Posted by Admin on January 20, 2012 – 2:23 pm
Virgin Media will upgrade the speed of its broadband service from February. The speed will double for up to 4 million customers. The companies top speed will also increase from 100mbps to 120 mbps.
The upgrade is expected to be completed by mid 2013 and will cost the company £110 million. Virgin Media’s chief executive Neil Berkett was reported as saying ” The internet has become an integral part of our social, work and family lives, so we think our customers are going to love this ” ”We want to make sure that our consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection. ”
In a statement, Prime Minister David Cameron said ” I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media. It will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet. Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a crutial part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy.”
Customers currently signed up for 10mbps with Virgin will be upgraded to 20 mbps free of charge. Users currently on 20 mbps and 30 mbps will both be boostered to 60 mbps. Anyone on 50 mbps will be increased to 100mbps and anyone on the current top speed of 100 mbps will find themselves on an amazing speed of 120mbps. Broadband usage limits will be doubled to accommodate the increased speed.
It is unlikely that customers will even notice the upgrades actually taking place and there will be no charge fro any of the work. However some customers who have old modems will need more up to date equipment which will also be free of charge.
Posted by Admin on January 9, 2012 – 5:42 pm
BT and members of the public have objected to Talk Talk claiming that its new internet security system Homesafe is the ‘Uk’s safest broadband’
The ad campaign and further marketing has now been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority who say that the advertising suggests that Talk Talk customers have the safest online broadband experience of any provider.
The ASA said that consumers would assume that stating that the system was the safest would suggest that they had full virus security and hacking protection. Homesafe , however,simply aims to block children from accessing adult content.
Talk Talk have argued that they have the best security at’ network level’ which provides alerts to sites with possible viruses and allows parents to control their childrens access to certain websites. Although ASA are not sure it the average consumer will understand what network level means. There is no security for wireless connections.
The ad campaign has now been banned although the company is happy with the outcome as they feel they can advertise the network security aspect of Homesafe.
Posted by Admin on December 8, 2011 – 12:54 pm
Orange customers with a monthly contract will face a 4.34% increase in the cost of their plan. Users with a monthly payment of £35 will pay £36.50 form 8th January.
The good news is that there will be no increase in the cost of calls, text messages or internet access.
Consumer groups are said to be furious that exisiting customers are affected by the increase as they can be tied to a contract for 18 months or longer. Which Technology Editor Matt Bath was reported as saying ‘ This is a poor way to treat people. Existing customers should get the price that they signed up to for the remainder of their contract. Anyone who is fraustrated by this rise should complain to Orange and the regulator Ofcom’
There is also a big increase for Orange customers who have an IPhone and make a claim for a lost or damaged phone. They will now have to pay £50 instead of £15 excess payment for an Apple handset.
Customers should contact Orange to complain in the first instance and then complain to Ofcom.
Posted by Admin on November 21, 2011 – 6:11 pm
Virgin Media have announced that they are working towards upgrading their broadband networks. They intend to offer the fastest broadband speeds to their subscribers and revealed at the beginning of November that they are now offering 100Mb broadband connections to a third of the UK.
Virgin has been rolling out fibre optic broadband since the beginning of 2011 and expect the project to be completed by mid 2012. This should see and extra four million homes having access to superfast broadband speeds.
Virgin Media have announced that they will create a new innovation lab which will produce new products and services for superfast broadband.They will be working alongside Londons ‘Silicon Roundabout’ startup incubator. They plan to have members from TheCube trying out new products and services via superfast broadband networks.The first project will be trialed throughout next year.
Virgin will be competing with BT Broadband who are constantly making headlines as they upgrade networks throughout the UK. Only last week they reported that broadband speeds in Somerset will be doubled.
Virgin Media seem determined not to be outdone.
Posted by Admin on November 7, 2011 – 6:27 pm
Akamai, a content delivery provider , has provided a report for Q2 2011 called’ State of the Internet ‘ monitoring broadband speeds in over 230 countries to determine the fastest broadband speeds.
When it comes to average broadband speeds the UK is ranked 25th in the world. We are behind such countries as Latvia, Romania and Slovakia.
South Korea comes in top with an average speed of almost 14Mpbs, followed by Hong Kong with a speed of 10.3 Mbps and third Japan with 8.9Mbps. Uk was 25th with an average speed of 5.0Mbps. This was behind Latvia with 8.2Mbps,Romanias 6.8Mbps and an average broadband speed of 5.8Mbps for America. Germany came 21 st with a speed of 5.3Mbps and France was 39th with 3.9Mbps.
However it is thought that if the UK concentrated on rolling out broadband just in the cities our results would have improved considerably. Also because the broadband market is so expensive in the UK many customers have not yet opted for the faster broadband deals on offer which means that average speeds in the UK are much lower .
Posted by Admin on October 14, 2011 – 6:39 pm
Blackberry finally restored service last night to millions of smartphone users after a three day global meltdown.
It is thought that up to half of its 70 million users suffered disruption to their e-mail, web browsing and instant messaging following a failure in a ‘core switch’ system which receives and redirects millions of messages etc every minute.
Blackberry may now face a huge multi million compensation bill which could be a disaster for the company. Users will no doubt now be contacting their mobile networks to claim compensation.
It was reported that the companies co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Baisillie have not ruled out compensation but that they have no immediate plans to offer it. Their initial priority was to get the system up and running again.
Blackberry will now need to rebuild its reputation as Apple is launching its rival handset the IPhone 4S in the Uk , America and other countries today.
Posted by Admin on October 13, 2011 – 6:00 pm
A computer crash at Blackberrys data centre in Slough, Berkshire,has caused a loss of service for at least 10 million of their 70 million users over the last three days.
There was disruption in the Middle east and Europe on Monday which spread to India and Latin America on Tuesday. Users in America and Canada also complained of disruption on Wednesday.
The exact cause of the failure in still unknown but there are reports of a power failure or ‘ core switch failure’ at the Slough HQ. Mobile phone companies would usually take responsibility for the failure of a device but the are overwhelmed with complaints right now and are still unsure when the service will be up and running again. There is a huge backlog of messages building up accross all servers.
Users are already asking for compensation or refunds for the period without service but so far no offers have been made by Blackberry or its mobile network partners. Bookmakers are said to be taking bets about how long it will be before normal services are restored.
Posted by Admin on October 9, 2011 – 5:43 pm
The Advertising Strandards Authority has conducted an eight month investigation into internet speeds advertised by broadband providers.
After criticism from telecoms watchdog Ofcom about the speeds advertised and the actual speeds that are provided by internet companies the ASA has released preliminary results.
It showed that in May the average speed advertised was 15Mb but the actual average speeds for users was vastly different at only 6.8 Mb .
ASA intend to significantly tighten its excisting policy and says that providers can only claim average broadband speeds if 10 % of customers can actually receive that level of speed. They also say the the average speed must also be shown in the main part of the advertisement and not hidden away in the small print.
However although it is believed that provider have agreed to this the ASA feel that 10 % may not be enough and the percentage may be increased to between 20% and 80% .
These recommendations will only apply to broadband companies using copper wire.
A further report is expected later this month.
Posted by Admin on October 4, 2011 – 12:28 pm
BT customers accross the UK are experiencing problems with their broadband due to a power failure.
The fault, which is at a major exchange in Birmingham, has meant the loss of internet services for BT customers in several areas of the country, including London , Bristol, Cardiff and Yorkshire.
BT have said that the problem would only have lasted ‘for little more than an hour ‘ for most people and for most the problem had already been sorted out. A spokesperson was reported as saying ”Our engineers are on site and the majority of customer’s service has already been restored. We are working to restore service to the remaining customers as soon as possible this afternoon”
”Should any customers continue to experience difficulty in accessing their broadband service, they are advised to turn their hub or modem off and on again”.
Although the problem was said to have affected thousands of BT’s customers this would be no more than 5% of BT’s overall network.
Posted by Admin on September 25, 2011 – 5:34 pm
For the second quarter running Talk Talk is at the top of Ofcom’s complaints list for both broadband and telephones.The most complaints for mobile services, according to the Ofcom report, were made by 3UK customers. O2 was the least complained about mobile provider.
Between April and June more complaints were made about phone services to Ofcom about Talk Talk than rivals BT Retail , Virgin and BSkyB. Also during that period more of Talk Talk customers complained about broadband than Orange, Virgin, BSkyB and BT Retail customers. Figures only consist of telephone complaints made to Ofcom and do not include complaints made direct to to the providers. Virgin was the least complained about company.
Talk Talk ‘s broadband service had 0.58 complaints for every 1,000 customers and its landline section had 0.8 complaints per 1,000 customers compared to Virgins 0.15 for both broadband and landline services.
These figures will be a big dissappointment to Talk Talk especially as complaints have fallen during the past year. The company was recently fined £3m by Ofcom for incorrectly billing 65,000 customers for services that they had not received.
Customers wishing to make a complaint should in the first instance contact their provider. If the problem is not resolved an independent advisor, such as Ofcom, should be contacted.
