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September 30, 2001 - October 4, 2001

News - October 4,2001

BT Chief Envisages xDSL Rollout Halt

By:mark.j @ 10:18:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It looks as if lower broadband R/ADSL prices weren't the only thing BTs chief executive, Sir Peter Bonfield, was keen to avoid yesterday.

Apparently the man once regarded as 'Villain Of The Internet', has also expressed a view that the entire rollout of xDSL may soon halt!:

The speech was short on specifics, but it did seem to suggest that the rollout of the telco's DSL services will not reach far beyond the 60 per cent of the population already within the catchment area of DSL exchanges.

He said: "Some parts of the country are not technically viable for DSL - because too great a proportion of customers live too far from the exchange to receive it."

"Other areas are not commercially viable. In these, the size of the exchange area means that forecast demand is so low that we cannot justify the rate of return to our shareholders," Bonfield added.

The Silicon item only reiterates what we've known for awhile, albeit somewhat more aggressively, that BT would be unlikely to cover the whole 'Geographic' country with R/ADSL by 2005, or even – EVER.

Interestingly the CE claimed that 25% of the country would be covered by 2003, which is strange since they publicly claim 60% =). That's the difference between geographic and population coverage, you have to watch these people.

Fidelity Keeps COLT Telecom Afloat

By:mark.j @ 10:09:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

COLT Telecom Group, backers for several British unmetered ISPs, has secured its future with a £400,000,000 share issue backed by its biggest shareholder - Fidelity.

Fidelity (U.S. fund manager), which owns 47.7% of COLT, has effectively underwritten the issue, which totals 649.4Million new shares at 62p each. COLT said the money would enable it to complete the rollout of its European network.

Shares in COLT, which had tumbled 97% since the height of the technology boom in March last year (2000), surged as much as 59% to 98-3/4p. Its high-yield bonds jumped 20 points to 63% of face value.

Analysts and traders said the backing of Fidelity, the world's largest privately-owned investment company, had scotched worries that COLT would go bust, and given a vote of confidence in the business model of so-called alternative carriers.

Hutchison 3G Still On Track For 2002

By:mark.j @ 9:49:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As mentioned many times before, Hutchinson 3G are set to be the first operator to publicly offer broadband wireless mobile phone technology next year (2002) in the UK.

Today their partners in Japan, NTT DoCoMo, have helped reaffirm that intention despite fears of a delay.:

Speaking with foreign reporters on Tuesday, Keiji Tachikawa -- NTT DoCoMo's president -- said that it would offer services in Britain in partnership with Hutchison 3G. "Hutchison 3G will be our top batter for services in Europe," he claimed.

NTT DoCoMo, which operates the highly successful i-mode service in Japan, owns a 20 percent stake in Hutchison 3G -- one of the five companies to win a 3G licence in last year's auction.

Hutchison 3G told ZDNet News on Wednesday that it was still on track to launch a 3G service in mid-2002. "Obviously, our 3G network will only be launched when it's ready, but the plan for the last 18 months has been to launch 3G in the second half of 2002, and that's still very much our intention," a spokesman said.

Although it's a comparatively new operator for the UK, Hutchison is already looking to be an extremely competitive provider, just don't expect its coverage to be 'wide' when it does finally surface. More @ ZDNet.

News - October 3,2001

Xantic's Broadband Satellite Offer

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

Potential users for Xantic's expensive broadband Satellite service might find this offer interesting.

The ISP has informed us of a special offer their running that'll give customers some extra 'bonus' download credits if they subscribe now.:

Just wanted to let you know that Xantic is running a special limited time offer on our High Speed Internet Access Service. Online visitors can sign-on today and get an extra 200MB or 500 MB depending on the Package they choose.

For more details, please visit the home page of our web site.
http://www.xanticbroadband.com

UK Internet Snooping Laws To Tighten?

By:mark.j @ 4:14:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

If you didn't already manage to fall asleep during the most boring political part of the year, conference time (yawn!), then you'll have been interested to see some of the things said in Labours one.

Despite what the PM said just a day ago, Science minister Lord Sainsbury stated in his address a belief that UK laws on tapping the web may be tightened in light of the terrorist attacks. Despite this he made clear that the concerns of the IT industry would be addressed, yeah sure they will!:

He described the original version of the Act (R.I.P), which included 'key escrow' clauses requiring encryption users to provide copies of keys to the authorities, as "rather draconian".

"As we showed first time, we're very conscious that you must do things that won't damage the IT industry," he said.

Thankfully the VNUNet item is short and mentions just enough to make us seriously concerned that the government doesn't know what one part is saying from the other. On another note, when during the 'first time' did they ‘show’ anything positive for the IT and ISP industry?

BT Rejects Cheaper xDSL Ideals

By:mark.j @ 4:04:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Sir Peter Bonfield, BTs Chief Executive, has rejected any suggestions that there be further R/ADSL price cuts in the near future.

Many believe that in order for BTs broadband to be attractive and competitive ISPs should be charging £25 - £30 per month, something that's impossible without further wholesale price decreases.

The news came as Sir.Bonfield spoke at the Royal Academy of Engineering during the 2001 Hinton Lecture.:

Bonfield denied that BT was to blame for the low take-up of broadband packages in the UK. Bonfield claimed that -- with 13 million homes now connected to an ADSL-enabled exchange -- it was time for the Government to help boost awareness of the benefits of a fast, always-on Internet connection, and to push broadband rollout within the public sector.

In a move that will disappoint those hoping for cheaper high-speed access -- including e-commerce minister Douglas Alexander -- Bonfield claimed that it didn't make sense for a commercial organisation such as BT to lower the cost of ADSL, at least not until there are many more customers for the service. "When we've got a return on our capital expenditure then we can go back and lower the price, because we'll have shown that broadband works as a business proposition," he said.

"We reduced the price of our wholesale ADSL offering from £35 to £30 per month recently," Bonfield said. "Some people in government welcomed this, but then Oftel started saying 'hang on, this could be unfair pricing'. So, BT is accused of setting its prices too low, and also criticised for charging too much for ADSL," Bonfield said.

What's most interesting about the ZDNet item is the last part we quote above, which according to Oftel, is a lie. Certainly we'd have reported it by now had the regulator been investigating BTs price decrease =).

Perhaps what's really needed is a 'lighter' version of ADSL, for example, instead of 512Kbps downstream you could have 256Kbps. This would make the technology cheaper and more competitive; few really need 512Kbps+ anyway because there's no software to make it a worthwhile investment.

Nutshell's Network Outages

By:mark.j @ 3:47:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The popular unmetered dialup ISP, Nutshell (Net In A Nutshell), has sent us a brief service update regarding some of the problems they've been experiencing.:

Just to let you know we are experiencing severe problems today with the c&w servers. It is not a capacity issue, c&w has lost their SQL servers!!!

Site Update - New ISP Reviews

By:mark.j @ 1:58:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As we slowly get back into the swing of things, following our server move, two new unmetered dialup ISP Reviews have been added, that of 'Vispa Internet' and the extremely cheap 'UKStamp'.:

Vispa Internet:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/reviews/vispa/

UKStamp:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/reviews/ukstamp/

The 08002Go Rumour Mill

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

Since yesterdays announcement that 08002Go were to suspend their services for a full month people have been busy expressing their anger in the forums. How could an ISP once so popular suddenly decline within a fraction of the time?

As yet 08002Go has failed to give an honest reason for their problems and eventual suspension, although rumours have been rife. Typically we hope to find out more on Friday when one of our forum mods sets about on a fact-finding mission into the ISP.

However and much as seems to be the custom every time this happens, we've received information leaks from sources close to those whom supply the ISP (C&W). Sorting fact from fiction isn't easy, yet one particular message does to tally with other sources.

What follows should be considered 'rumour mill' material and idle banter rather than fact, please DO NOT take it as official in any way! According to our source, C&W are closing 08002Go (Zone Corp) tomorrow through force because of a non-payment on one of their bills.

Apparently C&W intends to pursue 08002Go to its fullest extent (legally if needed) and that the bill they've incurred is hanging 'somewhere' around the half a million mark. In other words, unless 08002Go pay the bill then it'd be very hard for them to start up again with another supplier within the month.

As before this should be considered nothing more than a rumour mill news item, we're sure 08002Go will explain their reasons in due course to satisfy everybody. Yet having said that their website is now completely removed and it might be wise to pursue a refund, just to be safe until they re-surface, if they re-surface.

PipexDial Launch DialTime Unmetered

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

Pipex Dial have launched some new Dial Time unmetered packages. Note, you can easily change between packages (so the site claims) and also note the low contentions, which make all the difference in price. What follows is a brief run down of the packages and their prices (per month).:

Dedicated Range
The DialTime Dedicated range of unmetered packages provides the ultimate in dial-up Internet access. A dedicated modem port is always reserved for your exclusive use so you can connect whenever you need to!

Dedicated 1:1 24/7 - £99.75 / No Cut Off
Assured connection to completely unlimited Internet access. Connect any time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for as long as you need, whenever you want.

Dedicated 1:1 Weekdays - £59.75 / No Cut Off
Assured connection and unlimited access at an outstanding price just when you need it most - during the entire business day, Monday-Friday 8am-6pm.

Shared Range
Providing industry-leading low contention ratios of either 3:1 or 5:1, users share a single modem with just 2 or 4 other users respectively.

Shared 3:1 24/7 - £39.75 / 2 Hour Cut Off
Contended (shared) unmetered Internet access any time day or night, weekdays or weekends, with one of the lowest contention ratios of any shared unmetered offering in the UK.

Shared 5:1 24/7 - £29.75 / 2 Hour Cut Off
Contended (shared) unmetered Internet access any time day or night, weekdays or weekends.

Shared 5:1 Evenings and Weekends - £19.75
Contended (shared) unmetered Internet access available from 6pm to 8am, Monday to Thursday and between 6pm Friday and 8am Monday.

Combined Package
Unlimited Dedicated Internet availability when you need it most - during the business day, Monday - Friday 8am - 6pm. Outside these times you can still connect to the Internet using a non-dedicated connection, if required.

Combined 24/7 - £69.75 / No Cut Off (Daytime)
After hours and at weekends you can still use the DialTime Shared Evenings and Weekends 5:1 package if you wish. Perfect for those businesses that sometimes work late.

Note that EVERY single option comes with the ability to add dual channel ISDN (128Kbps) at an increased monthly cost, although it WILL be expensive (total).

Typically the prices are very realistic for the lower contention ratios you're paying for, however when you scale the offer down many of the packages still fall just short of what other providers can do. Excellent for heavy and business users, standard residential customers should keep a wide berth. Spotted @ Net4Nowt.

Iomart Call Centre Unlawfully Damaged

By:mark.j @ 9:33:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It looks as if Iomart, popular broadband (R/ADSL) and Internet services provider, has found some unlawful 'tampering' with on its Stornaway call centre. Apparently the police have been called in to investigate further.:

Communications at the Scottish broadband provider's call centre were snagged yesterday although repaired after a couple of hours downtime.

Sources have told El Reg that someone took a pair of shears to Iomart's cabling, severing all phone lines to and from the datacentre.

One insider claimed that the finger of suspicion pointed towards a "disgruntled employee".

The Register manages to confirm with Iomart that unlawful tampering was the key cause, although no further comment was given.

Nutshell To Provide Student Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 9:16:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It looks as if students in the UK are to get a boost from the ever-popular unmetered provider, Nutshell, as they launch a special package aimed at students. The full press release follows.:

NEWS RELEASE

2 October 2001

NUS CHOOSES NET IN A NUTSHELL TO PROVIDE STUDENT INTERNET SERVICE

Leading internet provider Net in a Nutshell has teamed up with nusonline.co.uk, the official website of the National Union of Students (NUS), to offer a special priced internet service for students.

The Nutshell Internet Service offers unlimited internet access 24/7, with fast, first time connection. The new Nutshell student service is identical to Nutshell’s standard service but priced at just £10.99/month. However, if students wish to sign up for 6 months in advance, the price is just £8.99/month payable by cheque, if required, for those students who do not have credit or debit cards.

“One of the things nusonline.co.uk offers is great discounts and we have therefore teamed up with Nutshell to offer another valuable service to NUS students,” explains Sheila O’Connell, Marketing Projects Officer at NUS. “Nutshell’s price for student internet access is the cheapest service of its kind available, which is an excellent deal for our students.”

“We are delighted to be able to team up with the NUS to offer this service,” adds Scott Ide, CEO of Nutshell. “The Nutshell student service now makes unlimited internet access available to all students at a reasonable price.”

Nutshell’s Internet Package…
· includes unlimited internet access 24 hours/7 days a week
· includes all internet telephone charges
· has no minimum contract tie-in (unless students choose to sign up for 6 months).
· has a helpdesk open from 8am-10pm (Mon-Fri) and 8am-5pm (weekends).

Net in a Nutshell is an innovative computer and internet company and a proven ISP provider. The company philosophy is to make internet access widely available to all and, as such, all of the company’s offers are set up to allow even low income individuals to access the web.

To sign up for the new Nutshell NUS internet service, please visit http://www.nusonline.co.uk.

Please note that although there's no mention of it here, almost all student related 'discount' offers require some form of identification. In other words, if you're 80 years old and not still in education then the chances are you won't be allowed on =).

0800OnlineServe Launch New Unmetered

By:mark.j @ 9:07:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Following on from their last service update, the recently revitalised unmetered dialup ISP 0800OnlineServe have today launched a new freecall package for businesses.:

WE SUPPORT NTL AND OTHER CABLE OPERATORS.

The Business Plus+ Package has now been launched. The new package is a combination of the unmetered offering and also one of our high-end hosting packages, which includes the new streaming service as standard.

A more detailed description is presented below:
'Unmetered Access:

- 0800 Internet access
- Support for ISDN 64k & 128k, V90, K56Flex and 56K
- 50Mb Webspace
- Unlimited email addresses
- News Group access
- All website requests routed through dedicated access Servers
- 0800 free phone technical Support

Business Plus+:

All of the above, but also now including:

- 500MB webspace hosted on Windows NT or 2000
- iHTML Support
- Unlimited Sub Directories
- Control Panel
- Front Page Option
- 50 email boxes\unlimited addresses
- Webstatistics
- email routing
- Personal FTP Server '

You can check it on our website at:
http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk

According to the website the package costs an unsettling £50 per month, however many of the options are certainly quite impressive. No mention of what kind of cut-offs or other service limits there may be, which makes it difficult to accurately state its VALUE vs QUALITY.

News - October 2,2001

Freedom2Surf Anytime Information

By:rich @ 6:00:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Last month Freedom2surf announced their anytime package. They have sent an e-mail around to exisiting customer giving them a little more information:

"Dear freedom2surf member

We are very pleased to announce the launch of Freedom2surf Anytime 24x7 unmetered Internet access with built in parental control software for just £11.99 a month.

The service is available through any BT line using either modem or ISDN. There are no further additional costs. In addition subscribers receive email addresses and ratings for every member of their family, 20 Mbyes of webspace and 5 Mbyes of database space at no extra cost.

Unlike other ISP's who suffer from constant engaged tones the freedom2surf Anytime service has been built with an extremely low 9:1 contention ratio, rather than the usual 20:1 offered by most ISPs, and an automatic anti-abuse cut off after two hours of continuous use with a reconnect timeout of five minutes.

To find out more about freedom2surf Anytime and subscribe please visit: http://www.freedom2surf.net/info/anytime.html

The full press release is available at: http://www.freedom2surf.net/media

We hope you found this product update useful and look forward to providing you the best Internet access service possible.

Thank you for choosing freedom2surf!

Freedom2surf Sales Team"

The basic package is cheaper than most ISP's but the two hour cut-off with a minute break before you can reconnect will put some customers off.

Sonnet Internet Launch Unmetered

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

Net4Nowt spotted that Sonnet Internet launched several new unmetered dialup packages aimed at businesses and backed by Affinity. The following prices are monthly:

Solo Lite Daytime (£10) and Solo Daytime (£15): gives you fixed cost access between 6am - 6pm. For the serious business user who is reliant on Internet access during business hours.

Solo Lite 24/7 (£15) and Solo 24/7 (£25): fixed cost Internet access day and night. The perfect solution for businesses looking for absolute flexibility.

Symphony (£55): gives several users 24/7 access. Ideal for offices with networked PCs on a small LAN.

The services vary (web space, E-Mails etc.) and the ISP is also investigating 128Kbps dual channel ISDN unmetered dialup for launch towards the end of the year. Stranegly no specific information was provided relating to cut-off times, be cautious.

Online Child Protection Laws Delayed

By:mark.j @ 3:41:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Tough new laws designed to help protect children from Internet paedophiles are to be delayed so that new anti-terrorism laws can be draft through first.:

The grooming initiative was developed in August by the Scrutiny of the Criminal Law subgroup of the Home Office Internet Taskforce on Child Protection. The proposal includes a new criminal offence relating to a meeting with a child with the intention of engaging in a sexual activity, and a new civil order to protect children from an adult making contact with them for a harmful purpose, especially by email or through the Internet. It is still in its preliminary stage, but is designed to address a recognised gap in the law relating to the luring of children over the Internet for sexual purposes.

"We want the new laws as soon as possible, as there is the risk that some other children might fall foul to the predators out there," said John Carr, Internet consultant for NCH Action for Children. "It is sad, and we wish it was otherwise, but we're not doubting the Home Office's good faith."

According to ZDNet the proposals will be looked at again on October 23rd 2001, nearer the end of this month.

BTO's Poor Peer-To-Peer Broadband

By:mark.j @ 3:29:PM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It’s been a well-known fact among users to BTOpenworlds broadband R/ADSL services that peer-to-peer (BTO customer connecting to BTO customer) file transfer systems are near useless with the provider.

In other words if you tried to send an MP3 file you'd made to another online BTOpenworld R/ADSL user using a system such as Napster, Kazza and or Gnutella etc. then the speeds would be diabolically bad. Today ADSLGuide has posted some physical test results to show just how bad (thanks Andrew).:

An enterprising Software Developer Mark Hutton who is using the BTO Home 500 service has run some tests sending just data between two machines on the various ports that the sharing programs use, a summary of the results follows:

Napster Port 6699 58.1KB/sec
Gnutella Port 6346 3.75KB/sec
Edonkey Port 4662 1.5KB/sec
Kazza 2.8KB/sec
Test (Kazza port+1) 58.1KB/sec

Certainly most of the results are a far cry from what BTOpenworld broadband customers should be expecting and might make some BTO AnyTime users think twice about upgrading. As yet BTOpenworld have failed to issue any official feedback on the matter.

Massive 08002Go Update

By:mark.j @ 3:13:PM - Comments (9) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

As promised 08002Go have now issued a full and official update on their website, although we'll only post the important parts here. The update is huge and clearly designed to address as many issues as they could predict (refunds, contact details etc.):

A Message from The Managing Director.
02 October 2001

We at www.08002go.com have decided as from Wednesday the 3rd October 2001 to discontinue our service to all our members forthwith.

Although we do not have to give any reasons for this conclusion, we believe it only fair to you to let all know why we have come to this decision.

We will endeavour, from the list below to go through all the points raised over the last week or so.

Q. Are 08002go.com going out of business or going bust.

A. No, quite the opposite in fact. From mid day Wednesday the 3rd October 2001 we are suspending our service for approximately one month, in which time we will be returning with a four option service plan and it will be entirely up to you if you wish to continue with us.

# Remember we have not closed down nor are we closing our operation far from it. We are merely streamlining it for the future so we can return in one month with a more enviable service than before with much improved service availability and a choice of different service levels to meet everyones tastes.

Our service was NUMBER ONE before and will be again. If, however, you feel you cannot wait for our new service, then we wish you well and thank you for your membership support. We hope you all enjoyed the number one service at www.08002go.com

Dennis Cawley
Managing Director
www.08002go.com

Typically the initial reaction has been an angry one, although as we said this morning, the service should be offline for 28 days (roughly one month) and then come back into operation.

Just to reiterate what we've previously said, ISP Review will be on a fact-finding mission into 08002Go's offices on Friday. We'd generally consider this openness to be a good sign that the provider will return as stated, we'll post more later in the week.

08002Go Temporarily Suspend Service

By:mark.j @ 10:25:AM - Comments (13) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

For the last few weeks while we've been distracted moving servers, the once popular unmetered dialup service 08002Go has remained seriously unstable.

We've had nearly 30 official E-Mail complaints about them in the last week alone and the forums have been buzzing with rumour after rumour. Thankfully today we can clear some of this up with both good and bad news.

We had previously been withholding information (last couple of days) at 08002Go's request, however some customers have been told what we're about to say by the ISP and as such it should be considered public.

08002Go are to temporarily and formally 'suspend' their unmetered service (cough.. 0800OnlineServe style) for 28 days from Wednesday, tomorrow!

Thankfully the good news is that somebody from ISP Review (mod, not staff) has set-up a meeting and is going to discuss the situation with them directly later in the week. The ISP appears adamant that this doesn't represent a closure, just a temporary suspension; although how users will perceive this remains to be seen.

Typically this latest change in direction almost completely discredits the ISPs earlier excuses for the problems. A full update on their website is expected sometime later today, we’ll keep you informed.

Nationwide Launch Net TV Banking

By:mark.j @ 9:58:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Nationwide has today opted to launch its own interactive TV based Internet Banking service, which it hopes will boost e-commerce.:

The news will boost confidence among businesses hoping to offer Internet services to home users via television. However, the company has decided not to align itself with a specific digital television operator's service because of the low take-up of TV-based Web access among end users.

Instead, customers wishing to access Nationwide Internet banking can buy a set-top box without subscribing to digital television packages. Nationwide has made a deal with Bush Internet so that customers can order an Internet set-top box for under £30. It suggested customers wishing to access television-based Internet banking may not want to subscribe to digital TV packages.

The Nationwide said that it had made a conscious decision not to tie itself to any of the digital TV providers because of their limited Internet content, and the fact that it would have to pay a premium for hosting.

More @ ZDNet.

E-Mail Turns 30 Years Old

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

In today’s modern technological age we often forget that computers are still comparatively new, so it should be little surprise that the Internets popular E-Mail service is about to turn 30. Despite this its inventor confesses that he can remember little about its birth.

In fact, Ray Tomlinson, the American engineer considered the "father of e-mail," can't quite recall when the first message was sent, what it said, or even who the recipient was.

"I have no idea what the first one was, it might have been the first line from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address for all I know. The only thing I know was it was all in upper case."

He modestly calls his baby "no major tour de force." It was just 200 lines of code, he says. And the inspiration, one computer program to enable file transfers and a second crude messaging program, already existed, he said.

But the program had a few flaws. For example, the message program only enabled a user to send a communique to a colleague's mailbox as long as that mailbox was located on the same computer as the sender's.

Tomlinson got around this by creating remote personal mailboxes that could send and receive messages via a computer network. He also conceived the now famous "@" symbol to ensure a message was sent to a designated recipient.

The end product, he said, was simply the combination of the two existing programs, enabling a person to send a message for the first time to a specified computer user on any computer hooked up to the ARPA Net, the predecessor to today's Internet, developed by the U.S. Department of Defence.

Today E-Mail is seen as a fundamental requirement for any Internet connection and the online world just wouldn't be the same without it. There’ll be crackers and party poppers held tonight at somebody’s virtual house.

BTO Users Offered Free xDSL Install

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

Customers to BTOpenworlds troubled unmetered AnyTime dialup service, especially those on the dodgy second number, have all been mailed with a new 'free installation' upgrade to BTOs broadband R/ADSL service.:

Dear Customer,

We've good news for you.

As a BTopenworld Anytime or BTopenworld for BT Surf package customer, you can act now and take this great opportunity to change the way you use the internet and have broadband (ADSL) installed for free – saving £150 on the normal price.

Just think: no more dialling-up because you'll be 'always online'.

Broadband uses your normal BT phone line, so installation's not only free - it's easy. And you'll be able to surf fast and talk at the same time on the same line, with no engaged tone for your callers.

With broadband, internet activities such as email, sending attachments, downloading and surfing will happen up to ten times faster than with a standard modem. This means less time wasted waiting, and more time to do what you want on the internet such as chat, view movies, listen to radio and download MP3 files.

This free broadband installation offer is too good to last long. To find out more fast, please click here Best regards,

BTopenworld team

www.btopenworld.com

Offer Terms & Conditions
* To be eligible for this free installation offer you must have been either a BTopenworld Anytime or a BTopenworld for BT Surf packages customer at midnight on 30th September 2001. You need to place an order for our home 500 product and agree an installation date with us by 31st October 2001 - and the product must be installed by 30th November 2001. Availability is subject to survey. Minimum 12 month period applies from date of activation.

This sort of tactic seems to be increasingly popular with many providers as they try to coax more customers onto an expensive broadband medium. Whether it’ll work remains to be seen.

NTL Broadband Coverage - Update

By:mark.j @ 9:28:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Just a quick update to follow yesterday’s news that NTL had finally extended their broadband cable modem service into the Leeds area.

Apparently the service is also now available in Harrogate and York and DigitalSpy has made mention of a new package.:

A 128kbps entry-level service, not yet available in the areas launched earlier today, has also been launched in parts of the UK - including ex-CWC areas in the North West.

News - October 1,2001

More Email Access Through Your T.V

By:ross @ 9:09:PM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The popular Digital TV Provider Sky Digital today launched a new service, Sky Active, which has taken over the interactive Open.... service.

Along with the changes, email access looks set to grow through the TV as Sky Active now provides access to Talk 21, Demon and Yahoo! emails services.

ISPr welcomes the new change, and its certainly a step in the right direction to get more people to 'interact' with email through their T.V. Let's hope that more ISPs take up this advantageous reach to their customers.

Exclusive: New BT HomeHighway Prices

By:ross @ 5:10:PM - Comments (10) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The BT HomeHighway helpdesk was kind enough to give us the new prices of HomeHighway, which were earlier last month rumoured to be dropping. Changes are from 1st November 2001:

Standard: From £27 to £24 / No Call Allowance
BT Together: From £39.99 to £26 / £2.80 Call Allowance
BT Talk Together: From £39.99 to £29 / No Call Allowance
BT Surf Together: From £39.99 to £30 / 81p Call Allowance
BT Talk and Surf Together: From £44.99 to £34 / No Call Allowance

All charges and call allowance' quoted are monthly and include VAT.
Users on Direct Debit Schemes will benefit from a 49p reduction in their rental.

Its not as big as the rumoured price, but any drop in ISDN prices is welcomed as although an old technology, it could quickly become the UK Standard as opposed to Modem Dial-up. Now, that would be impressive.

As usual, Business ISDN customers come last, and we've heard no news of any changes in price for them.

0800OnlineServe ISP Service Update

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

Following their return two weeks ago from a record-breaking downtime (almost a month), the unmetered dialup ISP 0800OnlineServe has today issued us with an important service update. This also covers this mornings e-mail virus problems.:

Over the last month, our service has gone from existent to non-existent and back again.

We have also had bouts of the notorious Nimda virus(s). To combat the attacks of viruses we have had an evaluated firewall installed, and we have also disabled the SMTP server until further notice, until the 2,300 + emails that have blocked the system have been filtered, and the suspect emails deleted. These eMails, we believe have infected customer computers and then been spread through our mail servers. At last count, it was revealed that over 5,000 of our user mailboxes have been infected. We urge customers not to retrieve their email from mail.thedotcomplete.net until later this evening.

We would like to take this oppurtunity again, to ask all customers of the last month to take this oppurtunity to claim their credit subscirption of a month to the unmetered service .eMail sales@thedogmagroup.co.uk and present your username and password and your full name and postcode and we will despatch your details as soon as possible.

Also, we will be accepting new registrations later today for the 0800.OnlineServe service- on online signup tab will appear on the website ( http://www.0800.onlineserve.co.uk ) which will allow you to signup to the service. 128K access will also be re-enabled tonight.

We have also expanded our portfolio of services by implementing a streaming media service. We now support RealMedia streaming and Windows Media streaming; visit your hosting control panel where you will be presented with the new option.

W3C Controversial Net Patent Taxes

By:mark.j @ 4:00:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has moved to approve fee-bearing patents as official web standards, something that could see us PAYING to use .GIF image files etc. on our websites!

Not since the scandal over who owned the rights to URL links has such a controversial Internet related issued raised its head above the sand.:

The proposal would allow patents, such as the notorious GIF image format, to become web standards, thus giving the patent owners the right to exploit them commercially.

"A patent-encumbered web threatens the very freedom of intellectual debate, allowing only large companies and big media houses to present information in certain ways," observed Linux kernel lead Alan Cox in a mailing mirrored at LinuxToday, which alerted readers this weekend. "Imagine where the web would be now if only large companies were able to use image files"

This policy has enraged free software advocates and web developers, who liken the policy to laying down rules of behaviour for an occupation army, before the war has even started, let alone been lost.

The Register's item is shocking and utterly unbelievable, yet despite this the W3C is attempting to hold firm with its beliefs, which seem seriously deluded and just plain WRONG!

Typically this isn't an official issue for debate just yet, although you can be sure that websites around the world would present a massive protest should it ever even get close to being official.

UK Still Falling Behind With Broadband

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

While high-speed Internet is likely to pickup in the next 12 months, that still doesn't change the fact that we're at the bottom of the table (NetValue), second only to Italy whom have a 2.4% take-up.:

The figure, representing just 210,600 households, gives an indication of the slow pick-up of the high-speed connection service and is a stark contrast to Europe, where broadband pickup rates are much higher.

Sweden and Denmark lead the way, with 13.8% and 13.2% of households connecting via broadband, while 7.8% of German households used high-speed connections. France and Spain had pick-up rates of 6.4% and 6.2% respectively, while Norway lagged way behind its Scandinavian cousins with 5.1% of homes connecting via broadband methods

Norway does lead the way for connections via ISDN lines, with more than half the internet population there connecting via ISDN. Germany takes second place with 39.1% of connections via ISDN. Unsurprisingly, the UK lags well behind once more, with just 1.2% of users on ISDN lines.

Interestingly the netimperative.com item makes no mention of our lead in unmetered dialup access, yet it doesn't change the fact that we're diabolically bad with broadband.

We also found the figures for ISDN access to be quite interesting, hopefully if BT implements the new price cuts then that should improve. Unless of course they have the intelligence to offer half-speed R/ADSL services for around the same price as ISDN, which would be even better.

Labour Split Over R.I.P Act

By:mark.j @ 3:40:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It looks as if some conflicting interview answers given separately by the Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have highlighted a slight rift of opinions over the R.I.P (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) act.:

Straw, Home Secretary in the previous government, claimed key elements of the Act had been watered down as it passed through Parliament because of pressures from civil liberties groups.

He said: "We needed the powers to de-encrypt commercially sensitive emails because we knew terrorists were going to use it... but the pressure was so great we had to back down a bit. I was told it was unnecessary and that it was the beginning of 'big brother' society."

However, in a TV interview Sunday, PM Tony Blair said the country had all the powers it needed to eavesdrop on communications.

The VNUNet item highlights one part as saying the legislation is too soft and the other as stating it to be just right. Hopefully since the PM is the more powerful of the two (is he? hmm we wonder) then R.I.P won't get any worse than it already is and it's pretty bad!

The home office itself has not stated in a formal response that they have “have sufficient powers”, we can only hope.

Leeds NTL Broadband Finally Available

By:mark.j @ 3:18:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

After a week of short delays DigitalSpy is now reporting the NTLs broadband cable modem service has finally gone live for users in the Leeds area!:

The launch has happened one week later than information previously given out by ntl Customer Services had indicated. The date given out subsequently changed to October 1, with technical problems being believed to be the cause behind the minor delay.

TheDogmaGroup Mass Mail Viruses

By:mark.j @ 10:26:AM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

An unidentified number of customers to several of TheDogmaGroup's services, such as the unmetered ISP 0800OnlineServe, have been hit with an E-Mail virus.

Some people have received up to 500 re-mails from the same address of the Virus, which is obviously an E-Mail worm of some description. Thankfully the group have been quick to respond and the following announcement has now been posted on the status page.:

The SMTP server has now been temparily taken off-line, while the Virus that has been circulated by all TheDogmaGroup.com users is removed from the system. The virus has resulted in the slow performance of all network appliances.

DO NOT open any attachments to an E-Mail unless you’re 100% sure you know what they are and even then it’s a wise idea to have a good virus checker installed.

Japan Launch First Public 3G Network

By:mark.j @ 10:14:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

The first 3G/UTMS broadband wireless mobile phone network in the world (public), NTT DoCoMo, has finally launched its services.

While not directly linked to the UK, you can be your bottom pound that everybody will be watching this one and relating it to their own future launches in the UK.:

The wireless industry will be craning its collective necks, but not to see whether customers are taking to videoconferencing or sending e-mails with giant attachments, said IDC's wireless analyst Keith Waryas. Instead, he expects the focus will be solely on the expected technological glitches that will most assuredly occur, he said.

He explains that the Japanese phone market is very unique to the rest of the world. It has the largest subscribers to "data" services, like cruising the Internet on a handset, because there are more cell phones than computers in Japan, Waryas said.

More @ ZDNet.

Online Shopping With A Mobile Phone

By:mark.j @ 10:01:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

Many of you will have already heard of PayBox, which was launched last week. It lets consumers transfer money between other mobile users or buy goods online by entering their mobile phone number instead of credit or debit card numbers.

Interestingly this system is now looking to be expanded into the realm of online shopping, although with security concerns running amok it's hard to know whether it'll work.:

Once the user's number is entered into the Internet retailer's payment system, Paybox calls the user's mobile phone and asks him or her to enter a PIN code. Paybox then authorises the transaction and arranges for the amount to be transferred from the user's bank account to the retailer. The Paybox system can also be used for offline purchases, so a user could pay for a restaurant meal by giving his or her mobile number, rather than a credit card.

Companies can integrate the Paybox system with their existing payment systems in about a day, said Barry Shrier, vice president for sales and marketing at Paybox UK. Shrier said Paybox provides the software, which supports all leading payment service modules. "For companies using bespoke payment systems, Paybox will develop a module," added Shrier.

The ZDNet item points to an interesting service and one that'll probably be adopted, however it's of some concern that mobiles can so easily be hacked and monitored. Ultimately it comes down to one thing, would you rather trust a phone or your credit card?

BT Faces Another Fixed Line Bid

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

Not long ago it was rumoured that the German investment bank, WestLB, was set to make an offer for the whole of BTs fixed line local loop network.

Today this has been reiterated by sources from inside the company stating £25bn as the possible bid amount.:

The offer will be put before BT as soon as the incumbent telco has spun off its wireless arm and is aimed at forcing BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland into serious negotiations, according to a report in the Observer.

The paper quotes unnamed bankers as saying BT chiefs may be willing to begin talks concerning a sale with an advance payment of £7bn up for grabs that the indebted telco may find hard to refuse.

The Silicon item is hot on the heels of an offer for 'part' of BTs fixed line network by Earthlease for £8 - £9bn. Typically Earthlease also plans to try again after BTs wireless separation, although BTs tune of refusal is unlikely to change.

News - September 30,2001

ISP Review Weekly Update

By:mark.j @ 11:09:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]

It's been another busy week as we prepare for the public test of our new and much delayed 'Readers Top ISPs' page/system. We're hoping to see signs of final public code come this Monday and will begin testing it later in the week.

Aside from that we've been busy fixing the odd problem that's managed to crop up here and there following our server move, some will likely remain until various code updates arrive.

Sadly a new problem has emerged, ISP Review is now such a popular site that its bandwidth often exceeds 30GB per month, which is a lot and not something our host will be happy with for too long. This is the reason you might notice fewer news posts or a different layout on the front page and various changes within the forums, as we try to save money.

There are also two other ways we've been exploring to cut usage by up to 75%, that of server-side compression and optimised forum software. The forum software is easy enough and is part of our next planned upgrade, although it's still a week or two away.

On the other hand there's server compression, which would make some ISPr pages so small they'd load on a 9Kbps mobile phone connection =). Sadly the server lacks one key perl module and also needs to install a specific library, which is something we're pushing to be done.

Ultimately we're sorry if normal articles and review/updates have been put aside, sadly this is unavoidable. The most important thing is to make sure that the forums are running and the news keeps flowing. The changes we're making now will likely save bandwidth and speed the site up for even the oldest of modem users.

Expect a lot of changes in the coming weeks, many of them only visible as further speed increases.