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BTopenworld To Launch Classical Music Service The service is provided in association with online classical music service provider Classical.com. Said to be the first dedicated classical music subscription service in Europe, it will provide subscribers with a fully searchable catalogue of 5,000 classical tracks available for unlimited streaming, plus downloads of 10 tracks per month (equivalent to an album of music). Downloaded tracks can also be burnt onto a CD or transferred to a portable device. The service also provides the facility for users to create and purchase custom made CDs compiled from tracks in the catalogue. These can then be styled with custom artwork and mailed by the user to a person of their choice. Subscription to the service will cost £7.99 a month with trials due to commence during December. This will involve selected BTopenworld customers with a full consumer launch planned for January 2002. There will also be an e-commerce facility allowing users to purchase from a range of 48,000 classical CDs. To guard against piracy, BTopenworld and Classical.com are using Microsoft to employ cutting-edge digital rights management technology. Composer and record company copyright is also clearly protected and all relevant rights bodies are appropriately rewarded. Web-Hosting Giant Purchased By Cable And Wireless Exodus has a total of 44 web-hosting centres and according to a filing with the London Stock Exchange, Cable and Wireless will be picking up 26, along with four other centres that are not yet in use. The centres are based in London, Frankfurt and Tokyo and consist of total of four million square feet. In a recent statement, Graham Wallace, chief executive of C&W, said that the telco are being selective about which of Exodus' assets they want to acquire, and businesses will benefit from a unique combination of services from C&W, Digital Island and Exodus. In order to make the business profitable by the end of 2003, C&W are planning to spend another £175m ($250m). Also, Exodus, who has 3,500 customers, and claims 46 of the top 150 most-visited websites, will be able to sell other C&W IP services to existing customers. Source: Silicon National Crime Squad Deny 'Imaging' Demons' Servers As a result of the investigations, British and Scottish police forces searched twelve houses and managed to seize "thousands" of files containing illegal images of children. The co-operation and help provided by Demon earned praises from the NCS, who, at the time, mentioned that the ISP had permitted access to its servers. Now, according to zdnet, the NCS has retracted the statement, denying that it had access to Demon Internet's download logs, saying that the terminology used was misleading. Apparently, the NCS is adament that Demon only supplied them with information from newsgroup headers that is also available publicly, and an NCS press officer said that although they did have access to the servers, they did not have access to the logs. When used in an accurate context, the 'image" of a server refers to an entire copy of the content of a server, including all software and traffic logs that is held on it. "Spindler didn't mean what those of us in the industry would interpret that to mean -- he's not a technical expert, he's a policeman," added Ian Hood, director of corporate communications at Thus, the company that owns Demon. The official line on Thursday was that NCS only had access to Demon's NNTP (network news transport protocol) servers, meaning that it had the same level of access to information as a member of the public with a Demon connection. "We created a direct connection between NCS and the newsgroup servers, and configured it so that they could download the messages very quickly," said Hood, to clarify the assistance that Demon provided. "We also kept the message base for longer than we would normally do so, so that they could check against old postings." Unlike other ISPs, Demon Internet provides its subscribers with a "static" IP address, and during the investigation, a total of 10,000 of these IP addresses were obtained by the NCS who insist that these were obtained legally. However, there are those who remain suspicious of the discrepancy between the two statements, like British privacy and policy-making groups who prefer to remain anonymous. The government's recent Anti-Terrorism Bill will mean that authorities can access private details without a warrant - such as all IP addresses of subscribers who download from any newsgroup - from the traffic data that ISPs will be required to retain. Source: ZDNet BTopenworld Launches Trial of Online Games Service Subscription to the Games Domain games service will cost £9.99 per month. Subscribers will receive an array of games services including comprehensive content, a multi-play service supported by one of Europe's largest games server farms and a dynamic peer to peer games service. Exclusive games content will also be added to the package early next year. The Games Domain games service will supply a variety of games from FPS (First Person Shooter) titles such as Quake 3, Unreal Tournament or Half Life to peer-to-peer RPGs (Role Playing Games) such as Age of Empires and Commandos 2 to casual games such as chess. The games titles also include a host of mods (games modifications), many exclusive to the site, which are being created by Europe's leading mod and map builders "Splashdamage" the team behind the phenomenal Quake 3 Team Fortress. The service will launch in December as a free trial which will be available until January 2002 to allow users to try out the service before the subscription process commences. Games Domain subscribers will receive support from 'AlienPants' a vastly experienced online games community management team staffed by former employees of BarrysWorld and Xsreality. The team will be on hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, organising leagues and games tournaments while providing troubleshooting on all games aspects of the service. At full consumer launch in January, the team will also be backed by dedicated BT call centre staff. PlusNet’s Dialogue On UK Broadband Connectivity It promised faster e-mail, responsive web surfing and cheaper and easier networking connections. Whilst many businesses and individuals have indeed made the change from traditional modem dial-up to the many benefits of broadband access, it is by common consent agreed that overall uptake has been much slower than anticipated. As a means of getting an office online, with perhaps an onsite company mail server, ADSL offers amazing value for money. Why then has British business been so slow to join ‘Broadband Britain’? In a study by NetValue in which Internet use in eight European countries was examined, it was found that Britain ranked seventh, with only 2.3% of households connected to broadband in August of 2001. Most of Britain’s broadband users connect via cable modems (1.7%) with just 0.5% connecting through ADSL. In fact, until the introduction of new RADSL technology (enabling a greater catchment area for BT customers, the service was particularly restricted to certain geographical areas, limiting availability. Currently, ADSL is available to over 13 million households and businesses throughout the UK. With further expansion of RADSL technology expected in mid-December, this number will increase still further. “There are a number of reasons why ADSL hasn’t made the inroads into the marketplace as fast as many would have liked to have seen, not least is the public perception, or lack of it, of this technology,” stated Alistair Wyse, Product and Services Director for PlusNet Technologies Ltd. “Most articles in the media focus on the additional speed of connection and discuss how fast music or video can be downloaded – not something of immediate interest to your average MD. While ever people are searching for the ‘killer broadband application’ and not selling the real virtues of broadband access this will merely hamper the growth of broadband. The driving force of SME business is ubiquitous networking rather than ‘content on demand’.” Indeed, as more and more businesses are getting both net-connected and net-savvy, the realisation that immediate data transfer via e-mail and other electronic means leads to increased efficiency and allows for all kinds of enterprise, from remote access and home working, to e-commerce and customer relationship management, is beginning to hit home. Mixed messages then seem to be confusing the marketplace. Trying to strike a balance between communicating the many benefits brought about by this high-speed, always-on technology, whilst focusing on ease-of-use and cost, is not an easy task for any company; not least the Internet Service Providers supplying ADSL connectivity through BT. Many UK ISPs have recently issued press releases in which they state their concern over the service levels of BT’s Internet connections. Concern has grown recently that the ‘Colossus’ backbone which ferries Internet traffic around the UK is prone to occasional failure. “Well, at the end of the day it’s the ISP’s product, not BT’s. The reality is that Colossus is one of the biggest networks in the UK and, as all network designers know, there is a trade off between the degree of resilience of the network, the cost of implementation and therefore the resale of that network. For BT to make it 100% reliable would make your ADSL far too expensive. We feel most strongly that the balance between cost-effectiveness and service quality has been achieved. With a strong support team and rapid communication of any temporary service downtime, our customers effectively have the best of all worlds.” Mr. Wyse was asked whether he felt that it was likely that these claims are damaging the public’s perception of ADSL as a reliable alternative to traditional dial-up and acting against everyone’s best interest, not least the end user. “Considerable damage to the public’s perception of ADSL was made early on; the time taken to get it installed, the geographic availability and the slow rollout all contributed. The greatest damage to early adoption was however the release of reliable and affordable unmetered access before the launch of broadband.” Indeed with BT’s first attempt at unmetered, SurfTime, and now the hugely popular ‘flat-rate’ FRIACO-based services, many people it seems are happy with their modems, as restrictive as they are. This compares similarly with the broadband situation elsewhere in the world. In research carried out by Parks Associates, almost 75% of the 46 million dial-up Internet subscribers in the United States are content with the quality of their Internet service as it is. The main reason cited by ‘narrowband’ users for not intending to upgrade to broadband is that dial-up is ‘good enough’ for their Internet needs. “The US is traditionally seen as having the most mature unmetered and also the most mature broadband market in the world, but we can clearly see the direct comparison with the UK in take-up of these technologies. The UK market traditionally follows in the same footsteps as the US but 18-24 months behind. We can see here how the UK market faces the same challenges,” said Mr. Wyse. When asked whether he felt that the UK’s ADSL rollout was a success, Mr. Wyse commented, “Broadband in the UK is a success, there’s no doubting that. Our own PlusNet ADSL services prove that. Can it become a bigger success? Yes, most assuredly. I feel that the main stumbling block that is preventing a more rapid uptake is not a lack of marketing per se, but rather a focus on the technology rather than the benefits to the end user - creating a degree of ‘technofear’ if you like.” Whilst it’s true that the advantages of having an always-on Internet connection are immediately apparent to those ‘in the know’, communicating these benefits to the non-technically minded may prove to be the most challenging part of the whole rollout process. For any SME or business professional needing to send large files via e-mail or other electronic means, the only realistically priced option has up until recently been ISDN. ADSL on the other hand, offers flat-rate cost benefits (ISDN being charged per minute as in standard dial-up access) together with higher speeds of data transfer. “I think that until people sit down and seriously contemplate their Internet strategies, then we’ll continue to see this sort of uptake. We’re expecting ADSL to be the key strategy for SME’s over the next 12 months,” Mr. Wyse concluded. “For many it simply makes sense to move from a single office PC connecting with a standard modem, to fully net-enabling your organisation with an ADSL-connected network. If you ever use the Internet in daytime ‘peak’ hours, we’d suggest you take a look at your phone bill and compare what you have now and how much it costs, with what you could have, at fixed-cost, with ADSL.” Rather a long statement from PlusNet, although it has been edited here and there. What are your comments? Just an advert for their ADSL services? Do you think “broadband in the UK is a success”? EC Highlight The Need For Unmetered Access In its yearly report the EC said that they were backing the adoption of flat-rate Internet access across the European Union, something that may help increase the number of Europeans who are online. "The commission believes that flat-rate interconnection for Internet calls should be encouraged," the commission said in its report. "One deterrent to greater use of the Internet is the customer's awareness that, in the absence of flat-rate or unmetered usage charges, the bill is mounting with every minute spent online." Internet penetration in Europe's households was around 36% in June, the report said. In the United States, where flat-rate access is common, the average Internet penetration is 41.5%. But taken individually, eight EU member states outperform the United States, with Sweden topping the list with 64% of its households online. The European Union's executive report was welcomed by the industry. Source: ZDNet Opera 6.0 For Windows Released The previous beta version launched at COMDEX on November 13th, broke all records for a beta release, with more than 500,000 downloads in the two weeks since the launch. Opera 6.0 for Windows reaches out to users accustomed to competing browsers' single document interface (SDI), by offering an enhanced version of SDI as an added option on top of Opera's traditional multiple document interface (MDI). The new version includes a completely customisable user interface, and new speed boosting features for improving users' Internet experience. Opera 5 for Windows was downloaded and installed over 6 million times. "Opera 6.0 was received with tremendous enthusiasm all over the Internet," says Dean Kakridas, VP Desktop Products, Opera Software ASA. "Opera 6 gives worldwide users of all levels an alternative to IE and a better Internet experience on multiple desktop platforms. We will continue to work extremely hard to provide the home, corporate and education markets the best browser solution possible." With this release, Opera for the first time also displays non-Roman alphabets, opening up the local markets in the Asia/ Pacific and Eastern European region to true browser competition. "Opera 5 was the wake-up call for competing browser-makers, and the recent targeting of Opera users on Microsoft's Web properties was an acknowledgement of Opera's increasing popularity. Opera 6 will unsettle the big two even more," says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software ASA. "And with a browser that looks tremendous and has lots of new and improved features, we are sure both new and old users will find something to whet their browser appetite." To download the new version visit Opera.com Unmetered Users Suspended For ‘Excessive Use’ In a statement today from V21 and their subsidiary unmetered ISP FREE24-7.net, they said that they have taken this action because of individual users making excessive use of their unmetered service. To prevent the quality of the connections from deteriorating they have had to implement their policy on excessive usage. In a statement released today the company said, “This decision will have no impact on the majority of users and is targeted only at those individuals who are making excessive use of their connection or those whom we believe to be sharing account details and/or using a domestic service for business purposes.” Their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) does not state a specific time limit on the use of the service, and have no intention of making one. V21 have said that usage will be monitored and dealt with on an individual basis. They then go on to say that at this point in time, anything in excess of 10 hours per day will be considered “beyond reasonable use” and accounts will be suspended and a warning issued on reconnection. Many have contacted us saying that they have only been online for a couple of hours a day and have had their account suspended. Have you been affected by the ISP’s actions? If so just how much have you been online? Source: ISPreview European Unmetered ISPs Fighting To Survive To make free Internet access viable for the ISPs providing it, a financially strong parent company or other strong financial resource is needed, and providers are desperately trying to find new revenues in a bid to survive the volatile market. PTO-based ISPs, such as T-Online or Wanadoo, are considered the only ISPs that continue to gain revenue from value-added services - their parent companies playing a key role by providing a large share of their advertising revenues. According to reports, ISPs have now fallen into two categories since the economic slowdown, these consist of the target ISPs, and those companies who target them, such as Tiscali and Wanadoo. Target ISPs generally fail and usually end up being bought out or go into administration. However, those ISPs who targeted others have acquired a pool of small national providers. For these companies, IDC analysts warn that to remain competitive within the market, they must now focus on three target areas as set out below. These include building the brand, developing new strategies, and provision of content and portal services. 1. Building the Brand From a consumer point of view, brand awareness is a crucial factor in making a purchasing decision. Although bought by Wanadoo in 2000, the favourably perceived Freeserve kept its name, as Wanadoo was aware that a name change would have a negative impact on the UK customer base. Tiscali, on the other hand, acquired a lot of smaller national ISPs and IDC believes it should build a uniform Tiscali product and combine all its regional products under the Tiscali umbrella. 2. Develop New Strategies Despite the introduction of new revenue streams, such as the interconnection model - where ISPs receive a share of the telephone charges to add to their traditional advertising revenues, financing of free ISPs dried up. Falling advertising revenues, falling subscriber spending and more financial support will force ISPs to build on customer loyalty and value added services. 3. Provide Content and Portal Services IDC believes that the introduction of broadband (especially DSL and Cable), facilitating the downloading of videos, music or other content heavy files, and the provision of interesting and targeted content will also help to increase customer loyalty and spending. Celine Clavreuil, research analyst with IDC's EMEA IP service commented that even those ISPs with strong parent companies in the US have discontinued and replaced their free Internet access model with a subscription based service. She also added that one of the most profitable consumer ISPs is AOL, which has managed to withstand the market slowdown and continues to remain a strong contender in the market. Source: Content-wire Microsoft To Cut Prices Of Various ASP Products Microsoft claim that demand for the products is currently high and rising, and hosting business manager Neil Jordan also denies that the changes are a direct response to weak demand for ASP software. Jordan confirmed that the new price cuts will be announced at the start of December and said: "The revenues we are seeing from ASPs in the UK are growing and the rate at which they are growing has been increasing over the past few months. The price cuts are nothing to do with weak demand." He also commented that the cost of single CPU access to an SQL server will be reduced by around a 30 percent per month, along with Microsoft Outlook fees being cut by 25 percent. The process of hosting Microsoft applications will be made simpler because of a number of changes taking place. A new Service Provider License Program is also being issued, and to simplify the ordering and reporting process, a new order entry tool is also being introduced. Licensing agreements will become clearer and more specific in order to benefit the customer. Source: Silicon BT Sells Property Portfolio In Bid To Reduce Debt The sale represents part of BT's debt-reduction programme to help reduce their £30bn debt by half, as confirmed by BT chairman Christopher Bland who declared in a statement, "This transaction is another important step in our restructuring and debt reduction programme." As part of the deal, which is expected to be completed around the 14 December, BT will lease back the properties mentioned from Telereal. Although the BT estate is made up of 5.5 million square metres of phone exchanges and offices, it does not include one of London's tallest landmark buildings, the BT Tower. Approximately £1.8bn of the deal is expected to be refinanced through an asset-backed bond from Telereal, and the purchase is a second major contract for Land Securities unit Trillium, who also manages the property estate of the BBC. Source: ZDnet Recent Outage Highlights Need For SLAs Subscribers suffered as a result of downtime caused by the outage, and if service level agreements had been available, at least some form of compensation for users would have eased the situation. Currently, for both BTopenworld users and the service providers who resell BT's DSL product, there is no SLA available, so users who suffer as a result of downtime are left to get on with it. Compensation is available for leased line failures however, which seems a little unfair. Phil Worms, director of broadband security firm Iomart commented, "BT's argument is that there is nothing to stop ISPs giving compensation to customers, but we get nothing back from BT." Chief operating officer at ISP Netscalibur, Rick Hudson feels that there is a definite need for SLAs to cover issues such as server uptime, recovery speed, and connectivity performance, and added that such agreements are becoming customary in the industry. Source: ZDnet The Posh Go Unmetered With The Hippo The deal with the Nationwide League Division Two club replaces an existing service which offered fans a branded dial-up service which meant they incurred call charges when surfing. Now for £14.99 per month, fans who sign up to the deal will get 24/7 unmetered Internet access with no call charges or set-up fees. They also get an e-mail address with [anything]@[anything].theposhisp.com with seven email addresses, 10Mb webspace, access to more than 85,000 newsgroups and technical support charged at national rates. Pep Cipriano, Peterborough United’s Head of Communications and Website, said it is a great day for the club and its supporters. “For the same price as the BT service, fans get fast, affordable Internet access, their own ‘posh’ e-mail address and with every monthly payment they make, they help the club financially. In football terms, this is premier league stuff!” Greg Rudd, CEO of NeonHippo is equally enthusiastic about the announcement. “NeonHippo offers one of the top unmetered services currently available in the UK. The service is a full FRIACO one so our affiliates can be sure they are giving to their customers a quality product at a very competitive price. Peterborough United has already shown itself to be at the forefront of football clubs when it comes to adopting an Internet strategy. With our help we aim to substantially increase subscriber numbers providing The Posh with increased revenue and increased supporter loyalty.” Peterborough United join NeonHippo’s growing list of clients including 24-7 Freecall, GMTV, Do-Do.tv and 123ISP. Tiscali Team With Peter Gabriel In Digital Music Service Tiscali have teamed up with Peter Gabriel in a bid to sell music via the Internet, and the service from the new duo will be available from mid December 2001. From that date, users will be able to access a huge music library that will contain tracks from the big names in music such as BMG, EMI, Telstar, Mushroom, Realworld Records and V2. The service will ensure that artists get paid fairly for their work, while giving users the added benefit of being able to gain quick and easy online access to the thousands of digital tunes. Punters can get 25 tracks a month for around £5 - or 60 tracks a month for £9.99. There's also the option to buy individual tracks (which could cost anywhere between 99p and £2.00 each) and albums. With the world music market said to be worth around $40 billion, it's estimated that digital downloads could be worth as much as six per cent of this in the next three to five years. Despite this however, research from Gartner indicated in August that some users may not be prepared to part with their cash for the benefit of online music, as only around half of those surveyed bother to use their PC to listen to music, and only a quarter listen to music downloaded via the Net. Source: The Register Tiscali Chief Claims Low Broadband Prices Hinder Competition Soru claims that from a business point of view, the current time is unsuitable for the ISP to consider investing in high speed access blaming telcos such as BT for making the roll-out of broadband services a difficult task for rival companies. Soru told silicon.com: "The incumbent telecoms companies across Europe are putting up barriers to prevent new entrants into the DSL marketplace." He also claimed that BT cannot possibly be making a profit by selling broadband at current prices. They're not only making it difficult for rivals to roll out, they are selling their DSL at prices which are so low that we can't compete. They're effectively dumping their product on the marketplace." Though Tiscali inherited a small number of DSL subscribers during the take-over of Lineone, it is reported that the company will not be investing in signing up further customers, and has put a hold on its plans for offering a satellite broadband service. A BT spokesman claimed that Soru's accusations are nonsense, while stating that Oftel regulations forbid the telco to sell broadband at a loss. Despite this, rather than reselling BT's broadband service, Tiscali's long term aims are to invest in DSL in the more expensive way via unbundled local loop. Source: Silicon Warning Over Badtrans Trojan Email One of our readers has said that anyone who has recently emailed BTopenworld’s support will most certainly have received the Badtrans virus in return. The email will contain an attachment entitled you_are_fat.scr or humor.scr amongst many other filenames. Once infected, the virus will attempt to send the victim’s IP address to the author which will then make your system insecure. All your personal details including passwords, credit card and bank details will become accessible to the hacker. Although many have received the email from _support@btopenworld.com, we have also received another email from a BTinternet customer which has been sent through AOL. BTopenworld are now aware of the problem and have closed down their support email system until they are confident everything is under control. If you have an up-to-date anti-virus program running, then you should be safe. If you don’t, then get one. For further information and details on how to remove the Badtrans worm, click here. AOL Establishes E-Tailer Deals With Virgin Wines and Superdrug Virgin Wines extended their partnership with AOL when they signed a new advertising agreement, and the ISP also established an offline distribution deal with Superdrug who will now have AOL sign-up CDs available in its high street stores. Virgin Wines will advertise extensively on AOL's Shop@ food and drink channels, women's and health channels, and on AOL and CompuServe subscription services, and Richard Halstead, business development manager at Virgin Wines, said: "We are delighted to extend our agreement with AOL UK as many AOL members have become loyal Virgin Wines customers over the past year. Our business is designed around making it easy for people to enjoy the wines they love and AOL members have really responded." The Superdrug agreement will focus on the company's instore promotion of AOL access CDs, similar to that of B&Q and Comet. Source: Netimperative Freeserve Take Tax Issue To Brussels The company's fight for equal tax treatment amongst ISPs operating within the UK has been continuing for some time now, and the company recently threatened to sue the UK Government in an attempt to get the law changed. Now letters are being drafted from the ISP's lawyers asking authorities in Brussels to take a closer look at Britain's position on the VAT issues surrounding UK Internet service providers. Freeserve are claiming that AOL are enjoying an unfair tax advantage in the market because it is based outside the EU. A loophole in British Customs and Excise regulations means that the major US provider along with other providers outside the EU can avoid paying VAT. Freeserve has estimated that in comparison to other ISPs, AOL are managing to escape paying a yearly tax sum of £30 million. The company has written to Customs minister Paul Boateng and Government e-envoy Douglas Alexander asking for an investigation into the matter but no answer has yet been given. Freeserve have 700 British employees to date and the company claims that current regulations may force it to relocate outside Europe. Source: This is London AOL Attracts More Women But Freeserve Is UK's Biggest ISP The results also showed that AOL’s users are more likely to own mobile phones and, on average, they are classed as being more highly educated. However, although AOL are closing the gap between their main rival, the report showed that Freeserve is the UK's biggest home ISP, with 26 percent of UK users subscribed to their Internet service. AOL has 19 percent of subscribers within the market, and NTL is creeping up behind them with 14 percent. Three other providers share the remaining 40 percent of the online community, and six months ago, 32 percent of British adults had Internet access within the home, but the number has now risen to about 40 percent in total. Source: Silicon WLAN Kit For Home Users And SME's From BTopenworld Linksys are providing the telco with the wireless LAN products for resale both to home users and small and medium sized enterprises within the UK. There are two types on offer including the 'Starter Package' - ideal for home users and those who work from home, and the 'System Package' aimed at UK SME's. Both packages offer the basic configuration needed for networking computers and prices will start from £157.45 for the home user which links two to four computers, and the business model that allows a 15-user network will be priced around £297.02. USB adapters and PCMCIA cards to allow notebook or desktop PC users to connect are included in both kits, and 128-bit WEP encryption is available as an optional extra. Source: The Register New Hacking Tool Brings Sites To A Halt The tool, named 'Voyager Alpha Force,' works by infecting systems and then opening Internet messaging and relay chat channels to await commands. Those systems using SQL server software are vulnerable to attacks from vicious third parties. According to SecurityFocus.com, attackers use the hacking tool in order to launch distributed "denial of service attacks" on web servers by overflowing websites with false data causing inactivity, bringing sites to a halt. It is reported that during February last year, leading sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo! were attacked and had to be temporarily closed. Source: Annanova Boltblue To Take On NTL's Non-Cable Customers The move comes as the period for which Cable and Wireless had agreed to manage these customers on behalf of NTL reaches an end. NTL and Boltblue have been working together to ensure an uninterrupted Internet service for these customers. Bill Goodland, NTL Home's Director of Internet said, "It is important to us that our customers enjoy the best possible Internet experience. Unfortunately our current ntlworld offer cannot be accessed by non-cable customers in ex-Cable and Wireless Communications areas so these customers are better served by a non- cable ISP." Michael Brown, CEO of Boltblue added, "We are delighted to be welcoming these customers to the Boltblue fold. As the UK's largest mobile portal and leading mobile ISP Boltblue provides Internet services to the UK's online population, irrespective of where they live. Which is why Boltblue is able to take on and serve this particular customer group.” "We have set up the smoothest possible transition: no change in password or email address will be required. So, initially the customers will experience no change in Internet service provision. Longer term, Boltblue will enhance the customer experience by offering these customers the same services enjoyed by the customers of its established mobile ISP. These include mobile phone access to email, football alerts and travel news." Those customers affected will be communicated with through a joint statement from NTL and Boltblue. The email will inform customers of the situation and tell them that no immediate action will be required on their behalf if they are to accept Boltblue as their ISP as all passwords, dial-up telephone, email addresses and charges will be unchanged. Broadband Satellite Service To Be Launched For Small Businesses The launch of this service is of particular importance for those businesses who have limited access to broadband services such as cable and ADSL. Steve Smith, co-founder and managing partner of Bridge Broadband, said, "Until now, the UK's small businesses have been poorly served when it comes to broadband Internet connectivity. And this situation is not about to get any better for businesses waiting for an ADSL service. What we have developed utilising DIRECWAY from Hughes, is a robust and very reliable broadband access service for customers who need a fast, high-quality, always-on service." Bridge Broadband will be offering four different service levels. The Enterprise service for SMEs offers downstream speeds of 512Kbps with 128Kbps upstream and is priced at £269 per month, inclusive of installation and maintenance. The SoHo service for home workers also offers 512Kbps downstream and 128Kbps upstream and is priced at £159 per month. This will be a shared service. The Enterprise Plus and Premium services will offer speeds of up to 2 Mbps. Steve Smith, added, "Through our relationship with Hughes Network Systems, we will be the first nation-wide provider of cost-effective, two-way broadband connectivity outside the major metropolitan areas for the small business community. We will not charge a separate installation fee. We will also offer low monthly rental charges to help SMEs avoid high start-up costs and preserve working capital.” The requirement for a reliable broadband solution for small businesses is acute and has been exacerbated by BT’s announcement that they will not be ADSL enabling any more exchanges, which will further stall the government's vision of a 'Broadband Britain'. ISPs Offer DIY Broadband Trials It is unclear which providers will participate in the scheme as BT Wholesale have declined to publish a list, but some ISPs such as Lancashire-based Zen Internet and Scottish-based ISP iomart have already published their own involvement, and have started to accept applications for the commerical trials. It is hoped that the DIY wires-only method will bring demand by reduced installation costs and monthly tariffs for the consumer, with a full service being available in the beginning of next year. However, the additional costs involved such as purchasing an ADSL modem, filters, and activation fees as reported could put many people off from taking the DIY option. It is hoped this will be a short-term problem as many in the know believe that demand will have a competitive effect within the market, which should then encourage suppliers to drop hardware prices considerably. Are you prepared to take the risk and go for DIY now that it will cost more than first anticipated? Do you think that you should pay an "activation" fee or have to buy your own modem? Source: The Register ADSL Modem And Activation Charges Added To Cost Of DIY Broadband Now, in addition to that, ISPs are stating that consumers will also have to foot the cost of an ADSL modem plus cough up an activation fee if they choose the DIY installation route. This is likely to mean that there is nothing at all to be saved, and completely conflicts with the very reason that BT developed the self- installation method - to bring down costs for consumers. Previously, it was reported that consumers could save the cost of bringing in a BT engineer to install high-speed access, and also the DIY version would cost £5 per month less than a standard £40pm ADSL service. This idea was welcomed by telco regulator Oftel, and the method is being promoted in the hope that a lower-priced service will boost broadband take-up. However, now that users will have to buy their own ADSL modem and pay out for an "activation fee", it could have the complete opposite effect within the consumer market. The so-called "activation fee" is rumoured to be around £45 to £50 and will cover the cost of the necessary work involved for a broadband connection at the local exchange. It is reported that the price for an ADSL modem can be from £130 plus, couple that with the cost of activation, and the price of the kit and filters, and any potential savings for the consumer are immediately cancelled out. The Zyxel 630 USB modem for example, is Iomart's cheapest model available, and this retails at £120+VAT (£141). Phil Worms, a spokesman from Iomart commented, "It is fair to say that if you compare self-installation ADSL to the standard product today, you won't see a huge cost benefit." However, Worms predicts that ADSL modem prices will drop early next year with competitive pricing coming into play from companies such as Alcatel, Zyxel and Fujitsu - he believes that they could be priced as low as £50. Source: Zdnet Net Is Becoming Favourite For British Music Fans The reasearch indicates that almost one in five of all web users have downloaded music from the net, fifteen per cent have listened to tracks online over the past 12 months and two thirds of all those accessing music online are men, with 45% aged between 15 and 24. The issues of online piracy and copyright laws present themselves heavily in cyberspace though, and different ways of limiting unlicensed distribution continue to be investigated by the mainstream music industry. The first copy-protected CDs went on general release in the UK this month and one solution is the development of a trial anti-piracy system which is included in Natalie Imbruglia's new album. The new system will prevent unofficial re-distribution of the album as it cannot be played on a personal computer and then "ripped" into MP3 format in preparation for copying to CDR media. The study was based on 2,000 individual interviews and it was also found that 16% of the online population have, at some stage, listened to internet radio. Source: Annanova Experts Warn Of Major Periodic Web Outages Until 2006 Security issues with the Internet's DNS capabilities are at the root of the anticipated problem because it is claimed that a hacker could easily flood the web's master directory servers with traffic, which in turn could shut down the Net. John Pescatore, Gartner analyst on information security strategies, commented: "The value of the internet lies in its low-cost, loosely connected structure. The basic elements of the internet, such as TCP/IP, DNS and HTTP, were never designed to withstand large scale, coordinated attacks. Trying to graft on hierarchical security controls will result in a structure with about as much value as a skyscraper built from spider webs. Sometimes things that appear quite sturdy can become quite fragile when exposed to forces never anticipated. Conversely, things that appear quite fragile can prove amazingly resilient. You can easily tear a spider's web, but the spider will rebuilt it within hours. In short, you can achieve high levels of availability by taking different approaches: high mean time between failure or low mean time to repair." The "weakest link" of the WWW according to experts is the 13 root DNS servers, as these are more susceptible to outside attacks, and because they all run Bind, a single software vulnerability means that all would be at affected. Source: VNunet ADSL And Dial-Up Restored After Outage The problems were reported yesterday from early morning (about 9,00am) and although BT claimed to have fixed the problem within two-and-a-half hours, it would take much longer before users could experience results because of the complexity of such an IP network. The true scale of the problem may never be realised as Surftime and FRIACO-based services were also hit affecting an unknown number of users. BT have apologised for the incident and will be investigating the possible causes. Source: The Register AOL UK Halts Beta Testing Of ISP Software On Mac OSX An email was sent out to the beta testers explaining that the Apple software was causing problems and so there would be no further need for proceeding with the compatibility testing. In the email, Dominic Wells, editor-in-chief of AOL UK, claimed: 'As a result of the recent changes in Apple's operating systems, we had to redesign the AOL software from the ground up. [The previous beta] became unworkable and therefore redundant when Apple released Mac OS X v10.1. We are currently evaluating the economic viability of starting this development process again from scratch.' 'It is, however, an unavoidable fact that Mac members make up an extremely small percentage of our members. We're a mass-market company, and the mass-market computer of choice is the PC - so our priority has to be to develop new software for this audience.' It appears that the low number of Mac users who subscribe to AOL , together with an even smaller number who are currently using Mac OS X could be the main reason behind the decision. ISPReview.co.uk estimate that AOL UK currently has 1.5 million UK subscribers, and it is reported that 50,000 of these are Mac users - and only a handful of those are solely using The Mac OS X . Despite this however, public relations manager at Apple UK, David Millar gave indication that the Mac users are increasing in numbers - 'Our current portfolio of consumer products is extremely strong and makes the Mac a compelling solution in the consumer space,' he said. It has to be pointed out though that the decision does not mean that AOL will never be making a Mac OS X version of their software, as in the US the company is continuing its development of a Carbonised version. Conflicting issues for both companies could arise from the withdrawal of the beta testing though, as Mac users who also use AOL may not want to move to Mac OS X, and new users may choose to avoid AOL in favour of rival ISPs. Source: Macuser ADSL In Nationwide System Crash A spokesman for BT said that the network crashed around 10am for just a couple of hours. But many broadband users are still experiencing problems. A message on BTopenworld’s status page at 7.30pm reads: "We have had major service disruptions on the network today which has impacted all services.Obviously this morning’s problems are still having long-lasting effects to the service. The problems affect all ADSL providers, not just BTopenworld. A spokesperson for Thus, which owns the Demon Internet brand, said that the problems “are affecting our ADSL customers”, and that the problems had not yet been rectified: “We are putting pressure on BT to solve the problems as soon as possible and to get reassurances that they are treating this as a high priority”. Source: Netimperative.com Unmetered Access… Easy As 123 Aimed towards home users, 123ISP.co.uk offers 24/7 unmetered access for £13.99 per month. “Our aim is to give Internet users a fast and affordable service,” explains Paul Wells, co-founder of 123ISP.co.uk. “Too many people have had bad experiences with ISPs, we believe that there is real demand for a no-nonsense ISP that allows surfers to get on-line quickly and easily and then delivers reliable access at a competitive price.” Internet users wanting to sign up to the FRIACO-based service need to download software to set-up their account. Philip Sinclair, the other founder of the company was equally enthusiastic. “The UK Internet community has consistently bemoaned the lack of choice when it comes to selecting an ISP. Thanks to the FRIACO ruling, competition has come to the ISP marketplace, and we think 123isp.co.uk is as competitive as its peers on price and performance.” The unmetered service includes 7 email addresses, 10MB of webspace, newsgroups and a national rate technical support line. 123isp.co.uk is also offering a special offer of £30 upfront payment for three months of unmetered Internet access. NeonHippo’s recent affiliate members include GMTV, 24-7 Freecall and Do-Do.tv. Research Show Broadband Users Are Switching Off Their TV The research, carried out by Fletcher Advisory, show that one in three (34%) users are replacing time previously allocated to watching television with the Internet. The figures reveal broadband users have cut their TV viewing by an average of five hours a week. The survey also revealed a total of 61% of broadband users would rather have an Internet connection than a television. This compares to just 19% of narrowband users. Broadband users have also changed the type of TV programmes they watch. Those interviewed said they watched "less junk" and indulged in "more selective viewing", like films and programmes later in the evening. Also due to the flat-rate service and the removal of telephone call charges, broadband users are starting to spend more time online in peak rate daytime hours, leaving more time for other activities in the evenings. Users now keep their computers on longer too, with 48% leaving their PC switched on all the time because of the 'always-on' nature of the broadband connection. Using the Net for new activities is a growing trend for those with high-speed Internet access. The research revealed a third of broadband users are now exploring more new websites than before. Government Advised To Scrap SME's Initiative The government is failing in its target according to the report, and the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) have advised the government to scrap the idea as there are currently only half a million SME's connected and 2002 is just around the corner. Accomplishment of the original goal has been described as "unlikely" by the BCC e-business taskforce, and the report suggests that other issues such as tackling cybercrime, improving access to broadband services and boosting public confidence in e-commerce should now be the main focus. Sally Low, e-business policy advisor at the British Chambers of Commerce commented: "British companies are not in the business of fulfilling aspirational targets set by any government, the role of government should be one of enabling business in the most efficient and effective manner, and not to preoccupy itself with assessing and measuring targets." Recent statistics and data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) clarify that there is a slump in the number of SME's involved in online ordering as they show a steady decline from 64,000 to 40,000 in the last year alone. Source: ZDNet UK Tesco's Mobile Phone Initiative Will Raise Money For Charities In a bid to make use of old phones, supermarket giant retailer Tesco are prepared to purchase used mobile handsets from customers and then donate the profits from recycling them to charity. At the moment, only five percent of four million handsets are currently recycled in Britain each year, and Tesco plan to recycle between 500,000 and one million phones within the first year. This should raise between £1.25m and £2.5m that can be shared amongst charities such as the Alzheimer's Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and NCH, and the North London Children's Charity. Unwanted mobiles will be purchased by Tesco who will pay customers £5 for each phone given to avoid people throwing them away. The company will then donate all profits that are made from recycling the phones to charity, so everyone's a winner. Tesco's corporate social responsibility manager Fiona Mason believes this to be "the world's biggest mobile phone recycling initiative" that will enable customers to "help the environment, save money and give to charity simply by handing over their phone." Handsets that are still usable will be shipped to developing countries and phone recycling specialist XS Tronix will strip down the rest and recover any valuable metals such as gold and palladium. The initiative will also ensure that mobiles are disposed of safely as dangerous components such as lead and mercury are also present in handsets. Environmental group Friends of the Earth have welcomed the scheme although a spokesman said that this method of recycling will become mandatory in the next few years because of EU legislation. Tesco itself will not make any profit whatsoever from the initiative - every spare penny will be donated. This is a very good idea. Most people have mobiles nowadays and I would imagine that many have a spare and unused or broken handset lying around, and the fact that everyone benefits from the scheme makes it even more appealing. What do you think? Source: ZDnet Earthlink Free To Bid For BT's Local Loop After West LB Opt Out This could be seen as good news for Earthlease who are now free to bid for BT's local loop and, according to claims, were preparing to increase their bid for the copper-wired phone network. BT however, strongly opposes the sale of the local loop and the telco has made their disapproval of the situation crystal clear ever since the bids for the network became public. The reason is that the local loop represents the core business of BT, and Pierre Danon, the CEO of BT Retail, firmly believes that it is irresponsible and "stupid" to outsource the core of any business. Source: The Register AOL and Lastminute.Com Form Content Deal Lastminute will now have access to over five million AOL members through the deal, and although the two companies developed an alliance two years previous, the new deal will form a deeper partnership. Booking and search engines from Lastminute.com will be incorporated into AOL's UK, France and German services which include travel, entertainment and shopping. Jerry Glover, senior vice-president at AOL Europe said: "The depth of lastminute.com's integration across our European services is a testament to our confidence in their status as winners in the e-commerce space." After the crash in Lastminute.com's share prices after flotation in March 2000, the company have said that the deal will help it towards financially breaking even. Source: BBC News Row Over Tax Loophole Takes Positive Turn After Freeserve Threaten To Sue Government Since Freeserve have brought the issue to the fore, a review of the situation has been carried out by HM Customs who have now indicated they are eager to create a "level playing field" for ISPs who operate in the UK regarding VAT. Treasury ministers are now in possession of the recommendations from HM Customs, although it is unclear exactly what these could be. A spokesman for HM Customs informed The Register that the UK has made "every effort to persuade its European Union partners of the need to treat packaged services uniformly for place of taxation purposes. However, the agreement of all member states has not been obtained but we are committed to making a level playing field on this issue." Five years ago the Internet Service Provider's Association (ISPA) lobbied hard for a change to European tax rulings, claiming unfairness was present in the ISP market because US companies had a 17.5 per cent competitive advantage over European ISPs. However, even though American companies felt they did not have to comply with EU Tax legislation because their services originated in the US, the ISPA's efforts saw the closure of the tax loophole for business-to-business operators outside of the EU. For business-to-consumer operations operating outside the EU though such as AOL, the loophole remained, and Freeserve have repeatedly raised the issue in order to find a solution that represents equal treatment of all ISPs concerned, invoking a fair deal in the competitive market today. It could be 2002 before Ministers make any concrete decision on the matter, although many hope that a solution will be reached before the end of this year. Source: the Register BTopenworld Offers ISDN To ADSL Easy Migration Service For Businesses The awards have been conducted by PC Pro magazine which attracts 135,000 readers who, in the main, decided that BTopenworld provides a quality service and is the most reliable business provider. During presentation of the award, the high-speed access designed specifically for UK SME's (small and medium-sized businesses) was described as "providing an extremely economical but still fast 'always-on' Internet." The new Oftel report on SME's indicates that there is a six percent increase on the previous quarter in relation to the number of new businesses getting connected. Meanwhile, results from a survey by Fletcher Advisory aimed at the broadband uptake by UK SMEs showed that by the end of 2005, those using broadband will be saving a total of around £4.7 billion per year. This is equivalent to five per cent additional profit in terms of productivity (£3.5bn) and cost savings (£1.2bn), meaning that businesses could be losing out on the benefits of broadband if they continue to use ISDN or narrowband access. Now more businesses are able to take advantage of flat-rate high-speed access as BTopenworld has announced a new easy ISDN to ADSL migration service in order to demonstrate their dedication to SME's within the UK. Businesses can now arrange to have their ISDN service terminated and a new ADSL line installed, as well as any remaining period of contract bought out, with one call, for one price, on one bill. A typical annual saving a small business can make by switching to BTopenworld's ADSL from ISDN is more than £1,600 for a company with medium usage of the Internet. BTopenworld is simplifying the process by allowing customers to pay, for a limited period*, a one-off sum of £100 on top of the ADSL installation price. This will cover charges from BT Retail and BTopenworld, plus ISDN contract cancellation charges - previously billed separately. The new system will enable more accurate budgeting for business and mean companies experience a more efficient upgrade process. In addition to the migration offer, customers who order before the end of the year can take advantage of the current half price ADSL installation offer, saving £75 on BTopenworld's Business 500, and £130 on the Business 500 PLUS (multi-user) products. BTopenworld's Tony Harris, president of business Internet services, commented that the new service offers a simple solution at an affordable cost, and SME's will be able to reap the benefits af a fast, always-on connection. BTopenworld Broadband product specifications, pricing and online ordering for all BTopenworld products are available here, . Please note: Provided that you meet the requirements of being able to receive the ADSL service, to be eligible for the offer mentioned you must place an order and agree an installation date with BT between 2 November 2001 and 31 December 2001, and the product must be installed by 31 January 2002. BT Warns Broadband Self-Installation Package Will Cost More Than Intended However, in contrast, the telco now warns its broadband resellers that DIY broadband connections will cause such an interference that phone lines will need protection, and that the initial price will now be a higher than first anticipated. News of the DIY broadband kits raised hope for many wanting high-speed access at an affordable price because it was thought to only cost around half the price of the current BT installation. Also, it seemed possible that users could save as much as £5 rental per month comparable to that of the current price. According to BT though, this is not possible because extra filters are needed in order to protect phone-line extensions from interference. The company claims that users will need to purchase the filters which will be priced at around £10 each, so, for example, a consumer who has two extra phone lines and runs a fax machine will be £30 more out of pocket. Indications are too that because there is only one approved supplier for the filters, a potential shortage could intervene with the smooth running of the trials, which could hold back the launch date. BT engineers use a multi-filter faceplate when connecting customers to ADSL which protects each extension within the home. Unfortunatley, because this type of faceplate is complicated to install, the DIY version contains a micro-filter in a two-way jack instead which users just plug into each socket. ISPs believe that they will have to wait a month for the filters, and as each device using a phone-line requires one, shortages after the trials seem imminent. Iain Ogilvie, marketing manager at ISP Nildram comments: "Price is an issue, but the biggest cause for concern is the supply, whether there will be enough filters for the trial, I'm not sure. We're still at the early adoption stage. There are two issues with wires-only services we got from customer enquiries. One is reduction in price, but the other is the customer wishing to maintain control over their hardware." Despite this, Ogilvie believes that the extra costs involved will not deter consumers from choosing the self-installation method, although marketing manager at business ISP Zen Internet, Ian Buckley, is concerned about the fact that consumers will have to pay more than intended. Source: VNUnet ISP Tiscali To Give Customers The Best Tools On The Net Fast Search & Transfer, (FAST), is also a leader in its own right and continues to gain momentum giving it a strong position within the European search market. Tiscali International Senior Vice President Business to Consumer, Mario Mariani commented: "We have over 13 million unique users everyday across Europe. We want to ensure the best possible search experience for every one of them. That's why we have chosen to add FAST to our proprietary search technology all over Europe. The overall quality of FAST search is excellent and it represents another important opportunity for our customers to have access to the best tools the Internet can offer." Customers will be able access FAST's Web, multimedia, FTP and MP3 search technologies which will be made available via Tiscali's 51 Internet portals. FAST's online search domain can be found at www.alltheweb.com. How To Keep Anonymity Now Internet Surveillance Imminent Law-enforcement agencies worldwide can now keep a tab on the comings and goings of innocent and law-abiding citizens by being able to legally access the legislative door to private information. However, The Register have provided excellent information that explains different techniques that are sure to help innocent folk to keep private matters private. The indepth article includes explanations of proxies, anonymous dial-ups, spyware, browser settings etc, and provides links for the reader allowing them to indulge further into the subject. On average, the complexity of such information is usually understood by those who are technically minded, but this has been taken into consideration and has been written in layman's terms so that everyone can benefit. The easy to understand explanations are a must-read for anyone interested in protecting their privacy, and The Register suggests that even the "power users" may learn a thing or two in the process. Those who are interested can click here, to read the article in full, and even if you are not that bothered about anonymity, it is definately worth dedicating a few minutes of your time to the article. Internet Service Company Selected To Manage Government Information Site The company - Loudcloud Inc - already provides different services along with software to help manage Internet Sites and will provide the Ukonline.gov.uk site incorporating some of their services. These will include page architecture, hardware and software selection, co-location, network connectivity, ongoing management and services. The site is hoped to be up and running inline with the governments goal of making all government services and information available online by 2005, and, as the site grows, Loudcloud will also offer the ability automatically to add bandwidth and more services. Source: Reuters PlusNet Declare Referral Scheme A Success  Launched back in July of this year, PlusNet have well over 1,000 customers who are benefiting from the scheme, receiving money off their Internet costs in return for recommending the ISP to their friends and business colleagues.“Unusually for such a scheme, our discount is no ‘one-off’ payment but continues for as long as the referred individual remains a paying customer”, explained Alistair Wyse, PlusNet’s Product and Service Development Director. “So, rather than just getting a free month’s subscription for example, with My Referrals you have the opportunity for long-term, sustainable free Internet access. And once the total amount of discount generated through referrals becomes greater than the cost of your subscription, the difference is credited to you,” he added. Charitable ISP To Launch New Net Access For Light Users The new ISP that intends to help raise up to £1 million for UK charities in its first year has acted swiftly to new research undertaken by OFTEL. The report stated that the average UK Internet user surfs the net for only five hours per week and that the majority of people were now moving towards ‘fixed access’ accounts, where you pay a fixed monthly subscription but no call charges. However, as the average user was only using these packages for 20 hours per month they were not necessarily getting the full value for money they would have expected from their average £15 per month fixed access account. CharityDAYS, who donates 60% of its turnover to UK charities, has therefore developed an £8.99 fixed access account that is designed to be used by users surfing 10 to 20 hours per week, anytime of the day. This account, which is called ‘Donate At Home Lite’, also donates over £1 per month to charity, so everyone is a winner. The service, which commenced on October 22nd, has already attracted hundreds of users and many charities to use the service. The service can be used by any UK registered charity as a fund raising tool where they receive 100% of the donations generated by their supporters. The service is being adopted by charities all over the UK and costs nothing to join. Ten top 100 UK charities will be rolling out the scheme in the New Year, giving exposure to over 10 million potential users of the service. Other products being launched on the 19th include ADSL broadband accounts for both home and business users. Freeserve May Sue Government Over VAT Dispute In a letter to the customs minister, Freeserve’s company secretary David Melville said that it will be forced to take legal action if “the position is allowed to drag on much further”. The UK-based company, which includes VAT in its Internet access charges, claims the current rules are saving AOL and depriving the Treasury of at least £30 million a year. It has threatened to move its head office overseas if the tax discrepancy is not removed. A Customs spokesman said it hoped to release its recommendations before Christmas. AOL said the dispute was a “matter between Freeserve and the UK tax authorities”. Source: The Times Oftel Sets BT’s Service Level Agreements For LLU Operators This is the first time that the telecoms regulator has formally intervened to set service level standards, and is designed to ensure that BT meets the needs of operators that want to provide high speed services over unbundled loops. Compensation will also be payable if BT fails to meet these service levels For example, BT will have to pay operators £10 for each working day an unbundled loop is unavailable and £80 per operator for each working day's delay in providing co-location facilities. Oftel took the decision to set service level commitments when it decided that BT's original commitment did not meet operators' needs for providing services over unbundled loops. David Edmonds Director General of Telecommunications said, “The service levels set out by Oftel will ensure that BT delivers an appropriate service to operators ordering unbundled local loops.” Vispa Launches ‘Reliable’ Unmetered SurfTime Service Vispa Connect Hometime package allows you to use the Internet between 6pm-8am weekdays and all weekend for a flat rate fee starting at £6.99pm. Connect Hometime is also operated at lower contentions than many other freecall services. Running at 6:1 the service offers 3 hours of continuous access before it cuts the user off. Users are also provided with unlimited email addresses, free personal web space, which can host unlimited domain names if required, comprehensive webmail system and usenet access and a host of other features and options. 128k ISDN support and static IP options are also in development, currently been tested by a handful of current users, with 64k support already active. Vispa have chosen SurfTime instead of the usual FRIACO system because of the recently reported problems. Since August 6th the ISP has seen regular problems with FRIACO at Local Exchange/IP Cluster Level before it even tries to authenticate with their equipment. This situation has since escalated from the middle of October to regular repetitive problems every other day. A similar situation to that expressed by other ISP’s in recent days/weeks. In press release Vispa said that already the SurfTime product has been more reliable, “We have been beta testing accounts based on SurfTime for 6 weeks, calls been delivered direct to our own tried and tested equipment, rather than one of BT’s IP Clusters as is with FRIACO. During this time we suffered one planned small outage during the early hours, that lasted just over 10 minutes, the same unfortunately can’t be said with FRIACO.” UK Net Traffic Set To Increase Ten-Fold LINX, Europe's largest Internet exchange point, have drawn up a 'technology roadmap' to ensure that the exchange continues to have the capacity necessary to handle the growth in traffic. The plan is to be updated every three months to take account of actual and predicted traffic growth. LINX chief executive John Souter said, "We have taken a realistic look at the future development of the Internet in the UK and, on the basis of those figures, are planning for a ten-fold increase in traffic in 24 months.” "Our peak traffic flows now are three times what they were at this time last year. The continuing roll-out of broadband, increasing business use of the Internet and the development of new Internet-based consumer services such as video on demand will see more and more demand for bandwidth at the exchange. We see no reason to believe the rate of growth will drop, even given predictions of a slow-down in economic activity." LINX - a mutual ownership organisation of 120-plus ISPs and content delivery service providers – has already announced an investment of £2 million over the next twelve months in new and improved infrastructure. AOL And Sony Join Forces To Deliver An Enhanced Broadband Experience The two major companies are aiming to develope simplified methods of linking everyday electronic items to networks that are "always on", and are creating a platform that will allow users to access the same content from their TV, mobile phone or games console. Steve Case, AOL Time Warner's chairman said: "Consumers want the internet to play a greater role in their lives, and are looking forward to the day when broadband can deliver all of a family's home entertainment, information and communications needs over a wide variety of devices." AOL and Sony joining forces and working together on the project is ironic, as both companies are seperately undertaking rival plans to deliver music services over the net. Source: BBC News Personal Firewalls Are Not Secure Despite All The Hype All the hype on the product seems to justify the firewall as being an absolute necessity for reasons of security, and that, if you don't use one, you are leaving your private data and equipment in a vulnerable position. For example, users will be alerted if a privacy threatening program or a Trojan becomes active and the firewall then allows them to block the program or Trojan from sending out any private data disguised as HTTP traffic on port 80. However, it has been reported that security researchers have highlighted the shortcomings of personal firewall products, claiming that the protection they offer can easily be bypassed. If a malicious program modifies a DLL used by Internet Explorer to make an outbound connections to port 80 on its behalf then this protection is bypassed. Security researcher Robin Keir, has developed a proof-of-concept tool, called FireHole, which illustrates how the trick can fool personal firewalls (such as Zone Alarm, Norton Personal Firewall and Black Ice Defender). The technique (along with other similar tricks) relies on a rogue program getting onto a user's system and executing in the first place, as Keir points out, but his work dispels the notion that a personal firewall on its own will stop Trojans in their tracks. "If you can't stop it [a Trojan executing] then it is game over - the rogue program has your computer completely under it's control," said Keir. Bob Sundling, another security researcher developed a program called TooLeaky to illustrate the point that "the added protection provided by outbound filtering is entirely illusory," giving even more proof to the claims of fickle security. Eric Chien, chief researcher at Symantec's Anti-Virus Research Centre has said that this does not mean personal firewalls useless, but goes to show that complete protection is non-existent. He further suggests that home users are relatively safe if they combine an antivirus program with their firewall, and added that virus writers or hackers have yet to use the technique "in anger." In other news related to the security of Internet Explorer, Microsoft has issued a warning that there is a vulnerability in versions of Internet Explorer that can expose consumers' personal data contained within cookies. According to the security bulletin posted to Microsoft's Web site last week, the vulnerability exists within IE 5.5 and 6.0, although earlier browser editions "may or may not be affected." Similar to the above theory, cookies, which are files used by websites during a surfing session to file account information or personalisations etc, can easily be hacked into by an outsider. The stored data from Web accounts that is contained in cookies, along with credit card numbers, usernames and passwords can all be stolen or altered. Outsiders achieve this by using malicious Web sites with malformed URLs that could either be hosted on other sites or in an HTML email. The vulnerability of the browser has been tested and confirmed by privacy and security expert Richard Smith, who wrote a little JavaScript to hijack information contained in a cookie. Microsoft, who have described the problem as a high risk, are working on a patch, but in the meantime, the company is urging all users to disable active scripting via their browser settings until the patch is ready for distribution. Users can disable active scripting in IE by opening the Tools menu in the browser, followed by Internet Options and then the tab for Security. Next, open the Custom Level option; in the Settings box, scroll down to the Scripting section. Click Disable under "Active scripting" and "Scripting of Java applets." Click OK, and then click OK again. Along with that, MS are advising that those using Outlook Express software should also allow only "Restricted Sites" to load which can be set via their preferences within the program. Other security flaws were found recently too in Microsoft's Passport authentication system, which led to the removal of part of the service from the Internet. Source: The Register/ZDnetUK E-Tailers Take Advantage Of Pre-Christmas Consumer Online Spending However, because the online method is much easier, it has become more popular, as consumers can purchase items within the comfort of their own home, no queues, no fuss. Many sites offer the ability to check whether items are in stock before ordering, giving a clear delivery date and printing or saving reciepts couldn't be easier. Be warned though, shopping online could turn out to be costly as e-tailers are raising their prices as we speak in order to take advantage of pre-Christmas consumer online spending. This is reflected in the Goldfish E-tail Price Index, which shows that online prices have risen by 5.3 per cent in the last year - double the annual rate of inflation. The research is carried out by Datamonitor, and the Goldfish E-tail Price Index launched in July 2000 to follow prices of 1,500 products at over 150 e-tailers. Predictions are that a massive two-billion pounds - six times more than last year's figure - will be spent on gifts via online purchasing this Christmas. As more consumers use credit cards for payment at this time of year to meet the financial burden of the festive season, the interest rates coupled with the rising prices could mean a more expensive christmas for many than first anticipated. It may just be worth a trip outdoors in order to find local retailers who could be selling many of the items you require cheaper than the online rivals - saving a pretty penny or two. Source: Silicon Excite Almost Down And Out "We've had some informal discussions but nothing has come of them so far. We're an old, established brand but are still dipping in and out of profit." The closure will mean impending job losses for employees of the portal, who have been informed. British Telecom invested £6 million into ExciteUK as a joint venture with US parent company Excite@home. Source: Silicon AOL Introduces 40 Minute Cut-Off Period  Many AOL customers have contacted us to complain about the problem.Recently there has been much discussion in the forums and newsgroups on what is actually a pop-up window which appears every 41-minutes asking if the user wishes to remain online. If the message is ignored, or has not been noticed, the connection is lost soon after. For those who leave their PC’s connected to the Internet unattended or have the AOL software minimised so they can use another browser, they end up being disconnected. Several users have managed to get a response from AOL via their tech chat. They were told that it’s a new feature to help make the service quicker. AOL said there are many users who remain connected to the Internet for hours when they are not using it. While we do agree with AOL that this may help the situation, it does nothing to help users who prefer to use Internet Explorer as a browser. Unlike other Internet services, they need to keep the ISPs software running in the background minimised, thus missing the pop-up window. Many Internet users who do not have a BT telephone line, they are restricted to which unmetered ISP they can use. They either use SurfTime or FRIACO which need a BT line. The only ISP that offers a true sustainable 0800 service is AOL. But help is available in the form of a piece of software called Momo’s AOL Anti Idle. The program sits in your system tray and automatically clicks the popup windows so you don't get signed off. However its use may be against AOL’s terms and conditions so check first. For more information and download, visit Cosmic Cat Creations. Survey Shows Steady Rise In Internet Use Continental Research's Internet Report also demonstrated that consumers would be much happier using the Internet if the cost and speed issues were addressed. 34% of those interviewed said that cheaper telephone charges would encourage them to go online more with 26% asking for a faster Internet connection. A further 18% asked for cheaper ISP subscription costs. Colin Shaddick, director at Continental Research said, "Revealingly only 5% say that more sites of relevance would encourage them to go online more - reflecting the enormous quantity of information already available online. The main obstacle to people going online more is not a lack of interesting content online, it is the investment in time and money needed to view the relevant sites." The report also showed that men seem more interested in improved technology that would speed up the whole online process. Women are more likely to feel it is their lack of understanding that is preventing them from going online more. There is a similar shift with age groups. Younger people are more interested in speed, whilst it is older people who feel held back by their lack of online knowledge. NeonHippo Rolls Out FRIACO Service For GMTV GMTV, which currently has 170,000 regular users, offer two services; PayAsYouGo which is charged at local rate calls, and GMTV 24-7, which is the FRIACO service - unlimited Internet access at £14.99 per month. However, to celebrate the launch, a special rate of £10 per month for the first 3 months is being offered. “GMTV already has a well established on-line presence,” explains Greg Rudd, CEO of NeonHippo. “By becoming a virtual ISP, it is offering its loyal user base an even better service.” According to Margaret Sawdon, head of GMTV, there are a number of reasons why GMTV decided to launch its vISP service. “One of the main reasons for the vISP service was to expand the GMTV brand to our database of unique users who trust our TV brand and use our services regularly.” A key incentive for GMTV users to sign up to the vISP service is a monthly competition where one subscriber is selected to come to the GMTV London Studios and watch the programme be transmitted live. They then get to meet the presenters (Eamonn Holmes and Fiona Phillips), have a tour of GMTV’s offices and an extended session with GMTV's Web Team. GMTV join NeonHippo’s list of clients including 24-7 Freecall and Do-Do.tv. Cloud Nine Debug BT Ignite's Network Again 90% of the problems have been affecting Windows 2000 and XP customers. Cloud Nine have discovered that changes occurred to the BT Ignite platform in certain places that have rendered Windows 2000 PC's set-up with default Dial-Up Networking problems unable to dial in, generating a variety of responses ranging from total inability to dial the 0808 numbers to invalid username/password, error on registering on network, to inability to connect to servers. The rest of the problems (the minority) are probably related to the old issue of congested local exchanges but the ISP is still investigating this. It is after all possi | ||