All the latest broadband news from the Broadband Genie news team.
Yahoo! has confirmed that company financial difficulties will result in 1,000 members of staff being made redundant as part of a “necessary step” in the company’s development. Chief executive Jerry Yang (pictured) reported that the company had recorded a slump in profits in December, 23% down year-on-year.
Yang said that the company was facing “headwinds” that could last throughout 2008 and “profound changes” were a reaction to the intense competition and falling advertising felt by Yahoo!
In a written statement Yang commented: “While we continue to face headwinds this year, we believe that the moves we are making will help us exit 2008 stronger and more competitive and return to higher levels of operating cash flow growth in 2009.”
So far, details of where the redundancies will be enforced have not been issued. However, confirmation is expected within the next few weeks.
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Residents of Prickwillow are waiting to hear whether their high-speed internet link connection is to be updated or switched off completely, following a fault that developed in their exchange over two weeks ago.
Following confirmation that the equipment in their exchange, originally installed by Trilogy Telecom with the help of a £20,000 government grant was outdated, villagers have been told to pay up to £7,000 for new equipment or face seeing the connection being turned off completely.
The fault has caused huge disruption in the village and there is concern that unless new equipment is installed the lack of broadband could result in a fall in property value. Currently, residents are relying on dial-up to remain connected.
East Cambridgeshire District Councillor, Jackie Petts expressed her annoyance after she struggling to keep her public relations business running: “I’ve really been half on holiday over the last two weeks,” she said. “It’s been dreadful. I had 500 emails I couldn’t open and my clients haven’t had many media opportunities.”
Chairman of Trilogy Telecom, Wayne Martin as advised villagers that if they paid up for the new services they could receive a better connection than central London: “The easiest option would be for us to switch it off,” said Martin, “but we don’t want to do that unless we have explored all the options.”
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Yet another ISP has been found to be in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) code of conduct.
A member of the public reported an out-of-date Be Broadband advert on a social-networking site for a £14 per month, up-to-24Mbps package in September, almost one month after the package had been discontinued.
Be Broadband has refused responsibility for the out-of-date adverts by saying that the media agency it had used had wrongly informed them that the adverts were no longer being displayed. However, the ASA has upheld the complaint:
“Because the product had been withdrawn at the end of August, we considered that the ad was misleading. We considered that it was Be’s responsibility to ensure that the product changes were communicated promptly to online media-buying agencies,” said an ASA spokesperson.
Be Broadband has been warned by the ASA to “ensure that their online advertising accurately reflected their broadband packages in future.”
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After the transfer of Stephen Timms onto the Department for Work and Pensions, Baroness Shriti Vadera has been confirmed as the new UK broadband minister.
The reshuffle has caused some unease with regards to the development of broadband as previously, Stephen Timms had been in discussion with ISPs in November about how to improve broadband access in the UK.
Concerns have been expressed that developments will be put on hold to account for Vadera’s lack of knowledge of the broadband industry.
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Broadband analysis company Point Topic has found that more UK businesses are dissatisfied with their ISPs than ever before. An average of one in every ten firms change their broadband provider over the last six months.
Although the percentage of unhappy business customers looks fairly inconsequential at a mere 11%, previous trends concluded businesses tended to stay faithful to one ISP.
The Point Topic survey discovered 40% of businesses were unhappy with package prices. 19% were put off by poor quality of service and 13% by unsatisfactory customer service.
Customers of Be and The Carphone Warehouse (OneTel, TalkTalk, AOL UK) were shown to be the least successful in retaining business broadband customers with Orange keeping the highest percentage of customers.
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The increasing demand for bandwidth-heavy online TV and video content from services such as the BBC’s iPlayer and Channel 4’s 4OD has raised concerns that UK broadband networks will shortly no longer be able to cope with traffic, according to a report on silicon.com.
After 3.5 million programmes were streamed or downloaded following the launch of the BBC’s iPlayer Tiscali has shared its opinion that content providers, such as the BBC, should reach into their pockets to pay for network upgrades capable of coping with their online content demand.
Speaking to silicon.com a Tiscali spokeswoman said: “If the content providers don’t come to the table on this, the cost will be solely on the end user. It is an issue and we want to talk about it,” she added: “My hope for this year is there will be some sort of cross-industry consultation on this.”
Ofcom have also entered the debate with suggestions that may be a need for broadband traffic prioritisation in the future. New types of business models or new commercial relationships could also play an important role in the next generation of broadband networks.
Other major ISPS including BT, Virgin Media and Orange however have expressed little concern over the impact of online TV, with BT commenting that the launch of iPlayer hadn’t had any impact on the service its customers receive.
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Following a pledge for ISPs to take more responsibility for protecting music online from John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive officer of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPA), a new free and legal online file-sharing service will be available from today.
A new version of Qtrax, an online file-sharing service offering unlimited, free downloads with permission of major recording companies, marks an important change of direction in the music industry.
Instead of obtaining money through downloads, record company licensing fees will be generated through the advertising space. Qtrax allows users to download tracks from a selection of 30 million, through file-sharing networks and tunes could be stored indefinitely on PCs or MP3 players, however copy-protection technology prevents users from burning copies to a CD.
It has been confirmed that users will be able to play tracks obtained from Qtrax on Apple iPods and Macintosh computers as early as March. Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax’s president and chief executive, said: “We’ve had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from Fair-Play.” As the new download service would heavily undermine iTunes it has been suggested that Apple would develop new blocks in response to Qtrax to stop them working on iPods.
Ford, McDonald’s and Microsoft are rumoured to be among the first advertisers to support the Qtrax service.
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Virgin Media has announced that it is to give customers on its 4Mbps downstream ‘L tier’ broadband service a free upgrade to a 10Mbps service next February.
Announced on the eve of a high level Government symposium on “Superfast Broadband” it was revealed that the upgrade will be served region by region and will be completed by late summer.
Acting CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett said: “Virgin Media’s cable network gives us a natural superiority over other broadband services and we’re delighted to reward our customers with this free upgrade. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible with out cable network, and we will continue to look for new ways to satisfy the growing demand for even faster broadband in the UK. We’re proud to be leading the country’s superfast broadband revolution.”
Following successful trials in Ashford, Folkstone and Dover, Virgin Media will also be introducing an upgrade programmed to a superfast 50Mb.
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Counciller Les Lawrence, a Birmingham City Council cabinet member has appealed for broadband providers to help families who are struggling to afford their service.
Lawrence said that government figures show that there currently 800,000 pupils without broadband access, causing a distinctive divide between those without internet access and those who are able to go online to study and research their subjects.
”21st century children and young people wishing to achieve economic wellbeing when they leave full-time education need to have the skills required by 21st century employers, including literacy, numeracy, communications and IT,” said Lawrence. “It is time that the suppliers of broadband internet connections look at the ways that they can reduce the cost for families that have children and young people at home requiring internet access for academic studies. This will need an integrated up approach between the internet suppliers, the government, local authorities and IT charities to be able to drive down prices.”
With the help of a £5.7m grant from central government, Birmingham City Council will be providing 2,000 school pupils with laptop computers this month, and there are plans to distribute another 6,000 by the end of the summer term as part of its universal home access program.
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A survey of 1,500 UK broadband users conducted for O2 Broadband by Tickbox has found that a huge proportion of Brits struggle with their broadband connections. The survey found that over a million British households spend at least six hours setting up or troubleshooting their broadband service. 1 in 5 users also admitted to having to contact their ISP an average of three times to help with their connection queries.
The survey was initially set up by O2 Broadband to find out the main issues that frustrate customers. Unsurprisingly, connection speeds and customer support ranked highly. The results also revealed that many customers don’t feel they are being provided with a quality product, with a quarter of Brits being unhappy with their broadband services and one in every eight users admitting that they will be looking to switch provider in the next three to six months.
Customer service was a sore point amongst many customers with 20% revealing that they had experienced difficulty getting through to their provider and many expressing annoyance that they had to use a premium rate number.
There was also proof that broadband could have an impact on our health and wellbeing. Over half (56%) of those surveyed admitted to losing their temper with their computer due to broadband issues, with most commenting that they found being put ‘on hold’ when on the phone to their customer service number one of the most stressful situations of daily life.
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