Entanet Opinion: ISP industry news and views

Poll: What do you think about the ASA review of ‘unlimited’ broadband?

Jul 12, 2010 Advertising, Marketing, Polls Leave a comment

Our latest article features a guest blog from co-founder of Thinkbroadband.com, Sebastien Lahtinen, regarding the subject of ‘unlimited’ broadband. Mr Lahtinen argues that the concept of ‘unlimited’ broadband is no longer viable and welcomes the proposed ASA review into ISP’s use of the terminology in their advertising of broadband packages. We agree with Mr Lahtinen but are also keen to find out what you think. Therefore we have added a new poll via which you can share your views. Remember you can also leave us a comment below.

• Entanet Opinion: Unlimited broadband: Fact or Fiction?
• Thinkbroadband.com: Advertising of broadband speeds and ‘unlimited’ usage to get overhaul

Unlimited broadband: Fact or Fiction?

Jul 5, 2010 Advertising, Business, Featured, Marketing Leave a comment

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.

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Is this the beginning of the end for the Great Aussie Firewall?

Jun 29, 2010 Government, Net Neutrality, Regulation Leave a comment

For several years now Stephen Conroy, Australia’s Communications Minister, has been waging war against the evils of the Internet with his proposed net filtering legislation aimed at forcing Australian ISPs to censor the web. As you may expect, he has come up against a significant amount of opposition from ISPs, freedom of speech advocates, the industry, politicians and the like.

Elsa Chen, General Manager

Possibly most damning of all is the latest report out of Australia which brands the proposed legislation as “politically toxic”. This is not good news for Mr Conroy as he plans to introduce this highly controversial Bill before the next General Election in October.

• The Register: Australian firewall wobbles under pressure from all sides

So what’s wrong with the Great Aussie Firewall?

The ‘Great Aussie Firewall’, as it has been nicknamed, was originally proposed and positioned as a method of tackling child pornography on the Internet and was expected to operate in a similar way to our own IWF watch list, with ISPs blocking access to potentially harmful or offensive sites. Nothing wrong with that you may argue. However, there are two significant differences between the Aussie Firewall and our own IWF list. Firstly, our IWF list is not mandatory or state run and secondly, the scope of the Australian filter is far more wide reaching. This is the real concern for many opposing the Bill. The Australian filter is based on the RC Content (Refused Classification) list which is compiled by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Opponents to the proposed Bill state that only one third of the list is actually made up of child abuse content. The rest, according to the ACMA, includes bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. However its opponents insist that the list extends beyond these.
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A promising start for the new secretary of state

Jun 10, 2010 21CN, Digital Divide, Government, Regulation Leave a comment

Jeremy Hunt, The Secretary of State for Culture, the Olympics Media and Sport has announced the Government’s plans regarding delivering superfast broadband to the UK. In his first speech on the subject he said: “Singapore wants universal access to superfast broadband by 2012, by which time Korea plans to have provided one million homes with 1 gigabit per second connections – a speed which can download a two hour film in just 12 seconds.

Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing

But in this country, the legacy was – in the same timescale – a commitment to a paltry 2Mbps universal connection. Necessary, of course, but pitifully un-ambitious compared to a Korean goal 500 times faster.

It is a scandal that nearly 3 million households in this country still cannot access 2Mbps broadband speeds, and less than 1% of the country is able to access the internet using modern fibre optic technology – compared to an OECD average of around 10%.”
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Poll: Do you think BT workers should strike over pay as the Communications Workers Union suggests?

Jun 7, 2010 BT, Polls 1 Comment

It has recently been reported that BT workers may go on strike over a pay dispute as reported on the Communication Workers Union website (http://www.cwu.org/bt-pay-campaign-2010.html). We would like to know your thoughts on this matter and have added a new poll to find out.

UPDATED: 12pm 11^th June 2010

Whilst we presumed this topic would be of significant interest to many of our readers, we didn’t expect the immense response it received. In the first three days of the poll going live we received a total of 123 votes, 94% of which stated that they support the strike and believe 2% to be a disgraceful offer. Only 6% of voters thought the 2% offer was reasonable. Most interestingly of all, when analysing the origination of the voters we noticed a significant proportion were using BT based IP addresses, leading us to speculate that many of our respondents may well be disgruntled BT employees. This wholeheartedly supports the findings of the CWU’s own polls and research and leads us to believe that we may be seeing strike action in the near future.