Broadband

Anything that uses or touches broadband

BT Doubles Broadband Entry Speeds
BT has announced that it will be doubling the speed of its entry-level broadband service.
The move was announced just hours after Wanadoo UK revealed its intention to tempt new punters with a two meg connection for just £17.99 (~€26 ~US$32) a month.
From tomorrow, all new and existing BT subscribers should be able to get 2 meg as standard, with no upgrade charges.
BT group managing director Gavin Patterson said: “Today’s announcement creates a standard of a minimum broadband speed of 2Mb for all our retail broadband services – these higher speeds open up a wealth of new possibilities for the use of broadband.”
BT’s generosity knows some bounds though, with its no frills package retaining its monthly usage limit at 1 gig.
As competition in the broadband sector heats up, customers should be able to take advantage of lower prices and faster connectivity.
This is the second free upgrade that BT has introduced, with the telecoms giant upping the speed for all of its retail broadband customers back in February.
Broadband users can calculate their current connection speeds with the handy app at ADSLguide.org.uk and check to see if their broadband speed matches their provider’s claims.
A recent informal survey on urban75.com asked over 60 subscribers to compare their broadband connection speeds using the ADSLguide Website.
I quickly learnt that not only was I paying more than most, but my BT connection was as swift as a sleepy sloth on a hot day compared to the rocket-like speeds quoted by others.
Seeing as BT has declared that the “battleground in broadband will be in differentiating services rather than price and speed as it is today”, I’ll be monitoring this upgrade very, very carefully indeed.
BT Broadband
20 July, 2005
BBC To Premiere Programmes Over Broadband
The BBC has announced a pilot scheme to premiere some new TV programmes before they are broadcast on over traditional channels.
The trial starts with the new BBC3 comedy series ‘The Mighty Boosh’, which will be made available for web streaming from July 19th, one week before its scheduled TV transmission.
Jana Bennett, The BBC’s Director of Television, said: “The broadband premiere of The Mighty Boosh is a significant step forward in offering our audiences even greater value in a changing television world.
“It is one of a number of pilots that BBC Television will be undertaking over the next few months, exploiting the opportunities that new technologies offer to look at how programmes might be delivered beyond the traditional linear broadcast.”
There’s something of a stampede starting up of companies ready and willing to experiment with video over broadband, with BT announcing that it planned to begin trials of video-on-demand (VoD) via broadband early next year, ready for a full commercial roll out scheduled for summer 2006.
Telewest also recently launched its own web-based TV service, initially offering four channels as part of a trial of 26,000 consumrs in the Cheltenham and Gloucester area.
BBC Broadband
8 July, 2005
DVB-H Digital Mobile TV Pilot For Spain
Abertis Telecom, Nokia and Telefonica Moviles Espana have emerged smiling from a big converging huddle with news of a mobile TV pilot using Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) technology.
The project, backed by major regional and local Spanish channels, is said to be the first of its kind to take place in the country and will serve up a feast of converged mobile communications and TV broadcasting technologies.
Scheduled to take place in Madrid and Barcelona from September 2005 to February 2006, the pilot will also coincide with the closing ceremony of the GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona.
The trial will let 500 lucky users from Madrid and Barcelona gorge themselves on high quality broadcast TV content from Antena 3, Sogecable, Telecinco, Telemadrid, TVE and TV3 on Nokia 7710 smartphones.
These will be equipped with a “special accessory” to receive the mobile TV broadcasts.
With the units sporting a wide (640 x 320 pixels) colour touch-screen and a built in stereo music player, users will also be able to take part in programme-related interactive services while viewing TV.
White coated boffins have already started technical trials, with the consumer pilot designed to allow the three companies to test the feasibility of the DVB-H technology and the new mobile TV services.
The trial will also allow interested parties to assess new business opportunities, tweak the user experience (ooo-er!) and measure public interest in mobile TV services.
Outdoor and indoor signal and broadcast quality will also be tested to help fine tune the best technical parameters for the viability of DVB-H based services.
The deal gives Telefonica Moviles responsibility for customer support, invoicing and interactive services, Abertis Telecom will be charged with broadcasting the programmes in Madrid and Barcelona – and taking care of technical issues – while Nokia will provide the Mobile TV solution and smartphones for the pilot.
Telefónica Móviles España
Abertis Telecom
5 July, 2005
Tiscali To Webcast Reading Festival
It used to be that attending a festival was more akin to a long trek in a distant country, with festival-goers vanishing for days on end, uncontactable by the outside world.
When they returned, battle weary and hungry, they could be assured of a ready audience as they retold their tales of epic mudbaths, day-long guitar solos and beery quagmires.
Sadly, festival goers might find the folks at home a little less interested in their stories as they can now view the entire thing, live and direct, from the comfort of their home PC.
Like Glastonbury, Live 8 and several other big music festivals, band’s performances at the Reading Festival will be available to view over the Web via a streaming Webcast, with official sponsors Tiscali providing the coverage.
The streams will be available through Tiscali with further exclusive archive footage streaming after the Festival itself.
Tiscali will also launch and host exclusive Tiscali Sessions in a specially created backstage Tiscali VIP Tent during the festival, with private performance footage being made available after the Festival.
Richard Ayers, portal director of Tiscali.co.uk converged: “Already many of the Reading audience will be buying most their music online so our involvement in bringing The Carling Weekend: Reading Festival experience to millions of online viewers only serves to prove further that broadband and entertainment are excellent bedfellows.”
The festival, now corporate branded into the “Carling Weekend Reading Festival”, takes place over the August bank holiday weekend.
Reading Festival
5 July, 2005
AOL video search; iTunes 4.9 podcasting; 24Mb Broadand in UK – News Round Up
AOL launches video search service
America Online has launched a free, enhanced video search that includes a new lightweight video viewer and speech-recognition technology claimed to give better results based on the audio of multimedia files.
The beta service, called AOL Video, offers free access to search and playback for more than 15,000 “video assets” from Time Warner, news clips from CNN, MSNBC and other sources.
The lightweight video viewer uses the playback engines of popular media players (such as RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and QuickTime) that are already installed on a user’s PC.
AOL reckons that the new speech recognition tools will bring significant improvements to its previous ability to search only closed-caption information provided by content contributors.
AOL plans to announce next week new content partners for its video-search repository with advertisers able to deliver ads relevant to the content chosen by the consumer.
With a demand for video growing as consumers switch from dial-up Internet access to broadband, AOL said that it plans to use video as the primary lure for consumers using broadband connections.
AOL launches video search service [ZDNET]
iTunes 4.9 rockets Podcasting into the mainstream
Podcast subscriptions have rocketed over the one million mark, with figures from Pew Internet and American Life suggesting that over 6 million Americans – nearly a third of the estimated 22 million owners of MP3 players – have listened to podcasts.
Tuesday’s launch of Apple’s iTunes 4.9 software – which lets listeners subscribe to and download podcasts – has left servers groaning under the strain of soaring downloads.
Will Lewis, management consultant for US radio station KCRW talked of a “stratospheric” increase in traffic since the iTunes 4.9 launch, with downloads increasing tenfold.
Podcasting goes mainstream [ENN]
Be* Unlimited to offer 24Mbit Broadband In UK
Life on the Web going to get considerably faster for some denizens of London, thanks to an ultrafast 24Mb broadband connection offered by Be* Unlimited.
The Billy Whizz connection will use a local loop unbundling (LLU) operation to launch a pilot scheme using ADSL2+technology in August.
Planning to eventually un-bundle exchanges throughout the UK, the London based company will be installing its high speed kit in 45 BT telephone exchanges throughout London.
Company founder Boris Ivanovic has already proved the viability of the service after a 26meg broadband venture in Sweden increased its revenue from US$1million (~€837k ~ £564k) to US$55million (~€46m ~ £31m) in just three years.
Be Unlimited First With 24Mbit Broadband In UK [BIOS]
Be* Unlimited
1 July, 2005
Teleport, TV-on-Demand Service Launched By Telewest Broadband
Cable company Telewest Broadband is making Teleport, its TV-on-demand service, available to over 26,000 customers in Cheltenham and Gloucester today.
As we reported last month, this forms the first stage of national roll-out which Telewest claims will “revolutionise” digital TV for more than a million customers by the beginning of next year.
The cable company’s Teleport service gives customers instant, 24 hour access to a vast library films and TV entertainment with users able to pause, fast forward and rewind the content, just like a DVD.
Sofa-loafing customers can access the service via the existing set-top box and remote control, with a simple on-screen menu serving up viewing menus.
Teleport Movies offers around 200 current and library films from FilmFlex, with rental charges costing between £2.00 (~$3.59, ~€3) and £3.50 (~$6.28, ~€5.20) for a 24-hour rental period.
Teleport Replay lets TV addicts users catch up on popular programmes from the previous week, and will include riveting programmes such as Eastenders and Casualty (be still my beating heart!), with Teleport Life offering specialist interest programmes.
Soon to be launched is Teleport TV, which will screen classic BBC series such as Morse and Waking the Dead and music videos on a subscription basis.
Freeloaders will be pleased to learn that Telewest is promising a “substantial amount” of free content, including soaps, comedy and documentaries, along with the usual pay-per-view and subscription options.
Subscribers to the company’s premier digital TV package will get most of the new content bundled in for free, including access to the entire TV package.
Eric Tveter, president and CEO of Telewest, mused: “Teleport has arrived and it’s genuinely going to change the way people watch TV. The schedule normally dictates viewing, but our customers will have the choice and convenience of a service they can tailor – it’s TV on their terms.”
Telewest Broadband has already been scooping up secured content from a wide range of providers including Filmflex, the BBC, Flextech, Discovery Networks Europe, National Geographic Channel Europe, Nickelodeon, Jetix (ex-Fox Kids) and Playboy TV.
Such is Telewest’s determination to snaffle a chunk of the burgeoning Video On Demand market, the company is whipping out its wallet like Ron Atkinson on pay day, investing around £20 million in the development of advanced TV services in 2005.
Telewest
30 June, 2005
BT Gets Botty Smacked By ASA Over ‘Free Calls’ Claims
Delivering a king size slipper to the ample bottom of BT, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that BT’s PC-based internet telephony service, BT Communicator, does not make “free” calls.
In one of its mailings, the UK telco behemoth had bragged: “BT Communicator – FREE UK Calls for a year” emphasising the freebieness of the deal with the strap line: “The power of BT Broadband to enjoy free calls for a year”.
But a concerned consumer in Kent was having none of it, arguing that by gleefully proclaiming “FREE UK Calls for a year”, BT was pulling a fast one.
The Kentish complainant pointed out that by using the VoIP service he’d rapidly burn up the 1 gig a month usage limit that BT slaps on its Broadband Basic packages – and once he exceeded that limit, he’d have to start forking out for additional time online.
Hauled in front of the ASA, BT mumbled something about the fact that they “had not intended to charge customers for the service, but they had not fully considered the impact of usage allowances on the ability to make free calls”.
The ASA was not impressed, making a savage sauté of BT’s nether regions: “The Authority was concerned that, although the promotion offered ‘free calls’, those calls depleted the monthly usage allowance that a broadband customer paid for on a monthly basis as part of their broadband package”.
Smarting from a derriere rouge par excellence, BT was told “not to describe calls that depleted a consumer’s usage allowance as ‘free’ and to state prominently in advertisements for BT Communicator that making telephone calls depleted a consumer’s broadband usage allowance”.
This ruling raises the suggestion that BT hasn’t fully considered the impact of VoiP usage allowances on its services.
With BT ramping up bandwidth-gorging offerings with innovations like video on demand and smarty pants hybrid mobile/landline BT Fusion handsets, the broadband experience of the future may prove to be a mighty expensive one for consumers.
BT Communicator
ASA
BT thrashed for ‘free’ VoIP call claim
29 June, 2005
Wanadoo Turns Orange
Long time customers of Wanadoo (formerly Freeserve) might be forgiven for forgetting who they’re connecting with after the company announced yet another rebranding.
Promising customers a “smooth changeover”, owners France Telecom will be bringing their Wanadoo service under the umbrella of their high-profile brand, Orange.
The move is part of a strategy to make Orange become “the Group’s international commercial brand for mobile, broadband and multiplay offerings”.
The well-recognised Freeserve name was taken over by Wanadoo just 14 months ago, but France Telecom insist that the latest rebrand will better reflect the portfolio of services to be offered.
These include combined mobile and internet access, a broadband telephone that tells with email notification and remote surveillance of your home through a mobile or a computer.
A spokesman for ~~Freeserve~~, ~~Wanadoo~~, Orange said: “The Wanadoo brand has been an enormous success enabling us to become a broadband leader in the UK. But we are now entering the era of convergence where our customers will experience a new generation of high value and exciting converged services.”
“These services will allow our customers to be able to communicate at home, at work or on the go. A single brand representing these integrated services – the Orange brand – is the way forward.”
The spokesman added that customer’s email services will be uninterrupted, with users still contactable whatever their domain name.
As convergence continues to impact in the teleco sector, France Telecom’s move should ensure that customers will get their mobile, broadband, video-on-demand and fixed line services all from the same company, slapped on the same bill.
If they’re not too confused, of course!
Wanadoo
France Telecom
29 June, 2005
BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband
In a cornucopia of convergence, BT has announced their intention to use the Microsoft TV Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Edition software platform to deliver TV over broadband in the UK. Internally within BT, the project is referred to as Project Nevis.
The Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform lets broadband network operators whizz high-quality video content and services down the wire to their customers using existing and next-gen broadband networks.
The platform delivers cost-effective and security-enhanced delivery of a whole gamut of pay-TV service offerings, including standard- and high-definition channels, on-demand programming, digital video recording, and interactive program guides.
There are extra consumer-pleasing gizmos in the package too, with features like instant channel-changing and picture-in-picture functionality using multiple video streams.
Unlike most consumer pay-TV delivery systems, the Microsoft TV platform allows network operators to integrate the delivery of pay-TV services with other networked broadband services in the home such as PCs, telephones, game consoles, mobile devices and other gadgets.
Gavin Patterson, Group Managing Director of BT Retail slipped on his buzzword moccasins and danced a soft shoe shuffle to his Big Vision:
“BT and Microsoft share a common vision for converged entertainment in the home. TV over broadband services will play an important role in BT’s triple-play offering for consumers. Our approach of over-the-air broadcast and broadband-delivered video-on-demand, interactivity and enhanced support is the perfect solution and complements existing TV propositions already in the UK market. The combination of Microsoft’s best-in-class technology with BT’s 21st-century network will result in an incredibly exciting set of next-generation entertainment and communication services available to consumers across the UK.”
As the sound of mutual backslapping threatened to reach ASBO-generating levels, Moshe Lichtman, corporate VP of the Microsoft TV division gushed:
“BT is a great example of one of the world’s leading network operators choosing Microsoft TV as the software platform for its digital TV and converged entertainment services.”
“We are very pleased to be working with such a well-respected and innovative operator as BT. Microsoft TV IPTV Edition will enable a full suite of integrated entertainment and communication services that will set the bar for what consumers will expect,” he added.
BT plan to start trials of the TV over broadband service in early 2006, with a commercial service expected to start in the summer of 2006.
Microsoft TV
BT
28 June, 2005
Broadband Wales Gets Mobile, Gets Smart
In a novel move to publicise the benefits of broadband for regional dwellers, the Welsh Assembly Government’s Broadband Wales Unit sent mobile Internet gateways scurrying around the valleys and mountains of lovely, lovely Wales.
As part of the multi-million-pound Broadband Wales Programme, three Smart Cars have been wired up so that so they can provide broadband access into Welsh communities on a six month road trip, snappily labelled Get Smart – Get Broadband.
Andrew Davies, Minister for Economic Development and Transport and e-minister donned his Steve McQueen racing gloves and opined: “We believe the very best way to spread the good news about broadband is not by sitting behind our desks but by hitting the streets of Wales.”
“That’s why we’re taking broadband on the road so that many people will be able to chat to our team of experts face-to-face, and get hands-on with broadband.”
The Get Smart – Get Broadband campaign revs up at Swansea Party in the Park this Sunday, where fans will be able to send messages (known in the vernacular as “shout outs”) from the Smart Cars to a giant onstage screen.
Launched in July 2002, the Broadband Wales Programme is tasked with achieving a competitive and sustainable broadband infrastructure across Wales by March 2007.
The Programme aims to increase access – and take up – of affordable broadband by individuals, communities, businesses and public sector organisations.
It’s hoped that increased availability and usage of broadband will play a part in “generating “a step-change that will help to underpin the successful transition from an industrial to a modern, knowledge economy.
Broadband Wales
17 June, 2005