ISPA 2007 Winners Announced
Friday 16 February 2007 10:13:01 by Sebastien Lahtinen
The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) held one of the most entertaining award ceremonies last night to celebrate the winners of the ISPA 2007 UK Internet Awards.
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The judging panel felt Eclipse's 'zero-touch' automated order processing service and rapid delivery of its broadband services as well as its efforts to provide an uncapped broadband product were key to it being chosen as the winner of the award. They also awarded a commendation to Be Unlimited for pushing the limits of broadband capabilities in a consumer market with its 'up to 24 meg' broadband offer.
The business broadband award winner Datanet offers a range of packages with customised options which make it suitable for businesses of any size and the judges were particularly impressed by Datanet's SDSL services. The judges also awarded a commendation to Zen Internet for their dedicated support service offered to Apple Mac Users.
In addition to the ISP division awards, The ISPA Awards also host the Special Division which is intended to bring to the public's attention organisation which have had a significant impact on the Internet Services industry.
The Internet Watch Foundation Award was handed to The Home Secretary's Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet for their multi-agency forum of a vast array of experts to contribute towards policies and good practice documents which in turn help make the Internet safer for children.
The Corporate Social Responsibility Award was awarded to Orange for its support for the Internet industry through its work with the National High Tech Crime Unit and the Home Office. The judges also acknowledged Datanet for its support of a local hospice, ntl:Telewest for its CSR monitoring team and Claranet for its general charity work.
Internet Villain is a rather entertaining but still serious award given to an individual or organisation which has upset the industry and its nominees include e360 insight, the company which tried to sue UK company SpamHaus, an anti-spam campaigning group that published lists of IP addresses of spam sources, in the U.S. courts. The award however was given to Commisioner Vivianne Reding and the European Commission for producing "the most arcane set of rules yet seen for prior registration of .eu domains, requiring UK registered companies to submit legal affidavits to justify the authenticity of their business."
The final award, Internet Hero, was given to Annie Mullins from Vodafone for her work with the Home Office Task Force on Protection of Children on the Internet and the EU's Safer Internet Programme.
Details of the finalists and the process can be found in our previous article.
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And what about Biscit? No awards this year. A tradjedy. The ISPA always seem so keen to back them when I had problems last year... These awards are a classic case of Buggins' turn anyway..
dc
Eclipse? I nearly choked on my tea!
Like all industry awards these are just an excuse for a slap up meal, lots of booze and an oggle at the waitresses. The ISP that values its customers doesn't really exist except in the warped mind of the marketing bods.
Eclipse ? Tiscali ? Claranet ?
Makes me wonder who these people actually are that vote for these ISPs.... It certainly doesn't seem to be their customers, from what I've read on the forums on this web site....
staff member)
about 1 year ago
Remember the selection of finalists is an automated process involving testing of the services so it's objective. The selection of winners is done by the judging panel who can take into consideration other factors about service levels, customer service, etc. I think sometimes some users on this forum think because they have a bad experience with the ISP, most of its users must be very unhappy, which is not always the case.
Please credit your subscribers with a little more intelligence, Seb. The ISPA Awards are given to memebers of the ISPA by ... the ISPA! NTL's inclusion is living testament to that. It's just a publicity stunt and no doubt thinkbroadband got an invite to the booze up, assured by your thorough coverage of this non-event. True, just because some customers have a bad experience with an ISP not all their customers do, but it's usually the case!
Eclipse? Uncapped? How else do you describe half maximum speed for most of the day? just proves awards are rubbish invented by the industry for the industry.
I left Claranet last year after five years dial up only because of their broadband pricing to go to Eclipse broadband.
I fail to see why there so much sniping at these providers as I have nothing but praise for for both of them. You get what you pay for.
rjohnholder is lucky to get half max speed for most of the day. I should get up to 8Mbps from Tiscali, line test said 6.5, but in fact the HIGHEST I've recorded is 3.2! On occasions I've only clocked 256Kbps!
has anyone got any comments about Be Unlimited? I would love to see some reviews. I have been reasonably content with the much maligned Bulldog Broadband for the last 3 years, but find their speeds have dropped since their acquisition by Pipex.
Biscit too big now??
Biscit service used to be beyond reproach - they have in the past even called me to say my service was down. But since they made their big aquisition the technical support has gone from bad to worse to non-existant. I have two recent incidents when they hae never called back or emailed and one query with them regarding their flaky firewall is now five weeks old with no resolution.
It all seems very incestuous to me!
Tiscali?? Best anything??
My "Best Advice" award would be "don't subscribe to Tiscali"
Best Portal Probably means the website & "fly trap" web site & marketing looks good .
Probably the worst Customer service on the planet, I note there's no awards for that - Tiscali would be right at the bottom.Once they've got you, that's it. No help whatsoever unless you really persevere. Most customers probably give up & leave.
Let's hope the mandatory MAC now helps their victims ( sorry, customers) to get away with the minimum of interference.
What no comment about Virgin.Net, must be some mistake and can't be true. Upgraded in January from 1 to 8mg speed package and actually received .3mg at busy times, yet paying more money.
After being a long term Virgin customer decided to up sticks and changed to Zen and what a difference, as they actually deliver what the say all of the time and the service support is fantastic too.
Don't look elsewhere, save all that time and stress, just call Zen Internet they look after you.
As an Eclipse user, I have to say the ISPA has just lost all credibility in my eyes. Eclipse have had a very poor response rate to any issues I've had and the farce that has been the support and upgrade of their Webmail offering is disgraceful.
staff member)
about 1 year ago
(seb comment part 1 of 2)
GJS1 - I have sat on the ISPA judging panel for three years (I didn't sit there this year) and I can state unreservedly that ISPA does not select the winners. The judging panel is not an industry one but people from various organisations, some of which are academic/charity based and others from media/organisations such as us who have experience from the consumer point of view. ISPA Awards are always controversial.. I think most people miss the fact the short list is based on technically objective tests and the winners are selected on the services they provide.
staff member)
about 1 year ago
(seb comment part 2 of 2)
This isn't just about looking at the last 3 months but what has happened in the last year. Clearly as I wasn't on the panel this year I can't say why they made particular decisions, but I can say the judges didn't all agree with each other before.
I'm at the head of line to criticise ISPA like when they develop an Internet Telephony award which measures the wrong thing.. see previous news on that. I think many people have a very narrow view of what is a good ISP though.
seb what sort of crtieria do they look at to pick winners then? It seems odd that an isp that shapes won that reward.
Also what is different between best consumer isp and best consumer broadband?
Eclipse... best consumer ISP... with their current throttling policy? I nearly choked on my lunch!