Broadband News

Three of the UK’s largest ISPs – Virgin Media, BT and the Carphone Warehouse (TalkTalk, AOL) have come under fire following research results from Internet analyst firm Envisional’s illegal music study.

It was found that 65% of all illegal P2P torrent downloads were carried out by subscribers to these services, with around 28,000 unique IP addresses involved in download activity. Of those active downloaders, 26 per cent originated from a Carphone Warehouse service in June, 21.6 per cent from Virgin Media and 21.2 per cent from BT. July figures showed similar results with changes of no more than 0.2 per cent either way for each provider.

Together, the three providers highlighted in the survey account for approximately 11 million UK-based broadband customers.

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When your livelihood depends on whiling away hours searching for ‘Googlewhacks’, or scouring the web searching for the same namesakes as you, then you better make sure you’ve got a fast and reliable broadband service to speed up your research time.

Unfortunately for comedian Dave Gorman, a customer of BT, he was left without broadband access for five days and encountered severe problems getting the issue resolved through BT’s support desk. With the power of a very successful and popular blog in his armoury however, Gorman decided to go straight to the top and email the CEO, Ian Livingston, directly. The whole process was documented on the comedian’s blogspot where he vent his frustration:

“In the comments left on my last post someone (perhaps wisely remaining anonymous) said that they worked for BT and then provided me with e-mail addresses for Steve Robertson, the boss of OpenReach (the part of BT that deals with their infrastructure) and Ian Livingston, the Chief Executive Officer of BT… he’s been in the job for about two months,” wrote Dave.

”I wrote an e-mail to Steve Robertson. I tried to keep it concise and polite. I tried not to rant about the small details - I’m sure they hear about helpdesk incompetence all the time - so instead I tried to focus on constructive suggestions (why not offer dial-up as a matter of course? how about usb-dongle-modems for longer cases?) while also detailing a couple of specific failings - not of the helpdesk staff but of the helpdesk system.”

Among the suggestions passed on to the BT execs was the distribution of mobile broadband dongles for customers inflicted with ongoing land-based broadband problems. During his customer services conversations Gorman was unable to get a full explanation as to why this wasn’t possible:

“I have repeatedly asked if there is any way of getting internet access in the mean time. I have repeatedly been told that it can’t be done. Which isn’t true. You know those usb-modems…? They connect to the internet using a sim-card and a mobile phone line. No landline necessary. No landline = no faulty line-card at the exchange. Easy,” said Dave Gorman. “ I don’t understand why BT can’t provide me with one of those for a few days. Y’know, just until they’ve fixed the problem. That they’ve given me. But when I suggest this to someone on the help desk it seems to fry their brain.”

Within three hours of contacting the CEO, Dave Gorman’s broadband was up and running again thanks to one of BT’s Business Improvement Specialists.

To read the full blog entries visit http://gormano.blogspot.com

Source: Dave Gorman

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BSkyB announced pleasing fourth quarter results today despite earlier predictions that customer take-up and profits could give gloomy news. The British firm confirmed that it added 92,000 net new customers in the fourth quarter and 200,000 new broadband customers. These results exceeded analysts predictions that the company would take on 192,000 new broadband customers.

Revenue-wise, results were up 9 percent at 4.95 billion pounds and the company revealed that they had increased its profits to 752 million pounds, again exceeding expectations.

Source: Reuters

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A new survey by Gartner has concluded that around 25 per cent of all households worldwide will have a broadband connection by 2012.

At the last count it was estimated that 323 million homes were connected up to broadband, accounting for 18 per cent of the total number of households across the globe. If Gartner’s predictions are correct then this could rise to around 499 million by 2012.

58 percent of UK households are currently link up to a broadband service, although this number is expected to increase to 74 per cent within the next four years.

This will still only mean that the UK ranks 9th in the list of the global broadband penetration. Topping the charts are Holland, Switzerland, Canada, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Source: NetworkProPortal

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Manchester council has announced that it is hoping to extend its Eastserve wireless broadband service across the city, giving residents the opportunity to log on to a fast internet connection without installing land-based broadband.

The proposed Wi-Fi development is part of the city’s Digital Strategy for Manchester which was set up in 2000 to ensure that all resident have access to affordable, speedy broadband.

In order to take this scheme to the next level the city council has announced that it is seeking a joint venture partner to help grow the exising service – hopefully providing city-wide coverage.

Sir Richard Leese from Manchester City Council commented: “Manchester has a very strong track record of putting together imaginative partnerships with the private sector… A joint venture would help turn Manchester into a “world-class digital city.”

Source: Manchester.com

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