Topic: Internet [General]

This week we have seen the larger broadband providers such as BT, BskyB and Orange, release their results from the last quarter of 2007.

While Virgin and Tiscali have yet to post their results the figures revealed can show the trends in the marketplace and where things are going in the industry.

BT proudly announced that it retained its title of the 'UK’s biggest broadband supplier' after gaining the largest amount of new connections at the end of the year. This allowed it to have a 35 percent share of all new broadband connections, the extra 177,000 new punters swelled it's number of customers to 4.25 million and netted it a very nice £1.46bn promptly overtaking rival Virgin Media.

BskyB, or just Sky to most of us, also saw rapid growth seeing an extra 260,000 new faces giving it an increase of 28 percent, this allows it to become the UK’s fastest growing broadband provider. The figure of 47 percent for the number of customers who take another service from them shows that it's bundling strategy must be working, this is an increase of 17 percent on last year.

With the good news for some there has to be losers and Orange reported disappointing results. Although they added 75,000 new subscribers they also lost another 4,000 between October and December. This growth for a provider 1,138,000 customers will surely disappoint the board.

Speaking on the trends in the industry Ciaron Dunne, from comparison site  Broadband Genie, commented.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which is basically the RIAA for the rest of the world, has criticised European ISPs for not doing enough to prevent piracy.

It has called on them to police their users in order to stem the growing traffic in 'infringing materials', outlining the means which ISPs should use, including port throttling and content filtering. One means they ask ISPs to employ is bound to get the internet rights in arms, as they want providers to block certain websites, even mentioning The Pirate Bay.

Although there have been no response from any providers their reply is not likely to be enthusiastic to the demands. Once filtering on this level starts then it calls into question any providers motives. Would they start to block a rival ISP? Or maybe websites who criticised them? It would be the start of an Orwellian internet, similar to that provided by China.

The full memo of the IFPI's recommendations can be found on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) website (PDF).

LINX, the London Internet EXchange which connects the networks of more than 280 ISP's so that traffic may flow more efficiently between has seen a sharp increase of traffic.

Five years ago member numbers stood at just 120 with peak traffic at 13.5 Gigabits per second, this means that while membership numbers have doubled, it's seen an incredible 1500% increase in traffic highlighting the growth in bandwidth hungry applications.

While LINX started out as a UK operation it now has members in over 40 countries with a large proportion of members come from the traditional LINX heartland of Europe. Nearly a quarter of all members are now based outside Europe with those in North America equating to 14.7% with a further 7.5% coming from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania.

The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) recently published the results of a survey on security and anti-spam measures implemented by European ISPs.

The good news is that nearly 90 per cent of ISPs offer free spam filtering for it's customers, handy indeed as recent reports show that there are 20 billion spam email messages received in the UK every day, which equates to 300 for every man, woman and child in the country.
Backing this fact up, UK ISP Eclipse said that during October it blocked 513 million spam e-mails using it's latest software installation developed by IronPort Systems.

Customers are urged to check which, if any, security measures that an ISP provides before signing up to a lengthy contract, picking the right provider could save you up to £60 by not having to fork out for a security package.

A new report from uSwitch predicts that there will be 21 million homes connected to the internet by 2010, but only one million of these will use dial-up.

These figures reflect the recent news that nearly nine out of ten current internet users use broadband. uSwitch have predicted this figure based to the fact that in 2002 only 1.3 million internet users were connected via broadband, yet this soared to 14.5 million in 2007.

It's not the end of dial-up though, as it will continue in very limited number of connections, much the same as ISDN has disappeared from residential premises in recent years.

Just after it had announced that over half wireless networks were unsecured, the governments Get Safe Online campaign has come in for some flack.

Analyst company Ovum has said that the scheme has 'limitations' and wondered if the people involved with the campaign really knew what they were talking about. They highlighted the fact that at the launch there were seven questions put to the panel from observers and only one got a relevant answer.

While not saying that the scheme was without merits, they questioned where it was relevant and could capture the interest of young people.

Dial-up is really on it's last legs now with an estimated 1.4 million UK homes dumping broadband slow cousin in the last six months.

According to Topic Point this leaves only 2.2 million narrowband users and it claims that in 2008 this number will dwindle to 700,000 and by 2010 dial-up will have all but disappeared.

Point Topic estimates that Orange has about 580,000 dial-up homes, which is as a result of customers flocking to Freeserve at the end of the millennium, but BT, Carphone Warehouse (with it's ex-AOL users), Virgin Media and Tiscali all retain substantial numbers.

Will dial-up every die? We suspect not totally as where there is no Wi-Fi access then users on the move have limited options available to connect to the internet, but for residential dial-up users it seems that they will soon be a thing of the past.

Internet usage grew by a hefty ten percent last year, but worryingly for ISPs in the UK we only managed to grow by  a paltry one percent which seems like the UK is reaching saturation point.

The figures are from a report by Comscore, who are a 'Global Internet Information Provider' which sounds like a nice title for data analysts. The increases are, as you would expect, in the developing countries, with India leading the way with a whopping 33 percent increase over last year, with China and Russia seeing good increases.

When it comes to the time we spend online it seems that we spend 31.2 hours each month surfing, with the figure increasing to 35.6 for broadband users. The top of the list was Canadians who spend over 39 hours online each month, possibly due to the cold dark nights over there!

The site also includes the most visited websites for the last year, with no surprises in the list. Although figures on website popularity are quite often a bone of contention Microsoft comes out unsurprisingly top of the list (all those Windows updates?) followed by Google and Yahoo.

If you fancy a peep at the tables the pop over to Comscore.

As we all know shopping online has always been cheaper than popping out to the local shops. But now a survey by comparison site uSwitch suggests that the UK's average broadband price is now so cheap that it's worth doing all of our shopping online rather than braving it out in the real world.

They recon that an average shopper can save £42 per month shopping online, with an average price of a broadband connection around the £15 mark customers can save around £27 a month...and that doesn't include reduced travel and transport costs.

Now while that might sound like a good deal for most of us blokes, the thought of not having to visit Tesco's again does sound appealing, we're not so sure 'online shoe shopping' with catch on with the fairer sex.

"Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information."

The descriptions above may not be familiar to UK Internet users, but to users in countries like China, use of the Internet is, shall we say a more restricted experience that it could (should?) be. Human Rights group Amnesty International agrees.

Expected to speak out at the forthcoming ISPA Awards Ceremony this week, Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock will call on both users, and ISPs alike to "keep alive the things that have made the internet great - its democracy, its freedom and the way it gives people access to knowledge and the opportunity to participate and be heard ... Businesses whose operations impact on freedom of speech bear no less responsibility for upholding human rights standards than other industries."

More information available at the Amnesty Internation's irrepressible.info compaign website.

It seems that us Europeans like the internet, so much that on average we spend more than 11 hours a week browsing the net.

According to research by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) more of use are finding time to use the internet rather than sitting about watching TV, instead we do equally active things like sending emails, making internet phone calls, using instant messaging and online forums.

It found that 45 percent of European internet users go online every day and visit social networking websites at least once a month, with 31 percent download music at least once a month (it doesn't say whether legal or not), while 15 per cent make phone calls using VoIP.

The full facts are on their website.

Online comparison firm uSwitch has been busy since TalkTalks 'free' broadband offer was announced and has provided a table outlining the various bundled broadband and phone packages.

What is noticeable is that although the packages are not 'like for like' there are some substantial savings to be had between similar packages.
One problem with providers who have to rely on BT providing the line, rather than going down the LLU route, is that until there are 1.5 million LLU lines in the UK BT  is restricted by Ofcom from cutting the wholesale cost of broadband. This means that those who use BT’s wholesale product will find it very difficult to undercut offers provided by those who have their own kit installed in exchanges.

As this is a fast expanding market, be prepared for many new bundled deals and some price shifting in the months to come.

LINX, the London Internet EXchange which connects the networks of more than 200 ISP's so that traffic may flow more efficiently between them is reducing it's prices.

The new price structure come into effect from June and will make easier billing and budgeting, the lower costs are due to a 32% increase in membership at LINX in the last twelve months.

Whether these savings will be passed on to joe public remains to be seen.

All I want for Christmas is..........broadband!!

The number one Christmas present this year, according to a study by comparison and switching company uSwitch.com , is a broadband connection. It claims that that as many as 60,000 people are signing up for broadband every week, and this is due to the latest Christmas gadgets.
This years 'must haves' include the Xbox 360, iPod Nano and Sony PSP who all need a fast internet connection to unlock their full usage.

If your ISP charges you for a MAC code to migrate then IC24 will refund you to cost.

Although charging for MAC codes is against Ofcom's Code of Practice covering migrations, it is only a voluntary code to which not all ISP's have signed up to. This can mean a nasty shock when wanting to migrate to another ISP leaving the consumer either having to pay or living without broadband for 10 days and the possiblity of paying abother activation fee.
If this happens while migrating to IC24 then they will refund the cost up to a maximum of £30.

 For full Terms and Conditions please see the ic24.net website.

Namesco has been voted the UK’s Number 1 Shared Hosting provider for the second time.
The award which was given by users of webhostdir.com is for the 'UK’s number 1 shared hosting provider,'

The London Internet  Exchange (LINX) has boosted it's member count to nearly 200, with one of the latest members particularly of interest to broadband consumers.

Be Unlimted, which hopes to provide 24Mbps connectivity through Local Loop Unbundled (LLU) exchanges is one of the ten new members of the peering network announced on Thursday.
Peering is an agreement between networks, which are usually a similar size, to share connections for the routing of traffic across the internet. The only traffic to pass is that which is specifically destined for another network, rather than just forwarding all traffic and the major core routers do.
This allows network owners to effectively increase their network, the only cost being cables and switches, without paying network service providers for use of their backbone.

LINX's newest members are based across Europe and are Bogons Ltd, Be Unlimited, Scan Plus, Eweka, RealROOT, Multiplay, Brightview, Eaton Kaye Ltd, Smart Telecom and Poundhost.

Peering provider LINX (the London Internet Exchange) which routes more than  170 ISPs and links their networks has decided to reduce it's fees by 15 per cent.

Mutually owned it is the worlds largest Internet exchange point (IXP), and the cut is due to a 33 per cent increase of traffic allowing for cheaper operating overheads, it now routes a massive  82 Gbps at peak times.
LINX thinks this will allow ISP's to reduce their end price to consumers, although it would be wise not to hold your breath!.

ISP's are warning that the price of surfing the web may have rise, in order to cover the costs of new anti-terrorism laws, due to increased data retention sought by the UK's Home Secretary, Charles Clarke

Last week, Mr Clarke persuaded European leaders to agree to rules requiring Internet and telecoms companies to retain data for around a year. The data held would be used to help agencies track down suspected terrorists and Mr Clarke claimed that this was a "material factor" in the investigation into the London bombings.

ISPs are understandably worried. One ISP, AOL currently retains 3 months worth of its subscribers Internet data. Increased data would result in increased cost and as an AOL spokesman said, "Someone will have to pay for this - either the taxpayer or the consumer though higher prices."

Estimates by the ISP put costs at around £23m in implementation costs, and £8m per year in maintenance. If costs cited are relative only to the UK then the costs break down to £10 per user in implementation and 29p per user per month for maintenance (based on a reported 2.3m AOL UK subscribers).

ISPs losing out on huge revenue opportunities claims a report by Prevention.

Half of users contacted said that they wanted a subscription-based protection package to protect them from 'net nasties', with ISP's being the provider of choice. Users indicated that they would pay an extra £2 a month to receive the protection for their ISP, which could be a cost effective option for the to provide.

At the present 66.8% of consumers currently manage their own protection, but with 68.6% of the PC's having suffered a virus infection it seems that the attempts are failing. Almost half (47.7%) have only installed one security software application and 25.3% of PC owners have installed the standard security packages which came bundled with their PC.
There were no figures on how up-to-date the installed applications were, but experience shows most users who rely on bundled software rarely update them.

Subscribers of several ISPs who support special method of delivering video streams, called Multicasting will be able benefit from the improved quality of BBC Sport now and in the future, according to the BBC.

Available now, is live coverage of tennis from the The Stella Artois Championships, available at either 350kbps or 1.5Mbps multicast streams.

Subscribers of Pipex, Plusnet, C&W, Claranet, NetServices, Zen, Keme, Intervivo, Bogons broadband services as well as those in the UK Academic Network (JANET) will be able to access the special video streams thanks to their support of the Multicast protocol.

The BBC have a nice little information section all about Multicasting here for those in need of a closer examination of the technology.

Its not clear when, but the BBC are now offering an improved video stream on it's 'On This Day' micro-site.

The 'On This Day' features some of the most significant stories around the world covered since around 1950 - although some media exists prior to this date as well. As the title of the micro-site hints, the articles are displayed according to the current date - for example, today (6th June 2005), there's an article about Allied troops landing at Normandy in northern France during World War 2, on 6th June 1944.

Previously, video streams were only available at dial-up speeds - a maximum of 56k, however, eagle eyed Bug readers have noticed that a 256k stream is now also available. There's also an RSS feed of the articles too!

The upgrade sees a continued by the BBC at increasing its media available for the online community. Last month, the Beeb announced details of its forthcoming interactive Media Player (iMP) trial, expected to offer around 190 hours of TV and 310 radio programmes.

LightReading last week carried an interesting article detailing the International Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Standardization Sector finalising plans for 100Mbps DSL.

As LightReading points out, 100Mbps DSL comes through 'very-high bit-rate digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2), and is ideally suited whats commonly called "Triple Play" services - incorporating Internet, video and voice through one pipe.

Readers need not get too exciting though, as the UK is only just trailing 8Mbps ADSL through BT, and 24Mbps ADSL2+ through NTL. Also, VDSL2 is not without its limitations, most noticeably that the headline 100Mpbs service will only be available to a distance of just 350 meters.

Just days after announcing it's speed boosting for broadband,  Google has pulled it from their webaccelerator site.

While the company said that it has reached "maximum capacity of users and (we) are actively working to increase the number of users we can support", others claim it was pulled because of security fears.
The webaccelerator caches data and stores sites frequently accessed by PCs and then automatically retrieves new data from those pages, this means a web browser needs to process only updates to those sites when asked to load them. Also it can also automatically "pre-fetch" frequently used sites before the user downloads it, both have the effect of speeding up browsing.

Although Google stated it just stored information such as the user's IP address, computer and connection information, and "personally identifiable information", including email addresses, it seems that it caches a lot more. Some users have complained that they were able to login to secure online pages of others as it seems your personal cache can be accessed by others.

Google denied this was the reason for pulling the download  "It is a limited beta, and we reached the capacity of users", was the official company line.

Not content with probably the fastest loading searching engine, speed obsessed Google has dipped its toe into the world of web browsing speed boosting, with the launch of a public beta of its Web Accelerator, a small little application which has been designed specifically for broadband users.

Available for both IE and Firefox users, the technology works thanks to a number of techniques, including routing page requests through Google's network, storing copies of frequently accessed pages, prefetching some pages which it thinks you'll want to look at (more about this in a second), and compression.

The tool hasn't been launched without its problems however. A group of web designers have noticed that the prefetching we briefly mentioned, is causing havoc for some web sites containing 'admin' like controls, such as 'delete' and 'cancel' etc. This is because Google is essentially clicking on all links that it finds on a page. It is accepted though, that this will be a hindrance to a very small minority of users who are likely to download and use the Accelerator.

Finally, some users will instantly recognise the similarities between Google's little (free) app, and OnSpeed which costs £25 per year - apart from the pricing that is. And on the face of it, they don't seem that different from each other.

The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA UK), the UK’s leading Internet trade association - is calling on Ofcom to consider the needs of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in its Spectrum Framework Review, due to report back in July 2005.

The growth in wireless broadband means that many ISPs often use the radio spectrum to provide Internet access. ISPA believes that Ofcom should establish a dedicated range of radio frequencies for ISPs to offer broadband services.

Jessica Hendrie-Liaño, Chair of ISPA Council said, It’s a case of too many cooks at present. If ISPs were reserved specific frequencies for broadband and Internet access, problems of interference would be minimised. The current narrow spectrum is also used by the military and mobile phones. All parties would benefit from a dedicated spectrum of frequencies for ISPs.

In areas where the local loop hasn't been unbundled and particularly in rural areas, wireless access to the Internet will be of great importance for users. ISPA member BT estimates that 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses will be capable of being connected to a broadband enabled exchange by June 2005. However this does not accurately reflect the geographical availability of broadband across the UK. With a dedicated range of radio frequencies for ISPs, the geographical areas not served by fixed line broadband can be assured better quality wireless high speed Internet service.

BT's content partner, Yahoo are expected to release an update to their successful Anti-Spy application today, offering users protection from nasty pieces of software that could be on, or installed to PCs, opening all kinds of security risks.

Not much will visually change in the new 1.13 version, although a new Advanced Options area is now featured, enabling automatic updates and launching the application at system startup.

Keep an eye on this page from the 21st April for the update.

The huge rise in broadband users in the UK has borne good old Blighty as topping a league of countries, in having the most infected (hacked) computers in the world, according to security specialist, Symantec. Add in the US, and the two countries combined account for just shy of half of all the worlds infected machines.

Through July 2004 and December 2004, Symantec say over a quarter (25.2%) of all world-wide compromised systems, are within the UK. The UK is currently seeing a huge expansion in the number of fixed Internet access subscribers, rising at rates of over 85% per year.

March brings with it a special offer from Fluidata to encourage more leased line customers to move to the ISPs flagship product PureFluid.

The PureFluid service is currently available with speeds ranging from 2Mb/s up to 8Mb/s with inbuilt redundancy and failover technology providing a 99.95% uptime guarantee.

Availability of Fluidata's PureFluid has spread rapidly over the past few months and is now available from over 100 exchanges, including major cities nationwide, with another 200 planned to go live by the summer. PureFluid offers symmetrical and uncontended connection to the internet, and savings of up to 50% compared to leased line connectivity.

Throughout March all PureFluid installation fees have been reduced, by up to £1,000. The promotion substantially reduces the install cost which includes new lines, activation and a pre-configured Cisco 1721 router.

Spam, spam and more spam....and most of it come from the US.

Researchers at security software company Sophos found that 42% of all spam sent during the last year originated in the United States. The data was based on a scan by its researchers on a global network of computers designed to attract spam e-mails and virii, or honey pots as they are known.

Sophos warned that many spammers are using hacked PCs with broadband connections to send out their spam, which explains why top broadband country, South Korea, is in second place in the list.

 Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said "Many of the computers sending out spam are most likely to have had their broadband internet connections exploited by remote hackers. Zombie computers, PCs that have been compromised by hackers or virus writers, are sending out over 40 percent of the world's spam, and many users who fall victim are unaware,"

The Can-Spam Act which came into operation at the end of last year, and was supposed to curb US spam, simply isn't working, he stated.  "it is quite evident that that the Can-Spam legislation has made very little headway in damming the flood of spam,"

We've all seen the stories of how todays online savvy kids are using the internet more and more. Coupled with broadband access providing an always on connection, todays younger society are exploring an ever increasing number of ways to use the internet including the much publicised instant chat. Cue the concerned parent, worried about what activities the child is upto.

NetIntelligence, have launched a "Home Edition" of their security software enabling users to stop viruses, block harmful websites, record chat/instant messaging conversations and monitor time spent on the computer. Home Edition can be installed on upto 3 PCs, although those have to be either Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

NetIntelligence Home is available to purchase either monthly or yearly, and for a limited period (until 31st January 2005) costs £2.99 monthly, or £29.99 per year including VAT). If you prefer, a free trial is available for download for 14 days.

Yes broadband is officially more popular than unmetered dial-up!

The latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the percentage of people using always-on (broadband) connections rose to 31% in July, compared to 29% for unmetered access, although 35% still use PAYG dial-up to connect.

Broadband is increasing popularity mainly due to some aggressive marketing by ISP's. Many are encouraging their existing dial-up customers to switch, with some tempting offers. Also the cost of broadband has plummeted to a point where a 56kbps unmetered dial-up connection is more expensive than 512Kbps broadband, which is tempting those who are on a limited budget.

Another factor is that now 91% of UK households are connected to a broadband enabled exchange, with this figure due to rise to over 99% by the summer next year.

The full PDF of the report can be found on the ONS website.

The Office for National Statistics has released the latest figures for internet and broadband usage today.

Following the recent trends there are now fewer and few people opting for traditional dial-up connections as the move toward broadband continues, with the number of subscriptions nearly doubling over the past year.

The number of broadband connections, xDSL or cable,  reached 29.5 percent of the total Internet connections in June 2004, compared to 27.8 percent in May and 16.1 percent a year ago.
Dial-up connection are in the decline, with the number of connections falling 10.3 percent since last year. There are now fewer dial-up subscriptions than when the Office for National Statistics began to collect Internet data back in January 2001.

When it comes to paying for Internet access, the trend is toward a fixed monthly rate. In June 2004, 30 per cent of Internet users paid via fixed rate,  nearly double the percentage of last year.
The number using free or billed access (users pay per call)  fell to 35 percent from 41 percent last year

The full PDF can be found on the Office for National Statistics website.

RedTV is the first 24 hour 7 day a week internet television channel.

Launched on 14th June 2004 at www.redtv.co.uk, RedTV broadcasts a range of general entertainment programmes, from interactive music request shows to cooking, and interviews with celebs.

All you need to be able to tune in is Flash Player (to view the website) and Windows Media Player (to watch the broadcasts). The 'channel' streams at 250Kb/sec so will work pretty nicely with 250Kbps broadband connections and above.

Watch now at redtv.co.uk.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2004 UK Net Awards.

Categories for nomination are :

Best Business ISP
Best Consumer ISP
Best Business Web Host
Best Consumer Web Host
Best Search Engine/Directory
Customer Service Award sponsored by Internet & Broadband Advisor
Best Site for Broadband sponsored by BroadbandNow!
Best Web Tool sponsored by .net
Web Innovation of the Year
Best Use of Internet in Business sponsored by Internet Works
Best Reader Site sponsored by Practical Web Pages
Internet Hero
Internet Villain

Nominations are open until 20th August, with the shortlist announced come 6th September, when voting begins. The winners of the various categories will be announced on the 11th October.

Just a short note to let you all know that the latest edition of BroadbandNowMag should by now have hit the press .. or should that be - hit the web?

Cost is 99p for a single copy, but you can get a complete bargain by signing up for six issues for just £5.00 !

BroadbandNow.com

Just a small reminder that its that time of year again. No, not football, nor Wimbledon - but Glastonbury! and you can experience some of the festival free of charge via broadband suitable webcasts.

In what must be one of the greatest uses of broadband, PlayLouder will be hosting full performance webcasts from selected bands, so you can at least try and experience some of the great live music - but you dont get the mud effect obviously, although we suspect that getting one of your friends to throw buckets of dirty water over you might do the trick for that 'full on' effect.

Visit the PlayLouder website for more info and schedules.

 Nearly a quarter of the UK population is now connected to the internet using a broadband connection, nearly double the number compared with the same time period last year.

This is according to the latest government internet connectivity figures. In February this year 24.3% of internet connections were now broadband compared with 23.1% in January 2004. Back in February 2003, this figure was only 12.5%.

The 5% rise at the start of the year coincided with BT introducing new broadband packages, also the lower speed 'broadband' connections from Tiscali, Plusnet and other ISP's have influenced the figures as has providers such as AOL introducing premium content to encourage people to switch over from dial-up.

The government figures reveal that subscriptions for dial-up connections fell by 5.7% over the last year which follows the recent trend, while there was a 100.3% year-on-year increase in the number of permanent connections.

So you have ADSL. Fancy a free webcam, courtesy of BT ?

Thanks to a new trial by BT for VizzitMe, you can register for free during the trial, and provided that you are accepted, you and TWO friends named, will receive a WebCam and headset kit - totally FREE !

The service is basically a webcam conferencing system designed to be used by you/your friends + family - allowing several of you to see each other, all at the same time.

Its free during the trial period and if you are selected for the trial and don't have a web cam, BT may well send you one free of charge (worth £65) - see the web site for details

For your part, you would be agreeing to fill in the occasional web based questionaire to let BT know how you find their service/trial.

Further details can be found on the VizzitMe website, and the registration form can be found here

Reports are being recieved by UK-Bug.net that a recent announcement of an undersea cable damage causing serious chaos on the internet and which also caused internet security company ZoneLabs's website to go offline yesterday, maybe not be the complete truth.

Following announcements yesterday UK-Bug have received word from two sources that ISPs are currently investigating the cause of the failure as being a cleverly organised DoS attack instead - where ransom was the motive rather than destruction. An anonymous source from NTL writes ..

Interestingly, the statement quotes that both BT and Pipex customers were affected by this action (whatsoever its cause), and reports elsewhere state that Telewest/Blueyonder customers were also badly affected. BTYahoo's Announce newsgroups incidently skirts around the DNS issues that now seem to be resolved.

It was only a matter of time, but now it has actually happened!!
Inspired Broadcast Networks has just released a jukebox with more than 2 million tracks!

It works by streaming CD quality MP3 audio via a broadband connection, this is how they are able to offer such a large content as no songs are actually stored on the jukeboxes.
You can also buy albums and ringtones, and the conpany hopes to be able to e-mail tracks soon as well.

It is hoped to have over 5,000 jukeboxes installed in pubs over the next two years.

A spokesman for Inspired Broadcast Networks, Norman Crowley said "This is the most significant announcement to hit the music industry this year,"

"We have spent a great deal of time researching the marketplace so we could launch a product that would change the way consumers listen to music outside of their homes. Our jukebox will give venue owners better ways to entertain their customers and will also increase revenue for the music industry."

With two million songs it may take a time to chose what to play!

Not broadband related, nor even ISP related - but VERY important - especially if you are a Smile Bank account customer.

It appears than in a similar case to the recent Barclays email scam, UK bank company Smile are today being targeted.

The email appears to be legitimate, quoting terms such as "Due to technical update we recommend you to reactivate your account" - in a similar ilk to that seen with the Barclays email scam.

I personally have been in contact with Smile (a member of the The Co-operative Bank) who have confirmed the existance of the fake email. Smile obviously are advising customers to not click on any link from this email.

Smile are continuing their investigations, and are expected to make a customer wide announcement soon.

We have not posted the link to the "copycat" site - for obvious reasons. The fake site looks very authentic - even complete with 128bit encryption symbols being present. There are no obvious giveaways, bar a slight change of the URL - which we will also not reveal for obvious reasons.

On submitting account details, the site appears to crash, possibly relying on some form of mind trick to get the user to visit the official Smile website, hoping that the victim would not think anything suspicious was occuring.

With the 2nd scam of its type in as many weeks - one is left wondering how online security should change to accomodate risks such as the Barclays case, and this one - as it is not always feasible to ennforce a level of education and awness on a companies customers.

You can expect to see the usual 404 error instead of the VeriSign SiteFinder which has been apearing of late.

The ICANN statement calls on VeriSign to remove the redirection to their SiteFinder page, or face the consequences.

The tone of the letter sent to VeriSign is harsh, ICANN chief Paul Twomey said:-

"ICANN is disappointed that VeriSign has not suspended the service despite the widespread reports of adverse effects from these changes. Although ICANN takes this step reluctantly, we are left with no choice but to enforce the provisions of our contract with VeriSign."

They have given VeriSign until Saturday to conform, so if you want to see a 404, there is one here, but only if VeriSign take action!!

It has been announced that BT has lost its testmark patent case against Prodigy Communications.

In June 2000, BT contacted a number of ISPs with an invitation to purchase a Hyperlink license. All the ISPs refused. BT then chased Prodigy Communications in a testmark case.