UK Online is hoping to bring broadband to the masses by smashing the price point for “entry-level” home broadband down to a wallet-untroubling £10 a month.
The Broadband 500 service will offer unlimited 512K broadband (yes, unlimited!) from just £9.99 ($18.95,/€14.55) per month to UK customers lucky enough to be in their catchment area.
The company has also reduced the price of its unlimited Broadband 2000 (2Mb) service, to £19.99 ($37.75/ €29.13) per month, with its Broadband 8000 (8Mb) service – the fastest home broadband service available in the UK – crashing down to an affordable £29.99 ($56.64/ €43.70) per month.
UK Online will be utilising Easynet’s Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) investment, to offer the new price points for 512K, 2Mb, and 8Mb broadband to users on its network of unbundled exchanges – adding up to over 4.4 million homes nationwide.
Chris Stening, General Manager of UK Online, said, “LLU enables us to offer more innovative products than our competitors. Our unique 8Mb service has led the way on speed and now we are leading the way on price.”
Surfers not used to this level of generosity may be wondering where the catch is, but we haven’t found it yet: we wrote to UK Online and they confirmed that both the Broadband 500 and Broadband 2000 are unlimited services with the Broadband 8000 offering an enormous 500GB monthly download allowance.
The spokeswoman also added that none of their current customers currently signed up to the package have come anywhere near that limit yet.
Suitably tempted, we headed off to their site faster than a crack-fuelled ferret up a drainpipe, only to discover that we weren’t in an “enabled” area.
This meant that the service would have to be delivered via BT’s network, pushing the prices up to £19.99 per month for the Broadband 500 per month and £29.99 per month for the Broadband 2000 – with no Broadband 8000 option.
A hard drive, containing confidential data belonging to the Brandenburg police in Germany, was auctioned over eBay and bought by a student from the city of Potsdam for €20 (us$25/£14) according to a report by Spiegel, a leading weekly German newspaper. 
Last year, mobile security specialists Pointsec bought a load of hard drives off Internet auctions like eBay to find out how much sensitive company information they could unearth (and publicise their expertise in the bargain, natch). 
We’ve never quite been persuaded to move to 3, but these two price plans they’ve just announced sure look tempting. 
The second plan, “Talk, Text & Video 600”, is an enhancement to 3’s best selling plan, “Talk & Text 600”.As you’ve probably worked out, clever reader, this new plan bundles in 3’s video mobile services to the £35 (US$65/€50) a month package. 
Bob Fuller, 3 UK CEO swivelled on his heels and span out the corporate spin: “3 is the fastest growing network in the UK, we now have over 3 million 3G customers and we continue to lead the market for both value and video mobile services. With these new price plans 3 continues to set the pace for value in the UK mobile market. 3 was the first network to launch live, over-the-air, multi-player gaming, the first to stream concerts live over video mobile and first to launch quickplay video streaming of 3’s content.” 
Irish VoIP solutions provider Cicero Networks has announced its first major telecom provider deal with Talktelecom Ltd, an independent, fully licensed General Telco Operator, based in Dublin. 
“Cicero Networks’ integrated end-to-end solution has given us a fast time-to-market in delivering a truly innovative and cost-effective wireless voice service,” buzzworded Talktelecom CEO, Johathan Mills. “Cicero lets us grow our existing business and enter new markets while delivering a substantial return on investment in a short time,” he added. 
Living Streets, a national charity, launched its election campaign, “Talk to me about streets”, by making street items like paving and signs talk back to passers-by in Meard Street, Soho, London. 
Paving ‘squealed’ underfoot to point out the dangers of tripping over broken paving while spooky whispering windows resonated with the sound of absent children, no longer able to play in our dangerous streets. 
Living Streets Director Tom Franklin explains, “The streets are the one public service that everyone uses. Politicians can directly improve people’s daily lives by improving the street environment.” 
Verity Parker, who is doing an PhD at Brunel investigating electrical conductive fabrics, worked with Stock Displays to produce talking street signs, labelled in standard UK form, but with short audio samples. 
‘The street that talks’ has the support of the Royal National Institute of the Blind, (RNIB) which also campaigns for streets and the built environment to be more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. 
An accompanying new Living Streets’ pamphlet – written by two of Britain’s most eminent architects, Lord Richard Rogers and Sir Terry Farrell – was also unveiled at the event. 
Online retail giant Amazon.com has scooped up the ‘printing fulfillment’ company BookSurge, which maintains a catalogue of thousands of book titles available for users to print on demand. 
The company will now offer (cue: North American accent) “inventory-free book fulfillment” to publishers through BookSurge Publisher Services and to authors through BookSurge Publishing. 
Although e-books are still a small part of the current online book market sector, significant growth is expected by publishing companies and online retailers. 
Cappuccino-supping Hoxtonites will be cheered by new figures showing that online advertising spending grew by a thumping 60% in 2004, edging ahead of radio in terms of market share for the first time. 
Online spending went against the overall general advertising trend, with total UK spend rising just 5.8% in 2004 to £16.9bn (US$31.7bn/€24.7bn) in 2004, based on figures from the Advertising Association and WARC. 
Pace Micro Technology, a cutting edge UK digital set-top box provider tasked with developing emerging technologies across all television platforms, has trumpeted the launch of a number of STB’s and PVR’s, including the Laguna DC551HD and DC 501 Chicago all-digital set-top box. 
Pace is also offering the Tahoe DC775 HD-DVR, claiming it to be the most advanced high definition DVR for North America, and the first cable set-top box to offer features based on next generation silicon. Interestingly it offers a number of ways to save video content to the 160Gb hard drive – Standard Definition (SD), High Def (HD) and enhanced analogue. With multi-room video distribution and support for high-speed data connections for home computers, wireless routers and VoIP included you might be wondering what isn’t included. 
Pace Americas’ VP of Technology Chris Dinallo had clearly feasted on a diet of buzzwords before adding, “All-digital and digital simulcast are critical industry initiatives, and uniquely, Pace is proud to be the only set-top box provider that can support all-digital on both networks.” 
In a break with cinema-tradition, HDNet Movies viewers will be able to see Alex Gibney’s highly acclaimed documentary “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” on the very same day the movie premieres in US theatres. 
Napster UK has teamed up with Channel 4 to broadcast a short series of live TV music shows, creating the first national terrestrial television programme to be run by a digital music service. 
Building up to a crescendo of mutual backslapping, Sharman added: “Channel 4 has a deserved reputation for groundbreaking and forward-looking programming as well as championing live music, so we’re delighted to make our TV debut on their platform. Napster is also extremely fortunate to have a partner like Blaze TV whose production skills, expertise and contact book have proven invaluable in creating this series.”