Broadband in the UK in 2006

Thinking back it's been a very interesting year.

Major shakeups brought about by the so called 'free' broadband offerings from Carphone Warehouse and Sky have delivered many subscribers to both companies, with CPW struggling to service these customers and major delays for Sky installs reported elsewhere.

Triple play became 'quad play' as ntl telewest acquired Virgin Mobile, on the back of the merger of the UK's 2 dominant cablecos (not forgetting Kingston Communications!), and the cablecos pushed the standard broadband speeds expected by consumers up yet again further, delivering more consistent speeds than the LLU providers are now starting to advertise.

As mentioned on previous blog posts, ISPs are trying to differentiate through deals with big providers - Sky being the latest with their agreement to work with Google, following the trend started by the BT Yahoo linkup, which you don't hear much about these days. Expect the likes of Yahoo and Google to sign up more ISPs in 2007.

Other notable ISP movements included BT's acquisition of Plus net and the Easynet brand disappearing into Sky broadband. AOL UK became part of CPW, Tiscali UK is rumoured to be up for sale (although hotly denied) - they've already superseded Homechoice this year - and Bulldog finally pulled the plug on more residential subscribers.

I'm expecting 2007 to lead to further mergers and acquisitions as the market experiences much the same pattern it did with unmetered dialup - we'll be left with a small core of very large players providing broadband services in the longer term, which is understandable given the investment needed to provide the next generation of services.

Also expecting more content driven services and further speed increases.

Sky claims 1m broadband customers

As reported by the Independent on Sunday. Murdoch is also claiming that he can supply broadband services to more homes than the cablecos. Which is interesting as I thought that the cablecos also owned Virgin.net, which runs over BT phonelines (serving 99% of the country) ...

More search developments

The addage of search being the one guaranteed way to make money on the Internet (other than porn!) is leading to yet further search developments. The creator of the brilliant Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has announced plans for a wiki driven search engine. More at the BBC article here.

Wales' view, according to the article, is that existing search engines "lack freedom, community, accountability and transparency". Caveat emptor is the best advice here - find a search engine that works for you and stick with it. Personally I'm happy with Google.

Speaking of them from Mountain View, The Register's reporting that their blog search has now overtaken Technorati, largely due to them heavily promoting it on their main site. I prefer the Google search anyway.

50Mb broadband in 2008 from ntl?

After many teaser comments about this in various statements over the last year or so, this article suggests that 50Mb broadband from the cablecos will start rolling out in 2008.

The future of IWF and censorship concerns

Speaking of good articles, the feature over at El Reg about the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) today is enthralling reading.

Discussed is the familiar concern over censorship and scope creep towards the IWF with the government always being keen on blocking more.

This is a really hard one - the spirit of the Internet and its openness are very important, but so are any measures to block clearly illegal content on the Internet. In the case of child abuse images, this is an easier one to tackle as these are illegal worldwide, hence the IWF CAI (Child Abuse Images) list being widely implemented in the UK.

However, if the government is going to otherwise step in and regulate, is it not better for the industry bodies to introduce self regulation first to ensure that whatever is implemented is both sensible and practical?

Google and Yahoo! dominate 2006 news

Good write up at the BBC website about the challenge for Google and Yahoo to drive value in 2007 through alliances and more focused product launches and management.

I gave up using Yahoo years back because of all the advertising on its site, the same reason I now avoid sites with popups even though I have a popup blocker. It cheapens your brand guys.

More quotes of the year

Now everyone is doing it! Mobile marketing magazine's version has a slightly sarcastic dig at some, but still makes you smile.

You can find their list on their website.

I particularly enjoyed the world cup one from someone at Virgin Mobile:

“We want England fans to be match-fit and ready to give our boys all the support they can muster. The post-match kebab has become a ritual in towns up and down the country, so offering fans a taste of home while they are on foreign soil might help.”
Virgin Mobile’s Steve Rogan explaining how Virgin’s offer of free kebabs to England supporters would help the team bring home the World Cup. Any bright ideas for 2010 Steve? (June)

Just finished the corporate blogging book ....

Enjoyed very much, lots of food for thought - excellent read from Debbie Weil. Get a copy from Amazon UK.

Is 2007 set for a 'bandwidth explosion' ?

Well, if you're aligned to these business guys you'd say yes.

What's a wooen slad?

Seen on assembly instructions for an Xmas present. Presume it meant to say wooden slab. BTW, they were actually Assmbly Instrctions too ...

Big things for 2007

The Beeb are convinced that Vista is the biggest thing to hit tech in 2007 - and they may have a point.

Many Internet users still unprotected

The BBC website is reporting just how many Internet users are still not fully protected:

"The survey found 17% of people had no anti-virus software and 22% had no firewall. A further 23% said they had opened an e-mail attachment that came from an unknown source."

Which just goes to show the challenge that security companies and ISPs still have to educate their customers (propective and actual) of the need to secure their connection.

The Get Safe Online survey also has some other scary numbers about how afraid some people are when online of being targetted for cyber crime. Remember to take as much care with your details online as you would with a credit card in a restauarant, and that security software is often free from your own ISP, or a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Also reported was that a honeypot PC was attacked on average every 15 minutes, even more serious than the research recently from a leading security company (I think it was someone like Symantec) that a new PC on the Internet takes on average 15 minutes to get infected by a worm.

65% in the UK to have Broadband by 2010

As is being reported by the Guardian website. This is according to a report from analyst firm Screen Digest, with much of the growth being attributed to 'free' broadband offerings.

Also reporting the expected growth of triple and quad play services, the market that Sky are now targetting with their Easynet acquisition to take on the cablecos. May the best man win.

Consultancy buzzwords part II

More on consultancy buzzwords from a colleague:

"Buzzwords are getting out of hand. I just saw a reference to "meme mining". It's getting silly."

More on Vista security

More comment seen over @ the BBC about Vista's security model and both the positives and the negatives that this will generate. Also clear that the model of attacking the user rather than the system will persist when the nasties for Vista start coming out, showing further that the social engineering techniques that have been so effective in the rise of phishing aren't going away.

Blend-a-barbie

What better idea for naff Christmas presents than to put them in a blender? Personally I got great presents this year :)

Usability in the movies

Amusing piece over at useit.com about the top 10 bloopers that Hollywood makes when using computers in movies.

Things like unfeasibly big fonts and the fact that the hero can automatically use any foreign OS without any familiarisation are only too recognisable!

Consultancy buzzword of the year

If 'blamestorming' was the consultancy buzzord (or BS!) word of the year for 2005, I'd have to put my vote for 2006 against 'solutioneering', which I heard a consultant use in a meeting. Answers on a postcard as to the meaning.

92.6% of all e-mail is spam

Scary Number

Regardless of whether you think that number is accurate, it makes you stand up and take attention.

This figure is reported by Postini in a BBC online story about 2006 being the year of spam. The number wouldn't actually surprise me, the biggest surprise is perhaps that the BBC have stopped quoting everything MessageLabs say and are using someone else!

We've all seen a significant increase in spam in the latter months of 2006, much of it being pump and dump in my experience, along with plenty of 419 scammers and Viagra and other medical spam.

So what can be done to counter this?

There's a type of Internet user who wants their ISP to hold their hand and will turn on the ISP when they receive spam, causing cost, aggravation and other problems for the ISP. At the other end of the scale is the more technical early adopter Internet user who wants no intervention from the ISP whatsoever.

In balance, a mixture of approaches is needed - automated rejection from the ISP for known spam (i.e. using a list such as Spamhaus'), tools (spam folders, delete / tag options etc) delivered by the ISP to help manage the problem for the customer - ideally ones that they can control the config of (although this creates confusion for some customers accordingly) and client side tools that the customer is responsible for and manages the configuration for.

Will e-mail be rendered useless by increasing spam levels? I suspect that we'll be a lot closer to answering that by this time next year.

Most popular documentaries of 2006

Interesting reading that some data from cableco ntl reveals that the most popular documentary of 2006 is one about the nauseating Jordan and her spectacularly dull life.

The top 5 also included Walking with Monsters, a re-creation of the last day of Pompeii, Tsunami and Volcano specials - so we still like our natural disasters as a nation.

Vista flaws

Looks like some serious flaws in Vista are starting to bubble up to the surface, going by the story over at news.com.

Is it going to be any better or worse than any other Microsoft OS though? When I've been to see them in Soho before their line has always been that there are just as many flaws in any other OS, just that they're more targetted than anyone else. Am sure many would disagree !

New Logitech webcam

Got a shiny new webcam for £79 at Curry's on Xmas eve. It's this Logitech one, and seems to be excellent - prices coming down as technology gets better as usual. Only problem is that I can't get the sound to work on Skype now that I have it - looks like a driver conflict with the sound card, but then again beanie did install the sound card!

Oh well, seems to work OK on MSN and it's another gadget anyway.

Commerce waits for no man

In the wake of the recent legalisation of MP3 player broadcasters to your car radio, interesting to see just how quickly these have swamped the shops - was in Curry's yesterday and they're everywhere, proving that time is never an object when there is money to be made.

Happy Xmas ...

The perils of blogging

As a relatively new blogger, I must watch out for pitfalls! Many of the online sites are reporting a man who has been hounded out of Barrow-in-Furness for dissing the town on his blog. Some of the official company statements from the firm he works (or is that worked?) for seem to be discouraging blogging - there will always be loose cannons but it's got more upside than down.

Bad e-commerce experiences

Would go hard to get past the SoccerScene order I had to try to get a new rugby shirt for a present this year:

1. Take order
2. Charge credit card
3. Send me e-mail to tell me its been dispatched
4. Send followup e-mail to say it's out of stock and hence the card refunded (one working day before Xmas)
   

Apart from the fact that I'm feeling spammed by them, I'd have to ask 2 questions:

1. How was it out of stock if it was actually in their London Carnaby Street store the next day?
2. How was it out of stock if it had already been dispatched?

Either way, as expected no reply to my e-mail to customer services. My consumer pound goes elsewhere in the future.

Annual nasties from Panda software

Slashdot is reporting that Panda software's annual list of Internet nasties is out - a cursory read (it's late!) emphasises just how many advances (if that's the word) have been made, another challenging year in '07 for the security vendors ...

Vista readiness

News.com from CNET are running a handy Vista readiness checker, as demand is set to kickoff for Microsoft's new OS.

According to the checker I'm short of the minumim sound card to hit the recommended minimum spec, but then again I'm not exactly in a hurry to upgrade with so many software packages not ready for it yet.

allofmp3.com to be sued

News that allofmp3.com is going to be sued by American record companies for selling music without permission. However they claim that they are paying royalties in their native Russia. Watch this space.

10 more amusing things said in 2006

1. "Getting 9 women pregnant does not get you a baby in a month"
2. "We've identified our end user and are in the process of speaking to them, apologies for any incontinence caused by our end-user."
3. "Is that the website website?"
4. "You go to the login and hit the login that then logs you in"
5. "What about the thingies that go through the windy circles?"
6. "We're looking for a common database built in a common way"
7. "So do we prefix the code at the beginning or the end of the account number?"
8. "For the sake of simplementature"
9. "The sheep are quite static a round here"
10. "I'll put that into the question funnel"

Blogging resources

Having picked up a copy of The Corporate Blogging Book (just about finished, interesting read), I'm now trying out some of the online blogging resources. In the case of http://del.icio.us , I'm impressed by a cool onling bookmarking resource - definitely an area that's improved over the years.

Also goes to show that I don't spend anywhere near enough time just out there on the web trying new things out - a 2007 resolution is coming on I think!

BBC to use P2P for content distribution

Also spotted on the BBC news website, the Beeb have become the latest commercial (well, you know what I mean) broadcaster to start using P2P as a content distribution network, with the announcement that they will be using Azureus for distribution of some of their content online.

Can they find a working chargeable model for their content distibution over file sharing networks? The hard core sharers aren't going to pay for it, but is there a market here that will finally prove the often said cliche that content is king on the Internet?

I'll believe it when I see it ...

Ofcom target broadband mis-selling

News that Ofcom are going to target mis-selling by broadband providers, with the maximum penalty being 10% of their turnover. I fully support this, as have seen some horror stories over the last year as free broadband offers come to market.

Speaking of great quotes

Well, I was a second ago. Great one seen in the paper yesterday, from a small kid on a Voxpop:

"Why did Joseph and Mary name their son after a swear word?"

LOL, topical no doubt. Merry Christmas to all ...

"Four phases is even simpler than three"

One of the sillier things said in 2006 by a colleague, other notable examples:

1. "I have a large 12 inch"
2. "Can you tell me what time the 1pm meeting is?"
3. "Can you spare an hour if you want to corrupt me"
4. "Can you ask the question again? I couldn't hear cos I was on mute"
5. "Westminster is actually in Westminster"
6. "Putting a number on that is like nailing jelly to a wall"
7. "Correct me if I'm right"
8. "If you make something idiot proof you just get better idiots"
9. "Microsoft guarantees delivery of e-mail messages"
10. "The client's going to be the client"

And that's just up to July, and not including beanie. Why was 2006 so promiscuous for people spouting nonsense?

Credit goes to Asanga and to Joe, for at least two each of the above ... want to see the rest of the year?

linkedin.com

One of my favourite sites is www.linkedin.com, both from a social networking and a competition perspective. While beanie has a contest against a mate of his on the number of connections they can get, I'm miles ahead of both of them with now having 344 connections.

Is it silly or fun? Who cares, I enjoy it :)

Confused parents

Spotted when using Google blog search (hey, I like me gadgets!) that there's been a surbey about what confuses parents when it comes to gadgets.

More @ the Test Bed - http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2006/12/dubious_claims_.html

Much as the author is a little dubious on what was behind the research from the cableco ntl, it does backup for me the generation gap when it comes to technology - the challenge for those who make the gadgets is how to market them to the younger generation, while at the same time keeping it plain English for those who hold the purse strings.

Also shows that I must be getting on - I didn't know them all and what they were without a Google search either ! :)

So, what else appears to be happening in the world today?

Shane Warne's retiring from test cricket. Much as he can be a bit of a hate figure in this country, you'll really miss him when he's gone - best bowler I ever saw.

Chaos at Heathrow thanks to the fog - my train got delayed yesterday by fog. Was it the wrong type of fog? Was it fog on the line? Either way, terrible time of year for it to be happening.

I'm now off for Xmas, and waiting in for the final present deliveries. Got a window of 'between 0800 and 2000', or I can travel to Brighton to pick them up. Surely there's got to be a better way to do this? Can we have a link on e-commerce sites saying "Yes, we use rubbish delivery companies" or "No, we're not cheapskates" !

Also of interest, NASA have called Google in to help them out with some of their computing nightmares - logical sense to call in the experts when you have trouble managing it yourself.

Top 20 weirdest gadgets of 2006

Tech Digest has released their list of top 20 weird gadgets of the year, and I must therefore be weird cos I'd like quite a few of them - I mean who doesn't need a USB pole dancer by their PC?

Another brutally busy day in the runup to Christmas, been talking e-mail all morning and my brain hurts! Last working day until the 27th though, looking forward to a week off ...

Britons take offence to selling on presents

El reg is reporting today a study saying that Britons take offence to their presents being sold on via eBay and other sites.

Yet at the same time these are probably the same people who separate their rubbish into blue and black sacks and say how keen they are on recycling their rubbish.

Raises a serious question - what are you supposed to do with the 900th pair of black socks or, in my case, the Westlife CD? Unless you can find an owner locally, why not sell it on and get something you actually want with it?

Is it just me, or does Christmas this year really feel like its not upon us yet? Things haven't slowed down and even being booked into meetings on days off this week - no doubt next week will be quieter, but its very hectic!

The same source is also reporting a thumbs up for Windows Vista accessibility - wonders never cease! Seriously it's about time that this happened with a Windows OS, so I look forward to be pleasantly surprised when I do get my hands on a copy.

Anyway, back to the blogging book ! :)

Amazon is great

Only placed an order at 3pm yesterday, and the first 2 books have arrived anyway - some Christmas reading - Richard Branson's "Screw it, let's do it" (a phrase I'm hearing a lot of at the moment) and The Corporate Blogging Book, which should make for some interesting Christmas reading.

And on top of that they also keep my mate Russ gainfully employed, well done Amazon ! :)

Confusing gadgets

So a new survey has come out today to say that parents are confused by gadgets out there in the market. Well, when I were lad, we used to dram of sexy gadgets ...

Seriously, easily understandable - if us technology fans have problems keeping up to date with the latest acronyms, its not surprising that the mass market get well confused.

As for what gadgets I'd like for Christmas, a PVR would be nice!

This blogging Malarkey

I guess if I'm going to have a go at this, I might as well take it seriously. Intrigued by the Corporate Blogging book that the chap on the train was reading on Friday night, so I've just purchased a copy from Amazon.

Watch me get ever more corporatey then ! :-)

Orange and Google talking

So, Orange and Google seem set to announce a deal for an integrated Google phone. Does this not tie Google into proprietary deals across Europe? What about in the US, where the cellular market has been playing catchup to Euope for many years?

Interesting times await ...

Tiscali up for sale?

Speculation in the Independent on Sunday that Tiscali, the Italian owned ISP that this year bought out Homechoice in order to be able to offer more video delivered services, may be up for sale.

Is the Broadband ISP market going to consolidate in the same way that the dialup one did post the unmetered days? A colleague reminded me the other day just how many dialup ISPs there used to be in the listings when Internet Magazine was still around - the vast majority of them being 'Mom and Pop' outfits.

What's been happening this week

This week on the net featured Ofcom's ruling that the MAC code process was going to become compulsory for moving between ISPs. Rightly the cableco's have asked for clarity and its been confirmed that this will only be between ADSL ISPs.

Common sense breaks out !

Microsoft's rollout of IE7 continues, using "encouraged" rather than forced upgrades. Some websites are reporting that 33% of their site users are now using IE7, up significantly from around 20% a week ago.

Other than a few minor problems that some vendors are reporting and working on, the new browser seems to be working smoothly enough, although it does seem to be copying Firefox quite a lot in some functionality such as the tabbed browsing.

This user isn't going to give up his beloved Firefox though.

The one thing that did wind me up about IE7 was the phishing filter screen continuously popping up even when I told it to go away - and this user will cater for his own needs in that area thanks very much Bill - but as I only need to use it to get into work e-mail from home it's not going to cause me that much hassle.

Reports seen of Yahoo backing down over the latest release of their messenger tool, which has various trojan like behaviours. I've tried a number of IM clients over the last year; while most people I work with and know are on MSN, I'm really liking Google Talk and the web interface offered within Gmail. It has various features that remind me of the IRC clients of old, and I can also use the web interface at work which is incredibly convenient.

Met a chap on the train last night who was reading all about corporate blogging - he's keeping in touch with a friend in far east who no longer e-mails news to people but blogs it for their friends and family - great use of technology and a cool idea. If you're reading this a big hello, and I'm off to find a copy of that book.

England's losing the Ashes embarrassingly again - where would they be without Monty and Pietersen? - and Liverpool's away at Charlton today. Tabloids were trying to play up a non story yesterday of a feud between Stevie G and Les Reed, which only goes to re-iterate that the tabloids are no great friend of the greatest football club in the world. Walk on to the 96.

The solution to naff Christmas songs

From the fab guys at b3ta, this beats all rubbish Christmas songs you'll be hearing in the next couple of weeks!

Shiny MP3 player arrives

After having chased it up a couple of times, my shiny new Virgin Megastores style MP3 player arrived today, which I got for signing up for my sexy red Virgin credit card.

Now the big question is whether to give it to someone as a Christmas present and look like a complete cheapskate, or to give it to beanie in excahnge for calling off the silly pre-season football bet which is going to cost me a very expensive curry.

Need a voting mechanism for the site - I can feel an X-factor style "you decide" poll coming up :)

Of course if it is beanie, his 5 free downloads will be completely incomprehensible to me.

Christmas

Today I've mostly spent time doing some online shopping - well I didn't have much else to do when I lost network access via the other network I use.

Imagine what i would be doing otherwise to get all the stuff needed for Christmas, whereas I've actually spent an hour or 2 getting the lot together while not having to run around a lot of shops.

Message of the week is that Froogle is fantastic, closely followed by eBay.

Wonder what I'll get tho? I'd like a new right winger for Liverpool as Pennant is rubbish.

How we have come to rely on the net

Today we had a network upgrade at work, and this resulted in some loss of Internet access while some problems were resolved subsequently.

My how many people wandered lost! For a technology that has been around such a relatively short time, it's worth taking a step back and realising how deeply intwined it has become with our every day life.

All the more reason why for me there is no doubt that the invention of the Internet (followed by that of the web) was the greatest of the 20th century.

Ofcom and MAC codes

So, news today that Ofcom wants to make the MAC code process mandatory for ISPs.

What's slightly concerning is that this seems to imply that this will be for all ISPs doing Broadband in the UK.

Given that the MAC is what is used to port an ADSL line from one ISP to another, you'd have to wonder what the cable companies will do with it other than say "that's nice then". Can't see them doing anything else with it.

Parental Control Kitemarks

I see a BBC news story today mentions that the government intends to bring in a British Standard Kitemark for parental control software.

This has got to be a good thing. Let's face it, anyone worthwhile in this space is likely to comply to it as such software is generally standard in what it does, and as a parent you'd want the confirmation that the software complied with minimum standards.

What will be interesting to see is how much the process is going to cost software providers and ISPs, as whatever they pay we end up paying.

Broadband for the masses

Interesting supplement in The Observer yesterday, doing one of the better jobs I've seen of explaining broadband to a non-technical audience without patronising them.

Also a good write up about the challenge of getting the 5 billion people in the world who aren't online onto the Internet, and one debunking some of the myths you hear about broadband in South Korea from those who don't understand (or aren't interesting in the reasons!) why the UK doesn't have the same model.

Anyway lovely wet miserable day - I'm off to Birmingham!

blueyonder wins customer satisfaction award

News this week that blueyonder, the ISP of Telewest, has won the prestigous JD Power award for customer satisfaction amongst UK ISPs for the second year running.

News story from which can be found here.

Looking at the full results, the performance and reliability of the network ranked particularly well, as did the customer service and technical support.

ntl world finished bottom but with significantly improved results on last year, which just goes to show that the "best of both" message after their merger this year does appear to be what is happening.

Independent customer satisfaction research is always the most satisfying - well done guys. Big challenge for 2007 will be to make the new ISP after the rebrand the number one.

Saturday morning ramblings

Been an interesting week with market research being one of the key topics of conversation. Internet users still seem to follow the old addage that one of my bosses coined once :

"As an Internet user, I frequently make the mistake of thinking that everyone uses the Internet in the same way that I do".

Companies pay well for good, independent market research. It's not in their interest to have skewed results, as research is a weather vane as to how things will actually be should a product be launched for example, to see what takeup from customers would be. However, it is an area that seems to generate great cynicism, I wonder how much of this is due to historical issues with political parties running their own opinion polls ahead of elections?

One of the other hot topics of the week is Vista, and just how ready Internet providers are going to be for it.

I think that people really don't understand the scope of the change that is between Windows XP and Vista - the security model for example is an utterly different beast, and it's not surprising that some of the software companies have waited for the full OEM release before they update their software for Vista.

This will of course create lots of fun and games for Internet providers, who will be effectively supporting it on a best endeavours basis until their partners can get their software updated to take into account the new OS - but that's nothing new for most ISPs, and they'll muck through and do the job well as per usual.

Anyway, time to watch some Soccer AM :)