January 10, 2002 - January 17, 2002
News - January 17,2002
UK Government To Back Broadband
By:mark.j @ 9:45:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] To date the UK government has shrugged off any suggestions for providing direct financial aid to the rollout of broadband services in the UK, but last year they did agree to another method:
The government has started formally looking at how it might start aggregating public sector demand in market towns into one single contract large enough to justify a private company investing in broadband infrastructure.
Once the company has invested in infrastructure to meet the government contract, they can then sell spare capacity to businesses and consumers in the area, who wouldn't be a big enough market on their own.
The government adopted this as official policy at the end of last year, and it's now starting to put it into practice. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC), the office of the treasury that deals with public procurement, is to prepare a report into how it might be done.
The Silicon item might not announce any direct funding to upgrade exchanges, although by educating businesses there's always the potential to see an improvement to coverage as money is fronted for upgrades. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. |
News - January 16,2002
Vodafone & Ericsson - 3G MMS Deal
By:mark.j @ 3:05:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The mobile phone operator Vodafone and telecoms equipment maker Ericsson have signed a deal that should see Multimedia Messaging (MMS) on future 3G phones throughout Europe by the end of this year:
Ericsson would not disclose the value of the contract, under which the companies expect to roll out MMS -- seen by the industry as a money-spinner -- in Europe in the middle of this year, but Vodafone said Ericsson had the best offer.
Multimedia messaging (MMS) is the successor to text messages and will enable users to send colour pictures, animations, audio and video clips along with text once they have third-generation (3G) mobile handsets, which producers will offer late this year.
We're looking forward to seeing exactly how much all this new 3G technology is going to cost the end user come mid/late-2002. More @ ZDNet. |
BT Warned To Play Fair - Advertising
By:mark.j @ 3:01:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The UK telecoms regulator Oftel, which just approved BTs multimillion-pound advertising deal with ISPs, has also cautioned the operator to watch its step.
Apparently the regulator doesn't want to see BTOpenworld getting preferential treatment:
A spokeswoman for the regulator told ZDNet UK that Oftel had been aware of BT Wholesale's plan for some time, and warned that the company mustn't act unfairly by giving too much support to its own retail operations.
"BT is welcome to do this as long as it doesn't favour its own service -- BTopenworld -- over other ISPs. We were aware that BT was planning to offer the package, and we are satisfied that there aren't any direct regulatory concerns with it," the Oftel spokeswoman said.
The ZDNet item isn't really a surprise and we can only hope the new deal gets BT upgrading more exchanges. More @ ZDNet. |
IT Managers Unconvinced? Wires-Only
By:mark.j @ 2:54:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The principal analyst at Ovum, Tim Johnson, has today said that while Wires-Only R/ADSL broadband will give a much needed boost to the technology, IT Managers still need persuading:
Johnson warned that businesses would need more persuading before using the technology to link home workers to corporate networks.
"Potentially ADSL could be very good for teleworkers. But the operators haven't made it substantially turnkey," he explained. "There are interface and security issues that IT managers will want resolving before allowing home workers access to the company network through ADSL lines."
VNUNet also highlights South Korea's success, where 90% of the country is covered by broadband and much of that is thanks to the government helping to fund a rollout.
R/ADSL is now much more affordable, but it's not much good if your exchange isn't enabled, which is the situation throughout much of the country. |
PlusNETs Business Wires-Only xDSL
By:mark.j @ 9:50:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The popular unmetered and broadband ISP, PlusNET, has today issued a THIRD Press release to announce the 'official' launch of its Wires-Only (Self-Install) R/ADSL broadband product. Here's the bit that matters - NOTE that the below are business options, see previous PR for residential packages:
ADSL NetStart self-install
- Offering a 500kbps download speed, this is a low-cost option recommended for professionals and business users with a single PC who wish to connect at the standard ADSL 50:1 contention ratio.
£50 Activation fee £50 Monthly subscription
ADSL Office 500 self-install
- Offering a 500kbps download speed and a low contention ratio of 20:1, this is the recommended option for professionals and business users who may wish to connect a network of up to 5 PCs and need the speed and responsiveness of the lower contention ratio.
£50 Activation fee £75 Monthly subscription
ADSL Office 1000 self-install
- Offering a 1000kbps download speed and a low contention ratio of 20:1, this is the recommended option for professionals and business users who may wish to connect a network of up to 20 PCs and need the speed and responsiveness of the lower contention ratio.
£50 Activation fee £100 Monthly subscription
ADSL Office 2000 self-install
- Offering an amazing 2000kbps download speed and a low contention ratio of 20:1, this is the recommended option for professionals and business users who may wish to connect a network of up to 40 PCs and need the speed and responsiveness of the lower contention ratio.
£50 Activation fee £125 Monthly subscription
http://www.plus.net/selfinstall |
Energis Hide ISP Webspace Hacker
By:mark.j @ 9:41:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Proof that there are still some serious holes in the Data Protection Act (DPA) came today following the case of a hacker that tried to infiltrate one of Freeserve’s (ISP) customer webspace accounts.
Apparently a Freeserve user, John Chamberlain, noticed his webspace being hacked and traced the source back to the Energis domain. Energis claims to have taken action, however refused to identify the individual due to concerns with the DPA:
Chamberlain is now considering legal action to try to gain access to the information, saying he has his own responsibilities to protect confidential data under the same legislation.
Chamberlain is worried about his own liability if he doesn't make every effort to keep his alchemyproject.net site secure.
There is also concern that Energis' commitment to the DPA is forcing it to unwittingly cover up the attempted hack, which is a crime under the Computer Misuse Act. Lawyers agree the legal position is very confused in this area.
The Silicon item is another classic example of how the government's earlier attempts to cover Internet misuse in updated acts have still failed to iron out conflicts with related legislation. |
New '.name' Domain Suffix
By:mark.j @ 9:31:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Not a week after the domain name suffix '.me.uk' was launched in this country, now the rest of the world can also get another one, '.name'. Unlike domains such as .com, .co.uk, .biz and .info, .name is aimed squarely at individuals.
Global Name Registry, the company responsible for running the new domain, said .name addresses could eventually be used for cell phones and privacy-enhancing encryption codes, as well. The London-based firm said it had signed up 60,000 users so far.
The new domain was one of seven chosen in November 2000 by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, to relieve overcrowding in established domains like .com, .net and .org. |
Online Video Needs Time To Grow
By:mark.j @ 9:28:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Internet based video, otherwise known as video-on-demand (VoD) or video-on-web (VoW), has today suffered a set back after a British telecoms and media consultancy Analysis claimed it'd be 4 or 5 years before the technology could enjoy true growth.
The real growth will materialise in 2006 when traffic and revenues will almost double from 2005, driven for some 70% by corporate communications such as training, marketing and investor information. The remaining traffic will be broadcasts, like news, TV and movie media etc.
"It's still early days and companies outside the high-tech sectors are only just starting to take video streaming seriously," said analyst Margaret Hopkins.
For SME enterprises to adopt relatively low-cost streaming media, operators and production companies will need to provide their services on demand, rather than via subscription services.
Telecom operators, which lack expertise, will have to form partnerships with service providers which know how to overcome bottlenecks and deliver streaming media to end-users, Hopkins said. Interestingly there’s no mention of how 3G broadband wireless mobile phones and direct video communications might be affected, which is one of the technologies future selling points. |
German Telco Raises Broadband Fee
By:mark.j @ 9:20:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] While it's not directly related to the UK, we are often compared to Germany when it comes to xDSL broadband and so the latest announcement by Deutsche Telekom may be of some interest.
The operator has apparently been forced to raise its fees for R/ADSL services following pressure by the country’s regulator, RegTP:
The move comes after RegTP announced it was concerned Telekom's pricing policy could stifle competition.
The company says it will raise the monthly cost of digital subscriber line access from about £6.28 to £8 from next month. It says it will also boost connection charges to the service.
In case the Ananova information isn't obvious enough, the above price is of course for wholesale and not retail to the customers of an ISP. Note that other things such as contract's and connection fees need to be taken into account when comparing with the UK.
Having said that it’s still clear to see just how cheap broadband is across the channel, even with an increase. |
News - January 15,2002
Freedom2Surf's New Wires-Only xDSL
By:mark.j @ 3:29:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The unmetered and broadband dialup ISP, Freedom2Surf, has today followed BTWholesale’s official launch of Wires-Only (Self-Install) R/ADSL with their own package - Pure Broadband IP. Full press release follows (NOTE: PM = Per Month):
Freedom2Surf launches Pure Broadband IP wires-only service
Freedom2Surf has today announced the launch of its wires-only broadband service - Pure Broadband IP, which will offer users an affordable, simpler and more flexible way to get an ADSL connection.
The Pure Broadband IP package has been designed to give ADSL users the control and the freedom to get the most out of their broadband connection. The pure IP service features a static IP address without any port blocking or transparent cache software, giving users an unrestricted Internet experience. The Freedom2Surf package will include telephone and email support as standard as well as 20Mb of webspace, 5Mb of database space and up to 20 email addresses.
Pure Broadband IP will run over Freedom2Surf's custom-built Linux infrastructure which has been designed to improve ADSL speed and quality for all systems, including Microsoft Windows and corporate LANs. This self-install option will allow users to independently choose the hardware which best suits their PC and network systems.
Freedom2Surf will be offering Pure Broadband IP in the following packages: (All prices exclude VAT)
- 512K, 50:1, Pay As You Go Monthly package: £59.99 setup, £32.50 PM
- 512K, 50:1, Yearly pre-pay package: £59.99 setup, equivalent to £30.00 PM
- 512K, 20:1, £59.99 setup, £240.00 per quarter
- 1Mb, 20:1, £59.99 setup, £345.00 per quarter
- 2Mb, 20:1, £59.99 setup, £480.00 per quarter
Customers can subscribe to Pure Broadband IP by visiting http://www.freedom2surf.net .
Freedom2Surf's offering certainly looks like some good competition and is pricing closer to what residential users might actually consider affordable. It'll be interesting to see what the other affordably priced xDSL providers come up with. |
AOL Uncovers ICQ Security Hole
By:mark.j @ 3:21:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] AOL, which now also owns the popular instant messaging (IM) software ICQ, has discovered a security hole not dissimilar to the one previously found and patched in its own IM application:
AOL is urging all users to upgrade to the latest version of ICQ - ICQ 2001b - because of the discovery of a bug in older versions of the software.
The problem is a buffer overflow vulnerability, similar to the one that afflicted AOL's other instant messaging platform AIM last week.
More @ Silicon . |
Microsoft & mmO2 Offer Secure GPRS
By:mark.j @ 3:17:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The new Data/Internet standard for mobile phones, GPRS, got another boost today under BTs business mobile wing, mmO2. The operator has combined with Microsoft to offer secure GPRS connections:
The agreement is based on Microsoft Mobile Information Server Enterprise and Carrier Editions software, and will offer secure wireless access to companies' intranets and MS Exchange data, such as email, contacts and calendar information.
The agreement covers all of mmO2's mobile arms across Europe, allowing its customers to access information in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland.
More @ Silicon. |
BTWholesale's Wires-Only xDSL Launch
By:mark.j @ 2:37:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Today is the 15th January 2002 and those with good memories should recall that this is also the date BTWholesale planned to officially launch their Wires-Only (Self-Install) R/ADSL broadband product.
Typically the good people at ADSLGuide have just officially confirmed this with BT and all is now go. We've already seen several providers launch packages designed to take advantage of the new offering and you can expect more to surface over the coming days / weeks / months etc.
Hopefully we'll now see whether some comments made by BTs director of broadband, Bruce Stanford, will hold up: " Evidence from other countries shows that self-install gives a huge boost to demand for broadband ADSL services, not just by cutting wholesale prices but also by making installation for the customer as easy as setting up a video recorder, and with no need to wait in for an engineer." |
BT Paying ISPs To Run Broadband Adverts?
By:mark.j @ 9:34:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BTWholesale is preparing to help third-party ISPs fund advertising their own broadband R/ADSL services. Typically BT hopes to stimulate overall demand for xDSL by encouraging ISPs to advertise the broadband packages they already offer:
ISPs have known about the scheme since mid-December, and BT Wholesale has received plenty of interest. "The amount of money available will run into the low millions of pounds altogether," a BT Wholesale spokesman told ZDNet UK News. It's possible to buy ADSL from around 190 ISPs in the UK, all of who resell BT Wholesale's broadband products.
BT Wholesale will not be willing to pay for an advert unless it clearly promotes ADSL. "As long as the advert is specifically for broadband, and not just a generic ad for the company, money could be available," said the BT Wholesale spokesman. The company is also not prepared to pay the whole cost of a campaign.
In effect, BT Wholesale will be subsidising rivals of BTopenworld, the consumer arm of the telco. "We're not allowed to treat BTopenworld any differently than other ISPs, and this move proves that we take that seriously," the BT Wholesale spokesman explained.
Perhaps done as a way to show that BTOpenworld isn't the only UK provider offering such systems, it's never the less an interesting idea. Hopefully this will also have the potential to push coverage as those outside xDSL enabled areas begin registering their interest. More @ ZDNet. |
BT Wipes 3,500 Talk21 E-Mail Accounts
By:mark.j @ 9:20:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It looks as if BTs Talk21 E-Mail service lost several days worth of messages when a "technical problem" hit the service and wiped messages from 3,500 of the systems customers:
As a result users were unable to access their email for several days. And incoming email was also rejected while the service was down. BT has confirmed that it is unable to retrieve these emails.
In some cases BT has also lost emails that had already been received. It says it is working to restore these emails as soon as possible.
BT seem to think 3,500 is a small number and that may be true, mathematically at least (total 1,000,000), more @ The Register . |
COLT Telecoms Streaming Service
By:mark.j @ 9:13:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Part of COLT Telecoms plan to expand into content distribution across its 15,000 km (length) European fibre-optic network will be helped by the introduction of a new streaming service for ISPs:
The service, dubbed Colt Stream, is based on proprietary distributing, routing and service enabling technology acquired by the company from its purchase of Boston-based content distribution software firm Adero in July last year, and has been built to support Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime and RealMedia-based applications.
Although operational across Colt’s entire European network, the first phase of deployment will see the service marketed in Austria, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, followed by other European countries and the US. According to Colt’s director of engineering Jon Erickson, it will be available in the UK by the end of Q2.
Colt is hoping that customers will be attracted by the potential reliability and security benefits of having a single vendor for both bandwidth and applications.
With the number of companies implementing streaming media for internal communications up from 5,000 to 119,000, it's clearly an expanding market. More @ netimperative.com . |
News - January 14,2002
ISP Of The Year 2001 - Part 3
By:mark.j @ 4:19:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The final five to go through our evaluation process will be the following, in no particular order:
1 - PlusNET
2 - SurfUnlimited
3 - Firenet
4 - SurfAnyTime
5 - Vispa Internet
The original Top 10 were good, but these 5 seem to be truly exception judging by the comments from the past three pages.
Since we haven't reviewed or re-reviewed any of these recently then we'll just have to go on reader opinions. The winner will be decided by comparing costs, package services and quality of support – this may take a few weeks to complete or possibly less, possibly.
We'll also look at the history of each provider over 2001 to see who has caused the most / least troubles etc. It looks especially difficult this year; all of those above seem to be excellent judging by how our readers perceive them - WELL DONE.
Please note; if any one of the ISPs listed above wishes to provide a temporary unmetered dial-up test account for a week then that'd help - we'll also use the opportunity to review or re-review any we didn’t do before. As usual ISPs can be submitted here :-
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/submit.shtml |
Internet Based Attacks Still Rising
By:mark.j @ 3:56:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The third such report into the rise of Internet based attacks (viruses etc.), this time from the Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert), has found an increase of 160% compared with 2000, which seems to fit other results:
Based at Carnegie Mellon University, and partially funded by the US federal government, Cert said that virus outbreaks, network attacks or inside abuse accounted for 52,658 incidents reported in 2001, compared with 21,756 in 2000. Cert documented 9,859 reports in 1999, and 3,734 in 1998.
Chad Dougherty, a security analyst at Cert, said that the rise in incidents could be attributed to increased sensitivity and awareness as to what defines an incident. There are also more people looking for vulnerabilities and the potential for incidents.
It's worth noting that such vulnerabilities can also affect the performance of an ISP since infected customers often end up unwittingly attacking their own service provider.
It's in everybody’s interest to make sure they understand the best methods of security, which means more than just having a virus checker installed. More @ VNUNet. |
UK Workers NOT Wasting Time Online
By:mark.j @ 3:49:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It looks as if companies trying to sell businesses top rated Internet monitoring software could be in for a shock. Apparently time wasting on the web trails in a poor 6th place for productivity-killing pastimes:
More than half of the respondents in a BT survey found making tea to be the best way to avoid work, while a similar number favoured gossiping their time away.
But despite the slew of monitoring products available for bosses to track their employees' internet and email usage, as few as one in 10 cited this as their favourite time-filler.
More @ VNUNet. |
Opera Internet Browser v6.01 Beta
By:mark.j @ 10:26:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One of the best alternatives to using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) or the tired Netscape (NS) platform is Opera. Having only recently released v6, today a beta patch (v6.01) has been uploaded to fix a large amount of bugs.
You can find the download and a list of change/fixes here:
http://www.searchengineworld.com/opera/news.htm |
UK Gov Introduces Online Debating
By:mark.j @ 9:56:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Could you possibly imagine a better way of using that much valued ISP connection than to participate in online debates with the UK government? Well yes we could, but that's beside the point.
Parliament will soon be launching televised debates via the Internet and while you can get involved with sessions of the House of Commons, House of Lords or maybe even a Select Committee hearing, it's not clear exactly what you'll be able to do.
Michael Martin (MP), the Speaker at the House of Commons hopes that, "as many people as possible will log in and let us know what they think so that we can build effectively on this pilot project."
The experiment will last until December 2002, when a decision will be made about its future. |
Broadband Sewage - London
By:mark.j @ 9:48:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Before Christmas we ran a brief story about how one company was investigating the use of London's sewers to carry broadband cables.
Today the Lattice Group and Thames Water have confirmed their hopes of cutting the cost of corporate broadband connections through such a method:
The firm, which has yet to be named, plans to lay cables in existing tunnels, reducing the time and cost of building fibre optic infrastructure and providing leased line connections to firms in the 'last mile' currently dominated by BT. Potential capacities will be much higher than Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)'s 2 megabits per second.
ZDNet's item certainly sounds interesting, although we wouldn't want to be the ones tasked with the job of actually laying the cable - hopefully they've got robots (peeewww...). |
NTL Opens Up Broadband Network
By:mark.j @ 9:43:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] If BT can do it then why can't we? That seems to be the buzz coming from inside NTL today as further plans to ease the operator’s debt burden get underway.
According to the Financial Times, NTL is investigating the possibility of opening its broadband network up to rivals such as Freeserve and AOL etc. In short this would allow those ISPs to act in a similar way to how BTWholesale supplies R/ADSL to the same groups (branded).
Typically this raises the concern of how ISPs will juggle between their BT based R/ADSL services and that of NTLs. We'll be interested to see how such ISP would be able to set themselves apart from NTLs own offering, although it could be another few weeks before we hear of any roots being spread. |
News - January 13,2002
ISP Review Weekly Update
By:mark.j @ 10:51:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Another week gone and finally the days seem to be getting longer and ever so slightly warmer, although whether that'll last while so early in the year remains to be seen.
On to ISP Review and we've been busy optimising the sites code again to speed up loading and chop a few K (5 to be exact) off the general size of the front page. This caused a few smaller layout changes, more of which can be expected next week as we continue the process.
Things will hopefully get even smaller in-time for the next version of ISPr, which will probably see the front page showing mostly news and less nav tables. This makes it easier for us to design a layout that'll expand at higher resolutions and save space (K).
I'd also like to apologise for the lack of activity on our mailing list system (newsletter), the system seems to have reached a capacity that makes it difficult to send out updates and obtain new members. We're currently investigating several alternative scripts to replace the existing one without screwing up the member list.
Expect some more reviews and articles soon and don't be surprised if there are further cosmetic changes around the site, we're busy giving things a fresher / updated look. |
Cloud-Nine Dialup Problems - Update
By:mark.j @ 10:30:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Just to make clear to those that didn't go on and read Cloud-Nine's full news update yesterday (their update, not our v.brief summary).
The DoS attacks came from unprotected users of the service and hit other users - not so much the ISP itself. It's a complex and confusing matter, although this bit from C9 might help:
As I explained in the last note, the services.exe is a key file that basically controls any Windows installation. The attack is not against the ISP but against the USER! Any undefended Windows PC can be totally screwed by this.
Today C9 have also put up a new news update that's designed to help explain how best to secure your system, you can read it HERE.
We'd suggest that everybody unfamiliar with how best to secure their systems go and read this since it can also apply to other ISPs. |
News - January 12,2002
Cloud-Nine Investigate Dialup Problems
By:mark.j @ 10:19:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The SME broadband and unmetered dialup ISP Cloud-Nine, which (along with a number of other ISPs) has often blamed BT for problems on their unmetered FRIACO network, has today published another 'possible' reason.
From their investigation they found that the problems "seem" to be caused by a Denial of Service (DoS) attack using UDP against the services.exe (key server file).
Note that they're not 100% sure about this and the news update, which can be found HERE, is very long and more for the technically minded. Three paragraphs that help explain the manifestation of the problems are as follows:
When connecting via 0844 number we found that blocking incoming TCP and UDP on ports 137,138,139 and 445 was sufficient to allow us to continue working and reconnect after each dropped connection. The moment we dropped these blocks within a few minutes of connecting things started to go wrong. Then we couldn't log on - Username and Password error 619 - "remote host not responding".
When connecting via 0808 we found that we could only safely connect at a high-risk time when we ONLY allowed incoming UDP port 53 (DNS resolution) and no incoming TCP/ICMP ports at all. A quite restrictive level of access. We hope that our customers will keep us aware of their experiences when opening up other ports so that we can advise our less technical customers.
The problem with analysing this is that there has to be "attack" activity or the problem doesn't appear. We were connecting between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm today with no problems in totally open mode and then it started! Boy, did it start!! The "best" times, and we use that in a strange sense ;-), appear to be between 2:00 and 4:30 in the afternoon and then from about 6:30 and possibly throughout the evening.
This is obviously quite a serious problem and C9 do say that they're working with BT to find ways of resolving it. If it's truly confirmed as the problem then it could also be the reason other BT based ISPs are having problems such as authentication issues when dialling up. |
BBFW Auction Still Stale
By:mark.j @ 10:00:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The broadband fixed wireless auction for the 28GHz band has, since it re-started 3 months ago, still failed to attract any real interest despite pushes to cheapen (cost) the offer:
In the three months since e-commerce minister Douglas Alexander restarted the auction of the 28GHz spectrum, not a single bid has been received by the Radiocommunications Agency. This is despite the government consulting the industry in the first half of 2002, and setting the reserve limit for bids at £2m or less -- which analysts believed would be low enough to boost interest.
A 28GHz licence allows a company to offer high-speed wireless Internet access to homes and offices. For areas too remote or under-populated to be offered ADSL, broadband fixed wireless is thought to be the most economical way of providing high-speed services. Following an earlier failed auction in November 2000, which only saw successful bids for 16 of the 42 licences on offer, this latest flop deals another blow to the government's ambitions for Broadband Britain.
The auction will remain open for bids until October 2002, and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) insists that it is not concerned by the total lack of visible interest in the process. "The auction was always meant to run for a year, and we never expected to be inundated with bids in the first few months," a DTI spokeswoman insisted.
Typically anybody purchasing one of the licenses would be able to run a service similar to that of Tele2's or the one under trial by NTL. Due to the nature of auctions we've often doubted that there'd be any interest until right at the very end, More @ ZDNet. |
News - January 11,2002
PlusNET Update On Wires-Only xDSL
By:mark.j @ 3:06:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Some may remember PlusNET's last press release from earlier in the week when they announced their Wires-Only (Self-Install) R/ADSL broadband services and pricing.
The original announcement lacked some finalised details for the official 15th January 2002 launch, today's release corrects that. Much of the release is similar to the previous one, so here's the info. that counts:
* * Home self-install (monthly contract) * *
Activation fee £58.75 inc. VAT - Monthly subscription £41.13 inc. VAT
* * Home self-install (annual contract) * *
Choosing the yearly contract option saves you over £70! - and you get a free .co.uk domain as well! You may pay either monthly, quarterly or annually. Activation fee £58.75 inc. VAT - Monthly subscription £35.25 inc. VAT
http://www.plus.net
Expect more news next week from other ISPs as the official launch date of BTs new Wires-Only line of R/ADSL products swings into view. |
NTL Eyes Restructuring
By:mark.j @ 2:57:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The troubled cable operator NTL is now considering a new method of restructuring itself in order to settle the $17Billion of debt:
A cash-for-equity swap is thought to be the most likely scenario for the company. A full-scale restructuring is expected to take at least 12 months to complete, the FT reports.
NTL was denied key vendor financing just before Christmas, endangering its attempts to extend its cash reserves beyond the next 12 months.
Previous reports have stated that NTL is expect to run out of cash by 2002, we sincerely hope they find a way to keep going if only for the customers sake and to keep BT on its toes with R/ADSL. More @ Silicon. |
The 33 Million EU Internet Shoppers
By:mark.j @ 2:50:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Unmetered dialup aside, the UK may not lead the broadband market, but we certainly know how to shop using the Internet. A grand total of 33Million people shopped online over the Christmas period, 9Million of those were in the UK and 10Million came from Germany:
In the UK, traditional high street retailers – including Argos, Comet and WH Smith – proved popular, while the European Amazon sites were accessed by more than 10% of the internet population in Germany, the UK and France.
Amaozon.co.uk topped the list of retail sites in December 2001, with nearly 3m unique visitors, ahead of the company’s US site with 1.5m visitors. Argos, Tesco and Comet make up the rest of the top five.
The figures, from internet analysts Jupiter MMXI, offer a real boost for the e-tail industry amid the ongoing economic downturn.
More @ netimperative.com . |
Cable Modems To Surpass R/ADSL
By:mark.j @ 10:21:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] There's another good reason for BT to continue its rollout of R/ADSL broadband services today, Cable Modem technology is set to surpass xDSL and if it does then things could stay like that for years:
As broadband ADSL continues to flounder, cable looks set to become the leading way for home users and small firms to achieve high-speed, always-on Internet links. Telewest's Blueyonder cable modem service is thought to be close to reaching 100,000 users just 10 months after its launch, already roughly equalling the number of ADSL links.
While this isn't anything new and we doubt BT will continue a generalised rollout of R/ADSL, there's one piece in ZDNet's item that puzzles us:
As well as being cheaper, Blueyonder offers 512 kilobits per second (kbps) while some BT ADSL users are limited to 256kbps. Users have praised Telewest's service. "When we signed up, they told us they would arrive between 8.30am and noon on a date in five weeks' time," said one. "They arrived at 9am and by 10am it was installed. They have a live 'status' page that seems very honest about any problems."
Just a second here, BTs ADSL technology only goes at 256Kbps upstream (down to 64Kbps if under RADSL) and the quality varies from ISP to ISP - it's not just provided by BTOpenworld. Not to mention that the downstream speed is the same, 512Kbps, clearly ZDNet need to do a little more work =). |
BBCs 3G Content - Update
By:mark.j @ 10:05:AM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Following on from our item yesterday afternoon, the BBC (TV) has indeed done a deal for 3G Content, this time with the newer Hutchison3G UK operator (not Vodafone as some had expected).
It's a five-year contract and allows the BBC to manage the production of audio-visual content for Hutchinson's 3G subscribers:
BBC Technology will be responsible for editing Hutchison-owned 3G content, such as sports coverage, news and information services, and converting it into a format that can be sent over 3G networks to mobile devices. This will include mobile coverage of premier league football, for which Hutchison has exclusive rights.
A spokesperson for BBC Technology said that the work will be carried out at its purpose-built site in Wood Lane, West London.
The netimperative.com item reports that the deal makes Hutchinson3G the BBCs largest external customer. |
BT Scraps SDSL Broadband Plans
By:mark.j @ 10:01:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BT has scrapped plans for using Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) broadband technology as a cheaper alternative to normal leased line technology because there's no demand.
The Telco had been testing SDSL with 150 customers at 20 exchanges across the country, however its failure to become fully operational at the end of 2001 (previous trial deadline) had caused some concern. The technology is similar to ADSL, only SDSL sends data at the same speed in BOTH directions without loss.
BTs excuse is that they, 'did a pilot of SDSL but there was limited interest from customers and none from wholesalers'. 'We want to see demand increase for ADSL before going up to SDSL. When we get return on investment from that then we can look at SDSL. We aren't saying "never" - there's just not the demand at the moment.'
Ovum analyst Tim Johnson said he was surprised BT found no demand: 'It has a lot of advantages over ADSL. The immediate suspicion is BT is looking after its leased line market. It's another reflection of the way in which competition in this area has been torpedoed,' he said.
Mark Smith, deputy director general of the Communications Management Association, which represents corporate users, said it was 'a great shame' that the service was not being launched.
Indeed it doesn't surprise us; BTs income from leased line alternatives is still high enough for them to be worried of SDSLs introduction significantly reducing it. The situation is confused by BTs continued re-focusing on R/ADSL technology, yet coverage has yet to be improved? More @ VNUNet. |
News - January 10,2002
BT Cools Broadcaster Ambitions
By:mark.j @ 3:31:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Despite the apparent surge of interest with BT and other groups (Pace) for launching their own broadcasting service, today fears expressed by the company’s shareholders have forced a different stance:
Today though, the FT reports that Sir Christopher has effectively put the issue on the back burner amid concerns from shareholders.
"We will not become a full vertically integrated media company, like BSkyB and News Corp," the FT reports him as saying.
Furthermore, there is no budget available this year to fund any necessary network upgrade that would enable broadcast quality pictures to be transmitted over copper cable.
The Register reports that BT went on to firm up its commitment to broadband, which is a good move if you're still waiting for R/ADSL to arrive in your area. |
BBC Prepping 3G Phone Content
By:mark.j @ 3:26:PM - - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The BBC is to partner with a major mobile phone company in order to be one of the first groups to offer content for 3G broadband wireless mobile phones:
The project is understood to be known internally as "ARK", and is being run by BBC Technology, an independent subsidiary of the BBC.
The short ZDNet item states that an official announcement should come later tonight, so we'll have more on it tomorrow. Typically the BBC was also one of the first with a WAP portal, lets hope they make better use of 3G services. |
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