February 11, 2002 - February 15, 2002
News - February 15,2002
More Reactions - BTs DSL Price Cuts
By:mark.j @ 9:23:AM - Comments (4) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Details haven't even been formally announced yet and still people are speaking as if they have, so much for waiting until next week.
We already know Bulldog's position, although yesterday the eCommerce minister, C&W and Colt Telecom all gave their own feedback to any proposed cuts:
Ecommerce minister Douglas Alexander welcomed BT's move. 'I publicly challenged BT five months ago to set fair lower prices for businesses and consumers so they must work to translate these ambitions into achievements,' he said.
Cable and Wireless director of political liaison David McConnell says margins will still be tight and BT can absorb price reductions easier than its rivals. 'In the longer term the market needs structural change for true competition to develop,' he said.
And Colt Telecom head of regulation Paul Brisby said: 'You can regulate prices until you are blue in the face but you are never going to duplicate the effects of a properly competitive market.'
There's a good deal more in VNUNet's item as well, although we think this is one best left until the end of next week when BT is predicted to 'START' outlining its broadband future and any potential price cuts. |
Internet Users Jump By 22%
By:mark.j @ 9:13:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Following on from yesterdays survey by Jupiter, today researchers from Nielsen NetRatings have issued their own report into the UKs growing Internet use; user numbers rose by 22% last month!:
Nielsen NetRatings say the record increase takes the total number of home users to over 17 million.
They also note people are spending up to 20% longer online than they did in December.
The analysts say the increase in web population is largely seasonal and repeats a rise the same time last year. "We always see a big jump in January," said analyst David Day.
Whether or not the increase will turn out to be sustained in time for the next report remains to be seen, more @ Ananova. |
New MSN Messenger Worm
By:mark.j @ 9:05:AM - Comments (7) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Unfortunately not a week seems to go by without one of the major IM clients being hit by some sort of security breach.
Today is no different; MSN Messenger has been hit by a new worm calling itself CoolNow. The worm tries to make you click a link and takes you to a page where you become infected:
Once it has infected a PC, the worm sends a link to the malicious page to all the people in the user's Messenger contact list.
Anti-virus company Kaspersky Labs has identified at least seven versions of the malicious message, including one pointing to a website called 'masenko-media' and another featuring 'dark.angel' in the URL.
The worm takes advantage of a bug in some versions of Internet Explorer browsers that allows a malicious user to access files on an unsuspecting user's hard drive.
The Web-User item reports that you can get a patch for it HERE, best go do that then!. |
BT To Cut 1,000 Jobs
By:mark.j @ 8:56:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One good thing you can say about BT is that their call centre staff always seem able to pickup the phone.
Now even that could be about to change as 1,000 call centre staff from 150 locations around the UK are soon to find themselves without a job:
The cuts, to be made by BT Group but mainly affecting the BT Retail business unit, are being made to help shave £150m off the centres' annual £560m cost by March 2004.
The Silicon item states BTs belief that they now get less support calls and thus the cut shouldn't adversely affect service. |
News - February 14,2002
Cloud-Nine ISP Hackers Escape?
By:mark.j @ 3:42:PM - Comments (19) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Cloud-Nine, the ex-unmetered and broadband offering ISP that found itself out of business at the hands of hackers last month, has today admitted they may never catch the culprits:
Cloud Nine's chief executive, Emeric Miszti, has told ZDNet UK News that whoever carried out January's attacks managed to cover their tracks by deleting data that could have been used to trace them. This, according to Miszti, makes it very unlikely that those responsible will be found.
"The problem is that the hackers managed to delete the Web logs that would have recorded exactly what happened during the attacks," Miszti said. "Without that information, it's impossible to show that someone carried out a particular act and caused specific damage, and that's what the police tell us we need to be able to prove," he explained.
Previous reports suggested that Cloud Nine was brought down just by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack -- something that security experts found unlikely. It appears, though, that the ISP was hit by a combined hacking and DDoS attack.
This probably won't come as much of a surprise to those familiar with the Internet, in fact we can't remember a single DDoS ISP attacker being caught in recent months for such a thing. More @ ZDNet. |
Bulldog Lash BT @ ISPCON
By:mark.j @ 3:36:PM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Not unsurprisingly Bulldog Communications has once again used the current ISPCON event in London to lash out at BT for cutting the cost of xDSL services, even though they've yet to announce anything:
It called for internet service providers (ISPs) not to fall for BT's "predatory" price cuts for broadband, and to influence government and industry players to push for greater local loop unbundling.
Addressing an audience of ISPs, Bulldog spokesman Vincent Pickering urged them not to back BT's plans to cut the price of broadband access for business by up to half, arguing that it would damage competition and choice.
Listing a litany of obstructive practices Bulldog had encountered from the incumbent, Pickering told delegates: "I ask ISPs to appear on the broadband agenda because you have the ability to influence people in decision-making positions."
Far be it from us to point out the obvious, however BT has let it slip that any price cuts would be mainly aimed at residential DSL - not business, which is Bulldog's area.
Perhaps it'd be wiser to wait until the announcement is made next week, although it's easy to see both from both sides of the fence. Then again this could be a question best put to the readers, is Bulldog right or wrong?
Would normal customers even notice a difference between services from a BT supplied ISP and or that of another supplier? More competition is good, yet price decreases could then take much longer to surface. More @ VNUNet. |
Pan-European ISP Tiscali Breakeven
By:mark.j @ 3:24:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Could the days of troubled service and dire customer support soon be over for the many that subscribe and complain about Tiscali’s UK ISP offer? Well probably not, but apparently they're making some money out of it:
Tiscali, the pan-European ISP, said it has almost reached breakeven following the consolidation of its position after a two-year acquisitive spell aimed at enlarging its network.
The company generated sales of EU 201.6m for the fourth-quarter, nearly four times higher than in 2000. Access revenues contributed EU 133.1m to the group performance, thanks to an increase in traffic from 9.5bn minutes in the previous quarter to 10.4bn minutes.
For the full-year, Tiscali achieved sales amounting to EU 650.5m, a 275% increase on 2000. Its pro forma EBITDA loss was EU 227.2m, down nearly two-thirds on the previous year’s deficit.
Unfortunately for Tiscali they've still got a hold on our ISP Complaints page, although you can read more about their profits @ netimperative.com . One small example of the complaints we see about them every week follows:
I connect to tiscali as an ex- tinyonline customer. I am having severe problems trying to get online. This evening, it took me 20 minutes and 40 attempts (36 engaged tones, and 4 unsuccessful log-ins) to get online. My patience is starting to run out. |
UK Digital Broadband Radio
By:mark.j @ 3:16:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The Financial Times has word that Capital Radio and UBC Media are to begin a joint venture to develop digital radio data services in the UK.
The companies said they would create a quasi-national data service transmitting always-on, broadband multimedia content to every major metropolitan area in England and Wales, reaching a population of 27 million adults.
The service could be used to transmit pictures, video, graphics, information about music being played and other content to portable digital devices.
Capital owns regional and local digital radio licences while UBC owns data capacity on a number of digital multiplexes. The venture will be 70% owned by Capital and 30% by UBC.
Question, at just what point do Radio services turn into Television? We can't help but feel that what's on offer sounds more and more like modern Digital Terrestrial and Satellite TV rather than an audio only platform, which is Radio. |
Lycos UK Re-Launches Tripod
By:mark.j @ 3:12:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Older Internet users will no doubt associate Tripod with free web space and hosting, much like Geocities and Anglefire. Today Lycos UK (search engine) has announced that Tripod is to return:
Lycos UK is relaunching Tripod, a suite of tools and services for building and running e-commerce websites, in a two-part strategy that will see free templates, tools and 50MB Web space rolled out initially; followed by the March launch of a paid-for suite of messaging accounts, additional Web space and domain name registration.
Tripod will initially have four components: WebBuilder, a set of templates for novices or users with little time to waste; a promotion package that includes an HTML code checker and automatic search engine registration tools; advanced features including PHP4.1, MySQL databases, script libraries, counters and CGI forms; and Webmaster Channel, an online reference library.
The revamped tripod will launch initially in the UK, with a Europe-wide roll-out by the end of Q2.
More @ netimperative.com . |
Internet Users Spend More Time Online
By:mark.j @ 9:26:AM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] New research from Jupiter Media Metrix has found that total Internet use rose last month (January), with surfers spending more time online and increased traffic to health & government-related sites.
Internet surfers spent an average of 15.6 days a month online, up 7& from December last year (2001). Unique visitors, or total users who visited a website at least once in a month, rose by roughly 3% to 110 million in January from the previous month (heavy traffic - holiday season). Average daily unique visitors also rose 11% to 55.5 Million.
Lehman Bros. analyst Holly Becker claims that, "While online traffic growth was solid, it did slow slightly for the first time in the last seven months on a year-over-year basis,"
"However, we were pleased to see sequential growth re-accelerate this month after slowing in December."
The government category, buoyed by tax and finance sites, rose 33% to 46.4 Million unique visitors in January 2002 from the prior month, the Internet research firm said. "Similar to previous years, the annual rush to seek tax information online has hit full stride during January," said Charles Buchwalter, VP of media research at Jupiter.
Roughly 35% of Internet users in January visited health-related sites, up from 28% in the previous month. Popular health sites included WebMD, iVillage Health and WeightWatchers.com. |
Official ISPA 2002 Awards
By:mark.j @ 9:14:AM - Comments (11) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) officially announced its awards at yesterdays ISPCON in London, they are as follows:
Best National Cosumer ISP: Freeserve
Other nominees: AOL, Blueyonder from Telewest, BT Openworld, PlusNet
Best Pan-European Consumer ISP: AOL
Other nominees: Chello, Claranet, Easynet, Freeserve
Best Virtual ISP: Powergen (Pgen.net)
Other nominees: Barclays.net, Beeb.net, TescoNet, Waitrose.net
Best Unmetered ISP: Blueyonder from Telewest
Other nominees: AOL, BT Openworld, Claranet, Freeserve
Best National Business ISP: Claranet
Other nominees: BT Ignite, Cable & Wireless, Pipex, Thus (Demon)
Best Paneuropean Business ISP: Cable and Wireless
Other nominees: Colt, Energis, KPNQwest, Worldcom
Best Small Business ISP: Pipex
Other nominees: Claranet, Easynet, Intellispace, Star
Best ASP service provided by an ISP: Blueyonder Workwise, Telewest Broadband
Other nominees: ASAP, Demon Internet; Thinkmail, Iomart; Insight, PlusNet/Insight; Message Labs, Star Internet
Best Hardware Supplier: Sun Microsystems
Other nominees: Cisco, IBM, Lucent, Nortel
Best Carrier: Energis
Other nominees: BT, Colt, Cable & Wireless, Worldcom
Best Co-location Supplier: IX Europe
Other nominees: Global Switch, Interxion, Redbus, Telehouse
Best Internet Application Or Service: Inktomi
Other nominees: E-Valve, Intellispace; IMS Platform, Digiquant; Star Anti-Virus; Xchangepoint
Internet Hero: Elizabeth France, Information Commissioner
Other nominees: Broadband4Britain.com, Caspar Bowden, FIPR
Internet Villain: Home Office
Other nominees: Oftel, The Radio Communications Agency
Internet Watch Foundation Award: BBC
Other nominees: Childnet International, Football Association, The Home Office, Thames Valley Police/Royal Air Force
It's worth pointing out that the first award may initially shock by being 'Freeserve', however this is for market presence and NOT QUALITY. You can see the official ISPA site, list and details on each award here (Thanks to DigitalSpy for the clean run):
http://www.ispaawards.org.uk/html/release3.htm
Nothing too surprising in the list and we’d agree with almost all of ISPA’s overall winners. |
News - February 13,2002
SurfAnyTime Launch Printing Service
By:mark.j @ 3:43:PM - Comments (14) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It's hardly something we've come to expect from unmetered dialup ISPs, however the popular SurfAnyTime provider has today launch its own printing service. Perhaps the press release can explain:
1WAY2PRINT A/S and SurfAnytime Ltd. has established an agreement allowing users to design and order their own business cards, letterheads, envelopes and self-inking stamps printed in high offset quality.
This new service gives you the ability to choose among a wide variety
of predefined layouts, backgrounds/templates, fonts, cliparts and colours. When you’ve decided how your stationary should look like, all you need to do is to order them on-line. Shortly after you will receive an order confirmation sent to your e-mail address and then your order will proceed to production.
Jesper Christensen, C.E.O. 1WAY2PRINT A/S: "This is a very exciting co-operation we now enter. Our concepts utilizes a part of the Internet, making it possible for the users to design their own printed materials that - except from very expensive solutions – is a standardized "off-the-shelf" item."
The 1WAY2PRINT technology is based solely on offset printing technique, which is characterized as being the best quality and printing technique known world wide.
We do not use digital print or similar printing techniques as that would, in our view, be compromising the quality of our products. We are pledged to always use the best printing techniques presently available.
The offset printing technique is usually very slow and expensive, but due to the fact that we are collecting orders we can offer the best quality to you at very competitive prices.
Production is being carried out two times a week. This is to ensure that time of delivery is being kept to a minimum.
We do everything in our power to ensure that time of delivery will be kept to be within a maximum of 3-4 weeks. |
32Mbps ADSL Broadband? YES PLEASE!
By:mark.j @ 3:38:PM - Comments (6) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Easynet has today announced plans for special super-fast xDSL broadband services from between 4 to 32Mbps in city areas:
To avoid the slowdown caused by high contention ratios -- connecting many customers to the same equipment in the exchange so they have to share bandwidth -- Easynet is deploying new exchange equipment that lets it reduce contention ratios or remove contention altogether.
Such a service will cost, however, and customers are likely to be charged extra for lower contention ratios, said Easynet director of product marketing Justin Fielder, speaking at ISPCON Europe 2002 in London on Tuesday.
"When we get local-loop unbundling we have control over everything except the copper," Fielder said. "Our DSLAM lets you change the contention ratio, and business customers will pay to get away from the 20:1 ratio they are on now." It is not uncommon for consumers to have a 50:1 contention ratio, but prices for lower ratios are likely to be too high to attract more consumers.
The ZDNet item reports that speeds of 32Mbps have been achieved in Easynet's lab by bundling DSL lines, not dissimilar to the process of modem/ISDN multilinking used with modern operating systems.
However somehow we doubt most residential Internet users would be able to afford 32Mbps =), not that we can't all dream. |
SNMP Security Issue Causes Concern
By:mark.j @ 3:30:PM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It's being touted as one of the biggest Internet security threats in recent history; a vulnerability in the key Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) could have massive implications around the world:
The biggest problem is that so many devices - including routers, switches, servers, cable modems and firewalls - use vulnerable SNMP installations which could be exploited to crash or compromise systems.
Internet Security Systems X-Force director Chris Rouland warned: "The SNMP vulnerabilities pose a potentially serious threat to IT infrastructures."
Users connecting to the web via an internet service provider should contact their modem or router vendor for security measures. They are also advised to consider installing perimeter defences in the form of a router with filtering capabilities, and personal firewall software with intrusion detection capabilities.
The good news is that while the item reported @ VNUNet is very serious and linked in with a vast majority of networks, it HAS NOT been manipulated by hackers, for now.
What they're saying is that such potential does exist, yet hopefully something can be done before the exploit is uncovered. |
BTs Hyperlink Patent Case Stumbles
By:mark.j @ 3:21:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] BTs case to claim ownership of hyperlinks (patent - the links we click on websites) took a stumble today after the judge laid doubt over the Telco's hopes:
In a preliminary hearing in a New York district court on Monday, Judge Colleen McMahon warned that BT would find it difficult to prove that the 26-year-old patent was relevant to today's internet.
Judge McMahon said the language of the patent was "like reading old English" and that comparing computers from 1976 with those from 2002 was like comparing a mastodon (an extinct mammal) with a jet.
However, the intellectual property company running the case for BT said the hearing was "quite positive".
Most people, both ordinary and professional, agree that BT winning would not be in the best interests of the Internet. Hyperlinks are simply not something that should ever be commercialised, which is exactly what they'd do. More @ Web-User. |
Nildram Launch Competitive R/ADSL
By:mark.j @ 3:06:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] ADSLGuide has been quick to spot the following press release on Nildrams broadband R/ADSL site regarding their newest Wires-Only service:
Nildram continue to drive down the cost of Broadband
Internet Access
Nildram, one of the UK's leading providers of Broadband Internet Access services, have today announced a further initiative to promote the growth of Broadband Britain. The initiative is based upon the popular Home500 'Wires Only' ADSL service and provides a reduced monthly subscription fee of only £29 per month, plus VAT - representing a saving of over £140 per year over and above the existing product.
As with the existing Nildram Home500 service, Home500A is intended for consumer use with a contention ratio of up to 50:1, a download speed of up to 500kbps and an upload speed of up to 256kbps. Installation is £50.00, with a 12 month contract period.
Nildram are taking orders now and details can be found on their ADSL specific web site at: http://www.getadsl.co.uk
Iain Ogilvie, Nildram's Marketing Manager comments: "Once again, we are delighted to be able to reduce the cost of Broadband and make it more readily available to a wider audience."
While it can't match Pipex's £29.99 inc. VAT (not excluding) per month deal, Nildram's package is still very competitive with other Wires-Only offering broadband ISPs in the market. |
EU Boost Broadband Strategy
By:mark.j @ 10:00:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Broadband in Europe should get a boost thanks to The European Commission (EC), which is to put such access at the top of its strategy for boosting e-commerce and turning the EU into the world's most competitive economy by 2010.
We can't help but notice the similarity between the EU's latest statement and the UKs back during late 2000 with Broadband Britain, which was eventually revised. Typically the EUs proposal has a longer-term focus, which is perhaps more realistic.
By promoting broadband the EU's executive is choosing to focus on a product already available to businesses and consumers, thus putting its 3G strategy on the back burner, whose commercial launch may not come until 2005.
Although competition was driving Internet connection costs down, European Information Society Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, said on yesterday that broadband remained generally expensive in the EU, where its penetration is only 6%.
"To be connected to the Internet is not enough, we have to look at the quality of the connection," Liikanen told a news conference as he presented an assessment on EU progress in information technology and e-commerce. "From now on, broadband will be the key issue," he said.
Data released by GartnerG2 in February showed broadband penetration in EU households was just 2-3% against 13% in the USA. The Commission will present its strategy on the e-economy at an EU summit in Barcelona on March 13-14. |
Clara.net Comment On ISPA Nomination
By:mark.j @ 9:51:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] In their latest newsletter the popular dialup and broadband offering ISP Clara.net has given its reaction to their recent nomination for 4 Internet Service Provider Association (ISPA) awards:
We are pleased to announce that we have been short-listed for 4 awards in this years' Internet Service Provider Awards including Best Pan European Consumer ISP and Best Unmetered Consumer ISP.
Companies nominated for the Best Pan European ISP award will be judged on their performance, customer care, value for money, European presence and innovation. Companies short-listed for the Unmetered award, must offer an unmetered product and will also be judged in terms of its performance in a range of categories.
The ISPA awards are given by the industry itself to recognise individuals and companies whose achievements are worthy of special attention. This is the second year that Claranet has been short listed for an award. The winners of each award will be announced at the ISPA Awards Ceremony on Wednesday 13th February 2002, being held at the ISPCON show at Olympia, London.
More details on all of the award nominations can be found at:
http://www.clara.net/pressoffice/ispa_2002.phtml
Typically some users have expressed concern over the unmetered related nominations due to recent problems (engage tones) experienced by residential AnyTime customers. Much of this has now gone, although peak usage (off-peak) users on both Home and Business options will still see the odd engage tone now and then.
Perhaps more to the point is that whenever there's a problem Clara.net are quick to remind that the service is still beta, so how can it also be listed for an official award? On the other hand EVERY unmetered ISP has had similar problems and for the purpose of comparison - Clara.net fared better than most. |
Heed The Warning – WAP vs GPRS
By:mark.j @ 9:39:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Remember WAP? The technology designed to start a revolution of integrating data (Internet) services into mobile phones, unfortunately it never lived up to expectations. WAP was slow, expensive, had barely any support and was never easy to read (small text).
However that aside and the significance of WAP itself can't be underestimated, which is why operators need to learn from their mistakes for GPRS and 3G:
It is clear from my Wap experience that unmetered tariffs encourage greater use even if they cut profit margins - and even if the service isn't that great either. And widespread use is what will make us all look again at GPRS and beyond to the replacement of the existing wireless network with a 3G alternative. Affordable unmetered GPRS services with low cost of entry are the only way of building the user base.
So if telecoms companies follow the traditional Intel marketing model as they did with Wap - namely that a new technology should always be priced at a premium and milked to obtain maximum per-user revenues - they will be doomed once more. I fear that with telecoms companies in the state they are today, the temptation to enjoy the short-term advantage of high premium rates rather than the long-term advantage of building a user base will be strong.
GPRS may just be the chance to get Wap right second time around, but it will also provide a dry run for the rollout of full 3G services. And that's the mobile technology everyone really needs to succeed.
We're not expected future 3G services to be comparable to WAP, however certainly VNUNet's point about GPRS is valid. Hopefully more phones like the forthcoming Nokia 7650 can help, yet pricing will be just as important as always. |
Cable & Wireless Problems Continue
By:mark.j @ 9:27:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Shares in the telecoms and networking group Cable & Wireless (C&W) have hit their lowest in 10 years following renewed concerns about their accounting practices. This morning saw C&W shares down by 12-1/2p, or 5.2% @ 228p, after falling as low as 223-1/2p.
C&W has been the worst-performing stock in the FTSE 100 so far this year with a 31 percent tumble, hit by ongoing worries about growth prospects across the telecoms sector and more stock-specific issues.
Dealers said the sell-off had intensified amid the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into bankrupt phone company Global Crossing. Global Crossing said on Friday the SEC was investigating the company after a letter from a former employee raised concerns about its accounting practices.
A report in Wednesday's Financial Times newspaper said C&W admitted it had used controversial accountancy techniques to book notional profits. It said this was done by swapping free capacity with other groups, but it reported C&W said the swaps did not involve cash changing hands and claimed all of the practices were legal. |
Tele2 See Profit / Push Broadband
By:mark.j @ 9:21:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] In the past month the semi-popular fixed broadband wireless provider and realistic alternative to BTs R/ADSL (for now), Tele2, has been very vocal in pushing its services.
Today the ISP has issued some interesting information on its broadband push and a few preliminary figures ahead of their full-year results (2001) due on 19th February 2002:
The company is hoping to prove that small businesses in the UK actually do want broadband internet services but, according to a spokesperson, it is not expecting to announce any success with the scheme ‘for another few months.’
The company is also due to release its full-year results for 2001 on 19 February, but has already published preliminary figures showing a 1.7bn crown profit compared to a 350m crown loss in 2000.
Sadly there's not much in the netimperative.com item that hasn't already been said last week, yet it's nice to see one form of broadband making a profit. |
News - February 12,2002
Eutelsat's New Broadband Satellite
By:mark.j @ 3:34:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Eutelsat and its partners are to present a new satellite-based broadband ISP solution at the CeBIT 2002 technology and trade show in Germany come next month (March 13-20th 2002):
Eutelsat and partners present new satellite-based broadband solutions at CeBIT 2002
Eutelsat and a number of its business partners are set to present new high-speed broadband services and other innovative solutions tailored to corporate users at this year's CeBIT, from March 13 to 20 in Hannover, Germany.
On its booth (E65, Hall 12), the satellite operator will exhibit two-way satellite-based solutions for data, video, audio and multimedia delivery. Also on the Eutelsat booth will be the Eutelsat Partner Village where selected business partners will present their broadband access and distribution products and services.
Eutelsat will be presenting its open standard multimedia service OPEN-SKYTM at CeBIT. OPEN-SKY* is an innovative solution for providing cost-effective, direct distribution of streaming and rich multimedia content for Content and Internet Service Providers. The company will also present its two-way high-speed Internet via satellite service for business networks that provides upstream rates of up to 1 Mbps and downstream rates of 40 Mbps.
In the Partner Village, Hughes Network Systems will present DIRECWAY, a broadband satellite service for small and medium-sized enterprises that operates through capacity on Eutelsat's W1 satellite. With the help of the new DIRECWAY 4020, which consists of a switch and router based on PowerPC-technology, small networks can be built and connected easily to the Internet via four Ethernet-ports.
Dutch company Aramiska that leases capacity on Eutelsat's recently launched ATLANTIC BIRD* 2 satellite will be present in the Partner Village in order to demonstrate its new two-way broadband service based on the DVB-RCS standard for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Teles EuroServices SkyDSL, which enables private users and small enterprises to add a fast download channel to an existing narrowband connection, will also feature in the Partner Village. Its software automatically adds the SkyDSL connection, with a transfer rate of up to 8 Mbps to the normal analogue or digital Internet connection. It will present its new solution and commercial offer to support small SoHo-networks with up to five users at CeBIT.
Together with Eutelsat, Deutsche Telekom and T-Media Broadcast will present their extensive range of satellite-based business and broadcast services.
It's certainly been awhile since SkyDSL showed themselves in public and the above does indeed sound interesting, it’ll most likely cover the UK given the technology and satellites being used.
Unfortunately our judgment will remain reserved until pricing and access details arrive. |
ISPs Slapped Over Security Concerns
By:mark.j @ 3:28:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] UK ISPs have today found themselves under attack from industry officials, many of whom believe ISPs need to be more responsive to security needs and outsource experts rather than manage things in-house:
Speaking at the ISPCON event in London today (12 February), Richard Ayres, business development manager at antivirus expert Trend Microsystems, said that outsourcing gave security vendors the opportunity to stop viruses at source, but that ISPs were guilty of passing the buck.
Ayres explained: "Companies should have layered protection, ideally stopping potential threats at the gateway, but why not take it one level up and get the service provider to do it?
ISPs have traditionally been reluctant to deal with security issues, preferring customers to deal with it themselves. But if we compare that scenario with, for example, a utility company, if I'm buying water from that company then I can expect it to be cleaned at source. It's the same with an ISP."
The VNUNet item goes on to show comments from similar officials, also suggesting that providers should compensate their customers for downtime (some do this, most don't).
It's an interesting thing to say, especially in the wake of recent DDoS attacks, however we can't help but feel that the things they so easily suggest would, in practice, be much harder to implement. Online security is a truly VAST issue and not something so easily resolved. |
Europe's LLU Laws Fail
By:mark.j @ 3:11:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Much as we predicted nearly a year ago when they were first introduced, Europe’s new Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) laws don't appear to have had an impact.
The European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) has shown that less than 0.01% of local loop lines in Europe have been unbundled to improve competition:
The group also found that DSL penetration across the EU’s telephone networks is running at just 2% of total lines and just 3% of these lines are provided by new entrants, rather than incumbent operators. Wholesale access provided to ISPs by incumbents, according to ECTA, accounts for around 7%.
In the UK, only 164 of BT’s 29m lines are under competitors’ control, compared to 623,000 in Germany and 40,000 in Denmark.
ECTA MD Phil Evins says that the figures confirm that local loop unbundling “is not delivering a competitive market in local connections for Europe’s businesses or consumers. The few new entrants left in the market are, in most countries, unable to co-locate and acquire lines on a timely or economic basis.”
The netimperative.com doesn't come as much of a surprise since the UKs own LLU process has barely changed in the last year; it's clearly failed to have the desired impact. This will no doubt spark the debate over LLU once more, not that it'll do any good. |
MS Internet Explorer & Messenger Patch
By:mark.j @ 3:02:PM - Comments (5) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] | You've no doubt read about several recent security holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and related IM client (MSN Messenger) over the past few days. The good news is that MS has released a patch, which should solve most of the vulnerabilities and can be downloaded HERE. |
Couples Boosted By Internet Love
By:mark.j @ 9:53:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] New research from BTOpenworld has found that E-Mail is helping couples spice up their love life by sending saucy messages. Without feeling too sick we'll just pass you on to the full press release:
MARRIED COUPLES GET A BOOST FROM INTERNET LOVE
Singletons have long been smitten with email flirtations, but now it appears that established couples, grown lazy with love, are using the Internet to re-ignite their passions.
According to research by BTopenworld, email is helping British couples revive those heart fluttering days, with one in four long-timers adding spice to their love life by sending saucy messages to their other half. Stuttering over the 'love' word, many men and women now rely on technology to do the talking for them. A quarter confess to using email to say things to their nearest and dearest that they can't find the words to reveal in person.
But, it's not just couples that find it hard to express themselves. When faced with the girl of their dreams the 'bruised ego' syndrome causes many men to wimp out of asking for a date, with almost one in 10 (9 per cent) preferring to email their romantic intentions.
And card shops are set to suffer with love letters and cards becoming a thing of the past, as even Cupid appears to have gone online. The
BTopenworld survey shows that nearly half (48 per cent) of love sick Britons opt to email their beloveds to let them know that they care. And 59 per cent admit to sending tantalising text messages to add a bit of sparkle to their love lives.
Duncan Ingram, senior vice president of BTopenworld, says: "Whether you're a Darby or Joan or a Romeo or Juliet, love online is helping you make sure your sweetheart knows you care. It's great to see technology keeping romance alive." |
Bulldog Goes Head-To-Head With BT
By:mark.j @ 9:48:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] It's now much clearer why Bulldog Communications was so quick to snap at BT amid official word that the operator would reduce wholesale R/ADSL prices in the near future, details of which are to be announced next week.
Bulldog claims to have raised £10 Million in the first of two scheduled rounds of funding towards its plans to compete with BT for local broadband services.
The company said yesterday that the funding would allow it to provide 550,000 homes and businesses in central London with high-speed broadband services this year, adding it was now in a good position to achieve its aim of raising £40 Million in 2002.
"Bulldog now has the financial resources to drive forward the commercial launch of our broadband service in the UK, providing service providers with an alternative to the incumbent," the firm said in a statement. Service trials will begin in April and a formal launch should follow for the end of the year.
It hopes that a second round of funding later this year will allow it to expand to the greater metropolitan area, supporting 4 million homes and businesses by the second quarter of 2003.
We note that Bulldog claims to support ‘homes’ as well as ‘businesses’, however to date they’ve only been targeting businesses and BTs intended price cuts are more aimed at residential/home users. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next week. |
Government Sells Golden C&W Share
By:mark.j @ 9:38:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Cable & Wireless (C&W) was first privatised 21 years ago and at that time the government purchased an influential 'golden share' in the company, which it has now given up.
The company claims that there's no significance in the timing of the purchase for the special share's nominal value of £1. Analysts viewed the redemption as largely symbolic.
The golden share allowed the government to stop anyone from owning more than 15% of the shares in C&W, now the world's largest web hosting group. The government abandoned its special share in BT in 1997.
The provisions had been designed to prevent companies from being snapped up by unwelcome foreign predators, but the world has changed a great deal since 1981.
"(The government) could never really block a deal of any description because it would be seen as overtly interventionist," said Steve Malcolm, telecoms analyst at Deutsche Bank.
"If anyone wanted to do a deal for Cable & Wireless, I don't think they'd have a problem doing it, even with the government's special share. It's something a large number of people weren't even aware was there," he added.
Shares in Cable & Wireless rose slightly after the statement before retreating to close at 249-3/4 pence, up 1% on the day and around where they were before the announcement. |
BSG Gains New Chairman
By:mark.j @ 9:32:AM - Comments (1) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The Broadband Stakeholders Group (BSG) has assigned itself a new chairman in the form of former ICL chief executive Keith Todd. Mr.Todd will take over from e-minister Douglas Alexander, whom had previously held the position:
IT veteran Todd will manage the BSG's programme of work covering the marketing of broadband, applications and use in schools, as well as advising on strategy and the best regulatory framework.
Alexander said in a statement that "For businesses [broadband] can make the difference between costly software licences and upgrades and economical downloads of the very latest technologies."
Todd said he would try to "accelerate the adoption of broadband services by business and consumers, across the country." His appointment was welcomed by the chief executives of BT, Telewest and NTL.
The VNUNet item doesn't state why Mr.Alexander is leaving, although we doubt the change will cause any dramatic shift in strategy, not least because the BSG already issued some well accepted proposals (rollout subsidisation excluded). |
Europeans Shun Home Internet?
By:mark.j @ 9:23:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The latest eEurope benchmarking report from the European Commission (EC) has cast doubt over whether the EU's love affair with the Internet will ever be as strong as it is in the USA:
Although there has been a dramatic rise in household Internet use in the EU, rising from 18% of households in March 2000 to 39% last December, the EC thinks this rise increase could be flattening.
This is a respectable rate of growth, yet it still lags behind the US, the EU finds, suspecting that a key constraint on home internet access may be the low rate of home PC ownership in Europe compared to the US. In those EU nations where home PC ownership is commonplace, home internet use has grown to 60%, more in line with the US.
However, this may be as good as it gets. In Europe internet access at companies with more than 10 staff is now approaching 90%, so that many citizens probably access the internet at work, and feel no need to do so from home, where the cost of internet connection is still generally higher than in America.
The Register's item shouldn't be unexpected because we're already steadily approaching the point of saturation, much like the mobile phone market is currently dealing with.
Not to mention that newer 3G broadband mobile phones will take the Internet into new 'roaming' territories and away from the home. |
Telewest Decommissions Cable Internet
By:mark.j @ 9:15:AM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Those who've been with ISP Review since the early years will be well aware that Telewests (cable operator) ISP division was once called 'Cable Internet' before blueyonder came along.
Sadly the Cable Internet domain and associated E-Mail services will soon cease to exist, the website now reads:
Cableinet turned off
In March 2000, when we launched our broadband service, we also changed our name from Cable Internet to blueyonder. At that time we sent a mailshot all users promising to decommission the old @cableinet.co.uk e-mail addresses a year later. This mailshot can be seen here.
Due to the rollout of broadband and the launch of new services such as the broadband blueyonder website, this decommissioning was delayed and we will now be doing this in early 2002. With a new and improved e-mail platform due to be launched this year, it is impractical to continue to support an old e-mail domain that has not been promoted in 2 years.
The project to complete the final transition from Cable Internet to blueyonder is underway within Telewest. To ensure you are unaffected when we stop using the cableinet.co.uk domain name, we have detailed the steps you will need to follow.
Typically the website message carries on explaining the transition process, although this should only be important for a few users because it's been two years since the service closed. |
News - February 11,2002
Tele2 Backs R/ADSL Price Cuts
By:mark.j @ 3:29:PM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] You'd have thought Tele2 would be concerned about BTs rumoured price cuts, after all it'd eat into their own share of the market, yet apparently they see things another way.
Tele2 actually welcome the news of BTs plan to substantially cut the price of its wholesale R/ADSL product:
Elliott Mueller, Tele2's chief executive, believes that such a price cut would be good for his firm because it will improve the public's awareness of broadband.
According to Mueller, when one high-speed Internet service provider reduces its prices, or launches a new marketing campaign, it helps everyone in the sector. "Tele2 benefits when other companies come out with a price cut, or an innovative offer, because it helps the overall awareness of broadband. We'd welcome a cut in BT's broadband pricing," Mueller told ZDNet UK.
We can't help but feel that Mr.Mueller's views are misguided, BTs xDSL technology is very different from Tele2's and while it may initially provide for a handful of extra users, it could also take some away as demand pushes coverage.
Quite how more people would find out about Tele2 if BT were to cut its prices is also another of many wonders (not everybody knows ISPr =]). More @ ZDNet. |
63% of SME's Now Online
By:mark.j @ 3:02:PM - Comments (0) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] According to the latest research from Oftel, the number of small and medium sized businesses (SME's) using the Internet has risen by 8% to 63%!:
The researchers also found a third of SMEs have unmetered internet access.
Director of Operations Peter Waller says the research shows an increasing use of telecoms services in general by UK business.
He says almost two in three small and medium sized businesses now also use a mobile phone - a figure that has been steadily increasing for the past six months.
The Ananova item reports that the survey was conducted with 815 SME's and the full publication can be found at the usual place on Oftels website. |
Important TheDotComplete ISP Update
By:mark.j @ 9:52:AM - Comments (2) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Today Thedotcomplete (TDC) has issued yet another service update, this time covering their new server side virus checker and the status of the news server. However of most interest is likely to be a correction to the recently announced unmetered business offer (see the bottom):
We have employed some very neat new server add-ons, which will now scan all incoming and out going mail for viruses. The add-ons are now in operation on:
mail.thedotcomplete.net and
smtp.thedotcomplete.net
Also, the news server will be back online in the next few days.
AND ALSO THE SPECIAL THEDOTSERVICE.NET BUSINESS ACCESS PACKAGE @ 14.99 HAS BEEN MIS-QOUTED ON THE WEBSITE AS 3:1 RATIO, WHEN IN REALITY IT IS CLOSER TO 7:1. WE APOLOGISE TO ANY CUSTOMER WHICH AS BEEN MISLED. THE PACKAGE WILL BE AVAILBLE FOR A LIMITED PERIOD! |
PlusNET / Force9's New T&C's
By:mark.j @ 9:48:AM - Comments (3) - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One of our readers (John) let us know that the popular ISP's PlusNET, Force9 and Free-Online (all linked) have updated their Terms & Conditions:
Please note that we will be making some changes to our Terms and Conditions. These changes are to clarify certain clauses in the Terms and Conditions. You can find the new, updated document available to view online now, from the Legal section of the portal web site at http://www.force9.net/info2/legal/index.html
As an existing customer, you should be aware you have a 14 day period before these updated Terms and Conditions will be applied to your account. This will take place, and be effective from, the 23rd February 2002. These Terms and Conditions are effective immediately for all new signups to our Internet access services.
Unfortunately the ISP's make no mention of any specific changes, although hopefully nothing too important has been altered. |
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