Broadband Comparison, News & Reviews

Lord Mandelson has confirmed that file sharers who download files illegally on the Internet will now have their accounts suspended, in an effort to reduce the amount of people who illegally share files.

He also stated that only two warnings will be given to a consumer before their Internet is cut off, followed by an appeal process for those who want to fight the decision.

According to Mandelson, the new power will only be used as a last resort, and in cases where people consistently broke the law and illegally downloaded files on a persistent basis.

Under the new proposal, ISPs are responsible for taking action against consumers that are accused of sharing illegal film and music files. They also can take additional measures such as slowing down the downloading speeds of certain users before cutting them off.

However, ministers have taken the time to craft the new rules so that ?innocent? file sharing such as copying a CD onto an iPod are not harmed by the new rules.

BT has warned that with the new ISP responsibilities, the price of broadband may rise due to the fact that all of the costs incurred with cutting of a user?s Internet falls on the ISP?s themselves.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

A teenager from Haslingden admitted that he was able to pull off an eBay scam worth ?96,000 by listing electrical items for sale that were non-existent.

Shofik Ali, 19, appeared at a hearing at the Burnley Crown Court where the court was told that he began selling on eBay by selling low cost items, until he had a trusted reputation, at which point he began to sell large high priced electrical items, which were never delivered to recipients.

Ali admitted he was responsible for the charges of conspiracy to defraud, and is now out on bail until he receives a sentence in November.

He was able to perpetuate the fraud by selling low cost items such as games, clothing, and mobile phone SIM cards, until he became a power seller and then sold high end items.

At this point he refused to be paid through PayPal, making excuses and directing buyers to wire money into a bank account set up in his name.
During the time period of his active scam between December 2007 and May 2008 he was able to scam more than 30 bidders who never received their items.

Out of the alleged ?96,000 that Ali made, ?75,800 had already been withdrawn from the bank.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

New figures from Sky show that the popular broadband and digital TV provider has managed to increase the amount of consumers who purchase at least one or both services.

The period of growth is related to the last three months previous to September 30th. Over this time period Sky?s customer base for home phone services and broadband rose to 1.9m and 2.3m respectively with demand for its Sky+HD package nearly doubling in just a year?s time.

Additionally, the company stated that about 17% of their entire customer base subscribes to packages that include digital TV, home phone, and broadband.

Chief executive of Sky, Jeremy Darroch, stated that customers are choosing to bundle in an attempt to save money. Darroch added that over the next year the company plan to continue to focus on what its customer base wants while building their profitability.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

Plusnet announced that they will reduce contract terms from 18 months minimum to 12 months minimum. In an effort to give consumers more flexibility when they choose packages.

Now customers that want to purchase the basic entry level package from Plusnet can choose between value and unlimited packages. The packages are among the lowest broadband contracts in the UK. with the value contract starting initially at only ?5.99 per month until three months have passed and then raising up to ?11.99 per month.

Consumers who live in areas with a large amount of broadband service competitors, defined as areas with more than four service providers, will additionally be able to keep the ?5.99 tariff until the contract expires.

The policy also applies to those who live in areas with local exchanges that host more than 10,000 users where multiple providers are expected to increase.

Outside of the stellar tariff rates, the new contracts also come with a free wireless router, a download limit of 10Gb per month, and at least an 8Mb internet connection speed.

Those who choose the unlimited deal instead receive the same benefits without a limit on monthly downloads. For the unlimited package which also gives users a static IP address, the costs are ?11.99 per month initially and then after three months ?19.99.

Both options come with the promise of round the clock customer support.

Filed under: Broadband Deals by Alan

Internet security experts claim that online criminals are extorting millions of pounds from unsuspecting consumers who purchase fake anti-virus software downloads.

Symantec stated that over 40m people last year fell victim to a similar scheme known in the security industry as a ?scareware? scam. Not only do people purchase a fake product, but the scam is particularly harmful since criminals gain access to credit card details of their victims.

According to Symantec there are over 250 versions of ?scareware? in existence on the internet which give criminals about ?750,000 annually.

The new presence and abundance of ?scareware? may point to the fact that cyber criminals have moved past viruses as their major source of income and malicious activity.

During a ?scareware? scam a user is alerted to the presence of a virus on their computer that can only be removed by purchasing certain software online that can cost around ?60. Once purchasing the download users find out it was a scam.

Scammers are able to continue using the rogue software because the individual amounts of stolen money are small, making it hard for police and other security agencies to track down.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan

In order to meet the funding needs of the Digital Britain Report?s aim of rolling out next generation broadband, a new 50 pence per month levy was introduced on every consumer who uses copper phone lines. The new levy is aimed at bridging the gap in areas where operators are not expected to install the broadband on their own.

The shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said that however, if the Conservatives win the upcoming general election the tax would be scrapped, even though it is expected to raise approximately ?175m to fund the introduction of next generation broadband in rural areas.

Instead, the Conservatives would like to encourage the market to take on the tasks, as well as make regulatory changes that may help with the motivation of market leaders.

Regulatory committee Thinkbroadband has actively argued that the Government should be offering incentives companies for deciding to use fibre optic cabling, which currently is taxed at non-domestic tariff rates, making it more costly for operators to consider using and installing.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

After a few months of rumours circulating about a possible Tesco mobile broadband deal, the giant supermarket chain has finally made it official, stating that by March of 2010 there will be 100 mobile stores open ready to serve customers.

Tesco first started offering its customers mobile deals at the end of 2008, and at the push of CEO Lance Batchelor, is working on a line of mobile broadband deals that will challenge the pay as you go tariffs offered by Carphone Warehouse.

The company is also thinking outside of mobile phones, as it also announced this past June that they will soon offer netbooks and laptops with mobile broadband contracts as an incentive to customers to sign up.

Already with the new pay as you go mobile contracts Tesco has seen an increase in sales of over 71% during the month of September. Acting on this success, the company has teamed up with mobile broadband suppliers, so that they can offer more deals to the public including deals that begin at under ?20 for a pay as you go dongle.

At the moment, Tesco has 52 mobile phone shops with plans in the future that if all goes well with the 100 store launch, that all Tesco Extra Stores will be outfitted with mobile outlets.

Filed under: Broadband Deals by Alan

An IT engineer from Fareham, Hampshire, Andrew Woffindin, was sentenced to jail for 15 months this week after being on trial for stealing about ?58,000 of kit from the National Air Traffic Control Centre, and selling it on Ebay.

Woffindin used the money to pay off debt that was accumulated on his wife?s credit card.

The presiding judge of the Portsmouth crown court, Judge Peter Henry, described Woffindin as a national security threat, due to the fact that some of the base computers had military and commercial flight data on them.

The defence argued that Woffindin had wiped all sensitive information off of the computers, but the judge dismissed the argument after he learned that Woffindin did not have the proper skills to be able to effectively clean the computers.

Chief executive of hardware at Stonewood Group, Chris McIntosh, said that national security was likely not threatened by Woffindin due to the fact that it should have been heavily encrypted by CESG approved products.

Thus, the recipients of the stolen computers would have needed the encryption key in order to be able to access the information.

McIntosh added that the only way there may have been a security risk is if Woffindin had been able to sell the encryption keys alongside the laptops.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan

Orange and T-Mobile are still working towards a merger, but the deal may be met with regulatory problems, after the government signed a last minute deal with the leading five wireless networks to help increase access to broadband for all UK citizens by 2012.

The deal is expected to be announced in full detail later this week, and is expected to include an investigation of the EU regulators into the proposed merger of the two large broadband providers.

Many consumer groups have already begun to protest the merger, stating that it would cause a monopoly in the UK with 37% of the market belonging to the merged companies.

If the merger is allowed to continue, the two mobile operators may be forced to sell off some of their combined mobile phone spectrum within Britain to other providers. In the best case scenario for the two companies, the merger would at least be delayed until the investigation ends.

The new deal is expected to include a cap on how much spectrum each major five broadband operator is allowed to own.

Vodafone and O2 will be keep their available spectrum, but a new ?regulatory remedy? is called for in order to prevent T-Mobile and Orange from owning too much of the UK airwaves.

The deal places the responsibility of regulating the cap on the Competition Commission and the OFT.

Under the new terms of the deal each of the networks will be able to expand their 3G licenses over all their spectrum, in exchange for agreeing to spread their high speed mobile broadband coverage areas outside of the city and town areas.

Filed under: Broadband News and Reviews by Alan

Microsoft stated on Monday that Hotmail was the target of an extensive scam that led users into giving away their passwords to unauthorized users, who posted approximately 10,000 passwords online.

The company said that the security breach was not due to any fault from their servers, but instead due to the extensive work of con artists, who convinced the individual email owners to reveal their personal details.

However, the larger piece of news is that the password scam is now thought to have not only affected thousands of Hotmail users, but also users who use email accounts at Comcast, Yahoo, Google, Earthlink, and a few other third party email services.

According to Neil O?Neil of the Logic Group it is possible that up to a million email passwords may have been given away and accessed from the scam.

He went on to state that since the breach was made public so quickly after the initial discovery of the attack, hackers were given the heads up about the presence of the passwords, leading to many hackers to gain full access to the lists, before Microsoft requested the lists be deleted.

O?Neil went on to state that the implications of this are more than most people may initially think, since most people tend to use the same passwords for all of their accounts, which potentially could have placed paypal and ebay accounts at risk as well.

To combat this problem internet users are often advised to change their passwords on a regular basis, and keep their anti-virus software up to date.

A spokesman from Microsoft stated that the company is aware of the fact that some Hotmail users? passwords were illegally placed on a website by a phishing scheme, but that they had launched an investigation, and requested the websites that hosted the details to take them down.

Filed under: Broadband Scam Alerts by Alan