SamKnows - Broadband News, Analysis and Profiles

Analysys Mason: Forget Wi-Max

30 Jul 2008 | 17.46 Europe/London

Mobile broadband is set to go from strength to strength but you can pretty much write off Wi-Max networks, according to the latest research from telecommunications researchers at Analysys Mason.

Government consults on file sharing

30 Jul 2008 | 17.38 Europe/London

The elegantly named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform is consulting on how best to address illicit P2P file-sharing via a 3-month

P4P - A constructive engagement with P2P?

28 Jul 2008 | 17.14 Europe/London

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.

Roll your own fibre?

26 Jul 2008 | 13.14 Europe/London

The BBC News site recently discussed the concept of communities left out of plans for "superfast broadband" to take the initiative and set up their own infrastructure.

Thawing of relationship between ISPs and music industry

24 Jul 2008 | 18.20 Europe/London

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.

Mobile broadband take-up set to surge for late adopters

24 Jul 2008 | 09.49 Europe/London

Late adopters are going to treble mobile broadband penetration over the next five years as more than one in three of net newcomers foregoes a fixed line contract in favour of a go-anywhere broadband dongle.

Entanet's WBC launch encounters some teething problems

23 Jul 2008 | 10.44 Europe/London

The introduction of BT's 21CN network and Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) has caused unexpected problems for some Entanet customers who have found their connection being migrated over to the new system.

Tiscali - BT feud over marketing letter escalates

22 Jul 2008 | 16.30 Europe/London

Last week we broke the news of a

Low key protests but BT and Phorm are not yet in the clear

18 Jul 2008 | 22.13 Europe/London

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.

Performance monitoring progress update

17 Jul 2008 | 21.27 Europe/London

We've been rather quiet on the progress of the Performance Monitoring project we're carrying out, and for that I apologise.

BT letter to Tiscali customers raises further privacy concerns

16 Jul 2008 | 16.10 Europe/London

BT have caused a bit of a stir this week by mailing a personalised letter to current or former Tiscali group broadband customers (these include Pipex, Freedom2Surf and Nildram).

Fibre to the home - what might it cost ?

16 Jul 2008 | 14.12 Europe/London

Yesterday's news about FTTH created a stir, but what might a fibre service cost ?

Part of the answer is already in the public domain, from BT Openreach and BT Wholesale announcements relating to the Ebbsfleet pilot.

BT to roll out FTTH/FTTC to 10 million homes by 2012

15 Jul 2008 | 08.04 Europe/London

BT have today announced plans to roll out a £1.

Phorm CEO blames small minority for opposition

15 Jul 2008 | 07.32 Europe/London

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.

US Senate hearing draws a blank on online advertising

11 Jul 2008 | 22.02 Europe/London

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.

Entanet to launch BT based ADSL2+ services next week

11 Jul 2008 | 09.18 Europe/London

Entanet launches their "2Plus" range of broadband services on Tuesday 15th July. These are variable rate ADSL2+ products that will connect to the telephone exchange at speeds as high as 24 Mbits/s or as low as 288 kbits/s depending on line length, interference, extension wiring and the usual constraints of physics.

Sky begin FTTC trial

10 Jul 2008 | 22.30 Europe/London

Sky (Easynet) are reportedly trialling a Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) system in East London, which according to

EU accused of using 'back door' to sneak in illegal file sharing

08 Jul 2008 | 19.06 Europe/London

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.

Announcing SamKnows Connect - a new suite of web services

08 Jul 2008 | 09.39 Europe/London

Long time readers of the site will be aware that our Availability Checker is available as an XML web service, and this web service is used extensively by the comparison websites, amongst others.

BT Wholesale's iPlate enters the market

05 Jul 2008 | 17.10 Europe/London

BT's patent pending iPlate is becoming available to end users via Ebay (search for

YouTube ruling highlights gulf between UK and USA on privacy

04 Jul 2008 | 16.10 Europe/London

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.