Broadband Comparison, News & Reviews

Lord Mandelson called a meeting of the top executives of the largest five mobile broadband networks in the UK to coordinate the government?s effort to get broadband to everyone at acceptable rates by 2012.

The meeting is the second of its kind to take place in the last few weeks and will pick up where Lord Carter left off after the commission of the Digital Britain Report.

Lord Mandelson?s department advocated last week that guidelines be set up across the UK that punish those who infringe copyright laws by cutting of their broadband connections.

Another proposal set in motion by Lord Carter for an additive ?6 levy on landlines to pay for faster broadband across the country is set to fail as it is not expected to get passed by Conservatives who are looking towards the next year?s elections.

According to the initial Digital Britain Review, achieving broadband use across the country is reliant on broadening the range of broadband signals into the more rural and remote areas of Britain.

However, in order to achieve this all five networks must agree to split the original spectrum that was given to O2 and Vodafone back in the 80?s when they first began operating wireless networks. The 900MHz spectrum allows signals to be carried farther.

Also to be discussed will be the manner in which the way the government auctions off 800MHz spectrum that will be freed up after the switch from analogue to digital TV.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

A young couple is now out $2,500 dollars after being scammed by a scammer out of Nigeria where scams are growing increasingly popular.
The couple needed cash and so they placed their diamond wedding ring for sale on KSL.com. The buyer responded from Nigeria stating that after they sent the ring he or she would send the payment though PayPal.

The Cox couple were from a small town and liked to think the best of people so it not even occur to them to worry about being scammed, which is precisely what happened unfortunately after they decide to sell the ring to help get money for their two young children.

Minnie Cox said the ring was a princess cut with a little diamond inside. Although the pictures were not clear on the website, they soon received an email from a woman who claimed to be from Utah who said that she wanted the ring but was leaving soon on a business trip.

The scammer asked the couple to ship it to Africa claiming that she would add the price of the additional shipping onto the PayPal payment.

Colten Cox said that he had a lot of trust in people growing up in people and thought nothing of it until four days later when they still had not received payment and after a call to PayPal learned they had been scammed.

According to the Cox?s they are still making payments on the ring which makes the situation even worse, but they are trying to track the ring which is in New York somewhere and if they manage to get hold of a post office employee they may be able to get it back.

After all of this, the couple says they will still be trusting but more carefully, and Minnie said she has learned her lesson never to send anything to Nigeria.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan

Zen Internet topped the customer satisfaction survey conducted by Which magazine for the fourth year in a row for their internet services.
Zen Internet is an independent internet provider and scored five out of five in the categories of reliability, service, and speed.

The poll was conducted among members of the Which magazine who also assigned the company a three out of five stars in the value category despite the fact that the company has one of the most expensive internet services averaging about ?17.61 per month for most subscribers.

Overall the company received a score of 87% which compares to four of the largest UK ISP?s, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, BT, and Tiscali all of which scored under 60%. 02, BE, and Utility Warehouse fared better with scores over 80% as well.

Overall, Tiscali, Orange, and AOL did the worse with scores that were below 32% and received the recommendation ?don?t buy? from the magazine editors.

Zen Internet was also praised by the magazine for its excellent customer support stating that the company?s willingness to go the other mile for its customers, its reliability, and its customer support were well worth paying a few extra dollars for.

Which also commended Zen for its one month contracts which allowing customer?s flexibility when it comes to choosing their ISPs.

This is not the first time Zen Internet has received praise from the industry it serves, as the company has also won various accolades over the last few years including the PC Pro Best Broadband ISP award for the last five years in a row.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

Rumours around country suggest that the plans for adding a 50p monthly tax on landlines to help fund the creation of faster networks in the UK may soon be abandoned or at least postponed until after the General Election is over in 2010.

Stephen Timms, a minister in charge of the Digital Britain strategy, has issued several statements to newspapers that point towards the delay of the tax stating that during a General Election there tends to be a short finance bill and it is unlikely that the bill would pass during this time period.

When asked directly if the bill would be passed before the election closes in, Timms stated that he has no way of knowing. This may be in part due to the fact that if the Tories win the election the bill would most likely be scrapped.

The main focus of the broadband tax is to fund companies in rolling out fibre optic broadband cables that would allow citizens? access to 100Mbit/s broadband connection speeds throughout all of the UK and not just in areas that Virgin Media and BT deem commercially viable.

Despite the public statements, the Digital Britain website blog which has an unknown author claims the tax will proceed as planned.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

Police and festival organizers believe that there are less people who are being conned into purchasing tickets for events from unofficial scam websites due to an increase in police vigilance online and general awareness of the scams.

Playing a large role in the reduction of internet scams is the Metropolitan Police?s Central E-Crime Unit which has been able to shut down 11 scam websites since they begin investigating the issue of fake event websites back in September of last year.

Melvin Benn, the boss of Reading and Leeds festivals praised the police for their efforts stating that it seems as if the people who are chiefly in charge of conning the public have been apprehended or at least stopped.

The Reading, V, and Leeds festivals had to turn away about 5,000 guests last year who bought fraudulent tickets online for the event.

Last year before the efforts were made to address the problem thousands of people were left out in the dark after buying either fake tickets that did not allow for admittance online or buying tickets from a source that never delivered tickets at all.

Reg Walker, an anti-counterfeiting expert, stated that since everyone from the promoters to the police force came together over the year to target the situation the solution was easier to find.

As a result he stated that scam sites were taken down at a quicker rate than in the past and around the world the same efforts have been replicated with positive results.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan

For those looking for cheap broadband packages, three new deals by Tiscali may be eye catching.

The first deal costs users ?6.40 per month to use for the first three months at which point it pops up to ?14.99 for 18 more months.

The standard offering allows for free set up, unlimited broadband access, and a connection that can reach speeds up to 8Mb. Included in the package is a free antivirus and spam service as well as a modem and up to ten email addresses.

The second deal starts at ?9.99 for three months and then jumps up to ?14.99 in addition to a one time setup charge upfront of ?30. Users will get broadband speeds up to 8Mb and unlimited usage as well as free phone calls to both the UK and international phone calls on the weekend.

Last, for those who want free phone calls at any time, the third package costs ?14.99 a month for three months and then jumps to ?19.99 until the end of 18 months. There is also a onetime upfront fee of ?30 for setup.

Tiscali?s marketing manager, Jessica McArdle, stated that the new packages should help consumers who want to keep their broadband but need to cut some costs in the current state of the economy.

McArdle also stated that the new deals show Tiscali is taking a step back to their roots as a value brand for those who want broadband.

The news on the Tiscali front follows the announcement that TalkTalk would not be closing down Tiscali which is a subsidiary of TalkTalk. Instead, the Chief Executive of Carphone who owns TalkTalk said that IPTV service may soon extend into the offerings of Tiscali as well.

Filed under: Broadband Deals by Alan Harten

A large scale counterfeit clothing scam was finally brought down by trading standard officers after catching the ringleader in a setup similar to busting a drug dealer who sells to an undercover cop, although in this case the sale involved a bad jacket knock-off.

Anthony Kaufamn, the ringleader of a group that sold over ten thousands of pounds of faux designer clothes via eBay, make the mistake of selling a Stone Island jacket on eBay to a buyer who worked for Stone Island in 2006.

The buyer reported the sale to the Salford trading standards that launched an investigation that costs over ?200,000. In the end, Kaufman and five others were arrested.

The Manchester crown court was told that over ?470,000 in goods was taken from storage units used by the counterfeiters in storage units that were located in Salford and Bury.

Kaufman was the manager of the team who was caught after undercover officers followed him from the Road Post in Bury to his home and then to a self storage unit. After his home was raided in 2007 over eighty bags and boxes of clothing items were taken into evidence.

The team employed by Kaufman included Rennie McFarlane, Gregg Baines, Mark Glover, David Matthias, and Paul Miller most of whom were in their early twenties and enrolled in classes at Salford University.

EBay issued a statement regarding the outcome of the investigation that stated the company worked closely with the Salford Trading Standards and hopes that the verdict passed on the five people will stand as proof to other criminals that fraud will not be tolerated on the online trading platform.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan Harten

Orange has created a new deal designed for those who want to try out mobile broadband but are wary of over usage charges that Ofcom reported recently have become extravagant at providers such as O2 and BT.

The package is an 18 month contract that offers a free dongle and a 500MB monthly download limit for the amazing price of only ?4.98. Additionally, there are a few more perks such as the ability to choose which colour dongle you would like out of black, white, and pink and the new cap on all broadband packages for over usage charges of ?40.

While ?40 may still sound like a lot, this is much better than the ?200 you can easily spend for going over a BT package download limit. Additionally, Orange has added an alert system for its broadband users that lets them know when they are approaching their limits to reduce usage charges from accumulating.

For those who need more time online, Orange has also introduced a new package that offers unlimited use of mobile broadband between the non-peak hours of midnight and 9am daily.

This package starts at ?13 each month for 1GB of downloads and increases incrementally for those who want a little more data downloads.

Filed under: Broadband Deals by Alan

Shumon Ullah was sentenced to jail for two years and eight months after Burnley Court heard his money making scheme which involved offing electrical equipment that was valued at 230,000 pounds for sale on the auction site but not delivering any goods once they sold.

When he started to get negative feedback, he simply turned to his neighbour?s details and continued forward with the fraudulent sales.

When unhappy buyers started to complain that they had not receive their purchases, Ullah responded with abuse filled comments stating that he was bankrupt and could not reimburse them despite the fact that the opposite was actually true. Eventually, disatisfied customers called on the police for aid who preformed a thorough investigation that proved Shumon Ullah was behind the scam.

The defendant, who is from Newchurch; previously pled guilty to 24 counts of fraud back in September of 2007. Upon sentencing Recorder David Heaton stated that the sentence of jail time was meant to punish him for deceiving his customers and to deter others who might have the same type of ideas. The judge went on to state that Ullah no doubt cost the police since the investigation was expensive and time consuming.

Prosecutor in the case, Jeremy Grout-Smith states that Ullah was able to gain the trust of eBay consumers by selling a numerous amount of small items first which he delivered in a prompt manner. Once his ratings were up on the website and he had a reliable status as a trader, he begin to offer higher priced items that he obviously had no intention of ever delivering to buyers.

He only accepted payment to his own bank account because Paypal provides a money back guarantee for eBay purchasers if they do not receive a package from eBay.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan

TalkTalk will soon be able to offer the good citizens of Muswell Hill in London and the people of Whitechurch in Cardiff internet access speeds that range up to 40Mbps due to a new trial fibre broadband connection.

Those who will be included in the trial will receive a new modem and router along with a free Essentials phone and broadband package throughout the entire trial period which will begin in August and end in January of 2010. As an additional perk for their participation they will also receive an unlimited amount of downloads.

TalkTalk is working on upgrading all of its networks so that users across the UK will receive faster access speeds on the Internet, considering that the ISP network covers about 80% of the UK; this is a large cross section of the population. After the trial is completed if the results are favourable TalkTalk will install the fibre based broadband connections in all network areas.

The popular ISP also announced that after its purchase of Tuscali it will also soon add a TV on demand service to its offerings in the upcoming future and will still support the on demand TV service to all 50,000 customers who were with Tiscali TV at the time of the purchase.

TalkTalk is also considering joining Project Canvas and is currently in talks about the direction of the joint venture that will standardize broadband enabled digital television set boxes. If Project Canvas is made available to the public it will offer both TV on demand services and HD Freeview broadcasts.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan Harten