Unlimited broadband: Fact or Fiction?
Jul 5, 2010 Advertising, Business, Featured, Marketing
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Following the recent news that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is planning a review of ISPs’ use of terminology such as ‘unlimited broadband’, we invited Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com, to guest blog on this subject.
Sebastien Lahtinen
- ThinkBroadband.com: Advertising of broadband speeds and ‘unlimited’ usage to get overhaul
Why ‘unlimited broadband’ is not a viable business proposition in today’s economic climate
In the last few years, broadband service providers have been offering what they call ‘unlimited’ broadband services in the hope of attracting customers in what has been a growth market. This has been possible as, historically, capacity of ISP networks has not been a major limiting factor when the typical broadband service was anything up to 2Mbps.
Tags: Advertising, Business, Marketing
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Loading ...Fuss ‘n’ Fibre
May 17, 2010 21CN, BT, Business, Digital Divide, Featured
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Everyone seems to be talking about fibre at the moment – the industry news is full of it. What with BT announcing expanded fibre coverage and numerous providers announcing new fibre based services and participation in BT’s latest fibre trials, it seems to be one of the industry’s current hot topics. So, just what is going on and what is all the fuss about?
Elsa Chen, General Manager
Towards the end of last year BT ran trials of FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) which provided speeds of up to 40Mbps by utilising fibre optic links to street level cabinets and delivering connectivity via VDSL2 technology between the cabinet and the premises. The trials ran until late December and proved successful. Entanet itself was involved. Since then a number of providers including BT Retail have announced the availability of their FTTC based services with prices ranging from £19.99/month up to £179/month for various packages and options.
But why stop at 40Mbps? BT recently announced its latest round of FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) trials which are expected to provide speeds of up to 100Mbps by delivering a fibre based connection right to the premises. Once again Entanet has been significantly involved from an early stage, starting off with the Kesgrave trials way back in 2008 where we experienced customers reaching speeds of 98Mbps.
Tags: 21CN, BT, Business, Digital Divide
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Digital Economy Bill: The end is nigh…
Apr 9, 2010 Copyright, Digital Divide, Featured, Regulation
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So, the Digital Economy Bill has passed its final stage before Royal Assent and is now, for all intents and purposes, going to be made law – much to the dismay of many ISPs and Internet entities including Google and ISPA.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
We think it’s laughable that the Bill has been passed through the House of Commons with such speed. After three readings in the House of Lords without prior consultation with those in the Internet access industry and many ill-considered amendments, its passage through the House of Commons has seemingly been accelerated to light speed. The correct political term I believe is ‘pre-election wash up’. This basically means that, whilst we and others have only been able to debate this controversial Bill indirectly, the government has been able to get it passed as quickly as possible before the election. As both of the major political parties agreed on the majority of the clauses within the Bill, they’ve managed to do it easily and with little proper debate, consideration or collaboration with industry.
Tags: Copyright, Digital Britain, Digital Divide, Regulation
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Scoring goals with broadband?
Mar 24, 2010 Digital Divide, Featured, Regulation
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In the run-up to the General Election expected this May, the main parties seem determined to make broadband a political football in an effort to win over supporters. This is typical electioneering of course and, in the end, it’ll be down to industry to actually make things happen in the ‘real world’. In true political fashion the winning party will then blame industry when its over-ambitious deadlines are missed, while claiming the credit for every future milestone it thinks industry should be on target to achieve.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
We only have to review progress on the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) though to see that the parties understand little about the moral and practical steps involved in managing Internet access for UK residents and businesses. Both the Labour and Conservative parties’ plans and promises are at best badly thought-out and almost certainly won’t be achieved without the constructive and experienced contribution of the industry bodies and service providers (large and small) that make the UK Internet access market tick.
Let’s look at their claims on broadband. Gordon Brown has said that he wants to make Britain “the world leader in the digital economy” by 2020 and ensure that all homes in the UK, especially those in rural areas, have access to ‘super-fast’ broadband. At this early stage some obvious questions go unanswered. What’s his deadline for delivering ‘super fast’ broadband to absolutely everyone? What actually constitutes ‘super fast’ broadband in his mind? How is the cost going to be covered? Of course as the potential final whistle for Labour looms, this hasty kick from the sidelines is to be expected given the Conservatives’ mindless counter-attack claim that they’ll deliver “100Mbps broadband across most [what does ‘most’ mean?] of the population” by 2017 if/when they take the trophy to No.10.
Tags: Digital Divide, Regulation
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Open Rights Group slams the Digital Economy Bill
Feb 17, 2010 Copyright, Featured, File Sharing, Regulation
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Entanet has invited guest blogger Jim Killock from the Open Rights Group (ORG) to give his views on the Digital Economy Bill (DEB). Here he explains why he belives the Bill is fundamentally flawed and advises how you can change it before it makes law. We welcome his comments and encourage you to add to the debate.
Jim Killock, Executive Director, ORG
It’s time to stand up against the DEB
The Digital Economy Bill is bad. But exactly how bad, and for who, is only now being properly debated. Those following the Bill closely have known for some time that unacceptable shortcuts are being proposed to detect people accused of illicit file sharing.
Many of you will also be very clear in your own mind that it’s not possible in most cases to equate a customer’s IP address with an individual who may have infringed, yet this is exactly the approach the Digital Economy Bill tries to take. The result is that current government plans will target anyone with a computer with more than one user, or a network.
Beyond households it will, as a result, also impose substantial costs on hotels, restaurants, cafes and eateries who offer free Internet access to their customers – costs which are likely to severely disrupt their business. The Federation of Small Businesses and the British Hoteliers Association are among those raising these concerns.
Tags: Copyright, Filesharing, Regulation
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