Virgin Media is planning to take action against users who illegally download copyrighted material. Virgin and a number of media producers are to work with the British Phonographic Institute (our version of the RIAA). BPI enforcers will detect users IP numbers visiting copyright-infringing P2P networks. They will then alert the ISP, who will email warnings to customers to stop or face being disconnected.
In a statement today, Virgin Media said: “We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution.”
The government said that it would force ISPs to take action with legislation if no voluntary solution was found by April 2009.
Information posted on Samknows reveals that BT Wholesale have at last released the schedule for the first 868 exchanges to be activated for Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC), their new 21CN broadband product. The new product will bring ADSL2+ nationwide, but as predicted, rollout may take until 2012 to reach all corners of the UK.
BT‘s current timetable sees them aiming to have 82 exchanges enabled by the 30th of April, followed by 540 exchanges by the 18th of November 2008 and 868 by the 19th May 2009.
21CN is expected to take up most of BT’s £3bn budget for investment between 2004 and 2009. Once the rollout is complete, high-speed connections should be universally available across the UK, over both fixed line (a mixture of copper and cable) and wireless (WiMax) links. The upgrade will also see phones as we known them changing; on 21CN every phone will be a VoIP phone; no traditional telephone services will exist.
“This is the most radical strategy of a telco business you will see anywhere in the world. It’s fundamentally based on broadband everywhere,” said Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale. “We will have a single network running multiple services, not multiple networks running multiple services in a complicated way.”
ADSL2+ is capable of doubling the downstream bitrate of ADSL speeds, and it is theoretically possible to achieve top download speeds of 24Mbps. Be Broadband is the most notable exponent of ADSL2+ as are Sky and UK Online, both of which use the Easynet backbone; O2 have also launched their own services following their purchase of the Be network.
Before anyone asks, this isn’t an April Fools – all calls to the BT Broadband technical support desk will now be absolutely free, pending the publication of the new, as of yet unknown 0800 number. This will see customers frustrated with variable connection speeds and networking issues saving plenty of coin on calls.
BT have also trimmed the price structure for the Option 1, which is now available to new customers for just £7.95 for the first 3 months, and then £15.99 thereafter – existing Option 1 customers currently paying £17.99 a month will be able to save around £24 a year bringing the overall cost of BT’s entry level broadband down by a significant amount. The ongoing price of Option 2 will similarly fall from £22.99 to £20.99 per month.
BT have also announced that they have finally run out of all black Home Hubs – the bats have left the bell tower. The BT Home Hub, included in Option 2 and Option 3 is again available in classic white.
ADSL Broadband
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Student Broadband
Laptop Broadband
