August 17, 2010
Virgin Media have launched a free malware defence campaign to help protect customers computers from malware such as viruses, trojans and spyware.
 The free service will be available customers who have Virgin Media broadband and be in adition to the free security package that customers already receive with their broadband service.
The executive director of broadband at Virgin Media, Jon James said:
We’re writing to customers we’ve been told may be infected by malware, encouraging them to check their computers have an up to date security package, such as Virgin Media Security, and offering advice on simple and free ways to disinfect their computer. For those who need a little bit more help we also have our fee-based Digital Home Support service which fixes problems using the latest cutting edge remote control technology.”
“Malware doesn’t just affect computers – it can affect lives. It’s time for ISPs to go beyond the basics and do whatever they can to help protect their customers from this growing problem. Customers may think they are protected, but with the ease by which malware can infect a computer – even just by visiting a innocent-looking website – we’re going to do whatever we can to help defend our customers from serious consequences such as identity theft, and even banking fraud.”
Virgin Media will be working with organisation and groups such as The Shadowserver Foundation who monitor the spread of malware around the internet.
Those customers who Virgin Media are informed are likely to be infected with malware will be sent a letter from Virgin Media which will tell them how to scan their computer and also remove viruses. They will also be given the details for how to sign up (at a cost) to Virgin’s home support service which is able to access customers computers remotely to remove malware.
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August 13, 2010
With BT aiming to have 66% coverage of the UK with fibre optic broadband by 2015 many people who are yet to be moved onto the faster next generation broadband may be wondering if they are getting close to having fibre broadband services turned on.
BT do release lists of which towns and areas they are going to be covered and update this as and when new towns are put on it, however, just so you know what to look out for we have been out and grabbed you a picture of what you need to be looking for as the tell tale sign that you are getting close to receiving fibre broadband.
The picture below is of two BT street side cabinets. The smaller cabinet on the right is the old cabinet that the will probably be currently supplying your telephone and broadband services through. This is connected to the telephone exchange via copper wires.
The larger green cabinet on the left of the image is one of the new BT cabinets that will be supplied with fibre optic cable from the main telephone exchange. For most of us from here the broadband will then be delivered to us from the existing copper wires that currently supply us. This is the set up that the majority of the country will be receiving from BT, and is known as Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC).
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The plans by Fibrecity to use the sewage system in Bournemouth to deploy it’s own fibre optic network across the city appear to have been flushed down the pan!
 The i3 Group who were planning on offering fibre to the home (FTTH) with broadband speeds up to 100Mb by utilising the sewage systems in Bournemouth to make the deployment far cheaper than would be available by digging up roads.
In a statement sent to PC Pro the CEO of i3 Group, Elfed Thomas said:
“It is our opinion that Wessex Water has been short sighted in putting commercial demands above the opportunity to provide a low-cost fibre optic network that will deliver superfast broadband to their own customers.”
Ian Drury from Wessex Water said:
“The reason the project in Bournemouth didn’t move forward was because there were contractual problems. The technology methodology didn’t work for us, nor did the reward for placing the cables in the sewers.
We would certainly look at other proposals should they arise, if the terms and conditions are right for us. We haven’t ruled out putting fibre-optic cables in sewers.”
Elsewhere, Scottish Water have not had issues with allowing the use of their sewers for the laying of the fibre optic broadband cable by the i3 Group and in-fact say that it generates revenue along with the help and management and repair of pipes.
In the future we should not rule out the possibility that the government and Ofcom may rule that sewerage systems and BTs cable ducts are forced to be made to open up their access to allow others to utilise the infrastructure already there for the laying of fibre optic cables.
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July 27, 2010
Virgin Media are to trial fibre broadband delivered over existing electricity poles in the Welsh village of Crumlin in Caerphilly.
 Although Virgin Media have deployed fibre over ground before in the village of Woolhampton in Berkshire that was done using purpose built infrastructure, however this aerial deployment in Crumlin will be the first time that existing infrastructure will have been used.
The deal between Virgin Media and Surf Telecoms, who are a Western Power Distribution company means that Virgin Media can potentially reach over 1 million new homes across South West England and South and West Wales as this is where the electricity infrastructure covers.
These fibre trials will mean that users of Crumlin will be able to receive fibre broadband up to 50Mb and also access Virgin Media’s TV packages.
Virgin Media’s executive director of broadband, Jon James said:
“We’re already bringing broadband speeds of up to 50Mb and, soon 100Mb, to over half of all UK homes and are pushing the boundaries to ensure that homes right across the UK benefit from ultrafast broadband. Working in partnership with companies like Surf Telecoms, we can more rapidly and efficiently expand the reach of fibre optic networks to towns, villages and communities right across the UK.“
Not only does utilising the electricity poles with an aerial deployment mean that Virgin Media can deploy their fibre broadband to new areas more cheaply than it would cost to dig up roads but it is also a new revenue stream for the companies who own the electricity poles.
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July 16, 2010
BE Broadband are looking to offer even faster broadband speeds by offering fibre optic broadband, but admit that they can’t afford to lay down it’s own fibre network down.
 In a post in the official Be Broadband Blog, Tom Williams the managing director of Be Broadband had the following to say:
“We really want to offer you a fibre solution. We want to keep providing faster and faster speeds. However, we can’t afford to lay our own fibre network (unless, of course, Alex agrees to sell his collection of antique Happy Meal toys). Right now, we’re looking at the wholesale products available.
If we do this, then there’s likely to be some initial restrictions on what we can offer in terms of speed, support, and the general customer experience. But, for many of you, it will be faster.
Whatever we offer, it won’t be perfect straight away – though it will improve over time. We want to get your input while we’re investigating the options: we want to build the BE fibre product around you as much as possible.”
Be Broadband will be making use of the fibre network that BT are installing around the country. On the main part it is Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) that BT are installing which will offer broadband speeds up to 40Mb, for a few lucky people there will be Fibre To The Premises/Home (FTTH) but this is mainly going to be installed in new build areas that will be able to offer much faster broadband speeds up to 100Mb.
BT are investing £2.5Bn in rolling out next generation fibre broadband over the next few years which should be available to around two thirds of the UK once completed. It will be this large fibre network that BE Broadband will be utilising on a wholesale level to provide fibre broadband deals for customers.
BE currently have an offer running offering 2 months free broadband from BE.
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July 15, 2010
A “Broadband summit” is taking place today in London, to talk about ways to get fast broadband out to every part of the UK.
A pledge to make Britain the fastest broadband nation in Europe by 2015 has also been made and that a minimum broadband speed of 2Mb should be available to every home in Britain.
However, the Government are not likely to be offering the broadband industry big pots of money to help fund the roll out, there is still the £175 million left over from the digital switchover that is to be used and since the government scrapped Labours 50p per month “broadband tax” that was to be used to help fund next generation broadband and the fact that as a country we have a huge deficit with money the government can’t afford to start spending.
BT are investing £2.5bn of their own money to fund the roll out of fibre broadband to two thirds of the UK, however they say that around £2bn more will be needed to reach the remaining third of the country. These remaining areas being areas where it is not financially viable for BT to fund the roll out themselves.
The CEO of BT Openreach, Steve Robertson said:
“As a society we need to make our minds up about what is an essential element of our social fabric. Today not having broadband makes people feel deprived.“
The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said:
“There is currently nothing to stop telecoms or utility companies reaching commercial agreements to share their infrastructure, but very few agreements currently exist.
Before we embark on legislation or start committing scarce public resources, we need to explore these cost-effective ways of achieving our aims so I want to hear from companies about their proposals and willingness to work towards mutually beneficial commercial arrangements.”
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July 9, 2010
The Kent village of Iwade has received a £13,000 grant from the local council to fund fibre broadband to the area.
Kent County Council gave Iwade the grant to help fund the investment needed to bring fibre broadband to the village and will mean that by Autumn this year all the 1,350 premises in the village will be able to access the new Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) network which will give them broadband speeds up to 40Mb.
The fibre broadband deployment to the village is possible because the neighboring town of Sittingbourne is one of the locations that had been selected for it’s telephone exchange to be upgraded to support fibre broadband, the funds will be used then to deploy the fibre to 4 streetside cabinets in Iwade.
The Telegraph report that due to the £13,000 funding that they managed to raise this meant that BT would make a further £62,000 available.
The broadband committee co-ordinator for Iwade Parish Council, Nicola McKenzie said:
“As a Broadband Committee we have worked hard to reach this critical point, giving Iwade residents and businesses the option to sign up to super-fast broadband at such an early stage. Local homes and businesses are relying more and more on broadband internet services. The faster connections offered by fibre broadband will allow local people to get even more out of their broadband connection.“
BT are currently investing £2.5 billion in making fibre broadband available to around two thirds of the UK by 2015.
For any other rural villages that may want to follow Iwade’s leade BT state that:
“Currently, in order for BT to build a commercial case for rolling out fibre to such areas, the locality needs to be in close proximity to an exchange that is already included in BT’s fibre deployment plans. Technical considerations include the need for local premises to be suitably clustered while the local telephone cabinets need to be evenly spread and no more than 1km from the premises they serve.”
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July 8, 2010
BT has chosen ECI Telecom as a strategic partner to help them with their roll out of fibre broadband across the UK.
The deal will see BT Openreach using ECI Telecoms Hi-FOCuS Multi-Service Acees Node (MSAN) which will allow BT to support other broadband providers using the network, a bit like Local Loop Unbundling currently offers. They will also be making use of ECI’s 1Net framework which is designed to help the move to Next Generation Access and also to help with scalability in the future when greater bandwidth will be needed.
BT Openreach’s CEO, Steve Robertson said:
“With ECI as a strategic partner for this very advanced carrier-of-carriers architecture, we are able to upgrade our infrastructure offerings to Communications Providers and guarantee the provision of equivalency to all our customers. ECI’s offerings are in line with our vision of a straightforward, more integrated and competitive network, simplifying management and supporting the optimization of our next-generation access network in an environmentally-friendly and responsible way.“
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July 6, 2010
Residents and conservationists of Brighton and Hove are complaining about the cabinets that BT want to install for their fibre broadband network.
The high speed fibre broadband cabinets are larger that standard street-side cabinets and measure 1.8m in height with some of them due to replace the existing street-side cabinets although his is not the case in all locations.
Some of the applications in Brighton and Hove have already been approved but there is still a further 51 locations where the permission has yet to be granted and the six conservation societies/groups are saying that the planning permission should be put on hold as the plans have not been consulted about enough.
The six groups who have joined together include: The Regency Society, The Montpelier Clifton Hill Society, Kemp Town Society, Brighton Society, The Kingscliffe Society and The Regency Square Society.
It doesn’t appear that the groups are against having the new fibre broadband network installed but they want to make sure that the locations of the new cabinets are chosen wisely and not just put in the most convenient places that BT consider that may not work in with the aesthetics of the look of the city.
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June 29, 2010
Fibre Optic broadband provider Virgin Media are offering new customers 2 months free when they take a out a triple play bundled service.
The Triple play service includes Broadband, Television and Home Phone with prices starting at just £18 per month for all three services (when taking a Virgin Phone line at £11.99 per month). On top of this there is a further saving of £35 with the free installation offer also available.
The cheapest triple play service from Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) consists of the Broadband Size L which offers up to 10Mb fibre broadband, TV Size M+ which has over 65 digital TV channels and Phone Size M which offers unlimited weekend UK landline calls all for just £18 per month on a 12 month contract.
When choosing a Virgin Media bundle, providing that the Home Phone Size M is chosen then users can choose either the Broadband XL or XXL and the TV Size L or XL and receive 2 months free.
It is often cheaper for customers to buy bundled services from one supplier than getting then from individual suppliers, it also means only having to deal with one company and to pay one bill.
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