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June 13, 2001 - June 20, 2001

News - June 20,2001

Quick ISP Review Site Update

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

Just to apologise for those with slow loading etc. style problems on the new forums, as we've stated several times before, we're constantly changing things for the big merge and this can cause problems.

For some reason a change we made caused the primary IP lookup and cache/cookie log system to move into advanced mode. This takes three times longer to resolve than the normal address lookup, which has now been fixed back into place.

The new forums also use a special cache system to save on bandwidth, so every time we clear it after a change (new feature) then it resets the data and slows things down.

We're going to rebuild all the threads, member files and post history data for the next 30mins to 1hour in order to improve things. So please excuse the fact that our 'Specific ISP Forum' may be offline for a short while, it could take only 10mins, we simply don't know.

UPDATE:
The Specific ISP Forum is now open again.

TV & Mobile Internet Sees Rejection

By:mark.j @ 10:06:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The personal computer (PC) has long since been the most popular way of accessing the Internet and it looks set to stay that way. The latest Which? Online study, published today, has found noted rejection to the other methods of using the net:

Enthusiasm for accessing the Net through digital TV has significantly dwindled in the past year. Only one in five adults agree that they are looking forward to getting online in this way.

"A lot of people feel that digital TV isn't relevant to them, and doesn't offer any extra benefits," said a spokesman at the Consumers' Association.

The ZDNet item goes into a lot of detail, although doesn't really explain why so many feel the way they do. From speaking with some of our own readers we know this often comes down to flexibility and cost.

Many of the DTV methods REQUIRE you to connect to a phone line and then pay a fixed monthly fee for Local Call Rate access, usually more than many would pay for unmetered dial-up. They agree that if you could set your own ISP to communicate with the DTV service then it'd be much more attractive. Of course DTV isn't the only method:

Internet access through mobile phones received a similarly unfavourable response. Three in ten of those already online believe that they will start accessing the Net via digital TV or mobile phones at some point in the future, but only one in twenty expect this to be in the next six months. More than half think they will never use these methods of access.

Clearly quality and affordable GPRS and 3G phones are still someway off and this method probably won't be much more viable than WAP for sometime to come. What do you think? Would DTV Internet be more attractive if you could set your own ISP to connect with? Does anybody know such a device that allows this?

EC To Clarify Anti-Monopoly Telco Guidelines

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

No it's not another way of trying to stop those annoying people who just don't know how to loose at a good game of Monopoly. Following pressure from Telco's, it now looks as if the European Commission will have to clarify it's anti-monopoly guidelines due to some legal uncertainty.

The European Union's executive has proposed an ambitious regulatory package, due for approval by late 2001, aimed at updating and harmonising existing rules for all electronic communications sectors and services.

The Commission's guidelines, which are incorporated within the telecoms package, are meant to coach national telecoms regulators on how to apply the principles of EU competition law to what used to be monopolistic markets. More competition could lead to price reduction, which would benefit consumers.

But at a public Commission hearing this week, many telecoms operators and sector experts expressed concern that the guidelines were too vague.

The guidelines rest heavily on the principle of significant market power. Any operator found to have significant market power, roughly 40-50% market share, could face obligations such as access, price-capping and transparency.

Former telecoms monopolists such as Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom tried to argue with the Commission that in the rapidly changing market for electronic communications, a large market share does not lead automatically to abuse of power or distorted competition.

But the Commission flatly rejected such objections.

"For us, effective competition equals the absence of significant market power linked to dominance. We do see the absence of significant market power and effective competition as the two sides of the same coin," Commission official Peter Scott told hundreds of representatives from the telecoms industry who attended the hearing.

It looks as if BT will have to watch their backs.

News - June 19,2001

Human GPRS Implants - X-File Material?

By:mark.j @ 4:05:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

What you think we're kidding? Sadly not, Applied Digital Solutions is to start testing General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) based human implants that allow for tracking, monitoring and identity verification of those who have them:

A variety of vital body functions such as heart rate and blood pressure can be monitored by the device, as well as the location of the host, with data being transmitted by satellite.

Applied Digital Solutions also reckons that Digital Angel could be used as a "tamper-proof means of identification for enhanced ebusiness security".

Mercedes Walton, president and chief operating officer of Applied Digital Solutions, said the device also had a softer side: as well as being used to tag criminals, it could be used to keep track of your loved ones.

For a moment their we thought the VNUNet item was going to say the government had passed a new act stating that we must all have one of these implants. Of course it's only a matter of time =), you may laugh now but soon..

Patricia Hewitt Still The E-Minister

By:mark.j @ 3:58:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Despite what earlier reports stated, it now looks as if Patricia Hewitt will retain her title as E-Minister, with new boy Alexander working as a kind of 'in-the-field' sidekick:

Contrary to early reports, Hewitt will retain the title of government e-minister. This is expected to enable her to take the lead on technology and Internet matters at cabinet level. Alexander -- based within the department of trade and industry (DTI) -- will run e-commerce, while Gus McDonald of the cabinet office is still in charge of e-government. "There are more key players now, reflecting the wider role that technology is going to play," a DTI spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

More @ ZDNet.

CloudNine Announce New Unmetered / ADSL

By:mark.j @ 3:54:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

CloudNine was kind enough to give us the heads up on their latest new unmetered and broadband products, we’ve included the press release, although some paragraphs were cut due to length:

CLOUD NINE ANNOUNCE NEW UNMETERED PRODUCTS AND NEW SIMPLIFIED SUB-BRANDING FROM EARLY JULY - GIVING THE WIDEST CHOICE OF METERED AND UNMETERED PACKAGES AS WELL AS HIGH QUALITY BUSINESS HOSTING OPTIONS OF ANY ISP IN THE UK.

Cloud Nine, one of the most experienced providers of unmetered access in the UK, are pleased to announce the imminent launch of a set of FRIACO based unmetered dial up products to complement our product line-up, pre-registrations to begin next week. This is combined with creation of a set of sub-branded product categories so as to make for easier product selection. Cloud Nine aim to launch these new ranges from early July. Existing HomeSurf/BusinessSurf customers will have the option to remain with the same product they currently have or switch into EconomySurf where they think they can make savings.

The 4 new product categories are EconomySurf, ClassicSurf, PremiumSurf and ADSLSurf.

Cloud Nine's new FRIACO products will be classified under the new EconomySurf label. These products are designed to appeal to home users and light dial usage business customers that require domain branded quality web hosting & email combined with an unmetered dial-up connection.

The EconomySurf products will be supplied on a low contention ratio from 10:1 and will have a 2-hour cut-off to manage possible congestion. There are 3 products that will make up this range. They are:

HomeSurf Economy - featuring no-telephone charges, no need for Surftime, free .co.uk domain name for personalisation, 10 POP3 mailboxes will unlimited email addresses, email control panel and webmail. This will cost £15.99 per month.

HomeSurf Professional Economy - as HomeSurf Economy but also featuring 50Mb of web space that can be used with the free domain name we provide. This will cost £18.98 per month.

BusinessSurf Economy - As HomeSurf Professional but featuring 100Mb of web space and FrontPage 2000 and ASP scripting support, form to email scripts and daily web site statistics through our professional graphical stats package - £24.68 per month and lower contention ratio.

The ClassicSurf range of products include our very popular One Star Deluxe, One Star Platinum, One Star SQL, etc range of web and email hosting packages. There are also some new additions of:

ClassicFree - quality 0845 dial-up connection. Can be used as backup to the EconomySurf packages. This terminates at a different point on our network to the EconomySurf packages. FREE.

ClassicEmail - which for just £57.58 per annum provides a free .co.uk domain registration or free domain transfer, 10 POP3 mailboxes with unlimited email addresses, email management control panel, webmail and a quality 0845 dial-up connection.

ClassicNetwork - for £264.38 per annum this provides a fixed IP number on an 0845 dial-up, free .co.uk domain name registration, incoming and outgoing SMTP with support for Microsoft Exchange, SBS and other SMTP mail servers. This will replace our existing BusinessBrowse products.

Finally, we have our top of the range PremiumSurf unmetered dial-up products providing unmetered dial-up through BT Surftime. These are very low "notional" contention products (i.e. 2.5:1 or 1:1) provided on 2 Time Bands - Heavy Usage and Unlimited Usage. Heavy usage gives 260 hours a month connectivity (about 11-12 hours a day based on Monday-Friday) and Unlimited is our nearest thing to "always-on" dial-up service on 1:1 contention.

Because the contention is only "notional" and the service is sold on time bands you should never be getting engaged signals and there is NO CUT-OFF as on contended products. This is the ideal product for home workers and businesses that are serious about their Internet connectivity requirements and cannot afford to compromise.

The product range includes our very popular BusinessSurf range (giving professional hosting and dynamic IP number when dialling) and our flagship Network Connect range (providing static IP for VPN and incoming and outgoing SMTP for mail servers such as MS Exchange).

These products start at just £40+vat per month and provide excellent value for no-compromise applications.

In addition, we have a single home user product in the PremiumSurf band. This is the PremiumOffPeak product (formerly known as our HomeSurf OffPeak). This is designed for customers who wish to take advantage of the Surf and Talk Together packages from BT. This provides free off-peak unmetered calls for just £84.60 per annum. ClassicFree is provided for peak calls.

During the summer Cloud Nine will be testing the final component of our connectivity solutions - ADSLSurf. These will be provided at 20:1 contention and will be competitively priced to allow a full migration path for all of our dial-up customers into the world of broadband.

If there’s far too much to follow there then don’t worry, CloudNines website is a little easier to understand and long-time BTSurftime users are still happily catered for. C9 also sent us a slight amendment to the above release:

A little mistake with PremiumSurf - they will start at £33+vat and not £40+vat as stated. There are also going to be some price cuts on these.

More Satellite Internet On The Way

By:mark.j @ 10:00:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

At present there are only a few Satellite Internet providers in the UK and even less (StarSpeeder/SkyStorm) that provide affordable residential and broadband quality services. Yet it looks as if ICO Global Communications Ltd. could be adding to the competition in the next couple of years.

The first of a dozen communications satellites in a new constellation designed to provide worldwide voice and Internet service from ICO Global Communications Ltd. was launched aboard an Atlas II rocket today.

Following a trouble-free countdown, the Boeing Atlas launched at 5.41 a.m. British time from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's eastern seaboard. ICO, based in Uxbridge, England, plans to have 10 active satellites and two back-ups in Earth orbit at an altitude of 6,456 miles when it starts service in 2003.

The company's stated plan is to target existing maritime, industrial and government markets before eventually extending service to small and medium-sized businesses, small office and residential users.

The new satellite, also built by Boeing, cost £160 million pounds to put into orbit. It will be able to handle 4,500 simultaneous telephone calls. With a further 11 to go the network is likely to grow, lets just hope it doesn't end up as another Iridium =(.

More Women Use Internet Banks Than Men

By:mark.j @ 9:53:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It's one of those survey days again and this time it's the turn of the Nationwide, whom now claim Women are converting to Internet banking at a faster rate then men.

Though men are still more likely to be banking online, the gender gap is swiftly shrinking, much as predicted in the last news item. Roughly 1,000,000 women have begun banking over the Internet since the beginning of the year, compared with 600,000 men, the survey found.

The number of men banking online rose 23% to three million in the first five months of 2001, while the number of women has doubled to about two million. Researchers said if the trend continues then it is anticipated that the number of women organising their finances over the net will match the number of men by next year, when more than eight million people are expected to be banking online.

Currently, 16% of men and 10% of women with a current account are banking online. Men are still the heaviest users of the Internet with 46% of male Internet users logging on every day, compared with 30% of females. The survey also found that one in three homes are connected to the Internet. It was barely one in five 15 months ago.

This all seems to tally with the CA’s survey as mentioned below, but who’s surfing for the missing percentage? Ghosts?

Consumers' Association Finds More Brits Online

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

The latest survey of British Internet access and habits by the Consumers' Association has shown that more people than ever are accessing the Internet.

The last survey from this same group during 2000 showed that 27% of the population was surfing the Internet. One year on and the latest update from the CA states that the figure is up from 27% to 36% (+9%), that's more than 16 Million people online!

Apparently Which? Online's Paul Kitchen has a possible explanation:
"Our survey shows that most people believe that the Internet is becoming part of everyday life."

Apparently women are now just as likely to shop and surf online as men through an increasingly narrow gap in gender and net usage. Much like other surveys, CA's also showed that one third (1/3) have said they'll never adopt the Internet.

Despite this the prediction looks good as Paul Kitchen states:
"As unmetered access packages spread, as users become more experienced, the time we spend online is likely to increase. What was once extraordinary is well on the way to becoming everyday."

We couldn't agree more.

Strange ISP Bills Confuse Businesses

By:mark.j @ 9:38:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While residential consumers will probably only get billed a set charge, businesses installing special Internet connectivity are often confused by their statements, claims consultancy firm Andersen:

Their bills focus on metrics such as bandwidth availability, rather than service performance, said Gary Hardy of consultancy Andersen. "You have no idea what you are being billed for, and are not warned when service level agreements [SLAs] have been breached," he argued.

Paul Rumble, IT infrastructure expert at electronics giant Electrolux, said, "Customers must be more prescriptive in their SLAs."

More @ ZDNet.

ISP In 070 Phone Scam - Oftel Acts

By:mark.j @ 9:32:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

For awhile now most people have been able to register and obtain their own 070** prefix number from various places. These are often advertised as 'personal numbers' that rout calls from several other numbers to one location.

Apparently Oftel have only just gotten wise to the fact that some people have been setting their own charges on these numbers and thus using them illegitimately to defraud the public. One example of this follows below:

In one such 070 scam, an ISP claimed to offer an adult-orientated material. Although the service was advertised as being "free" it was being charged at 38p per minute. The scam also changed their default dial-up settings so that accessing the Net was costing them more than £1 for three minutes online.

According to Oftel, some people got hit with bills up to £13,000. Ouch.

In a bid to stamp out such scams, Oftel has come up with a clever plan to close the loophole. It seems owners of 070 will be unable to charge any kind of premium for using their number.

The Register is quick to point out that this has been going on for donkey’s years and questions why Oftel have only just gotten wise to it? Good question, they've probably been so.. busy pushing BT to rollout broadband faster that.. er.. ok no.

News - June 18,2001

SPECIAL WonkyPig Unmetered Deal!

By:mark.j @ 4:01:PM - Comments (17) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The newly formed and much question BBS backed unmetered ISP, WonkyPig, have today notified us of a very special ONE DAY ONLY offer for new subscribers:

SIGN UP TODAY
Just £30.00
A FULL YEARS 0800 INTERNET ACCESS

For Today only you can join the unmetered 0800 service for just £30.00, there are a limited number of accounts up for grabs simply call 0870 740 6651 and quote ref: acac1806

Sadly the message only just arrived in our INBOX now at 3:33pm and so most of that day has now gone, although even if they fail then £30 PA might be an interesting bet. Considering the ISP normally charges £5.99 per month then it could be worth a gamble? Anybody using WonkyPig? Feedback?

Widespread Wireless Internet=One Year Away?

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

Can it be? Will we all be surfing the Internet at high speeds and with clarity through mobile devices within the year? According to Microsoft we will. One senior exec at the massive software firm has recently gone on record to state:

"I will be happy to say that I do believe that we are about a year away from seeing the 'hockey stick,' and I'd love to come back next year and prove that I was right," Juha Christensen, a mobile phone industry veteran and vice president for sales and marketing at Microsoft's mobility group, said.

Apparently Microsoft are expecting a surge of Wireless Internet users, although do admit that one year may be an over-optimistic projection. Damn right given the mess WAP has managed to leave European markets in.

Considering Microsoft is also a company that expects us to all (EVERYBODY) be using the Internet in two years time and paying them by the month for their software rental, then perhaps over-optimistic is an understatement?

Never the less, operators will have to find a way of producing the more attractive uses of GPRS technology through quality mobile phones and turning them into money spinners. The huge debt burden of 3G makes this a certainty.

Tiscali UK Ditches LineOne Portal Celebs

By:mark.j @ 3:43:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Tiscali (Italian Provider) has chosen to ditch an unconfirmed amount of celebrity columnists from its LineOne ISPs portal service. With popular stars such as Joan Collins on the role then Tiscali could be about to step on one foot too many:

Joan Collins, Honor Blackman, Ruby Wax, Craig Charles, Jeremy Hardy, Dame Thora Hird and George Best were among a stable of high-profile names to boost the site. Six months on and sources tell us they're for the chop.

A spokeswoman for Tiscali UK was unable to say exactly which celebs would get their marching orders.

However, she said: "I finally confirm to you that Tiscali is terminating some of the celebrity content contracts, but not all of them."

The Register states how the £1Million (Estimated) celebrity columnist deal was only struck 6 months ago and is now about to be serious sliced. According to the spokeswoman it's all part of Tiscali's overall reshape through their newly acquired UK ISP holdings. It’s a good thing we didn’t say communists instead of columnists, easily confused.

LineOne Prepares To Kick Abusers

By:mark.j @ 3:34:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've been notified by E-Mail and also seen on our LineOne Forum that some customers, we don't know how many, have been sent a letter regarding their usage.

A copy of the letter has kindly been provided by one of our readers HERE and seems to be quite threatening. The letter essentially states that the respondent has been using LineOne's Off-Peak Surftime (unmetered) package too much and could face termination.

Thankfully and unlike so many other ISPs we've seen in the past, it doesn't serve as a letter of service removal. It simply asks that the respondent reduce their online time and that if this isn't done after 14 days (two weeks) then action will be taken.

The letter refers to Clause 5.4 in their Terms & Conditions and states that two days written notice will be given if the respondent’s usage doesn't change after the allotted time.

We're not sure EXACTLY what LineOne consider to be abuse since despite the T&C's it's unusual for them to run so long and only highlight this now. Thankfully this sort of thing no longer seems to be a weekly event in the world of unmetered ISPs.

Consumer Broadband Report

By:mark.j @ 10:57:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While many of us find broadband most important for Internet Access, a new report by research firm Analysis has chosen to investigate the other applications:

According to the report, operators are converging on the same space to offer delivery of interactive broadband content to the home. A huge number of possible broadband services have already been identified: some are based on interaction with TV, some on the PC and broadband internet, and some on a mixture of both.

The need for players to establish quick paths to profit has meant that particular types of content have assumed great importance: pornography, betting, online game-playing and interactive TV shopping. But many others, such as true video on demand and interactive web cam services, are still largely unrealised commercially.

You can find more on this @ EuropeMedia, although it's nothing we didn't already know. Broadband still has someway to go before it's established enough for companies to realise its true commercial potential.

blueyonder sees throughput fix success

By:mark.j @ 9:42:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

DigitalSpy spotted some information on blueyonder's broadband cable modem service status page that gives an update following the nationwide cache fix implementation. Apparently things went quite well:

The "leaky buckets" fix to our Universal Broadband Routers [UBRs] around the country has been rolled out this morning, and so far we are satisfied with the performance of the UBRs, and this is reflected by our broadband customers' comments in our newsgroups thus far. In simple terms, this fix now queues requests [packets] outgoing rather than re-requesting them when necessary, hence speeding up your connection......

Telewest should be monitoring the UBR's just to see if any more problems crop up, although so far feedback has been good.

News - June 17,2001

ISP Review Weekly Update

By:mark.j @ 10:36:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The last week, much like the one previously, has been full of news regarding unmetered and broadband ISP/providers. It's rare to see so much and is a good sign of industry wide acceptance through the new unmetered standards.

Typically ISP Review has been covering it all and keeping up with the times; now for an update on what else we’ve been up to. Obviously avid readers will know I've been distracted by real life problems, although we did manage to get back on track with two reviews and a new article.

Aside from that we'll also be helping .NET Magazine with an article their doing on unmetered and broadband access for an issue after the summer. So watch out for information on that and how you could help.

The new Readers Top 50 system also got underway and while coding continues we'll also be trying to refine exactly what we want with the appointed programmers.

On top of that we even managed to progress quite a way with the forums (Specific ISP), inching ever closer to the final merging of both into one. There's now an option to print a cut down version of topics, a member list, new security upon registration and a trial authority list; more to follow.

Work will continue next week and we're getting very close now, we may even move sooner given that one potential update could be finished within two weeks - needed for the forum move. Until next week, enjoy the wet weekend =).

More ClaraNET Unmetered Details

By:mark.j @ 10:17:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following yesterday’s news regarding ClaraNET's impending unmetered products launch, there's been a rash of discussion in CN's newsgroups. One of our readers, Steven, was able to pickup an update from Steve Rawlinson (ClaraNET Guy) that explains more:

This isn’t final, but the plan is as follows:

We plan to launch 2 FTAT products. The first is FTAT10, a 10:1 user/modem ratio at 14.99 and FTAT5, a 5:1 user/modem ratio at 24.99. Both prices are inc VAT.

The launch date for FTAT10 is set for 29th June and FTAT 5 about 2 weeks later. We might actually get them out a bit earlier.

Both products are being launched for a 3 month trial period and anything could change after those 3 months.

The good news is the coverage: we have over 50% at launch, and should be 95% by October. We only just got the final coverage details so it wont be on the searchable on the web until just before launch however I have put a text version of the file HERE.

There will be no port restrictions or cutoffs on either product. People who sign up for the FTAT10 product who use significantly more than 1/10th of a port will be asked to upgrade. Lower ratio products (even 1:1) are possible in the future. I'll get a more specific version of this paragraph ready before launch.

At least now we know their Business/Low Ratio product will cost £24.99, roughly £5 more than some ISPs offering an identical service and £5 less then others going for the £29.99 mark.

ClaraNETs package are clearly going to be competitive and the fact it won't have any cut off’s is truly stunning. However this also raises concerns for overall network congestion, but then Clara have been accustomed to some level of unmetered for awhile now so....

Typically yesterdays item also highlighted the Dual Channel ISDN issue and Steve replied to another customer as follows:

"It's possible however there are some technical issues to be overcome. The modem pools are located around the country and we need to check that we can actually do multilink reliably before offering a multilink account."

We'd be the first to signup for a dual channel/multilink compatible account if they could do it, or in fact if any ISP could! =). We’ll be interested to see if ClaraNET can stick to their no cut off ideals, given their history we doubt they’d offer it if they knew they couldn’t handle things.

Thedogmagroup Updates On 0800ONLINE

By:mark.j @ 10:01:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

We've been sent a very interesting update this morning regarding Thedogmagroup's new unmetered service and hosting packages:

It has come to our attention that potential customers are not aware of the current deal on FREE SOFTWARE worth £1000 which is bundled with all UK hosting accounts. This deal includes all new versions of NetObjects and HomeSite HTML: the software is available FREE OF CHARGE with any of our outstanding hosting plans. More information will be released soon!

You can signup at http://www.youmustbekidding.co.uk

Another Quick note -

* The 3 hour cut-off in place on the unmetered service has been removed, due to customer criticism. It has been replaced with a 6 hour absolute cut-off and a 15 minute idle cut-off. For more info on the service, visit http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk.

* Also, ADSL signup is currently off-line, but will be re-instated as soon as possible.

The community website, which is an active OnLine bulletin board system has been restored, and can be accessed at the Members pages, available at www.members.thedogmagroup.co.uk.

Since most providers using the £14.99 price model tend to set a 2hour cut off, then TDG's original 3 hours wasn't so bad. However their new 6 Hour cut off is the most stunning one we've ever seen, although this raises questions about whether they'll be able to maintain it.

News - June 16,2001

Telewest Improve Business Broadband

By:mark.j @ 10:26:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Not long after Telewest first introduced their business broadband packages, they've now announced that most companies remain unconvinced by their offers. In response Telewest has chosen to revamp parts of their offer since cheap and fast access alone isn't pulling in the crowds:

Smith said that services such as his own Blue Yonder should stop talking in acronyms and start thinking about how small businesses actually use computers.

Smith continued: "For a small business, or indeed any business, most employees don't surf the internet. Their computer time is email and calendar, and some of the Microsoft Office-type applications."

"So we'll be providing applications such as Microsoft Outlook and a calendar though broadband connections."

The VNUNet item states that no pricing has yet been set and the lack of information regarding Outlook and the calendar features is kind of confusing. Outlook is free anyway and calendars are commonplace, surely they must mean some special implementation?

ClaraNET Announce Unmetered Launch

By:mark.j @ 10:19:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It's been almost half a year since ClaraNET first announced their forthcoming AnyTime 24/7 package and even longer since their last unmetered system introduction.

Despite this ClaraNET managed to slip a VERY quite and important update in under the radar without informing anybody (thanks David), it states the final launch date for the new unmetered AnyTime package!:

freetimeanytime

FreeTime AnyTime update

We are pleased to announce that we will be launching the first in a range of 24/7 unmetered Internet access packages on Friday 29th June 2001. Priced at £14.99 per month, FreeTime AnyTime is specifically targeted at our home users, and will have a user to modem ratio of 10:1.

We will also be launching a second 24/7 package in July, with a user to modem ratio of 5:1 targeted towards the small business user. Details of how to register for both packages will be posted on the website in due course.

Sadly no mention of whether or not they'd finally remove some of the restrictions to their Off-Peak package through adoption of more modern systems. Also no mention of the dual channel ISDN system they'd once planned to pursue.

The ratios also seem one or two places higher than some of their competition, however considering the competition in this price range then we doubt it'll be an issue.

Nationwide blueyonder C-Modem Fix

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

Broadband Cable Modem customers from Telewest will be happy to hear that trials of the throughput fix (UBR's) have gone well and that a nationwide rollout of the update will take place this Saturday:

Following successful testing and feedback from the changes made to the Scottish UBR's [Universal Broadband Routers] to improve your performance when accessing the web through our transparent caches, it has been decided to roll out the fix nationally between 4 and 5am on this Saturday, the 16th of June.

During this change you may experience sub optimal performance when using the web, the long term benefits of this are clear though. To recap on the outstanding problems, upon requesting a page from the World Wide Web, you are transparently cached. This means that the page is actually served from the cache rather than having to traverse the web, as long as that page has been requested from the same cache recently. Secure sites are not cached. When you request a page from the cache and it is downloaded, all your download bandwidth is consumed. Your machine transmits ACK packets back to tell the webcache that "I have received all the page". As you are receiving packets so quickly with your caches being local to you, you have to acknowledge them quickly also, and this consumes more and more bandwidth. Hence, in line with TCP/IP [Internet] standards, when the cache doesn't receive an acknowledgment that you have received all the data, it sends it again.

We are confident that we now have a fix for this issue, upon reconfiguration and performance testing of our Scottish Cisco UBR's. The performance of these since the rollouts in the region over the last 10 days shows marked improvement, and the comments from users in our newsgroups back this up. The UBR is the bridging router between the cable [HFC/RF] network and the Internet [IP] Network. There is more information on how this works on our help site at: http://help.blueyonder.co.uk/glossary/h/hfc.html

There's more @ DigitalSpy, although since the fix/update time has now passed we'd like to know if the problem has now been resolved? Post a comment or forum message if you think things have improved for your area.

News - June 15,2001

Thedogmagroup Moves 0800ONLINE

By:mark.j @ 10:52:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Thedogmagroup's recently launched unmetered ISP, 0800ONLINE, has apparently lost its domain, or something like that. They've sent us the following update:

Due to several domain errors, the http://www.0800online.co.uk website is no longer functional and has been a transferred over to City Connections UK.

The new website is available at http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk.

We are sorry for this error, and apologize in advance.

WonkyPig Update Unmetered Offer

By:mark.j @ 10:49:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

WonkyPig's BBS backed unmetered ISP has today made another small update to their site. Now the front page offers the following:

Pay Monthly @ £5.99

Pay for the Year & Save £35

Strangely when you click the link to the £35 deal it then asks you to pay £71.88 for the full year, which works out as:

£71.88 / 12 = £5.99 Per Month

So exactly where's the £35 saving coming from? It's usually good practise to tell people or adjust the math accordingly =).

08002Go (Zone Corp) Still Fighting BT

By:mark.j @ 10:43:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Another cheap and popular unmetered ISP, 08002Go, was once again in court fighting BT for compensation due to delays and problems with launching their unmetered system.

The case, which has been going on since earlier in the year, continued last Monday. For those that can't remember, BT offered 08002Go a fully unmetered FRIACO system and then later broke this deal near launch by stating it had a metered charge.

08002Go have thus been trying to claim compensation for lost revenue in their advertising, subscriber numbers and package costs because the new system was, as they state, unviable. Net4Nowt has now managed to provide the latest news on developments with the ISPs case:

At the hearing in the Manchester High Court, Judge Gosnell stated that from the information presented to him, it was clear there were a multiplicity of issues, which without the disclosure of documents and witness statements on both sides, he could not judge the merits.

However, he rejected the BT claim that there was no chance of success by Zone Corporation. BT was ordered pay the costs of the petition for both sides. BT asked for the right to appeal and this was refused.

A spokesman for Zone Corporation added, "We are a very fair minded company and we have not been pleased at the way BT adopted such a cavalier attitude towards us as they have done over the past year and a half. We are very pleased with Monday’s outcome along with the earlier judgment to us in January 2001.”

While a final outcome is likely to be a long time coming, it looks as if David has finally succeeded against Goliath - again. Quite whether 08002Go will get any real compensation is unclear, yet the hit they placed on BTs nose should last long enough to remind them that they can’t continue to bully small businesses.

BigBlueSky Price Increase Announced

By:mark.j @ 10:30:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Some will be happy to hear that BigBlueSky have finally settled on what they plan to use for the new initial signup charge to their ISP, the latest update reads:

News Update - 18:35 14/06/01

Price increase
The price of connection is going up as follows: £25 currently….but not for many more hours! £35 as of 15th June 2001 (if you get in before the price update on the registration pages changes to £35 then we will honour it) £45 from 1st July 2001

There's also another important part of the update that focuses on those whom might be using the service for commercial reasons:

BigblueBrother has been watching you
A final note for customers who are using their connection for commercial purposes. We gave you an opportunity to come clean and own up. If you hadn't taken the opportunity when presented then it may be too late. Ken and PK are on the war path….check the Terms and Conditions, Section 15! If you are a customer using it for commercial purposes, send an email to kerry@bigbluesky.uk.net she may slip it into the "owned up" folder before Black Monday 18th June 2001.

They'll probably be looking for those whom use the Internet the most or use servers. ISPs are rarely very clear in exactly what constitutes commercial activity, primarily because they can't be seen to have monitored their activity (still illegal). Having said that, many would still be glad to see the back of heavy users from such a cheap service that doesn’t need the usage hammering.

Oftel Responsible For Unmetered Success?

By:mark.j @ 10:13:AM - Comments (11) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Oftels latest PRESS RELEASE seems to be a self indulgent one in which they try to claim full responsibility for the success of unmetered access in the UK.

It shows how British unmetered is among the cheapest in the world, even against the likes of Germany and California; Full PR follows:

UK cheaper than California for unmetered internet access

Unmetered dial up Internet access for consumers is cheaper in the UK than it is in California and Germany, according to new research published today by Oftel.

Oftel's latest international benchmarking report shows UK prices at February 2001 for key telecoms services were still amongst the lowest in Europe, and compare favourably with the USA.

Key findings of the research include:

* For residential heavy Internet users in the UK unmetered Internet access costs from £18 per month – as compared to the equivalent of £19 per month in California, and £39 per month in Germany. Unmetered dial-up Internet access is not available in France or Sweden;

* For a typical residential UK phone user, costs are from around £19 per month, less than Germany (£20) or France (£24);

* For occasional users of a mobile phone, costs are from around £12 a month, cheaper than France (£16) or Italy (£18);

* some business telecoms services are more expensive than in other countries, but prices continue to fall in the UK.

David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications, said:

"With the introduction of unmetered tariffs which are now widespread in the UK, Internet access is cheaper here than in California and a number of other European countries."

"UK consumers continue to get a good deal for key telecoms services compared with other European countries."

"Cheap Internet access has been stimulated by Oftel’s action to encourage unmetered services and choice, enabling operators to supply unmetered Internet access to customers using BT’s network."

"Over a third of UK Internet consumers now opt for some form of unmetered access, while dial up unmetered packages are not yet available for Swedish and French consumers."

David Edmonds said that Oftel’s work had delivered lower prices for consumers.

"Oftel’s work to promote competition and choice has helped deliver lower prices for consumers for dial up Internet access, fixed line telephony and mobile phone services."

"Oftel's strategy is to achieve the best deal for consumers through a competitive and dynamic telecoms market. Today’s benchmarking survey shows that the deals available for consumers are amongst the best in Europe and America."

The first problem with Oftels press release comes from being based on three-month-old information, we'd guess the new average price is down from £18 per month to £14 or £15. While we agree that, "Cheap Internet access has been stimulated by Oftel’s action", we disagree with the way they've claimed all the credit.

This is an insult to groups such as the C.U.T (Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications) and ISPs like AOL whom helped design FRIACO and BTSurfPort24 style systems. In fact even BT deserves more credit than Oftel, who've done comparatively little.

Maybe next they'll take credit for the state of Broadband access and coverage in the UK, or perhaps even Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), na - didn't think so!

News - June 14,2001

KeMe Backtrack On Non-BT Line Customers

By:mark.j @ 3:45:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As pointed out by Simon, the new unmetered ISP KeMe had originally promised to offer those NOT using BT lines - full freecall access no matter what provider they used. Sadly and due to the ISPs Telco suppliers, they can no longer offer this.

The relevant parts of their latest service update has been posted below:

An Apology to Non-BT Subscribers
13th June 2001

Dear Subscribers,

It is with great regret that KeMe.com has to announce that, as from 14th June 2001, we are unable to take subscriptions from subscribers who do not have a BT telephone line.

This is because the telephony carrier who we rely on to provide access throughout the UK has reneged on several terms of an agreement with us, to provide a nationwide dial-up service.

At all times we were assured that it would not matter where the caller dialled from, and that we would be provided with a fixed cost per user regardless of location in the UK, or to which telephony company they subscribed with.

.....................

We were informed this evening at 21:23 P.M. that we were no longer able to take 0800 through the carrier.

This sorry state of affairs has resulted in acute embarrassment for KeMe.com, resulting in our company unwittingly taking subscriptions for a service we are now unable to provide.

We will of course provide a full refund for every subscriber who does not have a BT Line.

Anyone who has subscribed to KeMe.com since 11th June who wishes to cancel their subscription may do so - we will make a full refund of your purchase, regardless of the service obtained so far.

If you wish to cancel your subscription you may:-

Either use your Worldpay user name and password to cancel further subscriptions and then email cancellations@keme.com, or if you prefer you may telephone 01473 403020 and ask us to handle the refund for you.

Please accept our sincere apologies for this situation, we have acted in good faith at all times in announcing this service, unfortunately our carrier's actions are beyond the control of KeMe.com.

In the event of us finding a Carrier who actually does what they say they can, we will reinstate the Full UK service.

We've already heard from three other people whom were very frustrated by this, although should be consoled by the fact that they can at least get a full refund. We seriously doubt this means ALL providers, it probably only covers ones such as NTL and Telewest, either way we can't vouch for that.

There's also another update for those on a BT line, yet finding some dial-in troubles - HERE.

BTs ADSL Rollout Falls Short Of Expectations

By:mark.j @ 3:36:PM - Comments (12) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

BT is presently scheduled to finish their rollout of broadband ADSL technologies this September. Sadly and as we've know for awhile, this doesn't mean 100% of the country will be covered, simply that BT will have finished up all the areas they had 'PLANNED' to cover.

In mathematical terms, 4 in every 10 households will have access to ADSL technology, but it's what happens later that's beginning to concern people:

In the current climate it appears BT will be in no rush to invest further in its broadband network.

Rebecca Webster, head of broadband marketing for BT told The Register: "We have announced our [roll-out] plans up to the end of September. We will continue to rollout if the demand is there and there is a firm business case. We have not announced forward plans because we do not want to raise expectations unduly."

She continued: "We prioritised the exchanges according to where Internet usage is highest and therefore where the demand for bandwidth was greatest."

The Register's concerns are just, especially given BTs current debt crisis and the serious changes they have to make in order to clear it. While RADSL will improve things following the end of ADSLs rollout, it could be much longer than expected before the technology reaches more rural areas.

Perhaps if Oftel were to force BT into offering a more competitively priced consumer ISDN product then people wouldn't be so worried.

Netscape v6.1 Preview Release

By:mark.j @ 10:24:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

While the majority of people use Microsofts IE to browse the Internets mass of websites, the second most used browser is from Netscape.

Sadly Netscape, now owned by AOL, is to no longer focus on developing its browser technology and will instead help AOL Time Warner in other ways.

Despite this, ZDNet has an exclusive download of the latest Preview Release (Beta) of Netscape v6.1, the last version was v6.01. You can download it HERE, just remember that it's not an upgrade, but a separate installation. Always be careful around trial software as it can contain nasty bugs.

Perhaps this version will render CSS properly.

Billions Avoid Internet Access

By:mark.j @ 10:17:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

A new survey conducted in 30 countries has revealed that Billions of potential Internet users are avoiding the technology due to lack of interest, money, need or equipment. The No.1 reason for not being on the Internet (40% of respondents) is that they have no need to.

A lack of computers keeps the other 33% away, and a lack of interest was cited by 25%. Thursday's survey, by research firm Ipsos-Reid, estimates that only 6% of the world's 6Billion people are on the Internet, based on projections from a string of research groups.

One analyst claims, "They see no compelling reason to be on the Web. The hype and the promise of the Internet clearly hasn't impressed them -- not yet at least."

For 16% of people who don't use the Internet, the biggest barrier is not understanding how to, while 12% cited cost as a obstacle and 10% said it was a lack of time.

The survey polled residents in the United States, Japan, western Europe, English-speaking countries outside the U.S., Ibero-America, Asia, and several other countries including Egypt, Russia, India and China.

About 400 million people use the Web daily, with 65% of Sweden's population using the Internet frequently, followed by 60% in Canada and 59% in the United States, Ipsos-Reid said.

In contrast, only 9% of urban India's population are frequent Internet users, 13% of Turkey's citizens, and 6% of people in urban Russia, where 83% of citizens said they had no Internet access. Guess that's a lot of people missing out on Western propaganda and multiplayer games then, poor people.

WonkyPig Service Update

By:mark.j @ 10:09:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

WonkyPig contacted us this morning to inform our readers of some changes to their service status:

Our £5.99 package will remain, but if you sign up for two accounts the second account is only £40.00 which is great if you want to use more than one PC on the internet at any one time, this offer ends on Monday so get ordering!

Our mail server will be online shortly, together with a ils and game server following 7 days later.

We will keep you posted or for more info please call our internet team on: 0870 740 6651

Sounds very promising for the new (BBS VISP) provider and we can't help but wonder whether two accounts would get you multilink modem or dual channel ISDN access?

Questions Over Cheap Unmetered Charity ISP

By:mark.j @ 9:59:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Some of you may remember the new charity ISP ItsGoodToGive from a smaller news item a month or two ago. Net4Nowt has been quick to spot that the provider has now introduced one of the cheapest 24/7 unmetered offers around, with some profits going to charity.

Costing £9.99 (£2 to charity) Per Month or £119.88 Per Annum (£20 to charity) the new provider could do a lot of good. The original NewsBytes item has the chairman quoted as saying:

Other telcos and ISPs in the U.K. charge 20 percent to 50 percent more than the charity's offer. Additionally, the ISP says it is donating 20 percent of its subscription revenues - two pounds ($3.40) a month - directly to the charities its supports.

"I was disbelieving at first, but we've spent a lot of time going over the figures, and we believe the (economic) model is viable, so we're happy to offer this deal to subscribers," John Ager, the ISP's executive chairman, told Newsbytes .

Ager declined to say which carrier is handling the Internet traffic under the unmetered access deal.

However N4N, clearly intrigued by the last paragraph, did some digging and noticed this at the bottom of the subscription page:
** PLEASE NOTE YOUR CREDIT CARD STATEMENT WILL SHOW UP AS OUR PROVIDER " WONKYPIG INTERNET RYDE " **

We could be very wrong, but isn't this the exact same WonkyPIG ISP that recently launched and is also a VISP for BigBlueSky? As much as we respect charity providers, if true, this is starting to get a little ridiculous.

BBS Sell @ £25 per year, WonkyPig then resell at £71 per year (£5.99 Per Month), WonkyPig Resell to ItsGoodToGive, whom sell back to the customers @ £9.99 Per Month / £119 Per Year. Since we can only find one WonkyPig on official files then this is even more likely to be true, the world is a strange place.

News - June 13,2001

New Mobile Internet Standard Looms

By:mark.j @ 4:05:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Historically mobile phones have always lacked a clear standard for Internet use, GSM had WAP (YUK!), so what will GPRS and 3G technologies get? Time for a new standard.

The Mobile Services Initiative (M-Services) aims to introduce an open software and hardware standard within mobile Internet in a bid to avoid the fiasco that surrounded the first attempt at mobile Internet, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

Although widely adopted, WAP proved far too slow and cumbersome for most subscribers, and few worthwhile services were offered. The GSM Association, which styles itself "the world's leading wireless industry body," said M-Services would allow the faster GPRS networks now being rolled out in some regions to offer consistent, high-quality mobile Internet.

GPRS, also known as 2.5G, offers always-on Internet access and is a stepping stone to third generation mobile services for which the infrastructure is still being developed.

The GSM Association claims manufacturers ranging from Nokia to Motorola had endorsed the new M-Services venture:

"The Association has compiled a set of prioritised, compelling service guidelines -- on a freely available basis -- that can be offered in the future by any manufacturer of GPRS handsets," chairman Scott Fox said in a statement.

M-Services would bring consistency to such areas as graphical displays, music, video and games to handsets supporting GPRS, and later on to even faster standards in the GSM family of technologies such as EDGE and 3GSM. Lets just hope it doesn't end up as WAP v2.