January 22, 2002 - January 26, 2002
News - January 26,2002
Need Help - Missing Games Software
By:mark.j @ 3:05:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] This has nothing to do with ISPs and if you’re not interested in PC/Computer games then skip it. A friend of mine is busy developing a PocketPC compatible version of SCUMMVM, which is the system behind some older Lucasart’s adventure game titles such Sam&Max etc.
However while it works with Sam&Max, Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island 1 and 2 (<< all CD versions), we’d like to test it with the talkie (speech included/CD) versions of the following [note: some versions of Indiana may not have speech]:
The Dig
Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis
Full Throttle
Auctions aside (don’t always trust them); we can’t find any of the above still on sale over the Internet in the UK and could do with a little help. So if anybody out there knows of a website where (Indiana especially) they can still be brought then please drop me an E-Mail. Game donations welcomed ;=). |
NTL Updates STB Hostnames
By:mark.j @ 9:45:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] DigitalSpy is reporting that NTL plan to change the hostnames used for some customers on their older STB broadband cable modem service:
This coming Tuesday, 29th January, we will be changing the format of some hostnames used for customers on the STB broadband service. Old-style temporary hostnames of the form 'hostxx-xx-xx-xx.no-dns-yet.ntli.net' will change to the standard ntl customer hostname. For instance, for the IP address 213.106.183.253, the current hostname is:
host213-106-183-253.no-dns-yet.ntli.net.
This will change to:
public1-asht1-3-cust253.manc.broadband.ntl.com |
News - January 25,2002
V21 Agree Deal - ItsGoodToGive
By:mark.j @ 3:45:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Only days after suffering from the confused situation surrounding Cloud-Nine's closure, V21 has today agreed a deal with the second ISP to close this week, ItsGoodToGive:
V21 today has agreed terms with the former ISP 'It's Good To Give' to continue the supply of unmetered internet access to their customer base.
The deal has taken immediate effect and any former customers wishing to take up the offer are able to sign up for a months FREE trial access by calling V21 on 0870 708685.
It's not clear whether the price will remain the same or if any kind of charitable donation will be continued, however both seem unlikely given the reason for the ISPs closure in the first place. |
BTIgnite Ditch SLA's
By:mark.j @ 2:57:PM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BTIgnite has today taken the step of ditching 'Service Level Agreements' (SLA) for their content hosting customers such as BrightView (IC24, Madasafish etc.):
One customer trialling the new scheme is internet service provider Brightview which owns a number of providers including IC24 and Madasafish. Chief executive David Laurie said that his business is "highly complex" and that his company's needs went "beyond the standard SLA".
Sadly there's not yet enough information to fully understand how far BTs new system will go, although clearly it'll have at least one happy customer. More @ VNUNet. |
Fibernet Sees Value Diminish
By:mark.j @ 2:51:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Fibernet has become the latest telecoms group to see its market value wiped after announcing that group operating performance for the year will be down due to a “considerable lengthening” of the UK sales cycle:
The company said half-year revenues “may be below those achieved in the same period last year” and full-year revenues will grow, but at a rate “significantly below market expectations”.
The company had four DSL exchanges live in the UK by the end of November and said 30 will be up-and-running by the end of the half-year. It has plans for to deploy 221 DSL services in “prime business locations across the UK”.
Shares have plummeted more than 38% to 225p, capitalising Fibernet at £138m.
Ironically all this seems to have occurred during a short period where the overall telecoms sector appeared to be stabilising, albeit only very slightly. More @ netimperative.com. |
Pipex Launch Affordable Wires-Only DSL
By:mark.j @ 12:39:PM - Comments (20) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] PIPEX has today become the latest ISP to introduce a highly competitive Wires-Only (Self-Install) R/ADSL broadband product for residential users.
Not usually known for affordability, this latest offering defies that image by being very competitively priced. The following press release also contains information about their new 'Broadband Development Fund' donation:
PIPEX Gets Xtreme and Pledges £2 Million to a Broadband Development Fund
25 January 2002 - British-owned Internet pioneers, PIPEX, has just announced an initial £2 million Broadband Development Fund aimed at catalysing Broadband Britain.
PIPEX is about to do the same for broadband ADSL as it did for dial-up during the early nineties, by making broadband financially and technologically accessible. The initial £2 million Broadband Development Fund will be invested to cover the set-up cost (seen by many consumers as a barrier to widespread adoption of broadband) for some 40,000 new broadband users.
And the news gets better. Once connected, the customer pays a "ground-breaking" price of just £29.95 ex VAT per month for their PIPEX Xtreme Solo 512Kbps, permanently on, ADSL package.
PIPEX, the business-focused ISP, is now opening its exclusive doors to home users. Even though PIPEX Xtreme Solo is low cost, there is no compromising the PIPEX experience. The PIPEX philosophy has always been to think beyond the connection, and that is why the award-winning PIPEX Xtreme services include, as standard, all the benefits that you would normally expect to pay extra for.
For example, access to the largest, fastest, most reliable network in the world and to protect the customer, free anti-virus software with updates and much more (see Notes).
Andrew Pinder, the Government's e-Envoy, said "Creating Broadband Britain is a major priority. We recently announced a comprehensive package of measures as part of the Government's commitment to broadband, helping to intensify competition and drive demand through tax breaks and collation of public sector requirements. Initiatives such as the one from PIPEX will continue to bring broadband benefits to more businesses and consumers."
Speaking on behalf of BT Wholesale, Bruce Stanford, Director of Broadband, said "This is a very welcome initiative from PIPEX. The fact that they are devoting £2 million to encourage people to sign up demonstrates their commitment to Broadband Britain and should be applauded".
David Rickards, Managing Director of PIPEX commented "The Broadband Development Fund is our latest investment in Broadband Britain and by making it available to the home professional, we are effectively completing the loop. We want to make sure that when UK plc starts sending out its messages via broadband, the general public can hear them."
He concluded "The Internet has come of age. It is now time to help unleash its full potential but not just to a select few. This initial £2 million investment is in addition to other initiatives we are working on and contributes to our continuing efforts to ensure that broadband is available to all."
PIPEX's deal easily puts them in a top group of three or four providers able to offer some sort of affordable residential wires-only R/ADSL service. You can get more information here: http://www.xtreme.pipex.net |
Quick Cloud-Nine Forum Notice
By:mark.j @ 11:26:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] We've been asked by the recently closed unmetered ISP Cloud-Nine to make a small announcement on their behalf.
Essentially they've said not to expect anymore postings from them in the Cloud-Nine forum because there's now a criminal investigation involved and this could mean some things may need to be investigated in-line with the attack/hacks on the service.
As of yet we've not been asked to close the forum from public view, which would normally occur (thank C9), however this may change because of the seriousness of what has happened to the ISP. Typically we're somewhat trapped in the middle, so please keep your postings clean. |
BT Shrugs Off Broadband Competition
By:mark.j @ 9:52:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BT has today stood firm in the face of potential competition from a new group planning to lay broadband fibre optic connections using existing sewer tunnels under London city (see yesterday’s news):
Providing a wholesale service which - it says - will appeal to telcos, telehotels, and service providers, Urband claims it will provide a "true alternative to BT for 'last mile' connectivity".
However, BT gave a lukewarm response to the idea of running fibre optic cable in the sewers.
"We always welcome competition," said a spokesman. "But London already has broadband coming out of its ears and they are entering an already competitive market," he sniffed.
The Register's item shows BT as having a good point because out of all the places to install broadband in the UK, London is one of the most covered while areas outside have far less. |
Ireland Gain Broadband Wireless ISP
By:mark.j @ 9:44:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Our Irish readership may be interested to read that the first part of a broadband wireless Internet service may soon be settling in Dublin.
The new service was announced by European Access Providers (EAP) yesterday and will be targeted at small and medium businesses. It's planned to offer R/ADSL comparable speeds up to 512kbps in the initial roll out, with a potential to increase access speeds by up to 1mbps come early 2002:
Currently EAP is in the process of closing its first round of funding worth "a couple of million euros" according to one of the firm's directors and a former Formus executive, Charlie Ardagh. He said the company expected to close the round of funding in the next few weeks, and would begin trials of the service next month. The full EAP broadband solution is expected be launched by the end of March, Ardagh (LSE: ARG.L - news) told ElectricNews.Net.
Pricing and product names for the service have not yet been released, but the company says it will target dial-up and ISDN users and pricing will be "competitive" with Eircom's expected ADSL price of EUR99. Eircom's wired ADSL service, I-stream, is currently not available due to a row between the telecom and the ODTR over wholesale prices.
The problems with broadband in Ireland should serve as a good reminder that the UK isn't the only country having such woe with new technology. You can read more @ ElectricNews or visit the EAP website HERE. |
THUS Telecom Narrows Loss
By:mark.j @ 9:34:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] While some telecom and networking groups, such as Energis, remain troubled, others like THUS (Demon Internet) have managed to narrow their losses. THUS puts 'part' of its success down to an increase in Internet traffic on its network:
Operating losses, at £10.8 million, were down 22% year-on-year and by 33% compared with the previous quarter.The company achieved growth in tough market conditions, and says a refinancing package will enable it to fund its business plan.
Third quarter turnover from ongoing operations rose by 30% to £74.5 million, while core earnings before one-off costs amounted to £6.6 million. Gross profit for the quarter ended December 31 increased by 32% year-on-year to £19 million.
Net debt at the end of last year was £256 million, compared with £242 million three months earlier.
More @ Ananova. |
Energis Considers Sell-Off
By:mark.j @ 9:28:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Following Energis's latest profit warning, their third in six months, the telecoms and networking group is now seriously considering and sell-off. The groups value is now estimated at £400Million, half of what it use to be and far less than its original peak of £12Billion!:
As a result, management is considering a rights issue, the closure of some overseas operations, or even the complete sale of the business. There are also fears that Energis will beach its banking covenants.
The company said that earnings for the year to the end of March will be 10 per cent below market expectations of around £155m. Revenue will be five per cent below expectations because of weak December performances from its German and UK operations.
Customers switching from metered to unmetered net access packages also hit the company hard.
Being ISP Review it's worth noting that last sentence regarding unmetered access, this is something many others in the industry have had to cope with and the switch remains relatively recent. Energis supply several UK ISPs. More @ Silicon. |
NTL Broadband Rollout - Update
By:mark.j @ 9:16:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] DigitalSpy has some new information regarding NTLs broadband cable modem rollout status and 128kbps service availability:
Solent franchise will launch 25 Jan at 1300 for both the 512k and 128k services. In addition, the following sites will also have 128 available at the same time:
Surrey, S Herts & Watford, Aylesbury & Chiltern and Peterborough
These launches come after some Herculean efforts by the irrepressible Build team, with notable support from some members of operations. Enjoy!
The STB Broadband Team.
It's good to see that while NTL may be in serious financial trouble, the wheels of broadband coverage and rollout keep on turning. Perhaps there's a lesson for BT here? |
News - January 24,2002
Cloud-Nine Respond To V21
By:mark.j @ 3:31:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Following the potential threat of legal action from V21 over Cloud-Nine's apparent change of deal to working with Zetnet, C9 has now issued a response:
We have to issue a statement to discount some of the quite frankly ridiculous rhetoric coming out of V21.
The facts are simple and we have to state them:
1) We met with V21 on Tuesday 22/1/02 and they made an offer that was acceptable to ourselves.
2) We were happy to go along with that offer and said in our statement that
"Legal paperwork is expected to be completed and domains and services transferred within the next 24 hours."
3) We then didn't hear from V21 for the whole of the following morning. Whilst our services were up at this time there was no way that we could continue to deal with the volume of enquiries and keep a service running. Quite frankly we thought that V21 had blown hot and cold on the deal and were trying to extract maximum advantage for themselves whilst they kept us dangling.
4) Other bidders approached us throughout the morning and of all of these Zetnet were the most serious and they convinced us that they had the credentials for the enormous task and they were prepared to travel down and sign legal paperwork. Within 10 hours of establishing contact we had signed papers with Zetnet and they had swung their whole operation into action PRIOR to that signing!!! A very strong indication of their commitment.
In all reality we must also state that we did not really have full confidence in V21's ability to service a business customer base like hours. They do tend to operate at the low end of the marketplace unlike ourselves and as far as we are aware from discussions they don't even have their own IPSTAG at Nominet but use that of a third party ISP. This would have created an enormous workload for Nominet and caused potential backlogs in any transfer processes. On the basis of this the Zetnet offering is a better deal for our business customers.
It’s not a case of gazzumping – it’s a case that V21 had the deal but they blew it by not being able to respond to the needs of the situation quickly enough. There was never any legal paperwork signed and without that there was no deal!
It’s finally starting to look as if the BIG questions are beginning to be answered, although this isn’t likely to help many of C9’s customers who remain somewhat dazed by the whole experience. |
CharityDays Launch Wires-Only R/ADSL
By:mark.j @ 3:21:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The latest ISP to introduce some form of wires-only (self-install) broadband R/ADSL service is CharityDays. The following press release should explain everything, there's even a comment about the closure of 'ItsGoodToGive':
CharityDays rolls out self install ADSL to lower cost of broadband to its users
CharityDays.net, the charity ISP that donates 60% of its revenue to UK charities, has now launched self-install ADSL to its existing and potential user base.
CharityDays, which after the unfortunate recent disappearance of Its Good To Give, now has its sights set on dominating the ‘charity ISP’ sector. CharityDays now has a product portfolio of over 30 products, including 0845, FRIACO and ADSL. With the launch of self install ADSL; CharityDays hopes that more users will be able to make the leap to broadband.
The self install pricing structure has yet to be announced on the site but Phil price, Operations Director commented, “The roll out of self install ADSL will give CharityDays users access to cheaper broadband products, at home or work, and still be able to make the leap knowing full well they are still donating substantial monthly sums to UK charities. The confirmed price of home self-install is £35 plus Vat, of which £3 of that will go to charity every month. Our self Install ADSL products will also be available to our business users on 500k, 1 meg and 2 meg products giving a considerable saving on the previously defined structure.”
Commenting on the demise of ‘Its Good To Give’, Phil added, “I take my hat off to anyone who tries to do what ‘Its Good To Give’ and ourselves are trying to do. We are trying to allow consumers to donate money to their favoured charities without incurring extra cost to them and giving them something in return for their donation. I do not wish to speculate as to the ins and outs of their demise but do know that CharityDays will be offering our full support to both the company and its users. It is a shame when any project of this nature does not succeed and they have my utmost sympathy. I can however assure our existing and potential users that our own business is on a vertical path to success. Through the support of our investors and technology providers we have the revenue streams in place to be able to make profit easily, yet still donating the majority of our turnover to charity. In fact as a business we met our breakeven figure at the end of month two.”
Note that the £35 per month residential price excludes VAT, including VAT (17.5%) works out as similar to some other providers, if not slightly more expensive than some we’ve seen. Having said that £3 does go to charity, which is quite a considerable amount for a broadband package to give away. |
BoyanNet Update On ItsGoodToGive
By:mark.j @ 3:10:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The group behind at least PART (supply) of the service run by the recently closed unmetered ISP ItsGoodToGive, BoyanNET Internet Solutions, has today kindly issued us with a small statement:
BoyanNet have suspended this service due to non receipt of any payment from 'itsgoodtogive' for the last 6 months. It is only due to 'itsgoodtogive' charity status that our goodwill has kept the service on line this long.
Although we have disconnected 'itsgoodtogives' server, the internet access should still be available with the original passwords. If you are looking for alternative local rate dial-up access from a stable & established Internet Service Provider please consider the following link http://www.boyannet.co.uk/web/dial.html
We have no information about whether 'itsgoodtogive' plan to honour any commitments they have taken prepayment for. We sympathise with your problems and apologise that we cannot help you further.
Unfortunately the dialup has also been reported offline, so sadly that's not much help. On the other hand it's nice to have all the facts, or so we'd hope. |
NTT Predicts 10Gbps Wireless
By:mark.j @ 3:05:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One of Japan's better known and more incumbent Telco's, NTT Corp, has today predicted that 10Gbps (Gibabits) wireless networking and Internet access could be just around the corner.
The group recently achieved a peak data transfer rate of 2.5Gbps in laboratory trials and believe this can be pushed even further:
Given that wireless equipment manufacturers are struggling to build equipment that can realize 2.5Mbps, and fixed-wire equipment makers are struggling to sell switches that already support 10Gbps of sustained capacity, pushing wireless to these dizzy heights might seem a little superfluous.
However, even if there is no immediate need for gigabit wireless links, NTT's researchers are at least exploring technology that uses spectrum that has so far not been utilized by anything else. In a world where radio spectrum is becoming increasingly congested, that alone might be a reason why NTT's efforts could well pay dividends in future.
So sadly we probably won't be surfing @ 10Gbps anytime soon, that's not to say we can't dream out it; better to just go out and have a beer! More @ the Register. |
Jupiter MMXI's Combined Statistics
By:mark.j @ 2:59:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The Internet analysis group, Jupiter MMXI, has unveiled its first research tracing how the UK makes use of the Internet from home and work - COMBINED:
Portals, ISPs and news websites all enjoy substantial growth when the figures for at home and at work use are factored together, with portal and ISP sites showing an increase of more than 22 minutes per month more on average.
When the at work and at home statistics are brought together, Google overtakes Ask Jeeves as the top ranked search engine, with the latter the most popular search service for home internet users.
The BBC’s website increases its lead in the sector from 17.8% for home use only to 24% in the combined figures, showing its dominance in the UK news market, while most other news services see substantial growth. Guardian.co.uk, CNN.com, Ananova.com, The-Times.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk see the biggest growth in unique visitors.
There's nothing much to really shout about in the netimperative.com item, but if you're interested then give it a read. |
V21 Seek Legal Advice Over C9 Deal
By:mark.j @ 10:10:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] V21 had originally been the ISP intended to take on many of Cloud-Nine's ex-customers, yet when they failed to do as intended (according to C9) this was then dropped and the closed ISP moved on to discussions with Zetnet (see item below).
Today Kevin Baigent, a member V21's staff, sent us the following press release highlighting the potential for legal action against Cloud-Nine:
As of 5pm today it has come our attention that the previously accepted deal with Cloud Nine has been withdrawn without prior notification to ourselves, V Two One is now seeking legal advice as to its next course of action. We would like to apologies to Cloud Nines customers for the way in which they are being pushed from pillar to post in Cloud Nines attempts to prolong what seems to be the inevitable.
V Two One would like to offer any Ex Cloud Nine users 6 months free website hosting along with a V Two One dial up account ( usually £ 9.99 ) for the first 3 months at £ 7.99 per month. For users wishing to take up this offer email your details to sales@v21.co.uk or call customer services on 0870 4429600
We doubt any such action would do much good because Cloud-Nine no longer has anything to offer, although it'd certainly be interesting to know exactly what happened between the two (both stories). The saga continues.. |
Cloud-Nine ISP Confirms Zetnet Deal
By:mark.j @ 10:01:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The following FULL statement to clarify Cloud-Nine's position with Zetnet was posted very early this morning (midnight) and should explain a few things. Please note that due to its size you can read the FULL statement in our forums HERE.
Below is the list of four keys points outlined in the above release:
The directors of Cloud Nine signed a deal with the directors of Zetnet whereby Zetnet will purchase the assets and operating leases of Cloud Nine.
The basics of the deal are as follows:
1) Zetnet will acquire the Cloud Nine contracts with customers and will become responsible for continuing services against those contracts. They have allocated significant resources to the task of contacting customers and ensuring that the requirements of those customers will be met - whatever they may be. An announcement will be posted tomorrow morning to http://www.zetnet.com. The email address for contacts is cloudnine@zetnet.com.
2) The Cloud Nine IPS TAG held at Nominet will be acquired by Zetnet and they will become responsible for renewal of those domains and any associated services as well as for expediting transfers of such domain names.
3) Cloud Nine will endevour to keep our services functioning to the best of our ability and will transfer the details of these to Zetnet so that they can set up the corresponding services on their servers.
4) Zetnet will make their own statement about annual contracts but our indications are that a very favourable offer will be made.
So it's now confirmed that Zetnet will officially be the ISP in charge of Cloud-Nine's customer base. No mention of whether C9 themselves would return, although the final sentence could help: "So as they say....it's goodbye for now..." (note: for now). |
More On ItsGoodToGive ISP Closure
By:mark.j @ 9:52:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Andrew Craig, a news editor from Web User, was kind enough to inform us of a new item they have outlining yet more details on the closure of the unmetered charity ISP ItsGoodToGive:
John Ager, chairman of Itsgoodtogive told Web User: "We're in the process of closing it down, but the website was closed down before we could send emails to customers."
"The economics didn't work out and very sadly we're having to withdraw."
The service was intermittent on Monday, then the website vanished completely yesterday. Calls to the company and its support line went unanswered, leaving customers furious.
Many may remember how we questioned the economics after the ISP first switched to BTIgnite as its supplier; they still didn't charge enough and have the capacity to give anything to charity at the same time.
However the ISP claims that ex-customers should check their credit cards as renewal fees haven't been taken for a while.
Unfortunately those who paid annually will need to ask their credit card companies for a refund and that customers can expect a full explanation via E-Mail in the near future. |
More Sewer Based Broadband
By:mark.j @ 9:43:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Today a second provider, Urband, has joined the growing number of network operators offering direct Lan-to-Lan broadband access by running fibre optic cable threw London sewers (yuk):
Startup provider Urband will offer direct Lan-to-Lan connections between buildings in the capital and the national fibre backbone of its sister company 186K, which is also a Lattice subsidiary. The venture will target telcos and ISPs, giving network managers easier access to fibre and ultimately more choice of suppliers.
Another potential benefit for corporates is that Urband will share a monitoring facility and point of presence with 186K, which has built a national fibre backbone using the gas mains network.
He went on to say that using the sewage network to deliver connections would give faster connections with less fuss than open digs. "The sewers are ideal, there's one in every street," he said. Duct cable will be screwed to the walls of large-bore sewers, many of which run right up to the edge of buildings in London's business districts.
It's a good idea, we just wouldn't like to be the ones having to install it (yes we know, it's probably done by robots!) =). More @ VNUNet. |
News - January 23,2002
Compaq ISP Customers Move To BTO
By:mark.j @ 3:11:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BTOpenworld has today formed a new partnership with Compaq's Compaqnet ISP service and existing customers from there will now move onto BTOs service. Press release follows:
COMPAQ MOVES COMPAQNET ISP CUSTOMERS TO BTOPENWORLD
BTopenworld today announced details of a strategic alliance with Compaq, the global IT solutions provider. As part of the deal Compaq has migrated 18,000 of its CompaqNET ISP customers to BTopenworld, providing them with access to its full range of pay-as-you-go narrowband, broadband and subscription Internet services.
The migration from CompaqNET reflects the company's decision to move away from being an ISP, allowing it to concentrate on its core business of providing leading enterprise technology and solutions.
The dual branded Compaq and BTopenworld website offers Compaq customers all the functionality, content and payment options of BTopenworld, combined with access to information about Compaq's products and details of its latest promotions.
With the move to BTopenworld, Compaq's pay-as-you-go customers will see the range of Internet access services available to them extended to include:
* BTopenworld Anytime, offering unmetered access to the Internet available from £14.99 (including VAT) with no additional Internet call charges.
* BTopenworld home500, designed to work with a single computer with download speeds of 500bps, for £39.99 a month and a one off installation fee of £150.
Chris Jones, Head of Channel Distribution at BTopenworld, commented: "This deal builds on our existing relationship with Compaq and reflects current consolidation of the ISP market. Compaq customers now have the benefit of enhanced Internet services whilst still receiving information and updates from Compaq."
There’s certainly a lot of movement in the ISP market over the past few days as the above and below shows. BTOpenworld has also launched their online music service:
BTopenworld today announces the full consumer launch of its new online music subscription service BTopenworld Classical. The service can be found at (http://www.btopenworld.com/classical) and will be available to customers from Wednesday January 23, 2002. |
Zetnet To Acquire Cloud-Nine Customers?
By:mark.j @ 3:01:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] We can't help but feel that somebody somewhere is on a mission to confuse Ex-Cloud-Nine customers more than they are already. Today Zetnet's Sales & Marketing Director has just sent us the following message, which does little good and simply adds to existing confusion:
Just to inform you that we, Zetnet Services Ltd, are close to an agreement with Cloud-Nine to aquire their customer base.
Further details should be available shortly on the Cloud-Nine website (not currently live as I write this).
We've heard from an unconfirmed source that V21 hasn't continued with the previous agreement; however this is all contradicted by C9's hope of re-launching in the very near future.
So what's going on you ask? We simply don't know, so many ISPs seem to want to help (cough.. get more customers) and yet now nobody can be completely sure who's getting what and when. This is fast becoming farcical; hopefully something concrete will soon arrive. |
ItsGoodToGive Suspend ISP Service?
By:mark.j @ 2:53:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Lightning seems to be striking more than once because somebody appearing to come from WonkyPig’s ISP staff has informed us that the charity unmetered provider ItsGoodToGive has suspended its service. The webpage reads:
N O T I F I C A T I O N - O F - S U S P E N S I O N - O F - S E R V I C E
This account has been suspended due to none payment of hosting fees.
BoyanNET Internet Solutions info@boyannet.co.uk
Atlantic House, 3rd Floor
351 Oxford Street, London W1C 2JF
UK Local Tel 0845 050 0951, Fax 0845 050 0952
International Tel +44 207 629 3627, Fax +44 207 495 7424
We're not sure quite how this will affect the dialup of the ISP itself since it only appears to refer to the hosting, kind of nasty considering it's a charity provider. Then again, nothing is always quite what it seems.
If anybody using the provider knows more then we’d like to hear from you, thanks. |
Cloud-Nine ISP Could Return?
By:mark.j @ 10:17:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One of our moderators seems to have found out the following interesting information while chatting with a Cloud-Nine rep through our live chat channel.
Apparently the company didn't go bust, as some still believe, and WILL be re-launching in the future (no ETA). Supposedly all bills to BTIgnite have now been paid and they're waiting for the lines to be turned back on, although mail servers will need to be completely re-built.
In the same chat C9 stated that they wouldn't release existing domains for free, a £45 charge would be levied which would be used to keep the company afloat. Typically we suggest this be taken with a pinch of salt until there's something more official to go on. |
Firenet Help Ex-Cloud-Nine Customers
By:mark.j @ 10:09:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The latest ISP to help out Ex-Cloud-Nine (in fact they were technically one of the first - forums) ISP customers is Firenet. In a brief E-Mail message to us they had the following to say and offer:
Firenet are officially offering all x-cloud nine customers domain services for a 4 week FREE of CHARGE period untill either they find another Hosting company or ISP to their suiting, or stay with Firenet themselves.
Firenet are offering this service for all the business users and personal users of domain services from cloud nine.
We have been informed from Nominet that .co.uk domains are to be stopped untill 5 days from now and that we are to give all Owners a template that will remove themselves from both cloud-nine and cloud-nines choice of ISP transfer.
For users wishing to use this service must do so soon as we cannot be able to guarentee ease of tranfer after cloud nine has accepted an offer.
This is called santury only use the service a 30 days for nothing untill you sort things out with either Firenet or an ISP of your choice. Here is the following link http://www.firenet.uk.com and our IPS
Tag with Nominet is: FIRENETINTERNET
dns servers are
dns1.angelfire.ws
dns2.angelfire.ws
This latest offer from an ISP follows similar help from PlusNET, although V21 is now the official transfer ISP for C9. Rumours are also circulating regarding C9's closure, some say the group was bankrupt and hence the lack of money to fix the service. |
Pope Touts Internet Regulation
By:mark.j @ 9:59:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Pope John Paul has stepped into an unusual area today by stating the obvious need for Internet regulation; unfortunately he wasn't talking about the kind of regulation to stop ISP customers being lied to and ripped off (Where’s OFCOM when you need them?).
The 81-year old Pontiff, who last year sent his first message over the Internet, praised it as a "wonderful instrument" that should be used to spread the word of God and encourage global peace.
However, he warned that while it offered access to immense knowledge, the Internet did not necessarily provide wisdom and could easily be perverted to demean human dignity.
"Despite its enormous potential for good, some of the degrading and damaging ways the Internet can be used are already obvious to all," the Pope said in a message prepared for World Communications Day.
"Public authorities surely have a responsibility to guarantee that this marvellous instrument serves the common good and does not become a source of harm," he added.
Although the Pope does not have an e-mail address, the Vatican has an active Web site (http://www.vatican.va) and the Church is reportedly searching for a patron saint of Internet users.
Wise words, so long as he's talking about matters of illegality and not Australian like censorship. |
Wanadoo Views Broadband For 2002
By:mark.j @ 9:52:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Wanadoo, the French group that now owns Freeserve (ISP), has today stated its confidence in the growth of broadband for the coming year, even if it is mostly based on their own country - France:
Commenting on the publication of Wanadoo's results, chairman and CEO Nicolas Dufourcq said the company would "promote (the) widespread take-up of broadband services" during 2002.
But will this promotional activity extend to Freeserve, the UK's biggest ISP, and a Wanadoo-owned company? A Freeserve spokeswoman told us: "Freeserve has always said that it will get behind broadband with a full marketing campaign when a wholesale price is low enough to support it." Reading between the lines, this bland statement tells us that Freeserve thinks the price is still too high.
The Register merely re-states what Freeserve had already stated during the official launch of BTs new Wires-Only R/ADSL offer. However it's a pity they can't do more to promote broadband since that'd increase the coverage and allow for further price decreases. |
AOL Sues Microsoft (Netscape vs IE)
By:mark.j @ 9:46:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Like it or not Netscape, now owned by AOL TimeWarner, isn't the top quality web browser it once use to be. However that hasn't stopped AOL suing Microsoft for damage done to its Internet browser by violations of anti-trust law found in a separate government case.
The 20-page lawsuit said the once-dominant Netscape, bought by AOL in 1999, suffered from Microsoft's unfair promotion of its Internet Explorer browser, which now tops the market.
A U.S. appeals court in June upheld findings in the U.S. Justice Department's case against Microsoft that the company illegally used its monopoly in personal computer operating systems to maintain its dominance.
"Netscape's lawsuit is a logical extension of the findings entered by the District Court and unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals that Microsoft thwarted competition, violated the antitrust laws and illegally preserved its monopoly at Netscape's expense," AOL General Counsel Randall J. Boe said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Justice Department and nine states joining the government case have reached a proposed settlement. Nine other states are seeking stiffer penalties against the software giant.
Many may remember that the outbreak of hostilities between MS and Netscape (before AOL owned them) is what started much of the existing legal problems for the software giant. |
Alcatel PCI DSL Modem Gets XP Drivers
By:mark.j @ 9:33:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Much as the subject for this news item states, ADSLGuide is reporting that users of Alcatel's PCI R/ADSL Modem can now download new WindowsXP compatible drivers HERE.
The same item also reports that Alcatels Speedtouch 510 and 570 modems can now be purchased for £175 and £355 respectively HERE. There’s nothing like a good bit of competition to push prices down. |
NTL Customers NOT Going To Telewest
By:mark.j @ 9:21:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It's the first we've heard of it, although apparently there's been a lot of hysteria regarding NTLs broadband and unmetered dialup ISP customers being pushed onto Telewest's blueyonder service.
Today DigitalSpy has confirmed from both sides that this simply IS NOT TRUE:
Following a conversation with Telewest tonight, Digital Spy can reveal that Blueyonder are not, repeat - not, taking ntl's customers. And furthermore, a representative from the ntl Broadband Operations team has posted in ntl.support.broadband.stb:
"Ahem. I'd subscribe to the 'cockup' theory here, rather than hypothesising about takeovers."
Of course if NTL were to be forced completely out of businesses then it's always possible something such as the above could happen, but there's certainly no plans for it yet, public ones anyway =). |
News - January 22,2002
Cloud-Nine Customers Move To V21
By:mark.j @ 4:16:PM - Comments (39) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It looks as if Cloud-Nine will allow the unmetered dialup ISP V21 to acquire its assets according to their latest post. Note that the following was copied from an IRC session with the Cloud-Nine due to the forums being offline:
V21 has agreed to acquire the assets of Cloud Nine as of 4pm today.
Legal paperwork is expected to be completed and domains and services transferred within the next 24 hours.
We had interest from a number of ISPs but only two real bids. Many ISPS such as Claranet, Plusnet wanted a freelunch (why not, we've had some in the past).
We were surprised Plusnet did not bid, but that reflects the financial position of today’s business ISPS. If Cloud Nine could have afforded a stronger security team we would not have had to make this sale.
V21 will contact Cloud Nine customers in the next 24 hours and we will be providing full co-operation with Steve Kaye and his team to make the transition smooth.
No doubt we'll have more on this tomorrow, but not before the site settles down =). On the other hand V21 has only just started to come out of a short and troubled period of its own, no doubt existing customers will be hoping this won’t topple things a second time! |
ISP Review Server Problems
By:mark.j @ 3:54:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Just to let you know that we disabled several systems for a few minutes to post some news items because being linked by lots of major news sites across the Internet has forced the server over its page-access-per-second (not bandwidth) limit.
We’ve never had so many unique visitors online (official stat check) for any single second in time =) accessing tens of thousands of pages and automated systems such as the forums. Thus the server enforced limit has kicked in and the slowdown in the pages is our stat system trying to log all the data, which is something it can’t do.
Things should be back to normal soon, we may remove the stat monitor from some of the sites pages later if this continues to keep up. We’re seeing the same amount of accesses in 1 second as we’d normally see in 3 hours.
***Update***
It seems we were SlashDotted at 9:25am. Hopefully it should die down now and we can re open the forums soon. Click here to see the slashdot article. |
PlusNET Assist Cloud-Nine Customers
By:mark.j @ 3:42:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] PlusNet is arguably one of the closer ISPs to Cloud-Nine based on the economic structure of it’s packages, thus today’s announcement may be of some help to Could-Nine, which closed early this morning following a serious hack attack:
PlusNet has announced that they would like to do everything they can to help get the customers of beleaguered ISP Cloud-Nine, back on-line immediately. Cloud-Nine announced earlier today that “…the decision was taken to shut down our Internet connections with immediate effect”, following what was described as “…extremely widespread …denial of service attacks against all our key servers.”
“Denial of Service attacks are an unpleasant experience for any ISP to undergo. As soon as we heard about the effect this must be having on Cloud-Nine’s customers, we had to act.” Said Alistair Wyse, Product & Service Director for PlusNet.
“We’re offering all Cloud-Nine customers the opportunity to sign-up with PlusNet immediately,” Wyse continued, “There is a 7 day cooling-off period too, so there’s no unnecessary pressure in these already turbulent times.”
Any Cloud-Nine customers who would like to get back on-line immediately can visit the PlusNet Portal website, http://portal.plus.net/signup.html for account signup (including access via 0845 dialup). More details about PlusNet’s product range can be found here: http://portal.plus.net/info2/index.html
Plus.Net – The Smarter Way to Internet - http://www.plus.net
Other ISPs have also been seen to offer their support for the ISP, although unless Cloud-Nine announce a special deal with any one provider then it’s merely vultures circling a corpse. |
Telewest Cash Problems Mount
By:mark.j @ 3:40:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] NTL isn’t the only operator to be feeling the heat of financial problems and debt, its smaller competition from Telewest is also suffering from £5Billion of the same and has so far been unwilling to announce a restructuring decision.
Apparently Telewest are waiting to see what happens with NTL before making any firm pledges toward dealing with their own problems. This isn’t a surprise since in many ways the companies share a common market. |
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