Carphone Warehouse boss shuffles off the net |
1st February 2008 |
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Dough-faced Carphone Warehouse chief and Daily Mail director Charles Dunstone has decided to keep his thoughts to himself from now on - he's deleted his blog from the TalkTalk website.
Blogging got marketing wonks very excited a couple of years ago, when the strategy boutique convinced them it heralded a new paradigm of "conversations" with customers.
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O2 may put iPhone on business rates |
31st January 2008 |
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O2 is considering introducing business tariffs for customers who want to use iPhones at work.
At the moment the iPhone is only available on an 18-month consumer contract once you've passed a credit check. The iPhone tariffs are being changed from tomorrow.
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Vodafone takes Ofcom to court over number porting |
31st January 2008 |
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Vodafone is mounting a legal challenge to Ofcom's call for mobile operators to allow their customers to shift their number to another network within two hours.
It is already possible to take your number with you when you shift network but it takes a few days. Ofcom said in July last year that it wanted the process speeded up - from being one of the first countries to get operators to offer the service the UK has fallen behind.
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Tiscali executes stealth LLU migrations |
28th January 2008 |
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Thousands of ex-Pipex customers have been suffering unexplained interruptions in their broadband service in recent weeks, as their new provider Tiscali stealthily works to cut costs.
People suffering a broadband outage as a result of the work are told by customer services, recently outsourced overseas, that their line is undergoing "essential engineering work". One Reg reader was initially told the downtime was BT's fault.
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Virgin Media dishes out free bandwidth boost |
28th January 2008 |
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Virgin Media has announced plans to upgrade its mid-range "L" broadband from maximum 4Mbit/s downstream to maximum 10Mbit/s at no extra cost to customers.
The upgrade will start in late February on a region-by-region basis, and will take until late summer to complete.
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AT&T Offers Free Wi-Fi To More DSL Customers |
28th January 2008 |
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1.5Mbps customers now included in free Wi-Fi offer
If you're an AT&T DSL customer with a connection 1.5Mbps or faster, you've now got free, unlimited access to AT&T's network of 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. AT&T customers, who already got discounted access to the Wi-Fi network, should save about $60 annually from the deal. Non-AT&T customers would normally pay $240 yearly for access to the Wi-Fi network. It's a smart way for AT&T to add competitive value to their DSL service, and is a perk they were already offering higher speed (3Mbps+) customers.
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100Mbit/s sewer broadband rollout coming your way |
24th January 2008 |
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The idea of laying fibre along sewer lines has been sloshing around the networking business for years. Now a UK firm claims today's broadband will seem a trickle compared to the torrents of data it'll soon offer.
It's always been hard to argue with the logic. Sewers are deep underground where cable would be protected from clumsy drilling. They also run into the heart of virtually every building in Britain.
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Tiscali chief plots sell-off |
23rd January 2008 |
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Tiscali customers and employees can look forward to more turmoil in the next two years. The Italian-owned group's boss Tommaso Pompei says he's expecting to sell up to rivals as it struggles to compete with richer players in the broadband market.
Up until now, Tiscali has been a predator in the ISP consolidation game, snapping up Pipex customers and IPTV outfit Home Choice. That's set to change soon, Pompei told the Financial Times today, predicting a second wave of takeovers that he expects to be part of - as prey.
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Tiscali bandwidth throttling flub fix flops |
22nd January 2008 |
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Tiscali's attempts to restore anything close to reasonable internet service for its customers following a botched software upgrade have failed.
Reg readers are still complaining of blockages and pathetic line speeds on the budget ISP.
We reported on Monday how some of the most popular internet applications including iTunes, online gaming, and peer-to-peer are unavailable or effectively useless for swathes of Tiscali customers.
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UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking |
21st January 2008 |
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Updated Principals of the ethical hacking outfit GNUCitizen say they have found a serious security bug in the BT Home Hub that could allow attackers to engage in identity theft and other types of fraud by hijacking calls routed over the internet.
The vulnerability allows an attacker to initiate VoIP calls on the user's machine. From the end user's perspective, it would appear that the victim is receiving the call from a falsified number that is specified by the attacker. Attackers on the other end could then coax account credentials or other sensitive information from the victim by impersonating a person from a bank, a stock brokerage or some other trusted organization where the call appears to be originating.
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