Local government is going to be the lynchpin to rolling out future generation broadband networks, according to BT. It believes that local authorities are the key to unlocking pent-up demand for faster connections to hospitals, libraries, government offices and schools which will, in turn, make investing billions in fibre more attractive.
Following on from this month’s
Providing a nationwide network of next generation broadband could cost as much as £29bn, according to the influential telecommunications industry body, the Broadband Stakeholder’s Group (BSG). If that leaves ISPs and broadband users wondering where the investment is coming from, the long awaited ‘Caio report’ (PDF download) suggests that it’s unlikely to be coming from
Remarks by the Chair of Ofcom’s Consumer Panel that ‘next generation’ broadband should skip a generation to prioritise those without broadband today have been met with a muted response from the two companies that could potentially build the required nationwide network.
Neither BT nor Virgin Media was able to answer positively SamKnows’ question of how people
A flaw in the way web addresses are served to computers, which allows criminals to redirect traffic to scam sites, is just starting to be used to trap international bank customers in to parting with account details. However, problems are unlikely to spread to the UK where it appears the flaw has been patched by
The gaming industry is coming after illegal downloaders and the bad news for ISPs is it appears the sector is not trying the educational route taken by the music industry.
Lawyers working for American developer, Topware Interactive, creators of Dream Pinball, have not only successfully prosecuted a UK woman for £16,000 worth of damages for illegal
The BBC is changing a number of aspects of their iPlayer TV and Radio service. Originally conceived as a download “catch up” service using P2P services it is now largely used in streaming mode, no doubt reflecting the technical ability and attention span of the viewing population.
The changes include a new “high quality” option which
BT is still due to press ahead with its ‘technical trial’ of Phorm, despite a letter from the European Commission to the government asking for reassurance, before the end of the month, that the system does not contravene EU data laws.
Despite the caution in Brussels, the broadband provider will “soon” be inviting 10,000 of its
OFCOM has given consent for BT to offer free / discounted phone services to up to 300 homes on the Ebbsfleet development. These will be provided using optical fibre to the home (FTTH) and the consumer will have an adaptor to connect normal telephones to the IP based fibre connection.
This permission is a technicality to
The elegantly named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform is consulting on how best to address illicit P2P file-sharing via a 3-month online consultation.
We recently covered the Memorandum of Understanding between six large ISPs, BERR and the BPI however this consultation looks beyond that to questions like “what about the other ISPs” and “what
P2P (peer to peer) traffic is seldom out of the news either because its most popular use is for pirating copyright material or because ISPs are throttling it to reduce the impact on their network.
In the USA a bit of deep academic thinking has gone into seeking ways of addressing the traffic issue, while potentially
The ice cold relationship between the music industry and the ISPs it expects to police the internet is showing signs of thawing, but only a little and only after the threat of government legislation.
The six leading ISPs have agreed to send out educational letters to subscribers the BPI believes have been downloading music illegally. BT,
BT reiterated its intention to roll out behavioural targeting technology from Phorm at its AGM this week as protesters outside the event admitted they were disappointed with the turn out of privacy campaigners.
However, there are three developments which will mean the furore over Phorm will not go away any time soon.
Mid week, and coinciding with
BT have today announced plans to roll out a £1.5bn investment in fibre based high speed broadband offering a range of services with top speeds of up to 100Mbps. Headline speeds of “more than 1,000Mb/s in the future” are also mentioned in the BT announcement.
The full press release sets out the financial details and explains
Ahead of tomorrow’s crunch BT AGM where online privacy campaigners are vowing to protest and report the company to the police for running tests on a small group of users’ accounts without permission, the CEO of behavioural advertising technology company, Phorm, has been defending its technology.
Kent Ertugru believes the company has been unduly targeted by
After its prime billing as the day NebuAd, Microsoft and Google would get a severe grilling from the US Senate, this week’s two hour hearing on online privacy proved a rather damp squib.
In stark contrast to the UK where the information Commissioner has told behavioural advertising technology company, Phorm, its network can only operate if
The EU has introduced an amendment to a telecoms law which campaigners and IT lawyers fear could bring in the controversial “three strikes and you’re out” approach to file sharers.
British ISPs have been united in their opposition to the approach heralded by copyright holders, in particular the BPI which represents record labels, which would see
In the same week that BBC Radio One and the Guardian put out an appeal to hear from UK web users who had received a letter from Virgin Media warning of illegal file downloading on their account (with tips on how to avoid it), the American courts took a far more draconian stance on privacy.
As
Yesterday the Guardian had a pull-out “Optical Fibre” supplement whilst Ofcom’s Chief Executive was talking to a conference in London about “super-fast broadband”.
The back page of the Guardian supplement was occupied by an advert from Virgin media, who have faced some controversy following advertising their services as “fibre optic” when the final stretch of cable
The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint from BT that Virgin Media’s recent Hate to Wait campaign was misleading.
The advert listed typical download times for a song and television show for its M (up to 2Mb), L (up to 4Mb) and XL (up to 20Mb) packages. The advert was designed to show that whilst
Kangaroo, the television catch-up and video on demand service being jointly developed by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 has been referred to the Competition Commission by the Office of Fair Trading.
The Competition Commission (CC) now has a 24 week period to look in to the online television service which will now not debut this