July 5, 2002 - July 10, 2002
News - July 10,2002
UK Online ISP Launches Unmetered
By:mark.j @ 3:04:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Not to be confused with the governments 'UK Online' project, UK Online the ISP has today announced the launch of its new 'OpenSurf' unmetered dialup product:
UK Online Launches OpenSurf
British consumer Internet Service Provider (ISP) UK Online (www.ukonline.net) is this week launching a new flat-rate Internet access package called OpenSurf.
Aimed at anyone wanting to surf the net to their heart's content without the worry of a costly monthly phone bill, OpenSurf will cost £15.00 a month and provide fast and reliable access to the Internet with no set up fee.
OpenSurf includes:
- Fast, reliable and unlimited access to the Internet
- Free email account
- Unlimited web space to build your own personal web site
- CHILDCHECK - UK Online's own child friendly filtering system
- Local BT rate 24 / 7 friendly support
- Free technical support over email
- Web mail so you can send and receive emails from any PC connected to the Internet worldwide
In addition to all these facilities customers will get access to the best British content across a range of different channels. Shop till you drop through the Shopping Channel where you'll find access to all the high street brands. Book your next holiday or get the low down on global destinations in the Travel Channel or read the latest film, DVD or video reviews via the Entertainment Channel. Visit the Lifestyle Channel where fashion, food and health are the main priorities and remember that you're never far away from national and regional weather, news and sport.
UK Online is the gateway to the Internet and as a caring family ISP UK Online also has a dedicated Kids Only area, which is packed games, information and links, perfect for young surfers.
If that's not enough why not sign-up to UK Online's own pre-paid SMS alert service where customers can receive the latest news from the world's of sport, music, entertainment, leisure, weather, travel, business and politics as well as daily horoscopes and jokes delivered straight to their mobile phone.
To sign up to OpenSurf simply visit www.ukonline.net and click on 'sign-up'. You will be connected to the net almost instantaneously.
Existing UK Online customers currently on the Pay as You Surf metered service can switch to OpenSurf at no extra cost.
Note that despite the standard price, their T&C’s claim to limit you to an impressive 16 hours per day of surfing (maximum). The service itself uses a normal 2 hourly cut-off, as is the norm for most ISPs. |
SPAM Attacking Grows 500%
By:mark.j @ 2:54:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Speaking of junk E-Mails (SPAM), a new survey from Brightmail (technology provider) has found that SPAM attacks have increased by five times in the past year:
The anti-spam company's latest figures, measured by its Probe network of decoy email inboxes, show that 4,825,144 attacks were made in June this year, an increase of 138,161 from May.
The figures reflect a rapid upward trend in unsolicited electronic messages sent over the past year.
In December 2001, 1,969,041 attacks were caught by the company, while 879,253 were recorded last June - an increase of about 500% in the previous twelve months.
The netimperative.info item notes that 27% contained adverts for goods and 20% were related to money.
Not surprisingly the item concludes that most of the SPAM seen in Europe comes from countries outside the zone. This fits in with our own article on the matter from earlier in the year. |
BT Filters Out Legitimate ISP E-Mails
By:mark.j @ 2:48:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] One of the often unspoken drawbacks to server-side SPAM (Junk E-Mail) filters is that they can sometimes remove legitimate messages.
Unfortunately BTs customers have been seeing exactly this, with mail disappearing at random since November last year. The problem stems from a spam filtering service called Spamcop, which collates lists of mail servers used to send out such mails:
BT's mail servers, it seems, are being regularly used by spammers. When they are identified as a source of spam, they are added to Spamcop's blacklist.
An ISP which uses Spamcop's software will then treat any mail coming from those servers as spam - in other words, delete all mail from that server, including legitimate emails, without trace.
For example, BT mail server mta04.btfusion.com, which handles mail for a proportion of BT customers, has been listed over twenty times by Spamcop since the service was established in its present form in November 2001.
The Silicon item notes that mail servers are cleared from the list on a weekly basis, thus the problem appears intermittently (harder to track).
Sadly this is a much wider problem; perhaps giving customers more control over allowing specific addresses, which might normally be blocked, would help? Easier said than done. |
Telewest's New Blueyonder Promo
By:mark.j @ 2:39:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Hot on the heels of One.Tel's special broadband ADSL offer, today Telewest's blueyonder broadband cable modem service has also launched a new promotion.
The new promo is specifically designed to target online gamers (multiplayer) by giving subscribers broadband access plus a subscription to its gaming service:
The offer costs from £35 a month, depending on whether you're an existing Telewest punter. Oh, and if you subscribe to the service before 23 August you get the £50 installation fee waived.
According to Murray Hume, business manager for blueyonder multiplayer gaming: "You haven't really experienced the full benefit of your PC games until you’ve ventured online and tested your skills against your fellow player."
You'll need to visit Blueyonder's site for more details, more @ The Register. |
Internet Attacks Rise
By:Keith @ 1:04:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] No suprise really but the number of attacks on the net has risen again this year:
Between the months of January and June 2002 the number of Internet attacks worldwide grew at an annualised rate of 64%, according to Riptech.
The company, which has found that most of the attacks, 80%, came from just ten countries: United States, Germany, South Korea, China, France, Canada, Italy, Taiwan, Great Britain, and Japan.
Utilities are the number one target for Internet attacks. During the period of the study 70% of Utility companies questioned had been the victim of an Internet attack.
More @ The Register |
UK Comes Second (EU) - Online Users
By:mark.j @ 9:27:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The BizReport has done a good job of combining some of the recently announced Internet access statistics from NetValue, National Statistics UK and the UK Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS).
However of most interest is NetValue's European Internet usage chart, which despite the UKs broadband penetration problems, shows that UK Internet access remains high at No.2 behind Germany:
Though the younger generation in the UK, the 16 to 24 year-olds, claims the greatest percentage of net users (89%), the 45 to 54 year-old group does not trail far behind with 60% online.
Interestingly, the report noted that 45% of UK adults have never gone online. When asked why, 44% of respondents cite a lack of interest in the internet, while 25% say they do not have a computer or access to the net. Only 6% say they have not yet gotten around to going online.
No doubt much of the UKs success is down to our lead with unmetered dialup offerings, something other countries have found hard to clone. |
IC24's Official Unmetered Announcement
By:mark.j @ 9:15:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] We've already posted about IC24's (Brightview’s) new unmetered dialup ISP services; however we've now been issued the 'official' press release, which includes comments from Brightview's CEO:
This message is to break the news that Internet service provider IC24 is launching an unmetered Internet access during working hours (8.30 am - 5.30 pm) for a subscription of just £8.99 a month including VAT. At all other times, the price of connecting is the cost of a local phone call.
The service is available to anyone in the UK with a BT phone line. New customers will receive an Email address in the format yourname@ic24.net and current ic24 customers who choose to change to the new service will keep their existing Email addresses.
Sign up is done on the Internet at http://www.ic24.net. In order to ensure that nobody abuses the service to the detriment of other subscribers, users will be disconnected after 2 hours active use and after a 10-minute inactive period.
David Laurie, CEO of Brightview, the company that owns IC24 said: "We expect this service will appeal greatly to people who are often at home during office hours and to value conscious consumers who do not want to spend huge amounts of time connecting to the Internet during their evenings and weekends."
Commenting on how Brightview was able to offer such a competitive product, David Laurie continued: "Because our core customer base is consumers, who generally log on during the evenings and weekends, we have excess capacity during the day. However, once day-time demand balances up capacity, we will not take any more sign-ups. Therefore we are planning to make this offer on a limited basis only." |
Alcatel’s Debt Gains Junk Status
By:mark.j @ 9:10:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Alcatel, the French telecoms group behind SpeedTouch USB ADSL modems, has had its long-term debt downgraded to junk status by credit rating agency, Moody's:
Last month Alcatel issued a profit warning, saying its annual results will show a loss, and announced 10,000 job cuts.
Moody's said Alcatel's liquidity could face further erosion amid a climate of falling demand for the company's products.
Not surprisingly the Silicon item notes that Alcatel's shares have closed down by 2%. |
BT Retail To Launch 24/7 Unmetered
By:rich @ 12:18:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The latest product from BT Retail is set to be a 24/7 unmetered net access service launched on August 1st:
The service will be introduced from August 1 and costs £17.00 a month. This fee is on top of the cost of the BT Together service (which provides various unlimited call packages for a fixed monthly fee) with prices starting at £11.50 a month.
Punters signing up to the 24/7 Internet service will be charged for their Net access via their phone bill, making it more convenient for people who want their telecoms services bundled onto one bill.
More @ The Register.
Until more details emerge it will be difficult to tell if this is a similar product to the "BT 'No Frills' Broadband" in the way it is offered direct to the customer. |
News - July 9,2002
Large Range Of ADSL Problems
By:Anne @ 11:43:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] There has been a number of problems with ADSL, some users have had either sync or slow connection issues. The number of users with these problems has risen sharply over the last few days.
BTWholesale has raised no official generic fault and it appears that a spate of problems have hit users whom have had their lines working for a while:
It also appears that there is a spate of users who've had lines working for sometime losing sync, e.g. Windows reports No Dial Tone, or the ADSL LED starts to flash rather than a nice steady green. In the first instance users should check whether anything has changed at their end, i.e. has someone plugged an unfiltered phone in or has a lead become unplugged.
A short troubleshooting section exists here. The bt_test login is very useful and if you navigate to the http://www.bt.net/digitaldemo site, the video should play at around 300kbps if your line is working OK.
More @ ADSLGuide |
More Info On One.Tel's Free UK Calls Offer
By:rich @ 9:02:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] We asked One.Tel for a little more information on their free UK calls offer mentioned in a news item below. Here is the response with some details of the limitations and fair use policy on the offer:
Our service does have a two hour call cut off and a fair use policy applies to prevent abuse thus keeping the charges low for everyone. I should also point out that Free UK Calls doesn't include non-geographic numbers (0845 etc).
To clarify, the fair use policy, in detail, is:
If in any month, you make more than 500 minutes of free calls and less than 10% of your total calls are chargeable, then One.Tel reserves the right to charge standard rates for the remainder of the month.
For example, if in a month, you have made 600 minutes of free calls in the free period, then you should have made at least 60 minutes of other types of calls, eg peak calls, mobile calls, international calls.
A similar offer to BT but with the advantage of a 2 hour call cut-off. |
New ISP Review Survey/Poll
By:mark.j @ 3:31:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] We've put up a new survey/poll today asking, "How good is your broadband ADSL connection?". The results from the previous one are as follows:
What do you think is the best broadband type?
Cable Modem - 45.2%
ADSL - 38.5%
Powerline - 7.7%
Wireless - 5.2%
Satellite - 3.3%
Total Votes = 787
The results are reasonably self explanatory and it doesn't take a genius to know why Cable Modems are at the top (price, recognised service etc.).
It’s also interesting to note that our readers would be keen to see a technology allowing Internet access using power cables, something that might help it to become more recognised as a potentially important technology for the near future.
Perhaps that’s because almost every house in the country could theoretically get it, should trials succeed. |
One.Tel's Free UK Calls & ADSL Connection
By:mark.j @ 3:09:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The latest ISP/Telco to offer a special broadband ADSL promotion is One.Tel UK, which will give the first 750 who register online a free modem (ADSL) and connection, saving roughly £159.99.
However that’s not all, the ISP/Telco is also offering a special free UK residential voice calls service!:
ONE.TEL OF A YEAR!
Free UK calls plus free broadband modem and connection
The image of the telecommunications industry received a welcome boost today as One.Tel proved that there’s still plenty of room for innovation with the launch of a new home phone package.
‘Free UK Calls’ comes hot on the heels of One.Tel’s market leading mobile offering, launched less than a month ago. With this latest development, home phone customers can opt to pay just £4.99 per month and receive free off peak and weekend calls1.
An additional saving of £160 is also available for the first 750 consumers who sign up for One.Tel broadband on-line2. They will receive a free modem and connection to celebrate the introduction of a new internet registration site.
“The new home phone pricing plan and broadband promotion come almost a year to the day that Centrica bought One.Tel,” said Ian El-Mokadem, Managing Director of Centrica’s telecommunications arm. “One.Tel in the UK was already a great company when we bought it and these new additions are a great testimony to our determination to continue to offer customers even better choices across a range of telecommunications products.
We have gained a reputation for innovation in the telecoms market and this development to our home phone service combined with the brilliant offer from One.Tel broadband shows just how much benefit a company like One.Tel can bring.”
The online sign up for broadband is the latest mould breaking development for the internet arm of One.Tel. Not only does it remove the need to physically sign contracts, but actually runs a line check on customers’ phone lines which will determine whether broadband is available and will indicate which broadband services the customer can have.
“One.Tel is fast becoming a name that appeals to a broad range of telecoms users,” El-Mokadem continued. “Now we are tailoring price plans to suit specific customer groups, which is a further sign that One.Tel is maturing into a full service communications company.
We’ve welcomed some of Oftel’s recent moves to stimulate competition in the telecoms market. These latest developments highlight just how much customers can benefit from real competition in telecoms.”
Note that the promotion is valid from Monday 8th until Friday 19th July and includes a broadband ADSL modem (normal price £99.99) and connection (normal price = £60).
The offer is only valid to customers who register through the new online sign up system for the 500U Unplugged service. Microfilters are not included, but cost an additional £9.99 each. Minimum contract term of 12 months. |
The CRISP Cans Unmetered ISP Plans
By:mark.j @ 3:00:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The Cost Reducing Internet Service Provider (CRISP), had been planning to introduce some form of unmetered dialup service for the past few months.
However, following a number of delays, the following message is now posted on their site:
It is with the greatest regret that we must inform all clients waiting to use our service that TheCRISP shall no longer be launching.
We apologise to those who were on our database to be signed up, but due to unforseen circumstances this system is no longer viable at present.
To be fair it never presented itself as a very professional service and isn't likely to be missed because it never really existed. |
VIA NET.WORKS UK Launch SDSL
By:mark.j @ 2:53:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Today VIA NET.WORKS UK has issued a new press release announcing the launch of its new business broadband Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) services:
VIA NET.WORKS UK launches SDSL services
VIA NET.WORKS UK, a single-source provider of managed Internet services for business, has announced availability of a new advanced business broadband service to provide small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with reliable, high-performance Internet connectivity. VIA's SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services utilise the network of high-speed datacommunications provider, Fibernet UK Ltd, and is today being rolled out in major metropolitan areas in the North West of England.
As a business broadband service, VIA SDSL solutions offer significant improvements on current standard ADSL connections which are largely targeted at the home user market. VIA SDSL Business Network services are available in a range of bandwidths - 512Kbps, 1Mbps and 2Mbps – and performance levels for 'standard' and 'power' users. VIA Secure SDSL includes fully-managed security services to ensure customers are safe-guarded from external hacking attacks. More important for businesses, all VIA SDSL services come with service level agreements that establish availability and response times to fault reports. With competitive, flat-rate pricing, VIA SDSL Business Network services bring advanced broadband within the budget of smaller businesses.
"Businesses throughout the UK have been working hard to compete in the Net economy but are still being hindered by the lack of reliable, affordable broadband services," said Jeff Meulman, Managing Director, VIA NET.WORKS UK. "Fibernet's SDSL technology allows us to set contention ratios and thereby deliver levels of performance and reliability previously beyond the reach of many SMEs. We are currently reviewing plans to implement a wider roll-out of SDSL in other parts of the UK."
The speed of SDSL services is dependent on the number of concurrent users on a line (defined as the contention ratio). Two levels of SDSL service are being announced today: 5:1 contention ratio for the power user and a competitively priced 10:1 contention ratio service for less demanding users.
"Many SMEs have been falling into a broadband technology gap," said Nigel Pitcher, Director of Marketing at Fibernet. "They had to choose between low cost broadband services that had no real guarantees of reliability, or run to the expense of installing dedicated leased lines. SDSL will fill this gap for companies running networks with up to 100 users."
ABOUT VIA SDSL BUSINESS NETWORK SERVICES*
Available bandwidths: Up to 512Kbps, 1Mbps, 2Mbps (SDSL offers same upload and download speeds vs. ADSL where upload speed is limited to 256Kbps.)
Service coverage: BT Exchanges where the VIA SDSL Business Network service is currently available are Manchester Central, Ardwick, Sale, Bury, Liverpool Central and Warrington.
Performance: VIA SDSL Business Network services are available at two fixed contention ratios, 5:1 and 10:1. Speed of SDSL service will vary depending on number of concurrent users on the line and the contention ratio sets the limit for the number of customers that share a line.
Security: As SDSL is an 'always on' technology where users are permanently connected to the Internet, VIA is providing businesses with a Secure SDSL option that includes a fully managed firewall (monitored and maintained 24 x 7 x 365).
Service provision: VIA SDSL Business Network services are based on Fibernet's Access IP offering delivered over Fibernet's ATM network with 'last-mile' connection to the customer over a BT-provided copper line. All VIA SDSL customers require a new BT phone line to be installed.
Pricing: Prices start at £300** per month for VIA SDSL Business Network, 512Kbps, 10:1 contention ratio. Installation costs, detailed quotations and further information on availability of VIA SDSL services are available from VIA NET.WORKS on 0845 330 4975 or broadband@vianetworks.co.uk.
Don’t be too shocked by the pricing, SDSL is simply not a residential users technology (unless you live with Bill Gates). |
Protesting Against BTOpenworlds ADSL
By:mark.j @ 2:43:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Paul King, the MD of Consultancy Concise Contact Management Ltd., is attempting to form a protest group against BTOpenworlds 'poor' broadband ADSL services.
Mr.King has apparently been using BTOpenworlds services for the past 18 months and has had enough of all the problems, often being left for days at a time without access. The problems are reported to have cost his business upwards of £30,000:
In November last year he finally had enough and decided to take his complaint directly to BT. Wearing a sandwich board he paraded outside BT's HQ in London for more than an hour before someone from BT agreed to see him.
The message he wore was blunt and to the point: "BTopenworld are in our opinion unreliable and slow - a crap product, crap service, crap support - screws up your business. Signed Disgusted Director."
Despite King's direct approach and assurances that BT would resolve the problem he is still struggling with a poor service from BT. So he's decide to pay BT another visit - and this time he wants other cheesed off broadband customers to join him.
The Register notes that the next protest is likely to take place sometime during August or September, you can find out more HERE (note the little BTO logo at the top). |
NTL Pleased With Universal Music
By:mark.j @ 2:34:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] According to DigitalSpy, NTL has welcomed a move by the Universal Music Group to offer 1,000 of its albums online for download.
Not surprisingly the UKs largest cable company sees it as good news for broadband Internet users and a possible sign of things to come:
The company, which has placed cable modem broadband service as one of its key revenue generating services into the future, sees the move as crucial to entice more people onto broadband services. ntl says it has conducted recent research showing "over 50% of those people interested in music would be willing to pay for music downloads". |
Court Rules Against Deep Linking!
By:mark.j @ 9:58:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] In a shocking turn of events, providing a link (URL) to another websites page other than the main index (Deep Linking) could become illegal.
The ruling, which was made by a Danish court, has the potential to change the nature of the Internet. The court ruled that news aggregator Newsbooster is banned from providing some deep links from its site or newsletters:
It's unclear whether the ruling by Copenhagen's lower bailiff's court will have broader ramifications for the Web. The decision only prevents Newsbooster from deep linking to the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association's 28 sites.
However, deep linking is becoming a more contentious topic across the globe as dot-coms of all stripes seek more control over their traffic and advertising targets.
Legal experts said the decision might not have any direct effect on most sites, but it opens the door for courts to examine more closely the practice of deep linking.
While we're safe for now, try to picture a world where search engines that could only show domain links, where websites couldn’t link directly to news items or content on another and where information hunting becomes an impossible chore.
Deep linking is a fundamental element of how the Internet has helped to grow as an information resource; to ban it would be a bizarre decision, if ever it comes. More @ ZDNet. |
24-7FreeCall ISP Website Returns
By:mark.j @ 9:32:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] 24-7FreeCall, one of NeonHippo's most illusive ISP resellers, so called because their website appears to have been missing for the past few months, has finally returned.
Aside from looking more unattractive than ever (web design), the service itself hasn't changed and is still based off NeonHippo's most basic resold ISP package. £30 for the first 3 months and £14.99 per month there after. |
UK Employees Viewing Internet Porn
By:mark.j @ 8:57:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] There's a growing problem with employee's using the Internet to surf pornographic sites during working hours, one in four such workers have reportedly now been dismissed for such 'Internet misconduct'.
The survey, which came from a study of 544 human resources (HR) managers and officers, doesn’t look favourably on employees from some of Britain's largest corporations:
Some 72% of UK firms have dealt with Internet misuse in the workplace and one in four companies have dismissed staff for misuse of the Internet, but this can be an expensive way of dealing with the problem.
"Dismissing an employee for Internet misuse is a substantial cost to the employer," said Jonathan Naylor, barrister in the Employment, Pensions and Benefits Group of lawyer Morgan Cole. A study by employment analysts Incomes Data Services last year found that the costs of replacing key staff could be as much as 150% of the employee's annual salary.
"Companies are, increasingly, looking to protect themselves and their employees from the legal implications from viewing pornography or downloading illegal software," said Geoff Haggart, vice-president at software vendor Websense.
The CW360 item notes that the survey itself was carried out for 'Websense' and 'Personnel Today' magazine, a sister publication of CW360. |
News - July 8,2002
Tiscali Slaps European Unbundling
By:mark.j @ 3:19:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Renato Soru, Tiscali's chief executive, has today claimed that EU reforms designed to extend the coverage of broadband ADSL through local loop unbundling (LLU), have failed:
Soru argues that it is too expensive for competitive carriers to install their own hardware in exchanges, a necessary part of LLU. Tiscali, which has laid 40,000km of fibre optic cables in Western Europe, wants the EU to do more to free up the wholesale market.
"Local loop unbundling doesn't make economic sense," Soru told the FT. "It will cause a lot of disasters in this industry."
Interestingly the comments spotted on The Register came on the same day as the news item below, in which the EU announced that it’s considering a move toward further broadband deregulation. |
C2Internet's Cornwall ADSL Discounts
By:mark.j @ 2:58:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] ADSLGuide is reporting that C2Internet, the business ISP, is offering discounts on their service for new broadband ADSL subscribers in the Cornwall area:
In association with the ActNow project, users on the target exchanges will receive a £5 discount each month for the first 18 months. The offer is valid until the end of September 2003 at the following exchanges:
Already enabled: Penzance, St Austell, Newquay, Redruth, Camborne, Truro Planned if demand shown: Launceston, Bodmin, Saltash, Falmouth, Penryn, St Ivesm Bude
Not surprisingly the offer is an attempt to further encourage take-up of said services, although whether it'll work remains to be seen. |
Royal KPN Bids For KPNQwest
By:mark.j @ 2:53:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] All may not be lost for KPNQwest, the troubled European data hub. Apparently the group’s parent company, Royal KPN, has bid for the majority of the bankrupt Telco’s European network:
KPN is rumoured to have bid E20m (£12m) for most of KPNQwest's European assets excluding the now dead eBone network, although the company refused to confirm the price.
A spokesman said: "We have said before that we are interested in several parts of KPNQwest's network and now we have put in bids on those areas."
However, Serafino Abate, senior networks analyst at Ovum, said: "I'm surprised at this bid from KPN. It is not one of the best performing incumbents in Europe. It's never been strong on international services and it's already running on very thin revenue streams. This is quite a dangerous move and could lead to its closure."
Despite that, KPNQwest has already had some of its French assets snapped up by the Nordic telco, Telia. More @ Silicon. |
BT's Chairman = Top Dog of Media
By:mark.j @ 2:48:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Sir Christopher Bland, BT's chairman, has apparently become the sixth most powerful individual in the UK's media sector, all according to today's Guardian newspaper:
This year's Media Guardian 100 list puts Bland behind only Rupert Murdoch, BBC director-general Greg Dyke, Tony Blair, Tony Ball -- the chief executive of BSkyB -- and advertising titan Sir Martin Sorrell when it comes to cultural influence, economic clout and political power.
Several other senior figures from the new media scene appeared in the Media Guardian 100, although none as high as Bland.
Bland was credited for lowering BT's debt mountain, and for making the company give broadband a much higher priority. Even though chief executive Ben Verwaayen is generally seen as the real driving force behind BT broadband push, Bland shares the credit for having chosen Verwaayen to succeed Sir Peter Bonfield.
More @ ZDNet. |
Alcatel To Supply Bulldog's xDSL Kit
By:mark.j @ 2:43:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Bulldog Communications, which recently entered into a joint broadband SDSL deal with BT, is to receive much of its DSL hardware and network infrastructure equipment from Alcatel, thanks to a new deal:
Alcatel dominates the market for DSL equipment, with three times the market share of its nearest competitor and over 17 million DSL lines shipped to date. Alcatel will supply equipment including the Alcatel 7300 Advanced Services Access Manager (ASAM), the world's most widely deployed broadband access platform, in preparation for Bulldog's commercial service launch in late 2002.
Additionally, Alcatel will supply Bulldog the industry-leading Alcatel 7670 Routing Switch Platform, a multiprotocol multiservice core that will aggregate the broadband traffic, and the Alcatel 5620 Network Manager, which manages access through core. Alcatel has also entered into a support agreement for the network.
"From a technical and operational point of view, Alcatel is the partner of choice," said Peter Hall, Chief Operating Officer for Bulldog. "Alcatel is recognised across the industry as the broadband leader, with a proven track record for successful implementations with the world's largest service providers. With Alcatel's high quality and scalability, Bulldog can ensure consistent quality of service for new customers, keeping operational costs down while steadily growing our business."
Graham Sargood, Bulldog's Director of Networks and Engineering added, "Alcatel's global experience, extensive product and service offerings and local resources strengthen Bulldog's ability to compete with the most effective, efficient DSL network."
"Alcatel's extensive investment in research and development and our close participation and contribution to the standards bodies give Bulldog access to leading edge technology," said Michel Rahier, president of Alcatel's broadband networking activities. "Bulldog is an exciting company that is well positioned for future success in the UK broadband market. We are delighted to be supplying the company with its network infrastructure."
Bulldog plans to offer both asymmetric and symmetric based broadband xDSL services to business customers in the South East of England. |
EU Preps Broadband Deregulation
By:mark.j @ 2:36:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Apparently the EU isn't happy that newcomers are still being blocked from entering the broadband market by entrenched telecoms firms.
Plans are now being discussed to further deregulate such technologies and bring down Internet access charges:
Competition Commissioner Mario Monti says progress on telecoms deregulation in Europe remains "extremely disappointing", despite years of effort to increase competition.
He says his office may soon "expand its field of action" to investigate new complaints of discrimination and "ensure a level playing field".
EU officials see deregulation of this 'last mile' of wire connecting homes and businesses as crucial to bringing down Europe's relatively high telephone charges and promoting broadband access to the Internet.
While the Ananova item is encouraging, we doubt any such changes would dramatically improve the UKs situation. |
Energis Still Seeking Sale
By:mark.j @ 8:53:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The UK telecoms and networking group, Energis, is believed to be seeking additional funding from its bankers as the company tries to seek the best sale possible:
After last week rejecting a joint bid of around £500m from Apax Partners and Carlyle Group, Energis' backers are considering ongoing funding of £150m, according to a report in this morning's FT.
The Silicon item reports that a successful agreement would allow Energis to carry on its operations for quite awhile before needing a sale.
The company, which was once valued with billions rather than millions of pounds, will still have to be sold and could loose its bankers yet more money. |
News - July 7,2002
Tiscali UK Closes Chester Office
By:Keith @ 11:37:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Tiscali UK is to close yet another office, this time in Chester, which it hopes will help to cut costs and improve efficiency:
The centre in Northwich - which handles Tiscali UK's B2B customer service, product development and finance departments - is due to be closed by the middle of August.
Tiscali UK insists that all 50 staff are being offered jobs elsewhere in the company either in nearby Chelford, or further a field in Milton Keynes or London.
According to insiders, as many as 30 people aren't prepared to relocate their homes south. They believe they are effectively being made redundant - an accusation strongly denied by Tiscali UK.
Judging by our own complaints page it looks more like their ISP service to customers that needs improving. More @ The Register. |
UK2.net Blacklists Own Customers.
By:Anne @ 11:24:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The domain registration and hosting group, UK2.Net, has blacklisted some of its own customers after one unrelated client had their site banned from the open relay list supplied by relays.osirusoft.com:
Uk2.net subscribes to the open relay list supplied by relays.osirusoft.com so from Wednesday this week it began automatically blocking email sent to many of its own legitimate users.
This is because relays.osirusoft.com provides a list of IP addresses to block - not domain names of offending site – so "innocent" uk2.net users whose sites share the same server/IP address for mail forwarding as the spam software sales site were also blocked.
This issue has affected a substantial minority of uk2.net’s small business and home users, and many have expressed their frustration and anger over the problem in the company’s forum. There are concerns that blocked emails from potential customers may be lost because of uk2.net’s largely self-inflicted problems
It is against UK2.Net usage policy to use spamming software, and they were slow to act on this issue.
The Register notes that some UK2.Net customers have reported being able to receive mail again, although others still appear to be having problems. |
ISP Review Weekly Update
By:mark.j @ 10:32:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Despite now being on vacation for two weeks, I won't technically be out of the country until next weekend when I'll be away from 14th to 22nd July.
In other words it's work as usual for ISPr, at least for another 5/6 days =). I'll most likely spend the time taking it easy and or working on ISP Review.
I'd also like to get the 'Reader ISP Reviews' system ready for a public beta before the end of the week, it's just a matter of having the author fix 3 missing features and 5 of the bugs uncovered by testing.
Finally and we've also got two new news posters, Keith and Florence, whom will be given a trial run this coming week. Some of you will already know them as forum moderators 'Creative' and 'Kitty', respectively. |
UK Vizzavi ISP/Portals Future In Doubt
By:mark.j @ 9:28:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] The £1Billion joint Internet (unmetered dialup ISP and portal etc.) venture between Vivendi Universal and Vodafone, Vizzavi, could be in trouble after the group’s cash crises went from bad to worse:
It has emerged that the true size of the hole in Vivendi's short-term cash reserves is up to Eu3bn, which the company has just weeks to refinance.
Vivendi's cash crisis has thrown into serious doubt its ability to fund its share of Vizzavi's substantial cash requirements.
One Vodafone insider admitted Vivendi's cash crisis raised doubts over Vizzavi's future. "There has to be question marks, there has to be."
It's currently not known whether the problem will directly impact any of Vizzavi's ISP customers (service supplied by Affinity), more @ The Money Telegraph. |
News - July 6,2002
Wight Cable Lowers Broadband Prices
By:mark.j @ 9:04:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] DigitalSpy reports that the Isle of Wight’s own broadband cable modem offering ISP, Wight Cable, has lowered the cost of its broadband services:
512k = £19.95 per month
128k = £11.75 per month |
News - July 5,2002
Easynet Reports LLU ADSL Progress
By:mark.j @ 2:44:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Easynet has unbundled 50 local loop (LLU) exchanges since October 2001 and has today been talking of their success:
The demand for broadband services from business customers continues to grow, and easynet has now installed 385 business customers with 'own loop' ethernet broadband services, and has another 300 or so new customers that have ordered its high-speed internet product.
New territories that it has unbundled include London, Scotland, Bristol, Berkshire, Kent and Surrey. Overall, it has attracted more than 5,000 business customers to its its ethernet DSL services and said revenues, costs and capital expenditure are all in line with management expectations.
Easynet CEO David Rowe said: "DSL is proving very popular with easynet customers and we are delighted with the pace at which we have been able to unbundle local loops and attract businesses to our service."
Easynet, which is the only UK networking and ISP provider that we know of to offer 8Mbps line bonded ADSL connections, is one of the few groups able to tout such success. More @ netimperative.info . |
X-Box Online Only For Broadband
By:mark.j @ 2:36:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] No surprises here, it's long been feared that the move by gaming console manufacturers toward broadband connections, such as Ethernet based ADSL and Cable Modem services, would limit their use.
Unfortunately Microsoft has been the latest to confirm that their X-Box console will only be supporting broadband users, meaning those unable to get such a connection will be left out (Narrowband etc.):
Speaking at the Broad Horizons Broadband Symposium, Microsoft Europe online business development manager Kate Wilson said: "There is not a games company that isn't looking at online gaming, and most are looking at broadband. We here at Microsoft are not looking at narrowband gaming at all."
Microsoft has instead pledged to deliver a compelling broadband gaming experience for users prepared to pay around £35-a-year for a subscription to Xbox Live. Online gaming is set to boom in tandem with the increased take up of residential broadband access. High-speed internet providers are currently reporting widespread demand - broadband appears to have finally caught the public's imagination.
Just 1% of the country's population has signed up for broadband access but Microsoft predicts that this figure will multiply significantly over the coming years. Wilson said: "Broadband is not a mass-market technology now, and it probably won't be within two years. We at Microsoft are working on a prediction of what we think broadband will be in three to five years."
To be fair we can see the logic, although few games would actually need the bandwidth of a broadband connection unless complex or poorly coded. More @ netimperative.info . |
Online IDs Could Save The Internet?
By:mark.j @ 9:55:AM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE] Eugene Kaspersky, an antivirus expert, believes that the Internet will die unless there's an overhaul with security.
Fair enough, however his ideas for a crime-free web have put him at odds with privacy pundits:
Kaspersky likened the development of the internet to a repeat of previous industries such as the automobile industry. "When the car industry first took off we had no driving licences or licence plates for driver identification and no mileometers or other gauges for the car.
Now the only way we can cut back on malicious internet activity is to equip every user with a unique personal ID," he said.
Kaspersky thinks that the introduction of such a scheme, although unpopular with the privacy advocates, would cause a significant reduction in online crime. "There will still be crime and internet hooligans, but there will be less," he said.
The VNUNet item presents yet another worrying possibility for the future of Internet use. |
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