon.

If you require any further information please contact our Netcentre on 0870 0500 333

The BT congestion issue being referred to is the same one we made public only a week or so ago. It's affecting more ISPs than just Madasafish and has been growing since December 2000. BT have set no firm dates for the new networking to fix the problems, although some should come online by Mid-March 2001.

It was only a matter of time before Internet growth caught up with BT and so don't be surprised if BTNet/Ignite based ISPs suffer on-and-off congestion issues for the next couple of months.

Sussex Police Get The Online Treatment

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

Not long ago we reported on how the government planned to give the Police an electronic edge over several key areas (e-police?) involved in their daily jobs. Today Sussex Police have become to first to trial a small element of potential services:

The force has set up forms on its Web site for reports of thefts at Gatwick Airport and for lost property enquiries, and a facility that allows members of the public to email PCs (police constables) from a PC. The Internet reporting facility is being introduced as part of a pilot scheme, which uses technology and networking equipment from BT and Nortel Networks.

According to a report in today's Daily Telegraph, the 999 emergency service in Sussex received 280,000 calls last year. It reports that police are investigating the use of software technologies to scan email for key words in order to identify more serious or urgent crime reports.

On its Web site, Sussex Police said: "Do not attempt to email us about an incident in progress. In an emergency always dial 999."

As interesting and positive a news item this may be, it should be noted that after a quick visit to the reporting site, we found it to be insecure. For a hacker that's likely to be like your average Joe scanning the police radio frequencies.

Plus.Net Solves Surftime Issues - Kind Of

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

Earlier in the week we reported on how there were some nasty problems with the +Biz accounts and getting a connection. However these problems now appear to have been resolved, but not without creating a few more issues:

08/02/2001 @ 13:56
SurfTime Connectivity Issues Resolved.
BT have reported that the problem regarding SurfTime connectivity has now been resolved. The cause of this was their VPDN session limit being reduced, which basicaly means only a number of PlusNet IP's could connect during that time. They are currently investigating why this happened.

Following that they went on to make a second update:

08/02/2001 @ 15:54
SurfTime Contention.
The information given in the previous service status posting which refers to the VPDN session limit relates directly to port usage.

We now have a maximum of 1000 ports with contended ratios. This means that you will sometimes encounter errors whilst trying to connect. If you encounter errors you should keep trying and will eventualy get connected.

We will continue to monitor our RADIUS logs for any abuse of the service in order to maintain service reliability and quality for the vast majority of users.

Note the issues over port usage, which last night meant many Plusnet surftime users were hit with problems connecting to the service after Plusnet had its connection ports cut. Many users are unable to connect via surftime and are having to use a 0845 number to post their comments of frustration and anger in the Plusnet feedback newsgroup.

Simon, one of our readers who also uses PlusNET, was keen to point out the reply he got from support:

In order to answer customer questions relating to the reduction of ports here is an explanation.

Over the past 8 months since Surftime was launched we were provided with an unlimited number of ports by BT due to the connectivity problems that were associated with the Surfport product. We did however publish contention ratios for these accounts which have now been put in place on the dialup platform. When we had unlimited ports we were in essence providing a contention ratio of 1:1 so there were no problems when trying to connect.

The contention ratios must be in place in order to provide the service for such a low price as £5.99 per month and 1000 ports is 25% above the contention ratios published for the accounts.

Currently BT are unable to provide an engaged tone when the port limit has been reached without loosing the ability to provide static IP addresses but this is been looked into by BT and we hope that when the port limit is reached customers will not be able to connect due to an engaged tone.
Hope This Helps

Kind regards,

B***
--
| B*** ******** Fixed cost Internet access available @
| Technical Support http://www.plus.net
| PlusNet Technologies LTD
+-----"PlusNet - The smarter way to Internet"----

Is this really from support =)? Perhaps not the best English to use at the end of that reply. More to the point, if there's 25% more than required, why are people suffering these connection issues?

PlanetInferno Re-launch - No.3

By:mark.j @ 9:51:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Ben from the none ISP related PlanetInferno site (game news/reviews etc.) has re-launched his page with yet another new design. He asked us to give him a mentioned and so here it is, some may remember the site from EzeSurf.

Full ISPA Awards

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

For those interested in knowing exactly who won what at the ISPA (Internet Service Provider Association) awards then take a visit to THIS page for full details and information. What follows is a rough winners list with the shortlist removed:

Best Consumer Customer Service - F9

Best Online Consumer Product/Service - DOO YOO

Best Consumer ISP - ICSCOTLAND

Best Business Customer Service - NETSCALIBUR

Best E-Commerce Service Offered by an ISP - BUSINESS SERVE

Best M-Commerce Service Offered by an ISP - BT GENIE

Best ASP - TS.COM

Most Innovative ISP Product/Service - IWEB TECHNOLOGIES

Best European ISP - EASYNET

Best Business ISP - UUNET

Best Hardware Supplier - CISCO SYSTEMS

Best Software Supplier - THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION

Award for Positive Contribution to the UK Internet Industry - INTERNET WATCH FOUNDATION

Internet Hero - TIM BERNERS-LEE

Internet Villain - SIR PETER BONFIELD, CEO, BT

Some of the awards are certainly very questionable to say the least, although most fit quite well.

News - February 8,2001

Site Update - 2,000,000

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

Not long ago I noticed the counter pass the 2,000,000 unique visitors mark, god knows how many page impressions that is; we had roughly 500,000 impressions last month. It's great to see the site so popular and the non-profit team will continue to improve things as time goes on.

Some other good news is that the new broadband section is now just about complete; stop by on midday Sunday if you wish to find out the launch date.

EXCLUSIVE-CloudNine Launches Unlimited 24/7

By:mark.j @ 12:43:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

CloudNine have just sent us a press release, which we are the first to publicly post, that is one of the first TRUE 'Unlimited' unmetered packages:

In response to many customer requests, particularly in light of disconnections by other ISP's, Cloud Nine have launched a new Network Connect Unlimited connection package. Cloud Nine do not believe that it is good business practice to just 'drop' customers without reasonable notice or upgrade options and have no intention of doing so now or in the near future.

Most cases of abuse are caused anyway by badly configured mail-servers or other devices that hold connections open when it is not really necessary to do so, making it doubly unfair to disconnect such users without giving them the option to correct such activity - pretty much as you would do, for instance, if they were running an open-relay mail server.

However, we have introduced this product so that genuinely heavy Internet users (primarily small and medium sized businesses) can benefit from having an unlimited connect time option whilst ensuring that they remain economical for us to support. This product is launched at a price that is based on our analysis of typical online activity patterns during the last 3 1/2 months since we started our unmetered service and as such, we believe, is economically viable and sustainable.

For £95+vat per month customers can now have ultimate peace of mind with fixed price and no limit on connect time. Including fixed IP number, SMTP incoming mail with support for Microsoft Exchange, SBS, etc. Ideal for VPN applications where almost permanent connections are required. It is also ideal where a customer wants to co-locate a box and synchronise databases such as SQL. If a customer needs near-permanent connectivity without paying leased line prices and cannot get ADSL in their area yet then this is an ideal product.

Network Connect Unlimited will be sold in conjunction with ADSL products that Cloud Nine will be introducing in the near future, though ADSL will be an obvious replacement and upgrade path for this product. Network Connect Unlimited has the added benefit of no drop time or idle timeout.

24/7 unmetered does not usually mean "unlimited" - with this product it does!

Please see http://www.mysurftime.com for more details.

This is clearly only a product that serious users not wanting a cut off of ANY KIND should use. C9 already have very similar packages, although this one is different in that it comes with more advanced hosting services and really is UNLIMITED - they stand by that. You’ll NEVER be kicked for abuse.

It doesn’t say this is a Surftime package and as such we don’t know whether the usual £19.99 charge is included or not, or whether it’s even relevant. Excellent for SMEs and those wanting to run mini-servers without a cut off or any limits; NOT for the consumer. Others will probably find Demon Internets Dual Channel ISDN offering to be much better at around £80 Per Month, although it does have some limits that C9’s is designed to address.

Jolt Online Gaming (ISP) Gets Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 12:23:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Jolt, an online gaming ISP very few people know of, seem to now be offering a BTSurftime based package.

https://colorado.padlock.net/jolt1/surftime/index.php

However be warned that after further investigation we found that it's just a resale of yesterdays Nildram offering. As such it includes all the same packages and monthly 60hour limit etc. You'd be better off with NetGamesUK, CloudNine or Demon Internet.

AOL & Freeserve To Sue BT Over xDSL

By:mark.j @ 11:27:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Both AOL UK and Freeserve are today threatening legal action over BTs slow rollout of broadband, xDSL, services:

Both Freeserve and AOL UK are incensed that BTOpenworld - which incorporates the broadband ISP of BT - has managed to secure two-thirds of the 30,000 ADSL customers in Britain.

This was confirmed yesterday by BTOpenworld CE, Andy Green, who told Reuters that at the end of last year, BTOpenworld had installed 12,000 ADSL subscribers and that it was adding customers at a rate of between 1,000 and 2,000 customers a week since January 1.

But while BT engineers from BTIgnite are installing BTOpenworld at a rate of between 300 and 500 customers a day, Britain's biggest ISP, Freeserve, is only allocated 13 installations a day. AOL UK claims it is only adding customers to its broadband service at the rate of 20 a day.

As usual BT is maintaining that no such bias exists, despite the physical numbers clearly telling very different story. If the new subscriber figures turn out to be factual then BT could well find itself landed with a lawsuit. More @ The Register.

BTOpenworlds 15 Working Days

By:mark.j @ 9:57:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Up until recently most people have had to wait between one and two months from the point of an ADSL order to actually having it installed (this if ADSL is enabled already). This does of course vary from ISP to ISP.

Well during a quick visit to BTOpenworlds site today, we not only noticed an annoying FLASH movie intro, but the following announcement:

Speed is of the essence

Great news if you're thinking of joining the broadband experience...

If you're a PC user who is already connected to an ADSL exchange, and have a standard BT phone line that's ready for connection, then, subject to survey, you could be up and running within 15 working days...

If you have ISDN ...

Should you want to order BTopenworld broadband on an ISDN line then, currently our supplier does not offer this facility... however by registering your interest via this site we can contact you as soon as we are in a position to take your order.

Alternatively, if you have a spare standard BT phone line available, you can ORDER BTopenworld broadband for this line NOW.

Still no official option for ISDN users then, other than having it changed back to a normal line and then waiting a few weeks for ADSL, total process taking nearly a month. Although it is nice to see BTOpenworld almost commit to a 15 working day installation period.

ADSL may be getting installed faster, but its coverage has yet to improve by any great margin.

AOL Europe Set To Float

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

According to a brief interview sighted in a German Newspaper, AOL is considering the possibility of a Europe wide float of their services. Whether this would include the UK is not clear:

According to an interview in the German newspaper, a flotation of AOL's European operations is on the cards, possibly when market conditions improve.

Lynton also dismissed rumours that the merger with Time Warner would lead to sizeable European redundancies, but Lynton denied that this would be the case. He said saying that subsidiaries in Europe will profit from the wider range of content open to them.

The article spotted on UK.Internet lacks some detail, although any float of such a scale, UK included or not, would have a dramatic effect on the business.

BT For ISPA Internet Villain Award

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

Last month BT withdrew their sponsorship of the ISPA's (Internet Service Provider Association) Internet Villain Award, a move which would bypass a rule preventing them from winning the award. This was probably a bad move on BT's part because they're now hot favourites to win:

Unfortunately for the monster telco, the accolade is something the execs might not want to put on their mantelpiece.

For tonight, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) announces who has won the "Internet Villain" award - and all the clever money says BT will romp home.

El Reg understands that someone from BT will be there to pick up the award if it wins. And the scribes at BT have also written an acceptance speech just in case.

To be realistic BT was only trying to be a typical business and make the most money from the market. Sadly this is what happens when a public company becomes private too quickly; it puts them in a position of almost ultimate power.

The award – if won, more of which can be read @ The Register, is designed to showcase BTs unwillingness to flex their muscle over LLU, broadband and unmetered faster than a slow worm.

--Update--
Well this morning BT have indeed won the award:

But as Mr Hughes went up to collect his award, he was booed and jeered by the audience of Britain's Internet elite.

According to a BT source, he told the assembled crowd: "I'm delighted to receive this on behalf of BT. I thought we'd REALLY blown it when I realised that we've: put a new small business on line every five minutes...enabled millions of customers to have unmetered access...and carried nearly 100 billion minutes of Internet dial for the whole industry."

"If we win this with a performance like that then I can't wait to see what we win next year."

They have indeed done quite a lot, but it's not quantity that's the problem. It's quality and price - no mention of the slow xDSL rollout either.

News - February 7,2001

ISPreview Competition!

By:Ross14 @ 6:31:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

To celebrate our upcoming 2,000,000th Unique Visitor, ISPr are holding a special competition in which you could win some brand spanking new Website making software.

We have one copy of Serif WebPlus 6 to give away. Serif WebPlus 6 is packed with easy to use tools to produce professional effects. With powerful features at your fingertips, you have endless possibilities for creating eye catching Web pages. In no time at all you can create the best-looking Web site on the Web. Simply design your pages & WebPlus will take care of the rest.

More information can be found @ http://www.serif.com/webplus/webplus6/index.asp

To get your hands on this great software, then all you have to do is send an email with your name, address and postcode to isprcomp@gofree.co.uk.

Rules

1. Competition is NOT open to ISPr Staff (sorry guys, lol)
2. All email entries MUST be received by 18:00GMT on Monday 25th February 2001. Entries received after this date & time will not be accepted.
3. Winner will be selected at random by our Editor-In-Chief Mark.E.Jackson.
4. One entry per email address.
5. Proof of email is not proof of delivery.
6. Editors Decision(s) is/are final.

GOOD LUCK!!

blueyonder stats

By:Daniel @ 3:50:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Visual networks, the company that test ISP's monthly and give the stats to the ISP comparing them with other ones has just started monitoring blueyonder dialup. The following link is for the december stats http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/documentation/vib/200012.html

400Million -> 1.17Billion Net Users By 2005

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

We're heading for a wireless future in terms of online access, at least according to eTForcasts latest research. By 2005 it's predicted that the online population will have grown from 400Million to a staggering 1.17Billion - with 62% on wireless platforms:

There are just over 400 million people globally who can get online at the moment, but according to a report from market researchers eTForecasts, in four and a half years time there will be more like 1.17 billion net heads around the world.

Most of the population growth will be in Asia, Latin America and parts of Europe, the report said. And wireless access will also be more popular in these regions.

In the US and the UK two thirds of people will still be wire bound by 2005, but overall, 62 per cent of the billion people online will have made the shift to wire-free surfing.

If the figures are to be believed then the rollout of 'land' broadband technologies could well be in serious dangers because the numbers appear to conflict. Wireless broadband will almost certainly be more accessible, but will it be any better? More @ The Register.

C.U.T & AOL Rip Into BT Over Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 3:43:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The C.U.T and AOL UK were among attendants at London’s ISPCON2001 today, they had hoped to join a lively debate with BT over UK Dialup unmetered access. Unfortunately no rep for BT was available and the debate swiftly turned into an assassination of the leading Telco:

What promised to be a lively debate at Internet industry conference, ISPCON2001 in London turned into a one-sided assassination of the monster telco and the way it has obstructed the development of Net access in Britain.

BT has called up the Reg to point out that ISPCON2001 had approached the company in November to ask if Ben Andradi, president and coo of BTopenworld, could take part in the debate. Andradi couldn't fit it in, so Porter was suggested as best alternative. But then he had to pull out, and notified the conference before Christmas.

A BT spokesman said ISPCON2001 hadn't come back to the telco asking for another debater. But couldn't BT have used its initiative and found someone else to take part, or does it only have two people clued up on the subject of unmetered access? "Yes we could have found someone else - but didn't," said BT.

To us it looks more as if ISPCON2001 are to blame, BT were clearly playing within the rules and perhaps don't deserve a hiding just yet. Indeed they could have found a replacement, but in a situation where execution is assured then they found a clever way out.

Although it's a shame, we would have liked to hear what they had to say on the recent Surfport24 issues highlighted by CloudNine. More @ The Register.

C&W Give Potential Clients The Run Around

By:mark.j @ 3:28:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

A leased line quote from BT takes two minutes; the same quote from Cable & Wireless could take anything up to two weeks! Something most businesses would find appalling:

David Cartwright, chief technology officer at Cube8.com, was left out to dry by the carrier after he requested a quote for a leased line.

Cube8 wanted to present competitive quotes from C&W and BT to one of its clients. "All I wanted was pricing for a standard run-of-the-mill service. If they don't want to reply, then stuff them," he said.

Cartwright explained that when he originally requested the quote, he was passed around C&W. "Even after a dozen phone calls to a series of nine different numbers, I still don't have the answer I need," he said. "There was a lot of 'No, we're not sales, you need to call somebody else', plus a couple of dead ends."

In a business where time is money, a company like Cable & Wireless taking two weeks for a simple quote is probably not the best choice. More @ VNUNet.