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BTopenworld go satellite Rental prices are expected to start at less than £100 a month(ex VAT). Speeds are expected to be similar to the current Business 500 and Business 500+ BTopenworld Broadband products. In a separate announcement BTopenworld also announced the launch of a rate-adaptive service. Previously ADSL, broadband technology that converts a normal telephone line into a high speed digital line, was only available to customers who lived around 3.5km from an enabled exchange. Extended reach, or Rate Adaptive, technology increases this "footprint" to up to 5.5km. Code Red virus to hit NT and 2000 Operating Systems The worm, which first surfaced in mid-July, has been mainly dormant since then, although it has already infected hundreds of thousands of systems. Experts believe it is set to spread again on Tuesday night, just as the calendar enters August at 0000 GMT. Home users running Windows 95, 98 or Me are not vulnerable and machines running non-Microsoft operating systems will also be unaffected. However, there is a need for web site administrators running Microsoft Windows NT and 2000 operating systems, along with the Internet Information Services software (IIS), to download Microsoft's patch from the company's site. Even if your own computer is unaffected, Code Red could seriously disrupt your access to the internet. Latest updates and patch fixes can be found at http://www.microsoft.com Freeserve slams AOL's £30m-a-year VAT advantage A report out this week from investment bank Merrill Lynch notes that AOL has been taking advantage of a tax ruling that says that VAT is not payable on Internet content services provided from outside the UK. This results in other ISPs' gross margins and price competitiveness being at a disadvantage relative to AOL's." A statement from AOL said: "In keeping with the ruling of UK tax authorities, AOL is treated as a provider of information services from outside the European Union, a status available to any other similarly positioned service provider." SOURCE: The Telegraph Freedom2Surf cuts ADSL cost Oftel publishes review of dial-up narrowband Internet access We would urge Net4nowt visitors to support our campaign for an Internet Service Provider Ombudsman by signing our petition at http://www.net4nowt.com/ispo The press release issued by OFTEL follows: "The UK has a flourishing dial-up Internet access market that offers a wide range of unmetered access services at competitive prices, Oftel confirmed today. Oftel has today set out its initial conclusions on the level of competition in the dial-up narrowband Internet market, and is now consulting on these views. In a consultation document published today, the review highlights that: - 10 million households have Internet access – up from six million a year ago; - 35 per cent of households choose some form of unmetered Internet access package; - consumers have some concerns about the quality of customer service they receive and the availability of information to enable them to chose the right package. Oftel sets out its initial conclusions from its review of three markets: dial-up narrowband retail Internet access, wholesale call origination and wholesale Internet call termination. Oftel considers that competition is effective both in the retail and wholesale Internet call termination markets. While wholesale call origination is not effectively competitive, there is already regulation in place to address this in the form of a cap on BT’s charges and Oftel’s FRIACO direction. Oftel will now consult with the industry and consumer groups before reaching final decisions on whether action is needed to promote further competition in either the retail or wholesale markets. Commenting on Oftel’s review, Anne Lambert, Oftel’s Director of Operations, said today: "With a large number of Internet service providers, a wide range of unmetered and pay-as-you-go Internet access products, and prices among the lowest in the world the review confirms that consumers get a good deal for Internet access. "However, some concerns have been raised about the quality of customer service and the availability of information and the review asks whether the industry should take further measures to improve these. "Greater use of unmetered Internet access has implications for the networks in how they carry the large amounts of traffic that unmetered access generates. The review asks the industry whether further regulatory measures are needed to ensure that ISPs get a good deal from their wholesale network suppliers." Oftel’s final statement on the dial-up Internet access market will be published towards the end of this year. Oftel’s consultation document Effective competition review: Dial-up Internet access is available from Oftel’s website at www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/internet/imr0701.htm. BT reject £8bn However, Babcock and Brown's consortium, known as Earth Lease, remain hopeful that substantive talks with BT will commence in due course. BT receives £8bn wires bid The offer is backed by UBS, the Swiss bank, and JP Morgan Chase, the US bank, and is thought to have been made in the past few weeks. BT has not rejected the approach but has said that it wants to complete the proposed demerger of BT Wireless in the next three months before it considers the future of its telephone wire network, known as the "local loop". In the past BT has talked about demerging its local wires business, known as NetCo, which is heavily regulated. A sale to Babcock & Brown would be far quicker and easier and solve many of the group's financial strains and regulatory conflicts at a stroke. Babcock & Brown is thought to want to buy all the local wires across the country. BT would then rent them at pre-determined rates. The offer does not include BT's local exchanges or long-distance cables. BT's entire network operations have been valued previously at more than £20bn but the local wires alone would be worth less than half that. Under current regulations BT must also allow access to the local loop to all other telecoms companies at pre-agreed rates. But rivals have often accused BT of obstructing their efforts to use it. They have also accused BT of being slow in rolling out broadband services across the network. They would welcome a takeover by a third party since Babcock & Brown would ensure that all users of the network were treated equally. Babcock & Brown intends to buy the wires business almost wholly with debt. The business earns a near-fixed return thanks to tight regulation and the charges levied on BT and others would pay interest on the debt. BT has been struggling to reduce its £30bn debt mountain. It has cut it by more than £12bn, thanks to a series of disposals including Yellow Pages, plus its mobile operations in Spain and Japan. It also recently raised £6bn in a rights issue. SOURCE: The Telegraph PlusNet extend referral programme The scheme provides a a discount against a customer’s subscription for every signup generated upon referral. Applying to a range of PlusNet’s unmetered ‘Connect’ and broadband ADSL products, this scheme enables a customer to effectively get free Internet access when they recommend enough people. Unlike most referral schemes, the discount is not a one-off payment but continues for as long as the recommended party remains a paying customer. “The ‘My Referral’ scheme has been well received from the outset”, stated Alistair Wyse, Product and Service Development Director for PlusNet, “Already, upwards of a third of our new subscribers are coming directly from referral”. Today however, PlusNet announced that they are going one step further and encouraging their customers to actually make money on the deal. Once the total amount of discount generated through referrals becomes greater than the cost of the customers subscription, the difference is credited back to the customer. Wyse continued, “From the outset we have always generated most of our customer growth through referral. Today’s further enhancement to the scheme should go a long way to ensuring that this continues well into the future”. By logging in to their state-of-the-art web site portal, PlusNet’s customers are able to make referrals with the aid of a simple form, and check on the results of their previous endeavours. They can see, at a glance, which of their referrals have signed up, how much discount this gives them and how much in total they are making from the scheme. http://www.plus.net/ Oftel slams BT over broadband In a response to a report by the Government's Trade & Industry Committee, telecoms industry regulator Oftel said it was "disappointed that the number of local loop unbundling sites is much less than originally anticipated". Oftel said, "The main reason is less demand from operators than first forecast. A key factor has been the adverse financial climate. Uncertainty over BT's timely delivery of the process and costs involved has also contributed. As a result of these factors, the number of facilities built and unbundled loops delivered is much less than first predicted." The report said unbundling will not happen on a "significant scale" unless BT's competitors provide the investment necessary to "compete vigorously". It called on all players involved to develop an order-handling system capable of dealing with demand. It also slammed BT for missing its 5 July deadline for having an order handling system in place. A BT spokesman said, "BT welcomes Oftel's recognition that the main reason for the delays to local loop unbundling is lack of demand and the financial climate." SOURCE: CW360 Pipex reduce cost of ADSL connection This is in line with the earlier news story regarding BT reducing the wholesale prices for broadband connectivity. BT cuts wholesale high-speed net charges by 14pc The cut will be some encouragement for consumers and small businesses seeking fast internet access. But it is also likely to undercut the handful of telecoms companies still hoping to get into BT's local telephone exchanges to sell competing services direct to customers. Only 70,000 high-speed connections have been sold in the 13 months since the service was launched in Britain. About one million lines have been sold in Germany. More than 100 telecoms companies and internet service providers are now re-selling BT's high-speed services under their own brand, but many believe BT is charging them too much. From September, BT is cutting the wholesale price for single-user connections from £35 to £30 a month, but most analysts believe the final retail price must be less than £25 to attract a mass market. At present, just 2,000 connections are being sold each week. About half the 70,000 connections are residential customers and the rest are using more expensive business versions, which BT is also likely to reduce in price. More than 30 telecoms companies hoped to gain access to BT's telephone exchanges through local loop unbundling to sell services direct. But almost all have dropped out, blaming BT's intransigence or insufficient finances. Fewer than 200 BT lines have been handed over to competitors so far. Only smaller telecoms companies Easynet and Bulldog Communications are still interested in taking space inside BT's exchanges. It is understood that leading contenders such as Energis and Colt Telecom no longer believe unbundling offers a financial return. SOURCE: The Telegraph BT Internet offers services in Ireland High-street retailers, Eason, Laser and Shop Electric will become official channels for BTinternet in Northern Ireland, and together will collectively be responsible for distributing 15,000 of BTinternet's free registration disks across 63 different store locations. Customers will be given the opportunity to sign-up to all BTinternet packages including BTinternet Anytime, its 24 hour unmetered internet access product. Each of the stores will undertake their own marketing drives to attract customers. Paul Hendron, marketing director for BT Northern Ireland, said: "We have always maintained a strong brand presence in Northern Ireland but the market is much more fragmented, with many people relying on general convenience stores like Eason to sell everything from loaves of bread to computer hardware and peripherals. In making our disks readily available in this way we are opening the benefits and choice on offer from BTinternet to a greater audience." The BTinternet CD-ROM is also available in the UK at branches of HMV, Iceland, Nationwide, Northern Electric, Ryman Stationers , Toy R Us and BT Shops. Alternatively people can ring 0800 800 001 and have one sent by post. Brightview Announces Acquisition Of ic24 Brightview, who also own www.madasafish.com have said that the service will remain the same. In addition, current ic24 customers will be offered a new 24/7 unmetered package. David Laurie, the managing director of Brightview, said, “It’s all going to be migrated over from Cable & Wireless to BT at our new facility in Rochdale. The ic24 subscribers will get a £12.99 24/7 offer which will go live beginning of September. The service will maintain the ic24 branding.” He added, “As far as the ic24 subscriber is concerned, they are going to get a cracking service. They are not going to lose any of their familiarity with ic24” In a new customer satisfaction study, www.ic24.net came out joint third place along with LineOne for overall customer satisfaction. David Laurie added that the pre-subscriptions for the Madasafish 24/7 service is going very well and will be launching in about a months time. Oftel Publishes Final Plans For New Ombudsman  The Ombudsman is intended to provide an independent and impartial service, assisting consumers to resolve disputes with their telecoms company without having to go to court. Oftel has today set out the timetable for the introduction of the Ombudsman. The following are the key stages for implementation: - The appointment of a Governing Board made up of public interest members;Oftel will work closely with the industry and consumer groups to ensure effective implementation and will take any necessary action to keep the project on track. David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications said today, "I am delighted to be able to announce firm plans for a Telecoms Ombudsman. I look forward to all operators and service providers – both fixed and mobile – rising to the challenge of establishing the scheme by summer 2002 at the latest. The Ombudsman will provide consumers with an important service - a free and easy to use scheme to resolve any dispute with their telephone company over their telephone bill or the terms and conditions under which their telephone service is provided.” Today’s announcement by Oftel was welcomed by the National Consumer Council today. But the Ombudsman's remit may need to be extended soon to cover other communications network providers, if it is to meet all consumers concerns about service delivery. National Consumer Council Director Anna Bradley said, “The high level of complaints about the telecoms industry underlines the need for a better redress mechanism. Consumers stand to benefit from an independent and effective Telecoms Ombudsman, so we look forward to implementation of these plans.” She continued, “Compulsory participation should be extended to mobile operators and indeed other communications providers as part of the forthcoming Communications Bill. The convergence of the communications industry demands an extension in the remit of the Ombudsman. Consumers would be best served by a one-stop Communications Ombudsman, dealing with all service delivery issues.” Yahoo! Rules OK MSN.com and Google.com share second place in the rankings with 13% each. Goto.com and Altavista.com follow close on their heels with 11% each and only 8% can be attributed to AOL.com. The UK’s own Ask Jeeves and MSN.co.uk are also in the single figure percentage. Surprisingly Lycos.com accounts for only 3% of visitors to sites promoted by Receptional.com. The statistics come as no surprise to Dixon Jones of Receptional.com. “Search portals like Yahoo!, initially designed for an American market, have an enormously high profile both on and offline. UK businesses who are really serious about creating an online presence still have to make US-based search engines and directories their prime targets, because that’s where people are looking.” You Can Now Reply To Your Emails – By Voice "Rich functionality makes eVoice Europe's first speech enabled email system that can be accessed from any mobile or land line phone," said Ger Dowling, founder and CEO of Red Circle. "People on the move are able to listen to and respond to e-mail using ordinary speech, without having access to a laptop, an Internet cafe or engage in text messaging." "Speech technology is not science fiction. It is here and now and major corporations around the world are using speech technology to provide business solutions," he added. eVoice works by registering the speech patterns of users in order to identify them when they call the service. Based on this security, it then reads e-mails to users who are out of the office. Users can browse, create, delete, forward and reply to their e-mails. Red Circle has spent the last 12 months enhancing eVoice. The product's functionality makes it the leading global solution in the European market. Mobile operators, ISPs and telecommunications providers are looking for value added services for customers. eVoice is the first of a series of Red Circle products which will help these companies differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market, create new streams of revenue, add value and maximise customer retention. Red Circle will target Europe through telcos, mobile operators and ISPs using a licensing model. The company recently announced a major partnership with BT-owned Esat Fusion, a phone and Internet services provider in Ireland, to exclusively offer their new product to email subscribers. More information can be found at http://www.red-circle.com NTL On Its Way To 1 Million Digital TV Customers  Total revenues rose from £614m to £634m in the first quarter and, as reported last week, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) climbed from £86m to £115m the previous quarter.Digital TV customers has grown by 26% to 951,300, and overall average revenue per user - including telephone and TV - rose from £35.68 to £39.36 per month, NTL said in a statement today. Commenting on the results, Barclay Knapp, President and Chief Executive of NTL said, “We are extremely pleased to be one of a very few companies able to announce both strong current results together with an increasingly positive outlook for the future.” The full statement can be found here. London’s Largest Net Kiosk Network Launched In Westminster The innovative outdoor points, which will provide easy-to-use online services to residents and tourists, will be piloted in high-profile locations such as Oxford Street, Bayswater and Victoria Street, as well as residential areas, such as Queens Park, St John’s Wood and Pimlico. The i-plus points host a series of channels that are free to the user. The Council’s own channel offers services such as Streetscene, Feedback and Resident Survey and will play a key role in improving accessibility to the Council. Streetscene, for example, provides a convenient way for local people to alert the Council to faults such as out of order streetlights or refuse problems. Users will also be able to access Councillor information and details of Council services for residents. In addition, the i-plus points offer a local information channel called e-street that contains details of events in the area and information about local shopping, sports and health facilities, nearby restaurants, local travel, suitable meeting points and overnight accommodation. The information can be printed out from the i-plus point for convenience. The launch of London’s largest i-plus network yet is complemented with positive feedback from an independent research survey, conducted by Netpoll in April of this year. Results from current London users show that satisfaction with i-plus is high - 89% of users would use an i-plus point again, 97% thought i-plus a good initiative by the Council, 72% found i-plus easy to use and 80% thought i-plus conveniently placed. The Westminster network of i-plus points was launched by Councillor Robert Davis, Chairman of Customer Services at Westminster City Council , at the Oxford Street/Dean Street point in Soho. Councillor Robert Davis said, “These kiosks will play a key part in the Council’s Customer First Initiative and our Civic Renewal program. This pilot takes Westminster further down the road in providing a way for people to easily access our services online, and in improving customer services." “Westminster is one of the busiest areas of London, with an average daytime population of 1 million people, and the information points will provide them with up to the minute, convenient information.” The remaining eleven points will be located in Bayswater, St. John’s Wood, Harrow Road, Queens Park, Finchley Road, Victoria Street, Buckingham Palace Road, Pimlico Station and three other locations along Oxford Street. Cloud Nine In Summer SurfTime Promotion For the first 1,000 subscribers, or while bandwidth capacity lasts, they will be offering a 12 month subscription to its Premium Off-Peak SurfTime package for just £34.99 including VAT. This works out at a monthly equivalent of £8.90 when the SurfTime element is added. The account includes: Free Domain name RegistrationTo find out further information, click here. EcosseTel Introduce Further Unmetered Choices  The new package is aimed at small business and offers unmetered access to the Internet between the hours of 6am and 6pm Monday to Friday for £8.52 per month + VAT. Access outside of these hours is charged at 0.5p per minute plus VAT.EcosseTel’s operations director, Spencer Pryor said, "We are introducing BcomLite as a cut down version of our Bcom Xtra business package to primarily balance the traffic profile our network is carrying. We have had a lot of customers sign up for our residential off peak packages which means that we have excess capacity during business hours. BcomLite should encourage small businesses to use some of this capacity." The package is charged quarterly in advance, and VAT invoicing is available on request. Initially only 1,000 BcomLite packages will be available. Each account includes five POP3 email accounts and access to newsgroup servers. There is no time cutoffs and an idle line drop time of 10 minutes. The system uses the new Webport FRIACO access ports and as such is limited to customers with BT lines. Access is available for up to 64k single channel ISDN lines. EcosseTel have also confirmed that their previously announced price rise on their unmetered residential package Vroom2 will rise on August 1st to £99.99 per year for 24/7 access and £69.99 for off peak access. These new prices will apply to all completed applications that arrive after 31st July. Internet Winning Hearts & Minds Of UK's Children Whilst Family Assurance research shows 38% of families watch television together, very few families use the Internet together. Regulating Internet access is becoming the big concern for parents, rapidly overtaking the problem of monitoring TV viewing, especially since a large number of children now have computers in their bedrooms. These findings are part of an annual State of the Family survey, released by the Friendly Society, to monitor changes in perceptions, attitudes and behaviour by families in the UK. Miles Bingham, Head of Marketing at the Family Assurance Group, said, "Our State of the Family survey has confirmed some worrying trends in British family life as well as highlighting problems arising from technological development. Children are becoming increasingly Internet savvy which is posing real problems for parents who can not rely on devices like the 9pm watershed to monitor what their children are viewing." "Many parents are caught in a head versus heart conundrum, forced to spend today on gadgets when they would prefer to save for their child's future." How many computers bought for homework become a £1,000 games machine? How many mobile phones bought for child security are just used for text message tittle tattle? Vispa Respond To ‘Daily Limit’ Email Now the managing director of Vispa Internet, Martin Pitt, has provided us with a statement explaining in more detail the reasons behind the daily limit and the fact that only a small handful of users received the email. I was like to draw your attention to recent claims against Vispa that you published about a maximum limit of 6 hours to which I would like be set straight.However we still feel that the 6 hour daily limit is a bit excessive, and as a few readers have pointed out, it isn’t mentioned in the terms and conditions even if it is mentioned in their FAQ. Unmetered Users Reminded Of Daily Usage Limit  In an email being sent out to users, Vispa said that they will be informing heavy users to explain that there is a limit on the residential FRIACO service of 6 hours per day:This is a general email to all Vispa Unmetered customers to remind them of a few points to do with Unmetered Access. As detailed in http://www.vispa.com/products-friacofaq.php the maximum use of Vispa Unmetered as a residential service is 6 hours online time a day, anything over this is considered a business tariff and as such is billed higher per month.The news will undoubtedly disappoint users of the Vispa service who never read the terms and conditions before signing up to the service. There are many other unmetered services available for around £15 per month without such limited restrictions. PlusNet Launch New RADSL Service For Home Users  Launched by BT on Wednesday, RADSL technology offers high-speed, ‘always-on’ Internet access to those users who previously were just out of the available catchment area for standard ADSL. All of PlusNet’s ADSL Home accounts on their Plus.Net, Force9 and Free-Online Internet services will now be provided using new RADSL technology. RADSL (Rate Adaptive Digital Subscriber Line) gives consumers a second chance to get broadband access if ADSL installation had previously failed because of poor line quality or if they were located too far from their local exchange. ADSL technology enabled premises at a distance of up to 3.5km to be connected; RADSL usefully extends this range to a maximum of 5.5km. Although as PlusNet point out in their press release, it comes as something of a disappointment for British business as a whole. RADSL as currently supplied by BT uses a 500kbps USB modem connection for your PC. This is in contrast to the more business-orientated, network compatible Ethernet services that are available with standard ADSL, and which are capable of delivering higher bandwidth options. USB modem services give a higher contention-rate of 50:1, meaning you share your access at the exchange’s port with 50 other users. Whilst ideal for a fast home connection, this compares unfavourably with the contention ratios of 20:1 supplied to PlusNet’s Professional and Business users. “We greet RADSL with pleasure since it means that we can now offer ADSL service to even more residential users because we have more reach”, stated Alistair Wyse, Product and Development Director for PlusNet. “However we do feel we must express our disappointment about the overall speed of broadband rollout across the UK. This new development is good news for home users but doesn’t offer anything of real value for business users”. Indeed, whilst it is true that technically there should be no reason why more than one computer be connected to the Internet through a shared USB-modem, for an ISP who pride themselves on service quality, to pretend that this is anything other than a single-user access solution places them in somewhat of a quandary. “For this reason we have decided that, rather than offer RADSL as a separate stand-alone account, we will provide it as a standard feature of our already existing ADSL Home accounts”, explained Wyse. “We have no plans to provide this USB solution for our business customers. Until RADSL supports Ethernet connectivity and therefore network-compatibility at contention ratios of 20:1, Business customers requiring the fixed-cost and always-on, high-speed benefits of ADSL must be located within 3.5km of their local exchange. Only then can we be assured that the service we provide for them is of the quality our business customers have come to expect from us”. Plus.Net, Force9 and Free-Online offer a complete range of fixed-cost and broadband solutions for home and business use. Virgin Records In Possible Deal With Unmetered ISP Net in a Nutshell are believed to be working with Virgin Records on a number of marketing deals. According to Danny Van Emden, director of new media for Virgin Records UK, it's talking to Nutshell about extending this partnership. "We've been talking to Nutshell about this as it's already one of our marketing partners," she said. The arrival of record labels, banks and utilities into the ISP arena is expected to force a major shake-up as FRIACO is now a commodity and users want more than just basic access services. Net in a Nutshell provides 24/7 unmetered access to its customers for £12.99 per month as well as a number of different Internet-ready PC packages from £29.99 per month. Source: New Media Age NTL Announce Q2 Profits Of £115 Million NTL will announce its quarterly operating and financial results pre-market on July 26th. Additionally, NTL expects to discuss its operating plan and cost cutting initiatives in detail through the end of 2003. Barclay Knapp, CEO, commented, "Our current operating results are very strong and we have always had great confidence in the future. In our upcoming presentation we will be describing how our increasingly strong performance will make our current funding sufficient for us to reach free cash flow positive by the end of 2003." Bids Invited For Wireless Internet Licences Commercial licence holders will be able to deliver Internet and multimedia services over the airwaves. This is part of the Government's drive to provide competitive broadband services throughout the UK. Broadband fixed wireless access will provide competition to fibre, cable links, DSL phone lines and satellite, which also offer access to broadband services. Together with these existing technologies the Government are closer to delivering broadband across the UK. Mr Alexander said, "It will allow small firms to have fast always-on access to the Internet and high capacity data transfer between offices and customers. This will have a real impact on the development of e-commerce and allow companies to have the competitive edge that is needed in such a fast-moving market.” "It will also benefit consumers across the country. They will be able to access Internet services quickly and efficiently, with costs kept low". Companies will be able to bid for these licences at the reserve price set at last November's auction where these remained unsold. If no other company is interested, the bidder will be awarded the licence at the reserve price. If the licence attracts more than one applicant it will then go to auction. This process will continue until all the licences are sold or when the Government reviews bidding after 12 months. This procedure was agreed following discussions with industry after the close of last November's auction. IWF Gets Tough On Child Pornography At the meeting the board completed its review of its policies in relation to newsgroups. Its decisions flow from a growing recognition that the majority of illegal content in newsgroups is concentrated in a small but changing selection of groups, and that IWF can regularly inform ISPs about the problem groups. Internet Watch Foundation Chair, Roger Darlington said following the meeting, "We have conducted an extremely thorough and open review of this fundamental aspect of IWF's activities against illegal content. We have reached some clear conclusions which are broadly supported by the Board and can now get on with the job of implementing our decisions." Conclusions at the meeting comprise of IWF regularly preparing and providing to ISPs statistical tables of numbers of identified illegal items in newsgroups that they can use to inform their policies on carrying newsgroups. The executive will produce and distribute to ISPs an up-to-date newsgroup statistics report at least once every calendar month. Each report is to be published on the IWF web site except that specific newsgroup names will be replaced by unique identifiers that do not allow the group to be determined by a third party. IWF Chief Executive, David Kerr says, "The time we have spent debating our policies has not been wasted. The continuing discussion with the ISP industry has helped shape practical proposals and has encouraged technical developments which will substantially advance our capacity to detect and remove criminal content from newsgroups." The board recommends every ISP involved with newsgroups that it is an appropriate time for them to review their policies in the light of the new information that will be available to them from IWF on a regular basis. They also recommended that the collective representatives of ISPs in their associations should similarly review their position and arrangements with law enforcement in the light of new information and services from IWF. Oftel Issues Guidelines To BT On Unmetered Internet Traffic The amount of Internet traffic on BT’s network is set to grow further as a result of Oftel’s ruling made in February 2001 that other operators can convey Internet calls across BT’s network to provide unmetered access to consumers. Oftel’s independent technical experts had advised that capacity on BT’s network may not be sufficient to meet all demands for this product – Single Tandem Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination (ST FRIACO). The guidelines set out how available capacity should be assessed. Where there is a capacity shortage, the guidelines set out how the network capacity issues are to be handled. Oftel has ruled that in such circumstances, instead of Internet traffic going onto BT’s main trunk network, BT should take an operator’s traffic off the network at a local exchange, and make alternative arrangements to convey the calls to the operator’s network. The FRIACO Determination published in February 2001 made it clear that such work must be paid for by BT. The guidelines set out the circumstances in which traffic would need to be rearranged, how long the work should take to complete, and which operators can reasonably be required by BT to rearrange traffic. For those interested, the Oftel document is available here. UK Fantastic Launches Unmetered Service For Businesses  Part of the UK Fantastic group of companies, Business Unmetered has been developed in the wake of the recent launch of 0800 Dial, also part of the same group, which has seen a massive take up for its Business Class unmetered package.However, unlike 0800 Dial, Business Unmetered has two offerings for those looking for flexible office-based Internet access. For £12.99 per month, the Business User package provides unmetered access between 8am and 6pm. And there’s Business User 24 at £17.99, a package that provides full 24/7 access. Each have 99% first-time connection targets, are optimised for day-time use, and connections for 56k or 64k ISDN. “The business service is proving to be the most popular of all the packages,” explains Nick Marshall, Technical Director of Business Unmetered. “That’s why we’ve developed a dedicated ISP to cater for the needs of those in business who want to put a cap on spiralling call costs to the Internet. “We’re getting calls from small business owners thanking us for saving them a fortune. Some are currently running up bills of over £200 per month, so the savings are obvious when you think their total monthly bill will not exceed £17.99 for the same service.” In line with business needs, Business Unmetered accepts payment by Direct Debit, as well as credit card. Sign up is simple through a downloadable file that helps with the set-up procedure. The Business Unmetered packages, which are in addition to those offered by 0800 Dial, will be followed in the coming months by a launch of their high-speed ADSL service. New BT Chairman Thanks Shareholders For Keeping Faith He said that it was a great honour to step into the role of chairman and paid tribute to the part played by his predecessor, Sir Iain Vallance, whom he described as a devoted servant of BT. Sir Christopher said, “It has been a challenging year for both BT and the entire telecommunications industry. When I joined your Company as Chairman on May 1, there was a pressing need to secure your Company's financial stability and to build a platform for shareholder value.” “We have acted to reduce the company's debt. We have successfully delivered the UK's largest-ever rights issue and raised £5.9 billion. Many of you will have participated in this and I am delighted that you delivered this major vote of confidence in BT.” Turning to financial matters, Sir Christopher said that the results had reflected satisfactory operating performance from the UK business and that - at the group level - earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation were maintained. Sir Christopher concluded by assuring shareholders of his commitment to BT, its customers and its shareholders, saying, “Thank you for keeping faith with us through a difficult year. On May 10, I said that it would require determined and rapid action by management to achieve the transformation of BT. We have made a good start.” In his address, Sir Peter Bonfield, BT's chief executive said that the communications sector is facing a totally different scenario to that of one year ago. He said, “The industry as a whole is probably over-invested. Add to this the high cost of 3G licences and it is not surprising that the general outlook has been uncertain. I believe that this is a difficult but a passing phase.” Sir Peter drew attention to the share price performance of others in the industry. He said, “As part of this general situation, BT's share price has fallen. However, over the past year, we have outperformed all our major UK competitors. Vodafone, Energis, Telewest, C&W, Colt, Kingston and Thus have all seen larger falls than us. And by a considerable margin in some cases.” “We've also done better than most of our main European rivals - in Spain, Germany, France and the Netherlands.” Report Shows Internet Users Want Faster Access According to the study, AOL ranked as the number one Internet Service Provider in Customer Satisfaction in the UK. AOL leads in four of the seven factors that comprise overall customer satisfaction, including company image/communications and customer service. Following AOL closely in the rankings is NTL, which demonstrated strong performance in costs and billing/options. LineOne and IC24 tie for third place in overall customer satisfaction. LineOne, together with Tiny Online receives highest ranking for most important factor connection speed/access. Freeserve is the most popular ISP (16%), followed by BT Internet (10%) and AOL (9%). The average cost of Internet call charges has dropped by one-half since 2000, with nearly one-third of UK households using the Internet and spending, an average of more than 7 hours per week online. "The Internet market in the UK still has considerable potential for growth," said Gunda Lapski, director of Telecommunications and ISP Studies in the UK for J.D. Power and Associates. "Extensive industry consolidation in the past 12 months has placed the market leaders in a stronger position to benefit from this anticipated growth." The number of UK households using the Internet has grown from 28% in 2000 to 32% in 2001, but is still lower than in the United States, which is more than 48%. In keeping with a developing market, Internet pricing packages have continued to evolve with 21% of customers now being on fully unmetered access. Nearly 60% of all users pay no subscription charges. Those paying subscriptions (41%) quoted average monthly costs of £13.20, including technical support. Despite the increase in usage, there has been a substantial reduction in the amount spent on call charges, with the average monthly cost now at £7.60, compared with £15.95 in 2000. On average, households spend 7.4 hours on the Internet each week compared with 5.5 hours in 2000 an increase of nearly 35%. More than 51% of Internet users send e-mails on a daily basis, compared to only 5% using banking/financial services online. The use of cable modem and ADSL high-speed lines remains low, accounting for 5% and 2% of households, respectively. In the case of ADSL, high costs and limited availability remain continuing deterrents. Despite the benefits of cable modem and ADSL only 9% of households said that they were "extremely" or "very likely" to acquire either in the next 12 months. The number of households with mobile Internet access (WAP phones) stood at 14%, compared to 9% recorded in the J.D. Power and Associates 2001 UK Mobile Phone study conducted this year. This suggests that households already in possession of computer equipment take up more of the latest technology than households that are not online. "A very encouraging result emerging from the study, which is good news for ISPs, is that the number of households that indicate they will switch providers in the next 12 months has halved to 13% from 26% in 2000," said Ms. Lapski. "However, the churn rate in the last 12 months has remained high, with 32% of households changing providers." The study of customer satisfaction with their UK Internet service provider industry involved extensive interviews with 1,788 Internet subscribers in the UK and represents a cross section of the UK ISP market. A New Internet User Every 6 Seconds In The UK This compares with three million new users throughout the whole of 2000. There are now 13.9 million people online at home in the UK, accounting for 37.6% of households. New Internet users also spend longer online, their average session lasting 25.3 minutes compared with 18.8 minutes for all Internet users. The report goes on to show that there are now more women than men amongst people who got online for the first time this year – 55.6%. Women account for 42.4% of all Internet users. New users are also younger: 16.3% of users newly online in 2001 were aged 14 or under. This age group makes up just 7.3% of all home Internet users. The Big Brother website continued its phenomenal success in June, entering the top 25 most visited websites. 1.3 million unique users visited the site. The success of Big Brother also saw a surge in visitors to channel4.com, up from 683,000 unique visitors in May to 1,250,000 unique visitors in June. Online chat came out as the highest growing sector in this period, growing by 123.1%. 51.1% of visitors in June were aged 24 and under, and 31.7% were students. Unmetered Access From OneTel Goes Live OneTel , which was recently purchased by Centrica for £58 million earlier this month, already provides a 1p per minute Internet service. Now it has added a FRIACO based unmetered product to its repertoire. For £14.99 per month, BT customers receive unlimited 24/7 Internet access. Although users will have to use the online form to check if the service is available in their area. The product also comes with 10MB of personal web space, newsgroup access and 3 email addresses. Source: ISPreview Newspaper, Packet Of Crisps and Some Internet Access Please The UK's first pre-paid Internet-access card is due to hit the shops next month as phone-card company Alpha Telecom seeks to tap into the huge cash market that kick-started Europe's mobile phone revolution. From 1st August, people in London will be able to buy a scratch card from their newsagents of supermarket. They simply key in the username and password from the card and receive 30 days unlimited Internet use. Alpha plans to sell the cards nationally soon afterwards. "Feedback from distributors and agents was that there'd be great demand for an unlimited service without the need to commit to long-term contracts," said Giles Redpath, Alpha's chief executive officer. "The pre-paid mobile market shows that a certain customer group finds it easier to pre-pay, so it's the same idea applied to a new market." Source: The Independent Government Publishes New OFCOM Bill Published jointly by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, and the Department of Trade and Industry, the Bill makes it possible to set up a board for the new regulator OFCOM (the Office of Communications), and to begin the preparatory work necessary for it to begin regulating in 2003. Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said, "This Bill will pave the way for establishment of OFCOM. Later in the session we will publish the draft of the full Communications Bill which will set out the powers and duties of OFCOM and enable it to replace the five existing regulators. The Bill is the first stage in creating a 21st century regulatory framework that will be good for business and consumers alike." A draft Communications Bill, containing the Government's proposals for the regulatory framework that OFCOM will apply, is to be published in this session of Parliament. OFCOM will only begin regulating when the Communications Bill itself becomes law. This would not be before 2003 and would depend on Parliamentary time being available in the 2002-2003 session. The single regulator would then take on the responsibilities of the five existing regulators in the sector: Oftel, the Independent Television Commission, the Radio Authority, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, and the Radiocommunications Agency. Yahoo! UK To Provide ADSL Service  The broadband provider Iomart is thought to be the company in talks with Yahoo! UK. A spokesman from Iomart could not provide any details of the partnership as both companies have signed a non-disclosure agreement preventing both parties from divulging any details.Yahoo!'s move would be in line with a broader European strategy, which already sees it offering ADSL services through similar partnerships in France and Germany. However analysts are sceptical of such a partnership in the UK saying that it would not be successful. Source: New Media Age BTopenworld Launches ADSL Service For ISDN Users  The announcement comes following the successful conclusion of a trial by the ISP of the required technical, customer service and billing processes with around 800 ISDN customers across the UK.The launch of these new BTopenworld Broadband products (business and consumer) opens the door to high-speed ADSL Broadband for ISDN 2, ISDN 2e (but not ISDN30), Business Highway and Home Highway users, offering them increased download speeds ranging from up to 500Kbps to up to 2Mbps (approximately 30 times faster than a single channel ISDN line).Customers now have the choice of replacing their ISDN service with BTopenworld Broadband or taking Broadband in parallel to their ISDN service by making use of a separate line. The first step in the complicated procedure is for an engineer to temporarily disconnect the customer's ISDN service at their local exchange in order to conduct an ADSL line test - this is to ensure the customer's phone line is suitable for ADSL. If it is, the change to ADSL can then be carried out, subject to a final check from the customer's premises. In the unlikely event that the line test fails, ISDN will be reconnected at no cost to the customer. Commenting on the launch, Tony Harris, President of Business Internet Services at BTopenworld, said, "We are delighted to be able to offer conversion to BTopenworld Broadband for ISDN users. Many of these are small businesses looking to join the e-commerce revolution, and they will find the significantly faster speeds and flat-rate tariffs which our products offer a real benefit in terms of increased productivity and reduced costs." Installation and rental charges are the same as BTopenworld Broadband's existing products. For the business products, the entry-level business500 product subscription starts at £39.99 per month (installation £150.00) and ranges up to £159.99 per month for the business 2000PLUS product (installation £260.00). In addition, a one off ISDN-to-PSTN conversion charge of £99.00 is payable. All business prices exclude VAT. Customers can check whether they are connected to an ADSL-enabled exchange by visiting www.btopenworld.com/broadband. ItsGoodToGive To Refund Unmetered Customers The ISP was let down by their provider Wonkypig who turned out to be re-selling the BigBlueSky service which ended their 0800 access recently. The executive chairman of ItsGoodToGive, John Ager, said that they are seeking legal advice on the matter. To read the exclusive article in full, check out Web User. BT Takes On Cable Firms In Digital TV Deals Available from 11th August, eligible BT residential customers can opt for one of two new digital TV offers. The deal with ITV Digital allows you to access 34 general entertainment channels and receive a 'season ticket' to watch around 200 live and exclusive football matches for a price of £19.99 a month, while the Sky deal gives customers a £30 discount off the cost of Sky viewing, including its full range of entertainment packages or even pay-per-view movies, Premier League football matches or events. Angus Porter, managing director of BT Consumer, said, "Our customers sometimes mistakenly believe they need to move their telephone line to a cable operator to get access to digital TV. That's absolutely not the case and with these new deals we'll be taking that message right into our customers' living rooms as part of our joint marketing campaign." Porter continued, "These new deals take us one step further in our goal to continue to be the main communications provider of choice in the UK. With the value offered by our BT Together packages and the fantastic content in our deals with ITV Digital and Sky, BT is offering customers an easy way to enjoy top class telephone and Internet services at home, as well as great TV at an affordable price." The new deals will no doubt be heavily advertised by BT as part of their £10 million marketing campaign ahead of the start of the new football season and beyond. All of BT's 20 million residential customers will be eligible for the offers unless they have existing contracts with ITV Digital or Sky. Oftel's Annual Report Published Today Promoting access to the Internet was an important focus of Oftel's work in a year when around 2.75 million more homes were connected up to the Internet.Oftel also claimed that with their requirement on BT to offer wholesale, unmetered Internet access to other operators made a major contribution to the development of unmetered Internet access in the UK. David Edmonds, Director General of Telecommunications said, “By requiring BT to provide wholesale unmetered Internet access to other operators, Oftel played an important part in opening up Internet access in the UK.” Other achievements over the year included: - Implementing a strategy of 'competition plus', ensuring regulation appropriate to the level of competition in a particular market;Edmonds continued, "Oftel addressed the challenges of a fast changing market through a strategy of 'competition plus' - meeting the needs of consumers through proportionate regulation. This means withdrawing from regulation where it is no longer necessary, but taking decisive action where competition is not yet delivering the best deal for the consumer.” “At the beginning of 2000 there was no unmetered Internet access in the UK - by the end of the year around 2.3 million households were using some form of dial-up unmetered Internet access package.” Oftel also announced that it had closed its investigations into a number of complaints made by operators that BT had an unfair advantage by not being part of the Bow Wave Process for the allocation of space for ADSL equipment within BT exchanges. Oftel has already taken action with regards to certain aspects of this complaint. In June, Oftel published a draft determination on co-mingling operators equipment in exchanges and guidelines on how BT should assess the availability of space within an exchange. Oftel's findings can be found at http://www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/local_loop/nondi0701.htm PIPEX Founder Receives OBE The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), an independent non-profit making organisation, was established in late September 1996 by PIPEX founder Peter Dawe to address the problem of illegal material on the Internet, with particular reference to child pornography. To date, the IWF has been very successfully working closely with ISP's and government bodies to implement its 'safe surfing' policies. Peter was delighted to have been honoured by the Queen and commented, "Internet Watch has been successful beyond my expectations. Not only has it been the model of best practice in self-regulation in the western world, it has also been instrumental in getting laws changed in other countries so that the Internet can be policed in certain areas". He said the Internet Watch Foundation had an important role to play in ensuring justice. And he credited the organisation's staff "who have taken the vision and implemented it". Tom Kermeen, PIPEX Sales Director and close friend of Peter Dawe, said, "Everyone at PIPEX is very excited and proud of Peter for his outstanding efforts in making the Internet a safer place for our society to learn, play, communicate and do business.” Thus Posts Improved Figures Results for the first quarter ending 30th June show that the company’s turnover is up by 32.4% year on year to £67 million. In addition earnings rose from a negative £8.7 million for the same period last year to a negative of £2.4 million this year. Commenting on the results, William Allan, Chief Executive said in a statement, “The first quarter of each year is traditionally our toughest quarter with a seasonal decline in revenue from ScottishPower and our Scottish corporate customers.” He added, “In addition to a number of new customers, details of which will be announced over the coming weeks, we have expanded contracts with BBC, Torex, Royal Bank of Scotland and London Electricity. Our future prospects with Demon have also been significantly enhanced by our agreement with Apple to be their exclusive Internet service provider for the UK market.” ISP Successful In Bulger Case Injunction The ISP Demon Internet claimed that the original injunction, which was imposed to protect the new identities of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, was unfair on Internet service providers. Justice Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss approved changes to the original court order provided that they took all reasonable steps to prevent publication of such material. Demon was sued for libel by Dr Laurence Godfrey earlier this year after defamatory comments were posted in a newsgroup in 1997. Dr Godfrey won an apology and an out of court settlement for £15,000 in damages as well as legal costs estimated to be £460,000. Wonkypig In Possible Unmetered Re-Launch Wonkypig are expected to provide a new Internet service with their latest provider, BT Ignite. It will provide 24/7 unmetered access for £13.99 per month. Now the unmetered service looks a bit more sensibly priced instead of their original offering. But whether the ISP will actually launch and be able to maintain such a service is yet to be seen. There is also no mention of what will happen to customers who signed up to their original offer. Will they receive the service they initially paid out for? Once bitten twice shy as they say. One ISP's Downfall Is Another's Gain 08002go, the ISP from Zone Corporation has had a deluge of NTL customers joining their 0800 service recently after loosing patience with the cable company’s own Internet services. Many new members have said that when they contacted NTL to find out if their service is available yet, they were told that their service will not be available until further notice and should consider contacting 08002go.com as they are currently running an un-metered service at half the price of NTL. 08002go have said that their service is available to customers of telephone companies including C&W, NTL, BT and Kingston Telecommunications. A spokesman from 08002go said, "We have been overwhelmed by the recent influx of new members especially from a company like NTL, It seems that NTL are currently in a position to turn away subscribers and redirect them over to us, in which we welcome very much, sure we had problems in the first week or two, but our service has now become well respected within the ISP world.” 08002go quoted one of their members as saying, "As an NTL customer who is still waiting for them to get their broadband act together, 08002go is the only option (as far as I know) for me to receive 24/7 access. If 08002go continues this high level of service, I may continue to subscribe to them even when broadband becomes available, if only to use as a backup service". NTL And Telewest Team Up To Build Broadband Britain  Running until mid September it is designed to highlight the benefits of broadband Internet to consumers throughout the UK and Ireland.Telewest and NTL offer digital customers broadband Internet which connects home PCs, via a robust cable modem, to their state-of-the-art fibre optic networks from around £25 per month. This always-on service produces Internet access speeds of nearly ten times faster than a standard modem (512 kbps vs. 56 kbps) and removes the current frustrations with dial-up Internet. BT charges £39.99 per month for ADSL. Adam Singer, CEO of Telewest said, “This campaign is designed to bring the benefits of broadband Internet to life. The combination of high speed, always on services and rich content means that home surfers can start enjoying the Internet the way it should be. This is a shot in the arm for Broadband Britain. It's great that the two of us are working together to promote digital cable, demonstrating it is the best technology for bringing the Internet to life.” Broadband cable is available today in 9 million homes - covering 37% of the UK and Ireland - and by the end of 2002 this number will have increased to 11.6 million homes, representing virtually all of NTL's and Telewest's serviceable areas. NTL has already committed to invest £50 million over the next two years to upgrade the London network it acquired from Cable and Wireless Communications which means that broadband services will be available from October 2001. Stephen Carter, Managing Director of NTL added, “Broadband cable is the best solution for high speed Internet access and we have an unbeatable offer. Most of us in the UK currently have to get the Internet through a very slow telephone line which means we have all become familiar with the World Wide Wait. Broadband cable puts an end to all that wasted time, money and effort.” The campaign breaks on July 28th and will target national and regional TV, national broadsheets, and regional press and radio, with new creative from JWT. Media buying will be handled by Carat and Media Insight. There will also be a high profile PR and promotions campaign and a ground-breaking on-line campaign. To confirm whether or not you can receive broadband cable today, or to register your interest, visit www.ntl.com/telewest. Survey Shows Number Of Home Users Still On The Increase Conducted in May 2001, the survey reveals that 10 million homes now have an Internet connection, a rise from six million in May 2000 and eight and a half million in February 2001. An increasing number of UK homes are also choosing fully unmetered products with 24% of households connected to the Internet in this way compared with 18% in February 2001.Chris Kenny, Oftel’s Director of Regulatory Policy, said today, "These findings show that, in general, consumers are taking advantage of the choices available to them. For example, almost a third of mobile consumers have changed either their mobile network or package. However, there is evidence that, particularly in the fixed market, there is still a need to increase consumer awareness.” The survey also covered fixed and mobile telephony markets and found that mobile ownership continues to rise with 70% of UK adults claiming to own a mobile phone and pre-paid packages remaining the most popular (79%). Also 15% of consumers consider their mobile phone to be their main method of making and receiving calls Kenny added, “Satisfaction levels also remain high, over 90% of fixed, mobile and Internet consumers are satisfied with the overall service they receive from their provider.” Irate Tech Support Staff Hit Back Via The Web iDesk, which provides technical support for many top ISPs, announced on Wednesday that it was to lay off up to 130 of its 300 staff. The chief operating officer Kevin McKenna also stepped down. In a bid to win new business in the midst of a downturn in profits for ISPs, iDesk carried our redundancies in March and April. As the staff felt they were mistreated by the management, they set up their own forum under the title of "iDesk; The Truth!" to air their grievances. The staff complain of bosses hiring friends to fill pointless bureaucratic management roles, and of destroying the business through incompetent management. There are also stories of workers being sacked if they replied to less than 300 support emails. To prevent this from happening, workers would cut and paste responses to customer queries even if it never answered their questions. Although iDesk refused to comment on the allegations, the chief executive officer Steve Barry said in an earlier statement, "We are doing everything possible to deploy those staff affected by the changes in alternative roles. Where that is not possible we are dealing with the situation as fairly as possible." Source: Silicon.com MSN Messenger Failure Hits Millions It has been reported that up to a third of Microsoft’s 30 million users are still unable to access the service or their ‘buddy lists’. Microsoft have said that although user’s contact lists were unavailable, they have not been lost for good and would reappear when the service was the restored. The outage of the Messenger service is a major embarrassment for Microsoft who recently announced its .NET strategy to develop a new breed of fee-based services, some of which will rely on instant messaging. NTL Place Limit On Registrations For Unmetered Service In the regions acquired from Cable & Wireless last year, customers will not be able to sign-up to NTLworld. These regions include Greater Manchester, most of London and a large part of the south coast of England. A spokesman for NTL blamed the decision on the need to prioritise the "few thousand" customers who have already been waiting for more than a year for the C&W network to be modernised before getting NTLworld. He said: "Now we have got the technology to make NTLworld available to them, we wanted to make sure those people who have been waiting get it first." However, customers may be confused by the company's alternative explanation on its website which reads: "NTL is focusing on delivering broadband services. Therefore we are only capable of offering dial-up Internet to a limited number of customers." People who are left in the cold will have to consider NTL's high-speed service, which is called NTL Broadband, or look elsewhere. Source: The Telegraph Iomart Now Second To BTopenworld After Recent Acquisitions The ADSL customer base of OnCue Telecommunications Limited was purchased for £200,000 after the company went into liquidation towards the end of last month. This will add revenues of approximately £1 million per year from some 600 ADSL installed connections. Iomart believe that this places the company firmly in second position for ADSL installations in the UK after BTopenworld. CEO Angus MacSween commented, “This is an excellent piece of business for iomart; it is a good price and keeps us at the forefront of ADSL delivery in the UK. However the demise of OnCue highlights the ongoing difficulties of rolling out broadband Britain under the current regulatory and competitive environment.” Earlier in the week iomart completed the acquisition of the assets of Actis Technology and its proprietary Net Intelligence product from the liquidator at an undisclosed price. Net Intelligence is a leading edge product which manages intelligently an enterprise's online activity and fits strategically into iomart's messaging product portfolio alongside Thinkmail, iomart's managed e-messaging solution. Actis was valued at £16 million in early 2000. Chairman Nick Kuenssberg said, “These two moves underline iomart's determination to focus on the revised core strategy announced in May and demonstrate the value of being able to act proactively and swiftly to enhance our product range.” Abbey National Gets Online With BTinternet Recent research by Abbey National found that almost half (45%) of all UK adults would like to be able to do their banking 24/7 and the partnership with BTinternet Anytime will now allow its customers to bank online without the worry of Internet call charges. It will be a major addition to Abbey National's existing multi-channel banking services available online via the Internet, digital TV and WAP phones. The BTinternet Anytime service will provide Abbey National customers with access to the Internet, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for £14.99 per month (including VAT) with no additional Internet charges. Abbey National customers will also benefit from the full range of the BTinternet content, which includes the pick of news, sports, shopping and travel. In addition the BTinternet evening, weekend and Pay-as-you-go Internet rates will be available to Abbey National customers. Ambrose McGinn, Abbey National's Director of Retail E-commerce and Strategic Development said, "Staying ahead of the pack by providing easy access has been a priority at Abbey National. Our customers want fast, reliable access to make online banking simple to use. We chose to work with BTinternet as a trusted partner to make it easier to log on to the Internet for the first time.” EXCLUSIVE: BT Comments On BigBlueSky’s Allegations A spokeswoman for BT said that they are disappointed and angered by BigBlueSky’s statement. She said, “It is only too easy to blame others - especially BT - when a company's business model is simply not robust enough to succeed in what is an intensely competitive marketplace.” All along BigBlueSky (BBS) have accused BT for the recent connection problems with their WebPort product. They said that because of problems with the software supplied by BT, anyone was able to access the service leaving it virtually impossible for genuine customers. BT has said this allegation is simply not true. BT Ignite supplied them the WebPort product although it doesn’t include any software whatsoever. The statement continues, “BBS's allegation that ‘software provided by BT was allowing multiple users to sign on to the system concurrently’ is again simply not factually correct. BT has provided BBS with no software whatsoever.” The spokeswoman continues, “BBS try to implicate BT in the problems they have experienced with users fraudulently sharing their user information. BT has no direct contact or relationship with BBS's end users and there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between BT and fraudulent customers of BBS.” BigBlueSky stated that their launch also had to be delayed because of hold-ups with the infrastructure and on the part of BT in connecting the system. BT replied to the accusations, “The stated lead time for WebPort is ten working days and we frequently better this. However, BBS's first order was delivered 12 working days after order, their second delivered 14 working days after order and their third 11 working days after order. An average of 12.3 working days after they first ordered service, BT delivered it.” The spokeswoman added, “How this led to BBS's major problems, I cannot comprehend.” The fraudulent use of the BigBlueSky service was brought to the attention of BT, claimed the ISP. BT had allegedly indicated that although they may be “equally to blame”, they were not prepared to allow BBS any opportunity or help with the problem. BT has said that they have no evidence of any member of staff ever having said that BT was "equally to blame" in these issues - as BT did not provide BBS with any software, no responsibility can be for these problems. In fact BT has said that BBS have never discussed any problem with their BT Account Manager. The announcement on the BigBlueSky site concludes with a personal opinion from “The Directors” saying that small ISPs are seen as a threat by large telco’s. It states that, “They offer a service for which they charge twice, and they do their utmost to ensure the failure of an entrepreneurial system by squeezing out the smaller companies.” Rather a hard hitting statement against BT. The announcement also continues by suggesting that the recent events could be explained by the current shake-up within BT. BT wholly refutes the statements saying, “We do not see any ISP - large or small - as a threat, we see them as valued customers.” BT continues, “In fact, the WebPort product is designed specifically for small ISPs, and we are offering these companies an extremely good deal to help them achieve success. The charge that BT would squeeze out smaller companies is ridiculous and it is disappointing to see a director of any company make such unprofessional, unsubstantiated and serious accusations.” “Finally, yes, BT is going through a period of change. Our priority is, always has been, and always will be, delivering excellent customer service. Throughout our reorganisation, we have striven to ensure that our high levels of customer service remain so.” So now you have the story from both sides. All we hear are excuses, excuses, and more excuses. OK, so the service was initially only £25 for life and we all knew it would never last. But if you advertise a product, you should be expected to provide it. This, for obvious financial reasons, BigBlueSky cannot maintain and instead of coming clean and saying so, they use the oldest trick in the book and blame BT. Companies like BigBlueSky probably have been instrumental in bringing down the cost of unmetered access. But their actions also damage the reputation of new forthcoming ISPs who need to prove themselves to consumers before they are taken seriously. BTinternet In SurfTime Price Increase  Currently the monthly subscription charged by BTinternet for their SurfTime unmetered package currently stands at £4. But from August it will rise to £5.99 per month on top of the £5.99 for the separate BT Surf package subscription. This will take their off-peak package to £11.98 per month in total.BTinternet will be emailing all of its existing customers from today to advise them about the price increases. Customers will be given a number of options including the ability to switch to the alternative BTinternet Anytime credit card option. Customers wishing to close or switch their BTinternet with Surf package account will be advised that they will need to cancel their BT Surf package subscription and discuss alternative call discount options (if applicable) with BT sales by calling 150. The price increase will put their off-peak package to just over £3 less than their FRIACO based 24/7 AnyTime package. EcosseTel In Unmetered Access Price Increase The price of EcosseTel’s Vroom2 package will rise from to £79.99 per annum to £99.99. The off peak version will also rise to £69.99 per annum. A quarterly payment plan of £27.50 per quarter will also be introduced, albeit with a minimum one year commitment. The company is to introduce the rate rise after the next 1,000 new subscribers have signed up, which will probably be around the end of July. Spencer Pryor, Operations Director at EcosseTel said, "We are pleased with the way things are going - customers are getting good speeds and very few busy tones when they dial in. The only tweaking that we have needed to do to our IP backbone has been completed and apart from a slight DNS problem with one of our web servers everything is running nicely. We will be migrating more customers from our indirect access dial up to FRIACO ports over the next few months, and should be fully FRIACO by the Autumn. We will keep our other dial up systems operational as back up." He explained that a further 1,000 customers would optimise their existing capacity and that the company has already ordered further FRIACO ports to ensure their customers continued to receive good quality connections. Potential customers can request further information by filling in a form on the EcosseTel website although they cannot sign up over the web. Company policy dictates a signature is required on an order form or a recorded telephone call is made.< | ||