UK Broadband Internet Service Provider News

UK broadband Internet service provider news and the latest broadband company press releases. Access the latest new broadband deals and broadband service updates, including broadband news from BT, AOL, Tiscali, Eclipse, Orange, Utility Warehouse, TalkTalk, Virgin & Telewest.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Virgin Media honesty over past customer service

According to the Telegraph, Virgin Media's head of internal communications, James Weekly, offered some brutally honest perspectives of past customer service to fellow internal communications professionals at the Royal Society of Arts this month.

With particular reference to NTL, Mr Weekly referred to the previously poor customer service and other challenges faced by Virgin Media since a complex merger of NTL and Telewest, under the Virgin brand. His frank references were of a history of "crap service" and "very tired people", along with a "synergy hell", caused by ongoing staff reductions of 6,000.

A spokesman for Virgin Media offered the following comments:

"This shows a brutal honesty about what happened before and the challenges that lie ahead.

"The perception is that a Virgin company generally sails along with no problems at all but becoming a Virgin company isn't easy.

"You can't just stamp Virgin on it and everything suddenly goes well. You are overlaying a very entrepreneurial risqué culture on to what was essentially a utility."

For Virgin Media, these disclosures come at a sensitive time, ahead of their £20m marketing relaunch of NTL as Virgin Media.

Virgin Media

Labels: ntl-broadband, telewest-broadband, virgin-broadband, virgin-media-broadband

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Virgin Media soon to launch

Aligning the services of NTL, Telewest and Virgin.net, Virgin Media will soon launch, bringing their respective TV, broadband, mobile and telephony services under the combined Virgin Media brand. A flavour of the new suite of Virgin Media services is available via a sneak preview PR site - www.knowfirst.co.uk, along with the opportunity to win one of 10 invites to their 'glitzy star-studded' party to celebrate the launch of Virgin Media.

According to this site, it would seem that Virgin Media will launch with a choice of three packages - Medium Virgin TV (incl. 2Mb broadband), Large Virgin TV (incl. 4Mb broadband) and XLarge Virgin TV (incl. 10Mb broadband), each with progssively more TV channels (129 TV channels with XLarge) and an inclusive phone line bundled in with the price. Exclusive content worth £35 per month and he peace of mind of Internet security (PC Guard) is to be included with the Large Virgin and XLarge Virgin packages. It is not clear from KnowFirst.co.uk exactly how the telephone element of each package will work, aside from mention that Virgin Phone services will range from Talk Weekends to Talk Unlimited.

Labels: ntl-broadband, ntl-telewest-broadband, telewest-broadband, virgin-broadband, virgin-media-broadband

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

ISP Finalists - Best Consumer Broadband

ISP Finalists Announced For The 9th Annual UK Internet Industry Awards - The 2007 ISPAs

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) - the UK's leading Internet trade association - can today reveal the finalists in the ISP Division of The 2007 ISPAs - The 9th Annual UK Internet Industry Awards in association with Epitiro.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, will be the keynote speaker at The 2007 ISPAs. Ms Allen will address the Internet industry, Government and media representatives about the power of the Internet to help campaign for human rights, and Amnesty's IRREPRESSIBLE.INFO campaign, which is fighting to defend freedom of expression on the Internet.

For those categories related to broadband and other Internet related services, the finalists at The 2007 ISPAs are:

Best Dial-up

Biscit
ntl:telewest
Orange
Waitrose
Zen Internet

Best Consumer Email

Biscit
Madasafish
Namesco
Seriously Internet
Tiscali

Best Business Email

Biscit
Entanet
Exa Networks
Namesco
Zen Internet

Best Streaming

Astream
Groovy Gecko
Keen Computers
Mydeo
Streaming Wizard

Best Internet Telephony

Entacall
Keen Computers
Lumison
Seriously Vocal
Tesco

Best Wireless ISP

BOZII
Community Internet
The Cloud
West Somerset Internet

Best Portal

ntl:telewest
Madasafish
SidNet
Tiscali
Virgin.net

Best Consumer Broadband

Be Unlimited
Eclipse Internet
Entanet
Namesco
Seriously Internet

Best Business Broadband

Datanet
Eclipse Internet
Entanet
Kingston Communications
Namesco

Best Consumer ISP

Biscit
ntl:telewest
Orange
Tiscali
Virgin.net

Best Business ISP

Claranet
Datanet
Entanet
UKFast
Zen Internet

ISPA UK has been organising The ISPAs since 1999 to celebrate innovation and best practice in the Internet sector.

Board members from the Internet industry and Government representatives will gather to recognise the industry's achievements over the past year.

The ISPAs scheme is renowned for its independence and objectivity, reinforced for the fourth year by ISPA's research partner Epitiro. ISPA commissioned Epitiro to conduct tests and monitor the Internet services of entrants in the ISP Division over a three-month period. Following analysis of the data, the shortlists were selected for the coveted awards in the ISP Division.

Labels: biscit-broadband, business-broadband, general-broadband-news, nildram-broadband, ntl-broadband, ntl-telewest-broadband, orange-broadband, telewest-broadband, tiscali-broadband, virgin-broadband

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

ntl:Telewest TV On Demand reaches two million homes

ntl:Telewest, the UK's leading cable company, has today announced that its revolutionary On Demand service is now used regularly by over two million households.

The service, which empowers viewers by giving them greater control over what they watch and when they watch it, can be accessed using ntl On Demand or Telewest's Teleport service. Both services are available in ntl and Telewest's entry-level digital TV packages, which start from as little as £5.50 a month.

With more than 500 films at your fingertips, over 1,500 music videos and hundreds of TV shows on the service, there is always something to available to watch in an instant - at the touch of a button.

With award-winning programmes such as Lost, Desperate Housewives and Doctor Who and some TV shows available for free, combined with regular offers and promotions on films and music, it's not surprising the service has really taken-off since its launch 18 months ago.

Philip Snalune, managing director of consumer products at ntl:Telewest, said: "As lifestyles change TV viewing habits are also changing. ntl On Demand and Teleport provide choice, value and ease of use, giving viewers control and freedom over what to watch. By making premium shows available, we are making the service more compelling and attracting a bigger audience. We plan to continue expanding the choice of programmes offered as we believe this really is the future of television."

Telewest broadband

Labels: ntl-broadband, telewest-broadband

Monday, May 22, 2006

Telewest Business unveils new IP Multimedia service

ntl:Telewest Business, supplier of communications services to the public and private sectors, today launched IP Multimedia, a new range of communication services that integrates video calls, phone calls, voicemail, email and the presence-based benefits of instant messaging into a online working environment.

IP Multimedia provides a platform for more effective communication with teams, both large and small. The new service uses IP phones as well as a voice and video softphone application. The main features are instant messaging, which provides a secure online 'talk' environment with correspondence displayed live; video calling and conferencing from PC-to-PC using web cameras. Additional features include IP telephony call and voicemail services supported by extensive phone directories; and presence indicators, providing a live list of which colleagues are available at any one time. The service can be used from any office or location via a secure internet connection.

IP Multimedia is a complete suite of tools designed for communicating with colleagues more efficiently. The new services make it easy to determine whether colleagues are available through an online Presence information, enabling questions to be answered quickly, group dialogue to be undertaken faster and many meetings to be conducted online rather than in person. Seeing the person you talk to enhances communication effectiveness.

Stephen Beynon, MD, ntl:Telewest Business, said: "The IP Multimedia service takes converged communication to another level. It enables people to make the maximum use of their existing network infrastructure to support more effective team communication."

"Often the root of reduced day-to-day efficiency is that you don't know whether people are available when you want to communicate with them. IP Multimedia overcomes the communication inefficiencies that result from not knowing whether people are busy or in meetings and having to try several numbers to reach them," he said.

Chris Barnard, IDC said: "Companies that are moving to IP telephony increasingly see that it's not just about replacing the functionality of the traditional PBX system, but to move further and add functionality to voice in the form of IP applications, specifically around collaboration and presence. IDC's annual WAN manager survey (660 respondents in 10 European countries) show that there are significant plans to buy enhanced hosted VoIP services, especially in the United Kingdom and Denmark, and in the financial and retail vertical markets."

IP Multimedia users connect over their Local Area Networks (LANs) to the ntl:Telewest core IP network in order to utilise the managed services, which have undergone internal and customer trials involving over 300 personnel across over 50 locations.

Sandra O Boyle, Current Analysis commented, "If collaboration between virtual teams and offices is important and users require ubiquitous service functionality across hot-desking, homeworkers and small branches, ntl:Telewest Business has a rich feature set in terms of unified messaging, video calling, instant messaging and conferencing. IP Multimedia can provide a centralised dial plan, supports analogue and IP phones and does not require a significant CapEx investment, instead customers can try out the service with one group of employees and pay on a monthly per-seat basis".

Telewest broadband

Labels: telewest-broadband

Monday, May 01, 2006

Telewest completes internet speed increases

Telewest broadband customers got a boost today with the completion of Telewest's promised internet speed increases.

Over one million broadband customers are now breaking bandwidth barriers and leading the pack is Telewest's elite service, offering blistering downloads of up to 10Mbp/s.

Existing customers have been upgraded automatically region-by-region over the past six months and the following tiers of service are now on offer as standard to all new Telewest customers:

broadband
Previously 512Kbp/s (kilobits per second), the entry-level service is now up to 2Mbp/s, for the same price of £17.99 per month.

broadband complete
The standard 1Mb service now offers super-fast surfing of up to 4Mbp/s, still at £25 per month.

broadband elite
The current 2Mb and 4Mb options have been replaced by a flagship service offering speeds of up to 10Mbp/s, which costs only £35 per month.

Further Telewest broadband information:
http://www.broadband-123.co.uk/telewest.html