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Ask4 have announced today that they will be taking over all Digital Region contracts from ISP RipWire, who last week announced they would be ceasing trading. Ask4 will be making contact with RiPWiRE's customers over the next week to transfer services without interruption to service they claim.
"We believe in offering fantastic service and fanatical support to our customers and are working hard to move RiPWiRE’s customers with as little disruption as possible. It is our goal to move customers to our network with absolutely minimal down‐time, and our support staff will be contacting customers directly to make arrangements."
Jonathan Burrows, Managing Director, Ask4
Ask4 began in 2000 as an ISP providing broadband to multiple-tenanted buildings in Sheffield, and has since expanded in to other areas within the broadband industry.
TalkTalk's quarterly results were released this morning with some interesting numbers. The ISP's unbundled customers grew by 17,000, although their SMPF customers (those that do not use TalkTalk for phone line rental) fell by 46,000. They now total 4.079 million broadband users. 90% of these users are now 'on-net', i.e. use unbundled equipment in the local exchange. The company insists this is better for business because of the more profitable customer mix. 130 new exchanges were unbundled this quarter, with an expected 119 to follow next quarter, which will put TalkTalk in front of BT Wholesale's WBC ADSL2+ rollout. The total number of exchanges enabled is 2,338.
The company have also reported that the launch of YouView, the set top box which will allow customers to watch catch-up TV is on track although no official date has been set for its release.
The figures also indicate that customer service has improved for TalkTalk, a touchy subject in the past. Calls to customer services fell by 26% in the last year, with over half of queries handled online now.
"We have continued to improve our customers' experience with further falls in customer service call volumes and an increase in the rate of online self-service. As a result, churn has stabilised and we remain confident of a return to positive total net adds in the first half of 2012."
Dido Harding, Chief Executive of TalkTalk
TalkTalk Business had a slightly less profitable quarter, with revenues falling over the Christmas period. As a result overall revenue only grew by 1.6%, slightly less than expected.
Today TalkTalk announced it would be offering new customers 'active choice' in using their HomeSafe service. The Internet Service Provider, which launched the parental control service in May 2011 will now ask all new customers if they wish to activate the service when purchasing broadband from them, rather than the consumer having to do it themselves once the broadband is installed and running.
"Ensuring new customers make an active choice about parental controls is a good start in improving the protection for children online. It will mean new customers will have to decide whether they want parental controls on their Internet access. I look forward to continuing to work with industry to ensure children can safely enjoy the Internet."
Ed Vaizey, Communications Minister
So far around a quarter of a million customers have started using HomeSafe, a network level security product which is designed to protect children from inappropriate web content, one of its kind so far in the UK. According to TalkTalk, suicide and self-harm sites are the highest blocked category by customers so far.
"Creating a safer online environment for children is similar to car safety for children in the 1970s which included the Green Cross Code, compulsory seat belt wearing and car seat use. While no technical solution alone can solve the issue of internet safety, we believe that it is our duty as an ISP to provide our customers with simple and effective tools like HomeSafe to help them protect their families online. We hope that by offering all new customers an upfront choice about activating HomeSafe they will realise there is a wealth of support available to them."
Dido Harding, (Chief Executive) TalkTalk
The move to 'Active Choice' by TalkTalk comes after a recommendation was made in the Bailey Review by the Government which looked in to the commercialisation of children. It is expected other service providers will follow suit in the coming months.
With the vast changes in how social media allows people to stay in touch all the time, the 2012 Olympics do look set to demonstrate large levels of internet traffic, but the diversity of connection methods, communications providers and large number of fibre backbones connecting major cities across the UK and to the rest of the world mean that the talk internet meltdown by the Cabinet Office look very like scaremongering.
An article in the last weekends Observer runs with the headline that the internet could crash due to the London Olympics, and web access be rationed. A lot of the Cabinet Office concern may stem from a Department for Transport (DfT) pilot, Operation Footfall run in August 2011, that saw staff experience internet connection problems as part of a homeworking experiment. The pilot forms part of Operation StepChange that is meant to show how staff can work from home, embracing video conferencing.
While there is no doubt that event locations will see heavy access to resources like mobile networks for both text, voice and data, the networks should be well versed in handling large events through lessons learnt at places like Glastonbury, Wimbledon and other major events in the last few years across the UK. The deployment of more Wi-Fi hotspots by providers particularly in London may off-load some traffic, and will also allow overseas visitors to access the internet without recourse to expensive roaming agreements.
The limited capacity of most Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile masts means that even if everyone in a stadium tweets at the same time, the effect may simply be that some tweets are a little slow getting through. The ability for a large crowd in one part of the UK to crash the UK internet as an entity is ludicrous.
It is entirely feasible that some home broadband providers may suffer more peak time congestion than is usual, but talk of rationing web access makes it sound like providers may disconnect parts of the UK for hours at a time. Congestion due to spikes are not uncommon and the good providers will be well used to handling them, if anything the calendar for the Olympics allows for better planning. Video streams and for example people wanting to watch the 100m final after missing it are likely to be the biggest source of traffic, but many services have distributed Content Delivery Platforms that ensure that expensive backbone capacity is not wasted, i.e. a stream can be delivered once to a cache, and played back to multiple people from a location in a providers network.
There is some merit to small business and medium businesses located near an Olympic venue who plan to have staff working from home actually testing that this backup plan does actually work. For example can the systems that currently only have or two home workers using them actually handle twenty people it at the same time. Larger businesses which have dedicated bandwidth leased line connectivity, and extensive diverse location hosting solutions should be able to cope as they have ensured that their business has no single point in its communications network.
The summary is that normal contingency procedures should allow businesses to continue to function, and the Olympics for broadband providers will really just be a series of daily traffic spikes, which may not follow the standard pattern. The wall to wall coverage on digital TV should ensure most people will be able to view most of the major events live or on +1 channels with no difficulty. Alternatively if you want to escape the Olympics we are sure there will be plenty of cheap holiday deals across Europe.
There are now some 3.5 million Wi-Fi hotspots accessible by BT Total Broadband customers for free around the world. This is a mixture of BT hotspots and the Fon network, with some 380,000 locations in London, 25,000 in Birmingham and Leeds, around 20,000 in Manchester, Edinburgh and Sheffield, and more than 11,000 in Liverpool, Brighton, Bristol and Cardiff.
To help people access the hotspots three apps are available for the main types of smartphone, the Android and iPhone apps have been available for a while, now a BT Fon Blackberry app has been made available on Blackberry App World. The apps to date have clocked up some 900,000 downloads.
Broadband has since it emerged from trials in the UK in 2000 has allowed people to work from home, thus it is no surprise to see home working being trumpeted as one of the benefits for the superfast broadband roll-outs planned.
"We really wanted to come back to Norfolk to be closer to family and to let our kids grow up as we had, with the lovely Norfolk countryside and people. This wouldn't have been possible, however, if it wasn't for broadband and it’s no coincidence that we moved into Great Moulton at exactly the same time that broadband arrived there too. Being in the technology industry, however, I also get to see what’s coming down the pipe and one thing is for certain – we’re going to need faster internet connections.
If we don’t, then people who live in our beautiful county will soon start to fall behind the people who live in cities in terms of the services and communications they can access."Neil Collins, a senior manager for Metaswitch Networks
The Eastern Daily Press article highlights that homeworking has progressed beyond just simply replying to emails while sat in the garden. In 2012 it involves remote access to company resources that may be located all over the world, taking part in video conferences and long team meetings where people share documents and real time product demos.
This flexibility and access to a decent connection is one of the key things to the growth of online workplaces like oDesk.com, where clients can pay per hour, with screenshots and video uploaded to document the time that homeworkers are actually working on a project. The model used by oDesk favours those who are able to charge low rates, which will often be people in Eastern Europe it seems (based on hours worked on their website per country), but for contractors in the UK, or those who have specialist skills a good broadband connection is the key to staying in contact with a client. The reporting system also provides some structure, which all too often people who have worked in an office environment struggle to cope with when first working from home.
Global 4 Communications has acquired the customer database of old Pipex and Bulldog customers, with the service moving over to be Global 4's responsibility in January 2012. Peoples billing will be moving to Home Telecom (the consumer part of Global 4) in February and those affected should get a copy of the letter below informing them of changes to their direct debit.
Customers of Pipex and Bulldog are apparently retaining their existing terms and conditions. For those looking at Home Telecom or those new customers looking to change packages (always worth checking as prices have reduced over the years, and many are on older slower, more expensive 30 day contracts), they offer a £23 broadband product in around 80% of the UK, in the remainder of the UK it will cost £25 a month and those in this last 20% are subject to a 75GB monthly allowance, with excess usage costing £1.25 per GB if the limit is exceeded in two consecutive months. Their package comparison indicates broadband is available for £11.65 a month, but this price is only achieved if you take their £27.99 service which includes line rental, broadband and 300 minutes of calls.
One thing that jumps out from the Home Telecom product pages, is that they list contention ratio's which went the way of the dinosaur some years ago. Contention still very much exists, but fixed ratios cannot be calculated, which makes it even more amazing that they claim figures of 33:1 for Sky, 50:1 for BT, Virgin Media and Talk Talk. The on-site description of contention ratio appears to mislead people as it was never about sharing your connection with another user, it was about sharing the capacity of the backhaul that in itself was always bigger than your own connection. There was one provider (Tiscali) who at some exchanges when 1 Mbps was a common connection speed, would only provide 2 Mbps of backhaul, and populate this at 50:1, i.e. have 100 x 1 Mbps customers on this little link, which would obviously give worse performance that other 50:1 providers who had larger backhaul links.
The Broadband Support Scheme in Wales has offered £1000 grants to residents, businesses and third sector organisations since 2010 and has seen 2,038 applications that have been approved at a cost of £1,662,709. A further 232 applications are being assessed. The scheme was due to end at the end of March 2012, so the extension to cover the gap between then and when the Next Generation Broadband service will start delivering ensures small businesses and residents do not suffer. The winning bidder of the Next Generation project is set to be announced in March 2012.
The £1000 grants don't just have to be spent on individual solutions such as a satellite connection, the St Brides Wentlooge project has seen a microwave backhaul link being used to supply a connection to a street cabinet just outside Nellive Park. The project is an example of a successful community led application to the scheme involving some fifty people. Spectrum-Internet are offering services over this link from £15 a month for 4 Mbps, 5GB usage through to £35 for an 8 Mbps connection with 100GB usage allowance. A prioritised throughput service for businesses with 150GB allowance is available for £45+VAT. The set-up fee is £999.99 for the service, which for those eligible is covered by the grant.
"Running a number of businesses requires a strong, fast, reliable internet connection and it has been essential while setting up Tiny Rebel Brewing Company. We are in constant communication with the Tiny Rebel Studios in Los Angeles, a games software manufacturer which is run by my son and our graphic and website designers in Canada,
Our new connection is tremendous. It means our download speeds have increased dramatically enabling us to work more efficiently and improve communication, especially with our overseas suppliers. "Ian Cummings, Director of Evol (Wales) Ltd
Ian's latest venture is a micro-brewery that lays claim to being the only micro brewery in Newport - Tiny Rebel Brewing Company, which has grown from development brews in the garage.
"The St Brides project is one of many community schemes we are supporting around Wales and demonstrates how effective the Broadband Support Scheme is in eradicating notspots and supporting communities to deliver a sustainable broadband service to rural areas of Wales."
Business Minister for Wales, Edwina Hart
RiPWiRE is best known by many for being one of the retail providers for the FTTC Digital Region service in South Yorkshire. Alas it seems RiPWiRE has ceased trading according to a post from Liam Winder on the RiPWiRE support forums, importantly for customers their connections are still working.
The communication purported to be from RiPWiRE indicates that while they have ceased trading, they will continue to provide service while negotiating with another provider to sell the customer base. RiPWiRE did not solely service Digital Region customers, they also provided a variety of wireless connectivity (28GHz Microwave for heavy lift back-haul, 802.16d 3.6GHz WiMAX connectivity).
The Digital Region website now lists the four providers, ask4, Origin, unitel and littlebigone and is very much still operating, though the costs of running a new network in the face of increasing competition in the superfast arena from Virgin Media and the BT Group are not helping the project.
Eleven months ago Virgin Media had its 100 Mbps service available to only one million of the homes its network passes, this figure has now increased to ten million. The roll-out is also on course to complete this Spring, rather than as previously expected in the Summer of 2012. The latest parts of the UK to get access to the service are Bromley, Dundee, Norton Hawkfield and Staverton.
The completion of the roll-out is significant as it will mean 100 Mbps is available to half of UK homes, this should improve the UK's standing in the various league tables. Though the fact that the slower and cheaper products are still available and the majority of Virgin Media's customers opt for the cheaper products mean that tables based around speed tests will not accurately reflect what is available.
Virgin Media is not standing still, and the speed upgrades along with network capacity investment announced in January 2012 will help to boost the average speed on their network, and that of the UK.
The various press releases about speed upgrades, and faster fibre options from Openreach could be seen as a broadband war, and at times there does appear to be tit for tat style releases appearing. While two large groups with shareholders are never going to see eye to eye on many things, we hope the drive for headlines will not be at the expense of the quality of service delivered to customers.
