Topic: Eclipse Internet

Eclipse Internet has announced that it is now carbon neutral after a 12 month assessment of it's business.

The CarbonNeutral Company measured a range of factors from electricity consumption to business travel and deliveries, including commuting by employees. it's carbon usage wasIt was measured at 23 percent which caused the ISP to invest in carbon offsetting programmes. These included wind farms in India, a methane capture project in Pennsylvania and a Ugandan forestry project.

It also plans to introduce further reductions it it's emissions, cutting it down by 10 percent over the next year. It will do this by simple methods, like switching unused equipment off, and using motion sensors and timers on lights and air-con equipment.

Eclipse Internet is offering new customers 8Mbps broadband for £9.99 for the first three months in it's 'summer sale' if they sign up by the end of August.

Business users can get an unlimited broadband connection for just £19.99 per month for the first three months.  Both consumer and business offers include free set up and hardware and no switching fee for existing broadband users.

Existing customers can also benefit from the sale as until 31st July anyone referring family or friends who move to Eclipse from another broadband provider will receive a referral payment of £40. Customers referring family or friends who are new to broadband will receive a £20 referral fee.

Eclipse Internet has extended its offer for reduced prices on it's SDSL services due to increased demand.

The price was dropped in September by 33 per cent, and the offer is being extended until further notice, the service includes free connection and equipment worth over £400 to those who sign up to Eclipse Internet’s SDSL 500, 1000 or 2000 services.

Eclipse have revamped it's product range and replaced two of it's previous products with the Evolution and Home broadband ranges.

Both will allow customers up to 8Mbps download and 448Kbps upload speeds, the Evolution product is a fixed price but the priority (i.e. speed) determined by the package during peak hours of 6pm to midnight. It seems only heavy traffic protocols will be actually targeted, these include P2P, FTP and USENET so actual surfing would not suffer, and the air usage allowance ranges from 20 to 50GB a month.

As Eclipse puts it...

  The package comes in four flavours.

The Home Broadband range is a standard broadband package with an usage allowance bundle, extra can be purchased for£1.75 a GB.

Eclipse are giving away 1000 .eu domains to mark the public registration of  the domain suffix, to date only holders of existing trademarks have been able to purchase the .eu domain.

From today, Eclipse will allow anyone to register for up to 10 free domain names as part of its 1000 free domains promotion. These domains will be free of charge for the first two years. Applications can be made for either .eu or .co.uk domains. For any .eu domains, applicants will have to wait until 7th April before their requests are processed at which point they will be informed as to whether their application has been successful.

Eclipse are also offering all domain name registration for only 25 % of the normal cost until 30th April, during this period, domain names will be registered for the normal two-year period for only £9.98 rather than the normal £40 fee.

Uk-bug.eu don't have the same ring to it though....

Eclipse Internet has launched a  new broadband package aimed specifically at teleworkers and very small or SOHO businesses.

Teleworker Broadband will  provide home-workers with Eclipse’s Enhanced Care package, which includes giving users prioritised support when required, including dedicated phone numbers for customer and technical support.
Also included is VIRUSshield and SPAMshield protection, which provides protection from viruses and spam.

A handy touch is that the package package offers 60 minutes of ROAM public Wi-Fi access per month at thousands of hotspots across the UK.

Prices start from £16.99 (excl. VAT) per month.

Eclipse Internet are offering its customers £30 for each friend or member of family that switches to any of their broadband products from another provider, and £15 for any customers' friends who sign up for their first broadband connection.

Eclipse Connect, as it's called, will replace it's other schemes but customers who have been part of Eclipse’s previous referral scheme can will have their points accumulated into a monetary value and sent the relevant amount.

The offer runs until the end of January and more details can be found on the Connect website.

The price of SDSL connections just keeps on falling with another ISP reducing it's prices.

Eclipse Internet has dropped it's monthly SDSL costs by up to £115, and throwing in free connection and modem on selected services if users sign before the end of the year.

Full details of pricing and conditions can be found at Eclipse.

Eclipse Internet has rewarded one its customers for 10 years of loyalty, with another 10 years of service - except this time its free.

The "winner", one Mr Nigel Kendal-Ward, originally signed up to Eclipse’s dial-up service way back in 1995 - citing that if anything went wrong, he lived that close to the Eclipse office, he could go knocking on their door for answers.

Congratulations to Nigel on his reward.

Eclipse have announced that they will be upgrading users on it's FLEX broadband connections, users will find that their speed has doubled at no extra cost. The FLEX range of products are unique to Eclipse and allows users to upgrade their speed to a maximum of 2Mbps, where line conditions apply, the benefit is that users only pay an extra cost depending on how long the connection is at the increased speed.

Existing FLEX Home 200 customers will not see any speed increase, but will see their monthly cost reduced to £29.99 saving them £10.

New customers can join Eclipse in July without any activation or migration fee, and includes a free modem. FLEX'ing the connection speed will be free for the first month also.

Eclipse Internet have launched a new service that gives new customers a combined broadband and home phone service.

Called ‘Home Broadband + TalkMore’ it provides users with a 2Mbps broadband connection combined with free evening and weekend telephone calls to UK landlines. Customers will also get low, fixed rate calls for landlines and mobiles, and competitive international call rates with the new service. Calls to other TalkMore customers are free and unlimited,  customers can continue to use their existing phone number.

A free broadband modem is included for customers who are new to broadband, while those who already have broadband can migrate to Eclipse completely free. The ADSL service includes a 5GB usage allowance per month, extra allowance can be purchased at £1.75 per GB.

The contract length remains as their standard packages at one month.

Eclipse Internet has found itself a a finalist in two National Business Awards.

It has been selected as one of four finalists for two National Business Awards in the Wales and West Country Regional Programme. The first is as a finalist in The Business Innovation of the Year Award for its Broadband service. Founder of Eclipse, Mark Lang, has also been shortlisted in the Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 'demonstrating exceptional vision and leadership.'

In total 28 businesses are competing in regional finals, with the winners will go on to compete in the national finals later this year.

Eclipse Internet are offering free setup to selected FLEX Broadband services for the remainder of March.

To claim the offer, new business and home customers joining Eclipse Broadband must sign up to either the FLEX 500, FLEX 1000 or FLEX 2000 service. Also thrown in is a free SpeedTouch 330 USB ADSL modem.

Details on the Eclipse website

Eclipse Internet declares ‘war’ on spammers by announcing SPAMshield which will be offered free to all Eclipse users.

Users can adjust spam-protection levels (Safe, Moderate or Aggressive) using simple online control settings. A more advanced option – which is also free – allows customers to set their own custom levels and to set up ‘allow’ and ‘block’ filtering for email addresses and domain names.

Highlighting the need for Spam filtering is the fact that  around 17 billion unsolicited emails were sent in 2004.

SPAMshield is the second service to be incorporated into Eclipse Internet’s ‘shield’ suite. The first, VIRUSshield, has stopped over 7.6 million viruses. Both VIRUSshield and SPAMshield check over 3 million messages every day.

Further details on SPAMshield are available on the Eclipse Internet website.

Eclipse Internet have started to offer those unhappy with their current ADSL ISP, free migration (saving just under £13), as well as moving the subscriber to 2Mb, or the fatest speed the line will allow.

With the recent announcements from Plusnet and BTYahoo, Eclipse Internet have confirmed that they'll be participating in the forthcoming BTWholesale 4Mb and 8Mb announced earlier this month. The ISP also today confirms their intention to offer greater than 8Mbps later in 2005 - presumably in alignment with BTWholesale's 18Mbps ADSL2+ pilot.

In contrast to both Plusnet and BT Retail's intention to upgrade its end users lines to 2Mb (where possible) - there appears to be no such knee-jerk reaction from Eclipse. , with the ISP continuing to offer its FLEX solution at 256K, 512K, 1024K and 2048K speeds, or its Home Broadband offer - which is 2Mbps or the fastest possible on the line.

You can find more information on Eclipse's Broadband Home here and todays press release can be read here

Eclipse Internet has announced price reductions on its FLEX Home & Business 1000 products, and simultaneously detailing its new FLEX Home & Business 2000.

Eclipse's FLEX theory lends itself to the fact that subscribers do not often need the full bandwidth afforded to them all the time. With users able to "boost" their down speed on demand to a potential 2Mbps users can benefit from what could be a cheaper broadband bill at the end of the month, but without sacrificing on the speed.

Following todays price reduction, FLEX Home 1000 now comes in at under £30 a month, which given the service has no data allowance cap and has the possibility to be boosted at will to 2Mbit, we think this is much more user friendly price point. Home users who fancy a bit of 2Mbit 24/7 will find themselves stumping up an extra £10 per month for FLEX Home 2000, at a not entirely unreasonable £39.99 - although the name is slightly misleading, as there's no potential to FLEX the 2Mbit to anything other than 2Mbit.

A table of the pricing changes can be seen below

Interested ? Then pop over to Eclipse.net to find out more.

Of a similar ilk to yesterdays article offering 2Mbit for under fifteen quid, Eclipse Internet, not to be outdone, have launched a similar package. Like Freedom2Surf's package though, data allowance is limited to just 1GB per month, although additional allowance is over 40% cheaper at just £1.75 per GB (compared to Freedom2Surf's £3 per GB). Additionally, as is usually the case with Eclipse - for the first month, they're offering no limits on the amount of data transfer.

Those tempted, would do well to remember that 2Mbit carries a fairly stringent acceptance test - currently lines only at 41dB or less are suitable for 2Mbit. However, Eclipse are promising that should a subscribers line fail the test for 2Mbit, they will install a 1Mbit service (or 512k if your real unlucky) for the same price.

A connection fee of £58.75 is payable for new connections to Eclipse or £12.93 if you are migrating from another service provider.

More details at Eclipse.net.

Eclipse Internet users looking for some mobile surfing are in luck, thanks to the ISPs launch of its ROAM Wi-Fi service. Whats more, it's free until the end of the year.

ROAM is available to both the broadband and dialup customers of Eclipse, and uses the massive network of BTOpenzone's hotspots (you can search for Hotspots through Eclipse's website here). Sites where the service is available range from MacDonalds Restaurants through to some PC World stores. The service costs 10p plus VAT per minute, which will be added to the Eclipse users subscription, although until 31st December, the service is free.

Eclipse have extended their referrer program to celebrate the 10,000th referrer order being reached.

Now as well as giving them points, which can be used to reduce or even eliminate the cost of the Eclipse services they use, they are rewarding the most active consumer and business referrer during the month of October.

Eclipse users...get referring!!

First came the rumours, now comes the announcement - broadband ISP Eclipse Internet have been bought by Kingston Communications.

There's no much to say about the purchase by the Hull based telco and LLU operator, however, the deal is said to net founder of Eclipse, Mark Lang a very respectable £12m. You can read more in the Press Release here (PDF document).

The UK broadband industry has seen a flurry of acquisitions through 2004 - and no doubt the trend will continue as more and more of the smaller ISPs are snapped up. Question is .. who's the next one going to be ? Answers on a postcard to ....

Eclipse Internet have now officially announced their continuation of their "free flex for a month" offer for new sign ups to the ISPs broadband packages.

Indeed this is not "new news" to ourselves, and probably not to our readership either. The more observant of you would have noticed the slight banner change on our site last week - detailing the continuation of the promotion throughout September.

Eclipse has qualified that "thousands of new users per month taking up FLEX Broadband" and that "this new way of working will soon set the standard for UK ISPs.". We agree. Watch out for products mimicking Eclipse's concept in the not too distant future.

Such was the success of Eclipse's recent August promotion offering new subscribers to one of Eclipse's FLEX products, a whole month of free FLEXing, the ISP has decided to carry on the offer through September.

New subscribers will pay either £17,99 per month for Home 250, £23.95 per month for Home 500 or £37.95 per month for Home 1000 (although it should be noted theres no FLEXing on the Home 1000 (1Mbit) product). In all cases, setup costs are £58.75 (all costs inc VAT). Typically the cost of FLEXing starts from 5p per hour, but new subscribers during September will get a whole month FREE.

<a href"http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=bbhome" target="_blank">Eclipse Internet

Eclipse Internet have announced their now "open for business" for advance orders for the ISPs FLEX suite of products following the earlier announcement by BT, who will soon revoke the distance parameter for 512k ADSL, which has been a stumbling block particulally for remote communities.

Accepting orders immediately, Eclipse hopes to get customers up and running with broadband around 5 days after the official order date of 6th September, although you may find this slightly conservative given the number of new orders that BTWholesale are going to get for broadband.

Back in June 2004, Eclipse Internet launched FLEX Broadband, a service that lets consumers upgrade their downstream rate upto a potential 2Mbit (dependant on base product), and all on the click on of a button - perfect for when that extra speed boost is required.

Coinciding with the launch of the Olympic Games today, Eclipse Internet will give a free month of FLEXing to all new subscribers signing up during the event in Athens between the 13th August (ie today) and 29th August 2004. FLEX packages from Eclipse cost from £17.99 (inc VAT) for a 250kbps service, boostable to 1Mbit upto £37.95 per month for their Home 1000 service.

[EDIT : Eclipse have advised that contrary to advisement existing FLEX Broadband customers will NOT be entitled to some free flexing. The offer exists for NEW customers only. Sorry for any confusion ]

More details and how to order FLEX Broadband can be found on the Eclipse Internet website. The press release is in the same old place here.

Looking for an ISP to supply you with broadband ? How about a 12 month service of Eclipse's FLEX Broadband Home 500 ? Sound perfect ? Well - thats whats up for grabs in our current competition.

You'd better act quick though - the deadline for entrants is TOMORROW (Friday 13th 2004) at 10am !

Entrry form and the usual T&Cs can be found HERE.

Good Luck !

As an addition and extension to their "Flex" range of products (see our previous article Here). Their service is expected to be up and running in September and with nationwide access at a number of broadband access sites.

BT were equally upbeat.

So, now you can be out and about and enjoy super fast Internet Access. This could well prove to be a boon for business customers on the move, allowing normal access to roving staff.

The full release can be found in the forum

Today sees Eclipse Internet release its new FLEX product suite - with its key feature permitting the temporary boosting of the subscribers Internet connection (obviously, where available), facilitating faster downloads. Also on the cards in a new 250kpbs product.

Its difficult to say if costs for "flexing" are competitive - as this is a fairly new concept being introduced. No doubt, time will tell when other ISPs start to follow. The table below shows the pricing structure for available FLEX Products (all pricing inc. vat for FLEX Home products, Ex VAT for Business).

More details and detailed pricing options can be found on the Eclipse web site.

BTs abandonment of their demand tracker for ADSL might have come to an end, but the telco's rollout of SDSL has not. The decision on which exchanges to upgrade however has been largely helped by Eclipse Internet, thanks to their www.wewantbroadband.co.uk campaign.

Announced earlier this month, BT detailed intentions to upgrade an additional 150 exchanges capable of serving out SDSL. Running their demand campaign, Eclipse Internet has received 4,500 registrations for SDSL services from businesses across the UK. This data will be used by BT to shape the rollout to areas where demand is the highest - akin to the infamous ADSL demand scheme.

Eclipse's SDSL services (where available) can cost as little as nearly a fith of the price of traditional leased line services. Prices range from £99 per month for 256kbps SDSL compared with £600 for Leased Line, through to £340 for 2Mb SDSL, compared with a staggering £1500 per month for Leased Line (source : Eclipse Internet). It is worth noting however that prices for SDSL here are contended at 10:1, whereas Leased Line would most likely be uncontented (1:1).

The full press release can be read here.

Following the recent announcement by BT that it plans to speed up the delivery of broadband services to rural communities, Eclipse Internet has revealed the scale of its  "We Want Broadband" campaign which was launched in January last year.

Since the start of the campaign Eclipse has sent out 320,000 Broadband promotional leaflets to its 800+ campaigners, 435 of whom have campaign web sites hosted for free by Eclipse. With the help of the campaign, more than 2,000 exchanges have hit their trigger and are either now broadband enabled or are in the process of being enabled. BT has confirmed that the take up of Broadband at exchanges that have been subject of a campaign is stronger than those that were upgraded without the pressure of a campaign.

The following sample of exchange registrations highlights the impact of the Eclipse campaign.

Eclipse Internet has announced details of a new dedicated and targeted ServerStatus telephone service for their customers.

Customers calling 0870 0549912 will be able to establish if their line specifically will be affected by a forthcoming PEW (Planned Engineer Work), or if the line is or has been affected due to an unscheduled outage. The service is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.