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Letsbuyit.com Needs To Raise £50 Million To Survive Letsbuyit.com, who's sole aim was to bring the purchase price down via bulk purchase buying through consumers bidding together online, has hit a major debt problem: European e-tailer Letsbuyit.com has suspended trading shares while seeking to defer debt payments and is the latest web retailer to run into financial trouble this year, following a trend set by maiden casualty, Boo.com.Sadly, ZDNet also reports that the e-tailer has never even made a profit throughout its lifespan.... Local Loop Pricing Announced By Oftel Operators taking a local loop from BT will pay a rental of £122 per year. There will be a one-off connection charge of £88. The final retail charges to customers will be set by the operators. David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications, said, "Progress is accelerating in unbundling BT’s local loop. Two rounds of bidding for space in exchanges have been successfully completed. Over 700 exchanges have been chosen for the installation of other operators’ equipment.” Charges have also been fixed by Oftel for the cables that connect the unbundled loops in BT’s exchanges to the operators’ own equipment. The rental will be £21 per year for every 100 unbundled lines, plus a one-off charge of £863 for connection to equipment within the exchange. The connection charge for cables for distant co-location will be lower, at £674. In a second publication Oftel set out the final arrangements for ensuring shared access to local loops. Shared access to the local loop enables a consumer to keep BT (or Kingston) for voice services and use a competing operator for high speed data services. BT and Kingston are required to offer shared access from the beginning of 2001. Prices for shared access to BT's local loop will be determined by Oftel early next year. Edmonds added, "The two announcements today on the final price of loops and arrangements for shared access will help operators to finalise their plans to offer high speed DSL services over BT’s local telephone network.” BT Reduces High-Speed Rollout To ISPs Sir Peter Bonfield, BT's chief executive was quoted as admitted to an all-party committee of MPs last week that: "We are having problems meeting demand and there will be an order backlog well into next year." So far just 25,000 people have been connected to the ADSL service by BT Ignite because of continuing technical and administrative problems. As a result, service providers are being told the number of installation slots they were allocated will be drastically reduced from January.A spokesman for BT said that the number of connections are increasing, and with more than 100 ISPs now registered, installation teams have to be divided equally between them all. British Telecom To Be Investigated By UK Government The report appeared in the Times where it was mentioned that Lord Haskins will, next month, lead the investigation which will focus on the telco's bid to unbundle the local loop. He is to look at complaints that the cost of telecoms services, including mobile and Net access, are simply too high and that BT has failed to loosen it grip on its dominant market position.As it was apparent that no one was immediately on hand at BT to comment on the Times' story to The Register, they utilized BT's new "intuitive question and answering service" that is supported by Ask Jeeves , and is now available on BT.Com. The Register said that the new service can adequately handle questions such as, "What is BT Together?", "What can SurfTime do for me?" and "What is the best way to pay my bill?", but they wanted to ask a tougher question.. "How will BT deal with a Government investigation?" "Does BT think the investigation is politically motivated" and "Does BT really stand any chance?" Unfortunately, they found that BT.com couldn't supply any answers to these more difficult questions so any further answers will have to be gained in real conversation......if that is at all possible! Nextcall Could Save You Money In Comparison To BT The residential telco Nextcall will be announcing 'Talk 10+', which is in response to BT's Talk & Surf Together Package. Also, Nextcall claim that the package could save consumers a substantial £85 a year in comparison with the BT offering as uk.Internet.com report: Talk 10+ is advertised as offering totally free, unmetered, off-peak internet access in addition to savings on BT local, national, international and cellular rates. To access the service, consumers pay a monthly line rental of £12.90 and sign up to the company's free internet service provider (ISP), NextCall.net. Damien Read, director of product development at NextCall, pointed out that this compared to £19.99 with Talk & Surf Together. He added that, from the list of ISPs compatible with the BT package, only Freeserve is a free ISP, so consumers will be paying a monthly ISP charge on top. Read also expressed surprise that BT wholesale rates allow NextCall to offer a more competitive product than BT itself. "Their wholesale rates still allow us to make a healthy margin. It strikes me that BT's retail arm must be very inefficient internally," he said. In response to NextCall's accusation that consumers find BT tariffs confusing, a BT spokesperson said: "We don't feel that they are confusing. We are always looking at our range of products: if we were being told by our customers that they were confusing we would, of course, address that." NextCall are obviously confident that they have a good and credible product - well, as far as comments on how 'good and credible' the product is remains to be seen, but would you agree that this seems a good offer for the residential consumer? NTL Price Increase For Unmetered Internet Service Currently their customers have to spend of minimum of £10 per month on their telephone service to qualify for the unmetered access. But this will rise to £15 per month from 1st February. NTL offer 24/7 unmetered access for just a one-off fee of £10 which pays for an adaptor that routes calls through their network offering cheaper calls. There is also a 2-hour cut-off period. World Online - Broadband By Christmas! According to UKInternet.Com, the Internet Service Provider, World Online, have announced that they will be offering an always-on broadband connection service by Christmas. Only last month World Online dumped their unmetered access package which left many unhappy customers in the process. Available from December, the company said the service will be charged at a flat rate of £39.99 per month including line rental and free installation. Existing users of the World Online internet service will receive the offer first, with non-subscribers expected to wait until the local loop unbundling allows World Online to extend the reach of its network.This will be very welcomed news for those users who felt they had been left in the cold by World Online's discontinuation of its unmetered service. This sounds like a good deal to me - £39.99 per month with free installation and including line rental - do you think it is? Nildram Announce SurfTime Details Due for launch on 22nd January 2001, the ISP will be launching a range of unmetered options based on BT’s SurfTime product. The 24/7 unmetered option, branded as Nildram SurfTime Gold, boasts of a permanent connection which we always thought was not available with SurfTime. Anyway, this option is priced at a massive £94 per month. Including the payment payable to BT that brings the total to £113.99 per month! All the usual Nildram services are available except dual ISDN connections and static IP address. Also available is Nildram SurfTime Plus which has two options; off-peak unmetered access for a total of £29.49 per month, and 24/7 unmetered access for a total of £43.49 per month. Both options have a limit of 60 hours per month and a 5 minute inactivity timeout. The off-peak option costs 1p per minute when used at peak times. There is also a basic off-peak package, Nildram SurfTime, priced at a total of £17.74 per month which offers off-peak unmetered access. But is subject to a 5 minute inactivity timeout as well as a 2-hour cut-off period. Standard 0845 access is offered at peak times. For what’s on offer I think the prices are a bit steep, but if you think otherwise please leave your comments. New Wholesale Net Product Announced By BT BTnet SurfPort24, is a managed service that grooms traffic from the local exchanges onto BT’s Colossus IP network and onto the ISP or carrier network.The recommended prices as published by Oftel for the service per month, per port, are £110 for a one-year contract, £90 for two years and £87 for three. ic24 ‘After Eight’ Update Previously the 0800 offer from ic24 ran from 9am to 5pm at weekends and 8pm to midnight weekdays. Now from January the 8pm to midnight weekday free time has now been extended to include weekends, totally free 0800 access, 7 days a week. But it will mean the end of the daytime access during weekends. Many thought the weekend daytime access would still continue, but sadly this is not the case. Although we have been told by ic24 that the 0800 access has been extended to the end of January 2001 at least! So hopefully we could see the offer being extended yet again well into the New Year. Also connection to the After Eight service appears to be going well. Last weekend ic24’s records shown that 99% of connections were connected 1st time. AOL And Kingfisher In Joint Marketing Agreement The AOL FLAT RATE plan, launched on September 19th, offers unmetered Internet access for £14.99 a month, including all subscription and Internet telephone costs, together with unlimited freephone member support. Under the agreement. the AOL CDs will be made available in Comet, B&Q, Woolworth's and Superdrug stores. AOL UK will promote B&Q's extensive range of home and garden products in the Shopping Channels of its AOL and CompuServe subscription services, as well as on its Web-based brands, including the subscription-free Netscape Online registered user service. Specially co-branded CDs for AOL FLAT RATE will be available in 795 Woolworth's and 705 Superdrug and 260 Comet stores from late December, as well as in 301 B&Q stores from early February 2001. The distribution agreement is in addition to an earlier agreement with the superstore Asda’s. Now it seems you can’t go anywhere without seeing the dreaded AOL CD. If you stay in you will still get them sent regularly through the post. Update On 08002go Status All we are now waiting for is our SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Servers to be installed via our e-commerce partners and due to the festive season this should be completed in the New Year.The email also goes on to mention that no payments should be sent until you receive an email from them in January. 08002go were due to launch their unmetered service towards the end of November at a cost of just £5.83 per month which also boasts no cut-off period. If they can sustain such a service will have to be seen, but for some protection at least, use your credit card for payment. UPDATE: The company behind 08002go has filed for £37.5 million compensation from BT claiming that they had broken repeated promises to provide support for its unmetered service. Zone Corporation Limited was due to start its unmetered Internet service in June. But they claim that they were unable to provide the service because BT had breached contractual commitments over connection costs. They claim that BT went back on their word and would be charging for the service on a metered basis instead. BT denies any claim of liability. FRIACO - Telewest Warn Of Legal Action FRIACO operates by fixing telecoms costs, and also is the product that enables many ISPs to offer unmetered Net access in the UK to consumers at reasonable costs. Telewest are arguing the point that by the way FRIACO works could cause harm to the company’s future profitability. In a letter written by John K Cluny, Head of Regulatory Economics at Telewest to Oftel dated December 8 Internet, he said: "We regard the present proposals as hugely damaging to Telewest's long term commercial viability, and we will consider pursuing any appropriate legal remedy to challenge the current Oftel proposals."Earlier this year, Telewest launched its own unmetered Net access product - SurfUnlimited . Now that FRIACO is around which means, amongst other things, cheaper net access for all, Telewest seem to be putting a spanner in the works – what next? With so many ISP’s going under because of telco costs produced, they say, by heavy users – surely FRIACO will relieve the main pressures for many ISP’s that provide unmetered access to consumers. What do you think of Telewest’s reaction, and do you think their reasons are fair? NTL Launch Unmetered TV Internet Access What is the Interactive Digital TV Service ? I have likened this service to a closed shop of specially designed TV dedicated websites and services. These services offer movies on demand, TV email, interactive TV games and dedicated news, sport, shopping and information sites which provide a good range and choice. Particularly useful were the free encyclopaedia and people finder. The educational sites provide a good wealth of information for children's school studies and the shopping and multiplayer gaming sites offer family variety and are relatively simple to use. As it is promoted it would appear to fulfil the need for fully functional TV based Internet access. Indeed their marketing campaign suggests that by subscribing to this service you can in fact “Access All Areas”. I decided to put the service through some typical user testing and see how it faired. The Digital TV Internet Access :- After ploughing through a confusing array of options the service comprises of what NTL refer to as a “browser” presenting you with just two very basic functions. You can either perform a search on keywords entered into a search box or you can enter a website in the address bar and hit go to “View” it in the “Browser” I say “View” with a tainted tongue because having spent a good few days examining the system my own balanced views were taken from “What error message am I going to get next” experiences. After signing up for the service I then discovered that the “browser” does not support the functionality of websites which contain specific web programming such as Javascript, ASP, and Flash. That rules out the majority of todays popular modern websites including sites such as Amazon, Hotmail and Monster.co.uk. You may actually see the websites with this programming but it is not necessarily going to work or function properly. One of the biggest disappointments was when I tried inputting text, editing text or form filling it resulted in a slow and painful editing process where I couldn’t highlight and delete block highlight text or move quickly from line to line. Moving one character at a time so slowly as I did I started to draw similarities to the memories of my programming days typing on an old ZX80 computer. All that was missing was the PVC coated Keyboard. However apart from the let down in the internet access you would really have to consider the package as a whole and within the full interactive service are a variety of good dedicated websites, depending on your requirements this may out weigh some of the issues mentioned. Provided minor improvements are implemented in the future this has the potential to be a really outstanding service. Noting my concerns I discussed these issues with the customer services and was told that they were aware of the problems and expected that the web designers would in time redesign their websites to allow for the Interactive TV format If you want to read more about this service and would like a review of the technical and security aspects of this service sign up for the next edition of the newsletter HERE where a more detailed technical article will be presented on my assessment. For more information on this specific package contact NTL Internet TV customer service 0800 068 2731. Oftel May Step In To Set Charge Levels Many ISPs use the permanent carrier pre-selection system to reap the benefit of additional revenue from BT by simply attaching prefix numbers to their dial-up services. Benefits can also be reaped by the customer with a choice of more competitive carrier rates, and, the consumer does not need to manually add a prefix number as they are automatically re-routed to different networks via their telephone. Albera Networks was commissioned by Oftel to research proposals from BT for implementing PCPS, and, according to the report, "no individual cost component is unreasonable", but it does have "observations to make about some individual cost elements". Action will only be taken by Oftel if BT and the rival carriers are unable to agree on the cost proposals. Copy and paste this address into your browser for the full report: http://www.oftel.gov.uk/competition/cps1000.pdf (requires acrobat reader or similar as it is a .pdf file format). A Genie For AOL From early next year this will only be available in the UK and Germany, but, as Genie developes and branches out, access to AOL Services are expected to extend accross Europe and Asia Pacific. Currently, Genie has a massive 2.4 million registered members and operates in the UK, Germany and Netherlands. The AOL Mobile Services are to provide consumers with access to information that includes email, news, weather, entertainment, stock market news and much more. IG Click’s ADSL Service Ends Here is the email being sent out: From 01/01/2001 IG Systems will no longer be supporting ADSL. The company has decided to withdraw from offering the service until all have been resolved. As you are aware you have paid the installation fee and no rental on your service to date. Your service will be free until 31/01/2000. Your account will be held live until that date and we can make arrangements with another provider to service your account (BT currently have all your billing details).They say that it’s due to “ongoing technical problems”, although they have also recently put an end to their unmetered service. A coincidence maybe? Or a sign that the company is going into receivership? It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks. Telecoms Companies Slam BT And Oftel Appearing before the cross-party trade and industry select committee, companies including Thus, Energis and Cable & Wireless said BT was still threatening their plans to compete on DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Internet services despite recent intervention by Oftel. They accused BT of allocating insufficient resources to unbundling of the local loop, the process that will allow rival operators to install broadband Internet equipment in BT local exchanges, and of withholding the information they needed to construct business plans. Anne Machin, head of carrier relations at Energis, said the problems were forcing her company to reduce its ambitions for DSL, which accelerates the speed of Internet connections over normal telephone lines by a factor of about 10. "They're certainly being scaled back somewhat because of the uncertainties and the difficulties we're having," she told the 10-member committee, which is investigating criticism of Oftel's handling of unbundling. The companies savaged Oftel in written evidence to the committee. C&W said Oftel had failed to devise the right regulatory structure or to get sufficiently involved in implementing unbundling. "It has become apparent that the failure on the part of Oftel to become closely involved in the process has been a major factor in the current state of affairs," it said. Thus said it supported the move towards joint regulation by Oftel and the industry, "but experience to date shows that co-regulation in the UK means regulation by Oftel and BT". Sniff Out Nears 100,000 SurfTime Users For this Christmas and New Year holiday season, Sniff Out is offering one month's free subscription to TimeOut, it's SurfTime linked off-peak Internet access package. TimeOut normally costs £3.99 per month, and offers unmetered off-peak Internet access at evenings and weekends in conjunction with BT's popular SurfTime, Surf Together, and Talk & Surf Together packages. Internet calls made during the weekday peak period are charged at only 1p per minute. Like all Sniff Out packages, TimeOut includes an unlimited number of email accounts and personal web space, plus a fully featured UK specific portal site. There is no cut-off during active use, with a local call rate support line. The one month's free off-peak Internet access offer finishes at the end of January 2001 and is open to both new customers and existing members who enrol or upgrade via the on-line registration facility at http://www.sniffout.net and pay a further two month's subscription at the same time. 24-7Freecall Will Refund Customers In yet another U-turn, Sal Abdin, the head of 24/7 Freecall, told The Register that all those affected would received a refund - even though the ISP originally said it would not reimburse people.Additionally many users were flabbergasted when they realised that the monthly fee of £19.99 was deducted from their credit cards and bank accounts even though they were no longer a customer. Well done 24-7Freecall. I am sure many people will join me in congratulating you on making the right decision. Other unmetered ISPs take note. Freeserve Reduces Losses Second-quarter losses before interest and tax stood at £9.5 million, down from £18.8 million in the first quarter. But Freeserve Chief Executive John Pluthero said the figures demonstrated strong progress. John Pluthero added, "These results demonstrate our continued strong progress. During the quarter we increased our average weekly advertising and e-commerce revenues by more than 50% over the first quarter and our customers increased their average daily use of the Internet by a further 22% on the previous quarter.” "The combination of Freeserve with Wanadoo will create new opportunities and further accelerate the development of our business." Freeserve also said that gross sign-ups totalled 482,000 or 40,000 per week in the 12 weeks ended November 11th, compared with 38,000 a week in the first quarter. Active registered accounts rose by 87,000 to over 2 million within the same period. But why? The Internet service is rubbish. I have yet to hear anyone say a good thing about them. Here is just one typical review from one of our readers: “Freeserve is definitely getting worse ! I can eventually connect with around 15 to 20 re-dials ! But to cap it off you get disconnected within 5 to 10 minutes.Nearly every week Freeserve are voted the worst ISP in our ISP vote section. Maybe it’s about time they stopped throwing money away on adverts and start to improve their Internet service. What do you think of their service. Good or bad? New Satellite Internet Service For The UK Skystorm will hopefully be providing downstream speeds up to 400 Kb/s any day now. They were to launch earlier, but with a few problems including the recent postal delays, the launch has been delayed until early January. Unlike other forms of high-speed Internet access, the service received is only one-way. A regular dial-up ISP is still needed for uploading data. Here is a quote from their website. It still works on a modem - but only for the data requests. The ISP doesn't send the information back down the phone line - instead sends it up to our SatMedia center - which beams that info straight upto our StarSpeeder satellite. This then sends the information straight back down to you, through a satellite dish and a satellite modem, a simple board that just slots into your computer.As well as the monthly fee of £16, there is a one-off payment of £199 which covers the cost of a DVB card, satellite dish and LNB. They do not provide installation. As an incentive to existing satellite users, any customers coming from Europe Online will also receive the first month’s subscription for free. A review is also expected in PC Format which is due around January/February 2001. More On Breathe’s Failure But in today’s Sunday Telegraph there is a news story on the failed ISP breathe calling in the administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the article it states that breathe collapsed with losses of up to £50m. Anyone still after a £50 refund? You’ll be lucky. At the moment there is no ISP ombudsman to protect the consumer, except the ISPA but membership is not compulsory. There is the newly formed OFCOM which is on its way, but its arrival isn’t expected until 2002, which in the world on unmetered Internet access is a lifetime away. The Sunday Telegraph article can be read here. Further Details On ic24's Extended Access We unofficially announced earlier in the week that the offer will be extended into the New Year, but now in an email going out to current users, we finally have the details confirmed. We've extended our great free online time offer until Jan 31 2001. We've made a few changes though - from Jan 1st 2001 our free online time runs from 8.00pm to midnight every night of the week - Monday to Sunday. That means that every night in January between 8.00pm and midnight surfing the net is free. You will need to use our freephone 0800 number and full details of how to get your free time are on the site, www.ic24.net. It looks like the 9 to 5 access during the weekends has been removed, but at least they still keep on going unlike some ISPs we could mention. You never know, the deadline could be extended yet again. 24-7Freecall - Update In his report he states: "It's difficult to tell precisely how I abused them, as I wasn't given the courtesy of an email telling me what was going on. The service worked yesterday and this morning it didn't.Only yesterday, a Telia representative had managed to get Freecall to retract this very statement. Also mentioned is the fact that the company is very difficult to contact as apart from the tech support line, no other phone number appears on their website, and it seems that directory enquiries only has a number which appears to be permanently connected to a fax machine. Take heart though, here is some good news, as Andrew puts it: "Freecall boss Sal Abdin has now had a change of heart over refunding the subscriptions of the terminated users - he emailed me this afternoon (after Telia had contacted him to relate my complaint) to offer me a refund of this month's subscription within 14 days." "We assume this refund applies to all disconnected users - not just bolshy IT hacks," Andrew commented........Well Andrew, so do we here at Net4Nowt, and all disappointed users of this service will assume the same I hope! Source: The Register Administrators Called In By Breathe The Register has today reported that breathe have ran out of puff after calling in the administrators this morning. PriceWaterhouseCoopers was appointed at the High Court in Manchester.A few customers have managed to get a refund through their credit cards. Anyone trying a more direct approach will have no chance as they will be at the end of the queue. New Broadband Reviews The first review takes a look at the Blueyonder high-speed cable service. The second examines the ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) product from Demon. Both reviews may wet your appetite for a quicker connection, but if you live in an area like mine, you will have a long wait. Blueyonder review Demon ADSL review New 24/7 Unmetered Option From BTinternet Priced at £14.99 per month, ‘BTinternet Anytime’ will offer users 24/7 unmetered access from the new year. BTinternet today also announced they currently have 500,000 customers with 20,000 joining every week. Pre-registration for its BTinternet Anytime service is available now, but will be offered to existing BTinternet customers first and new customers shortly thereafter. Initially BTinternet Anytime access will be using an 0800 number which is available to all customers regardless of which telephone company they are with. However come April 2001, it will be converted to a new number provided by BT as part of the FRIACO system. If you wish to continue you will have to move over to BT – now isn’t that an ideal way to bring in extra customers for BT? ISDN users will also be limited to just a 64Kbps connection. BT Use Satellite To Provide High-Speed Rural Access A trial will begin in March in a project costing a quarter of a million pounds. If successful, BT will start marketing the service towards the end of 2001. In a Business a.m. article today, BT Scotland’s director Graham Moore said the possibility of offering ADSL to rural businesses will speed up their Internet access three-fold. It also raises the possibility of transforming Scotland into a totally wired country. He said: “We are looking very closely to see if satellites can deliver ADSL broadband to rural areas.”To read the article in full, click here. Breathe On BBC Watchdog Tonight Ann “you’re the weakest link” Robinson said that Watchdog have received over 100 complaints from users who were angry with breathe ending the service. All breathe said was they have set-up helplines (0845 330 2207 or 0845 330 2208) and an email address (customerservicemanager@breathe.com). Nothing was said about refunds. Many users have said that they are taking the matter up with Trading Standards and some may be getting a refund through their credit card. Has any ex-breathe customer been successful in getting a refund? Hole Plugged In AOL’s AIM Software AOL quickly stepped in to provide a patched version of the popular message client. The weakness, a HTTP buffer overflow vulnerability, was described by @stake as "real easy to exploit".Certainly made me raise my eyebrows. I personally use AIM have not received any information about this until now. There was also no mention of the “severe security flaw” when I downloaded the new version of AIM. TFI To Upgrade Unmetered Service Many TFI customers have contacted us with stories of not being able to connect using the unmetered service. When they do finally manage to get through, it’s at a snails pace. The Managing Director Lister Park agreed that there were a few problems recently due to moving offices. He said, There was a specific problem last week (w/c 4th December) that might have triggered off a higher than average spate of Members' complaints and that was caused by the fact that we moved offices. The move was supposed to take place over the weekend (9th and 10th December), but on Wednesday (6th December) the telecom engineers arrived to start switching the telephone lines to the new building. Rather than cause a fuss and ask them to go away (politely) and come back at the agreed time, a decision was taken to start the moving process early. This meant a system outage on Wednesday and for some time on Thursday.” ”The service had to be shut down with no time to warn the Members of the imminent interruption to their Internet access.” An apology was sent out to members when the service was resumed. Last Saturday a bulletin was sent out warning of another system outage for Tuesday 12th. As well as MCI Worldcom installing extra lines, the ISP will also be upgrading its modem capacity which will help alleviate the problems some users have been experiencing. Lister Park explains that although they have around 45,000 customers, there are very few complaints received. He said, “Our weekly call logs show that, over the past three weeks, the ‘line busy/no answer’ problems received by our customer support amount to around 10.5% of all calls received from TFI Members.” Along with many other ISPs, TheFreeInternet have experienced poor connectivity via BT on the 0800 network. They have also experienced connectivity problems between BT/MCI Worldcom and cable companies including NTL. Where a customer lives will also have an effect. The North West of England is known as a problem area with Manchester in particular being a black spot. The calls to the ISP are just not getting routed through as Park confirmed that their service is not exceeding capacity, “Our Modem Usage Statistics programme (updated every 15 minutes) shows that our system is running well within its limitations with an average evening usage pattern of 75% capacity. The maximum modem usage shown in any one 15 minute period is 88%, and the system has only ever reached 90% on one occasion.” TheFreeInternet hit the headlines in September when they cut-off subscribers who were identified as ‘business users’ which is against the ISP’s terms and conditions. Many other ISPs have since been forced to either kick off ‘heavy users’ or close down their unmetered service altogether. Lister Park confirmed that they have many future plans for TheFreeInternet, many of which I can not disclose, but he insisted that they will be around for a long time yet. Half Of UK On The Net As Gender Split Narrows In a three-week period ending last month, more than 75,000 Internet users responded to an online poll of over 100 questions, to provide the most comprehensive indicator of the Internet's development in the UK. "Significantly, the male gender bias that characterised the UK Net has eroded to the extent that women now account for 46% of all British surfers," commented William Reeve, group director of European Data Products for Forrester Research. "The UK Internet is no longer a hobby for a sophisticated, wealthy and educated male elite," Reeve continued. "The UK Internet has become a truly mass information, communications and entertainment medium.” Portals remain very popular with UK Internet users. 91% have visited a portal in the last two weeks. Yahoo! and Freeserve are the UK's two most popular, with 45% and 35% of all UK Internet users respectively visiting them within two weeks of being polled. "Internet use, originally driven by access at work, is growing amongst home users -- 75% of respondents completed the online survey from home, against 12% at work," Reeve concluded. "Around half of UK adults have a PC in the home and the proportion of users filling in the survey from home rather than work has grown from 50% in the second quarter of 1998 to 75% in the fourth quarter of 2000. Home use is driven by the desire to use email, free ISPs, and increasingly by free or reduced-price call packages. Additionally, as Internet use grows, the proportion of Internet users with the experience, confidence and sophistication to conduct advanced Internet behaviour - such as engaging in chat, registering at a site and online buying - increases." 24-7Freecall – They’ve Done It Again! Back at the beginning of November the ISP kicked off some of its users. They claimed that users were using software to regularly ‘ping’ the ISP which is against the terms and conditions. When I rang them I was told that email programs such as Outlook, which regularly checks the server for email, could also be regarded as software which pings the ISP and could be in breach of the rules. Now 24-7Freecall has hit the headlines again by sending out the following email to customers. Dear subscriberAs well as no refunds being given, there is no notice neither which is usually written in many ISP’s contracts. The ISP has also added the following message to their homepage: 24-7Freecall are sorry to announce, that we have reached the maximum number of subscribers that we can currently safely cater for without it adversely affecting the service for all users. We will therefore not be accepting any new subscribers until we can increase the capacity to cope with new users.24-7Freecall is the latest in a string of unmetered ISPs that have come to an abrupt end, and there will likely be a lot more to come. ISDN Backup For Mistral’s ADSL Service The backup consists of a managed Cisco router monitoring the ADSL router and line, which automatically switches to a 128K ISDN line to restore connectivity, if the ADSL connection crashes.Until the end of the year Mistral are offering free installation of their 2MB ADSL service as well as completing all ADSL installations in 7 days. UK - Largest Internet Population In Europe In the lead with over 12.5 million users the UK comes out tops with Germany coming second with 11.3 million, France third with just over 6 million followed by Spain in fourth place with 4.5 million users. Although here in the UK, users only connect to the Internet 9 days per month on average with Germany connecting to the Internet more often with an average of 11.4 days per month. The research also showed that men are the biggest users of the Internet all over Europe. In the UK 57% of users are men compared with 43% of women. The biggest divide is in Spain with 70% being male compared to just 30% being female. IG Click Finally Call It A Day To All IG Click Customers,How do you feel about the decision? IG Click have been criticised many times in the past for their service and poor customer relations. But do you think that in the end they saved you money with their unmetered service? Or are you angry that there was no mention of a refund? Your comments please. 0800 WAP Service To End Launched in August, Joe800 allowed WAP users to access the mobile Internet for a fixed monthly subscription. "At the time of launch UK WAP users were paying exorbitant connection costs" said Managing Director, Jason Cooper. "We felt that this was restricting the uptake of WAP and stifling the market as a whole." Joe800 has been a pioneering wireless access service, paving the way for other unmetered Mobile Internet offers. It has been The Joe Network's belief that long term profitability in the wireless industry will not be derived from call costs, rather revenue generated from compelling content and useful services. The industry and press saw Joe800 as a very positive service, providing WAP access for 75% less cost than the leading carriers. There was a feeling however, that this service might be short lived due to the carriers determination to dominate the value chain. Unfortunately this proved to be the case. "As a result of the operator's decisions to charge their customers for making 0800 data calls the Joe800 service is rendered unusable. To continue the service would mean that users are charged both by Joe800 and by the operator. This is certainly not a situation we would accept and as a result we have been forced to terminate the Joe800 service from 5pm on the 13th of December 2000" said Tony Coyle, CEO of The Joe Network. Vodafone and BT Cellnet have always charged for 0800 data calls and One 2 One started to charge at the beginning of September. Whilst Orange do not charge for 0800 voice calls, they did start to charge for 0800 data calls at the beginning of December without notifying some of its users. Joe800 customers have been offered full refunds regardless of the amount of time used in the current subscription month. There will be no job losses at The Joe Network as a result of the service closure. NTL and Telewest - Plans To Use BT Lines For ADSL Scrapped BT will be forced to allow competitors to share its local lines from next year, enabling companies such as NTL and Telewest to offer high-speed digital subscriber line (DSL) services. However, BT has been accused of dragging its feet over unbundling and the rollout of DSL.Whether the decision to steer away from DSL in the consumer market will affect the operator's plans to roll out ADSL to small businesses is not confirmed. In October, NTL said that they would offer ADSL for small and medium-sized businesses in February. (vnunet) After Telcos Energis and Thus argued the point that BT's current wholesale DSL offering limits the way rival operators can use their own networks to run DSL services, Oftel assured both Telcos that BT will be 'forced' to negotiate better terms for wholesale DSL network access. 0800 Access To Continue Their current 0800 promotion ends at the end of the year but existing customers will still qualify for the free access into next year. Presently users receive totally free 0800 access between 8pm and midnight on weekday evenings as well as weekends between 9am and 5pm. Other times are charged as a local call. How long the 0800 access will last for existing users is unknown, but the deadlines have been extended many times in the past. Government’s White Paper On Communications Regulator Rules governing all will be radically modernised to ensure citizens, consumers and the media industry are the winners in the new communications revolution Culture Secretary Chris Smith and Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers said today. The key proposals will: guarantee a better deal for consumers - giving them a clear voice, better protection from negative content and an end to confusion with OFCOM as a final arbiter for complaints;Culture Secretary Chris Smith said, “The communications revolution affects everyone. The aim of the Government's 'A new future for communications' is to ensure that citizens and consumers are the winners in this rapidly changing world.” "I believe that this White Paper signals a clear way forward. It keeps Britain at the cutting edge of the world wide revolution in communications. It puts the consumer first and gives the industry the responsible freedom it needs to continue to provide top quality services." Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers said, "Whether we watch Coronation Street, surf the net, or use a mobile phone the world of communications is all around us. Our proposals will ensure that we can all benefit from the new communications world." With the Communications White Paper covering many different forms of media, it is a bit long. But there are a few sections focusing on the Internet and consumer protection that make essential reading. Your comments are most appreciated as usual. Breathe – No Comment On Refunds If it were to refund all its 50,000 customers it would cost the company a massive £2.5 million. Ex-breathe customers are fuming because the product was advertised as ‘for life’ and in their own terms and conditions it stated that 30 days written notice need to be given before they can terminate the contract. breathe said that they would only advise customers to contact the helplines and would be dealt with individually. They would not say how they would judge who would be entitled to a refund. Maybe the ones that kick up the most fuss and threaten legal action for breach of contract would receive something. According to Netimperative.com today, breathe also refused to comment on reports that a major shareholder is looking for a buyer for the company. RedHotAnt To Stop New Registrations I know this isn’t actually “hot off the press”, as some of you will already be aware, but better late than never. Somehow this one has slipped past us, sorry. They have this announcement on their site: AVOID THE CHRISTMAS RUSH - offer ends 31st December 2000!!The service has had its problems in the past but looks like it has sorted them out now with some good feedback coming from readers. Breathe Looking For A Buyer breathe, who originally advertised their unmetered service as “breathe freely for life”, angered its customers when they announced that their unmetered service will come to an end after today. Now Chase Capital Partners, which owns a stake in the firm has been looking for buyers in a bid to raise funds for the company. News of the attempted sale is likely to increase industry fears that the company has serious financial problems, and that it will be faced with receivership within weeks if it fails to attract a buyerThe 50,000 users who will be affected by the closure of the unmetered service are not expected to receive a refund for the £50 "for life" service. If they do give users a full refund it would cost the company £2.5m. Telewest Abandons BTs Local Loop In a report in The Telegraph today, NTL is also considering pulling out of the programme. There have been many complaints over BT delaying the opening of the local loop which will allow its rivals to offer its services to BT customers thus removing BT’s monopoly in the market. Analysts say that the expense and the risk were so high that Telewest has opted instead to focus on aggressively pushing its digital TV and communications within its franchises. "It could have cost Telewest £1bn just to get into the exchanges it wanted," one observer said.The Chief Executive of BT, Peter Bonfield, will be appearing before Parliament's cross-party Trade and Industry Committee on December 19 to reply to criticism from telecoms regulator David Edmonds, who has slammed the company for delaying the opening of its exchanges to competitors. World Online Upgrades Internet Service In the letter they go on to say that the upgrade includes an improved email service. They will also be increasing capacity which will enable users to connect to the Internet more quickly. The upgrade means customers will have to change all their settings including news and email servers as well as the dial-up number. However one of the changes mean that the news servers will not carry binary files. Instead of listing all the new settings, everything can be found here on the World Online site. It also includes full instructions explaining how to carry out the changes and an automatic configuration option. There is also a free upgrade helpline on 0800 542 7899. Freeserve’s Unlimited Freeserve Time To Stay A number of Register readers were alerted when they received an email from Freeserve earlier in the week tempting them to sign up to Freeserve AnyTime, which should be available from mid January.Will any Freeserve customers be tempted to sign up to the new unmetered product? There have been quite a few complaints from users who are struggling to connect. Maybe the grass is greener on the other side? Unmetered Service Comes To An End In a statement it said that the service is no longer viable: breathe has today announced that it is to close its breathe freely unmetered access service with effect from 10th December, 2000 as the business model is no longer viable.Back in July it caused outrage amongst its customers when it kicked off 500 heavy users and then stopped new subscribers to the service. BT Blames ISPs For Lack Of Dual ISDN In an email to a customer who was having difficulties in getting a 128Kbps connection with his SurfTime ISP, a BT employee incorrectly stated: BT do not impose restrictions on the ISP as to what speed a customer can run at. The capability is available to run at 128kbps. It is at the discretion of a service provider as to what they will allow within the free access or whether they would charge you for the second channel when bonding. Bt do not influence this decision.It was BT who only a few weeks ago removed dual ISDN capabilities from ISPs participating in the SurfTime deal. Cloud Nine have now had enough with BT’s tactics and is on the war path. But getting to speak to the Management is proving impossible. Emeric Miszti from Cloud Nine said, “Cloud Nine are becoming seriously concerned about the whole attitude of BT to this matter. We cannot even get to speak to our Account Managers about this issue at the moment. BT are supposed to have been fixing up a conference call for us with the Product Manager for Surfports but this has failed to materialised despite repeated promptings. There is a feel of deliberate BT stalling about this whole issue and we are quite unclear about whether or not they are deliberately creating confusion about this issue.” Miszti said that the email from BT was not just from a member of misinformed staff, they are hearing the same story from many people who have spoken to BT. But this is the first time they have obtained the lie in black and white. It is damaging the ISPs while at the same time benefiting themselves. He also added, “It is our opinion that by their actions BT are deliberately slowing down the provision of quality unmetered services whilst they try and obtain commercial advantage for themselves and associated companies. We are seeing this across the whole spectrum of Internet service delivery - be it SurfTime, FRIACO or ADSL. This is clearly unacceptable and possibly even unlawful and we are collating all evidence of this "misinformation" campaign for an official Oftel complaint submission. Furthermore, any such a submission will inevitably include evidence of how they deliberately stalled in the delivery of the Surfport/Surftime services.” “We would be grateful if anyone would contact us with any similar instances of BT obfuscation and downright lies as relating to 128Kb bonded provision. Please email these to surftime@cloud-nine.com. We would be particularly interested to hear if any customers of BT are able to gain 128Kb ISDN Surftime access.” Government To Quiz BT Boss Bonfield will appear before Parliament's cross-party Trade and Industry Committee on December 19 to reply to criticism from telecoms regulator David Edmonds, who has slammed the company for delaying the opening of its exchanges to competitors. The committee chairman Martin O'Neill said that MPs also want to ask Bonfield about his plans to restructure the company. Edmonds was scathing of BT last month when he appeared before the committee, which is investigating unbundling of the local loop, the process that will allow BT's competitors to install broadband Internet equipment in its exchanges. "We believe Oftel has not been pushing BT hard enough," O'Neill told Reuters. "I don't think you can blame BT in that BT is merely protecting its commercial interests." Competitors including Cable & Wireless Plc and Kingston Communications Plc will give evidence just hours before Bonfield, promising to give the industry's dispute over unbundling its most public airing yet. C&W, which expects to be represented by its head of regulation, is among companies that have officially complained to Edmonds over BT's behaviour. They say the company is stalling competition for broadband Internet services to protect its own markets. E-commerce minister Patricia Hewitt appears before the committee next week to give testimony on the issue of the Internet. Source: Reuters Tiscali Wins Bid For World Online Speaking to Reuters, Tiscali's incoming chief executive Jim Kinsella said the company's goal was to become "the AOL of Europe" by expanding through acquisitions. He also sees independence from an incumbent telecoms operator as a competitive advantage. "Back in 1996 everyone in the U.S. was betting on AT&T instead of AOL...today AT&T is not even in the top five," Kinsella told Reuters. "We need to do more acquisitions in the UK, France and Germany," he said, adding there would be some announced within a few months.” "We absolutely can do acquisitions with paper," Kinsella said, with cash used if needed, but mainly reserved for operating expenses until the company becomes profitable.” Telewest’s Blueyonder Problems For Gamers In the statement, Gary Jennings, of the Internet Operations division of blueyonder, said: "We are currently experiencing various issues with packet loss. This is affecting some aspects of the overall service, in particular it is affecting UDP [User Datagram Protocol] based applications such as gaming and real-time chat when the traffic to these services is passing through the areas affected."Whilst the problems affect all users in general, it is online gamers that suffer the most from the packet loss. From reading visitors feedback, the Blueyonder service is usually complaint free. How are you finding the service now? Is it still up to scratch? UK Consumers Benefit From Lower Telecom Prices David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications commented, "This survey shows that UK consumers continue to get some of the best deals for Internet access and mobile telephony. Compared to many other countries, UK prices are low, and continue to fall. The availability and price of unmetered Internet access in the UK is much better than the UK’s major European competitors.” "The range of choices for Internet access has grown and UK consumers now pay roughly the same as, or less than, those in the US states for unmetered Internet access.” The countries included in the research were UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the US states of Ohio and California. A few interesting discoveries were made: • the UK continues to have the lowest prices for residential off-peak and peak metered Internet access;David Edmonds said that Oftel’s goal is to ensure that UK consumers get the best deal possible for telecoms services. "Oftel published its first benchmarking survey in May. This second survey shows that UK consumers continue to get extremely good deals with significant price reductions, particularly for residential Internet customers.” "Oftel’s work on increasing the availability of unmetered Internet access for consumers and promoting the introduction of new high speed services over BT’s local network will help bring new choices and keener prices to consumers.” "However, while UK businesses enjoy some of the best prices for unmetered Internet packages, they could still be getting a better deal for metered Internet access. Oftel will continue to work to improve the services available to UK businesses so that they can choose the most competitive deal for their needs." CompuServe To Go Unmetered Next Year So we contacted them and we found out that they are in fact trying out several different packages on a number of customers. CompuServe are currently trialling nine different packages including a 24/7 unmetered access option which may be priced at £19.99 per month. Also another package which includes 15 hours of unmetered access with additional access charged at 1p per minute all for £4.99 They are expected to make an announcement within the next couple of months as to which unmetered access options they will be offering. Customer services said that they will be emailing existing customers with further details nearer the time. CompuServe currently provides a subscription 0845 service for £7.50 per month. Freeserve Sold For Knockdown Price Wanadoo chairman and chief executive Nicolas Dufourcq said the new group would have nearly 4m users but was aiming for 10m, "so that means that more acquisitions may be made". Company officials confirmed it planned to play a lead role in further sector restructuring.The deal also brought disappointment to the value of shares, which eroded Freeserve shares by 9% although the British ISP said it was "delighted" by the deal which brings an end to months of speculation. The low price paid for Freeserve could also reflect upon the prospects for LineOne, another British ISP up for sale..... Source: Guardian Unlimited 250 Minutes Internet Phone Call Time Free The net4nowt phone allows users to make phone calls over the Internet by buying call credits in advance. This enables users to make big savings on international calls. Until 31st December, users will receive an extra 250 units totally free when they buy 2000 units. So for £20 of credit purchased, you will receive 250 minutes completely free. All you have to do is go online, download your free net4nowt IP phone software, register and purchase call time. We will add your 250 free call units to your account in addition to the units purchased. Your net4nowt IP (Internet Protocol) phone enables you to make international telephone calls from your PC to any telephone in the world at very low cost. Calls travel over the Internet making international rates very competitive – as low as 2p per minute for calls to the UK and the USA - and calls to Australia are just 3p per minute. As your Internet calls are powered by Callserve, Europe’s No 1. Internet telephony service provider, you get the best quality Internet calls at the most competitive rates, and you can be sure your transaction and your account are secure. The Holiday Time offer of up to 250 minutes free call time - 250 free call units - lasts only until December 31st 2000, so don’t delay! Madasafish Launch Discount Telephone Service The Madasafish Telephone Service is available to all BT customers without the need to change telephone number. For a one-off set up fee of £10, users can save almost a third on local, national and international calls and savings of five per cent on mobile calls. Madasafish, best known for its funky blend of music, movies and online games, makes its venture into voice in partnership with Rocom Ltd, supplier of the UK's widest range of telecoms solutions, and Madasafish parent company, iomart Group plc, the AIM-listed integrated telecommunications and internet services company. Customers are sent a single line routing unit to plug into their phone and start taking advantage of the discount call rates. The routing unit automatically switches calls through the Madasafish Telephone Service. Keith Fowler, iomart Voice Services Product Manager said, "The Madasafish Telephone Service offers a simple, unconfused tariff structure at very competitive rates. With no monthly fee for the service and no minimum call charge, the Madasafish Telephone Service adds up to a very attractive package.” Customers will receive two telephone bills; one from iomart for the discounted voice calls, and the other from BT for line rental and services such as operator calls and premium rate number calls. Wanadoo Confirm Freeserve Deal Earlier this morning the trading of Freeserve shares was suspended pending an announcement from the company. Details on the merger will be released in a press conference later today. The merger is Wanadoo's biggest acquisition so far, but still requires the approval of Freeserve's shareholders. Freeserve has recently been in the headlines with the announcement of their new 24/7 unmetered FRIACO package which is available from January next year. It will be priced at £12.99 per month for new customers. There is also a special discounted price of £9.99 per month for the first 6 months for existing Freeserve Unlimited customers if they transfer before the end of April. Oftel Makes Ruling On Wholesale Broadband Provision | ||