2009 October 
TalkTalk’s Don’t Disconnect Us campaign appears to have taken a blow from the benches, as Lord Mandelson seems set on forging onwards with his ‘ill-conceived’ plans to allow content providers to force ISPs to disconnect customers suspected of illegally sharing files.
Yesterday the business secretary said that “It must become clear that the days of consequence-free widespread online infringement are over,” and confirmed plans to disconnect persistent offenders. The government will decide in spring 2011 whether to introduce a three strikes policy, with disconnection being used as a “very last resort” for “persistent rule breakers”.
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Posted by Tom on October 29th 2009 in Digital Britain, Next Gen Broadband, TalkTalk
Got an Xbox 360? Got an Xbox LIVE Gold account? Want to watch Sky TV without having to have a satellite dish installed? Well, now you can. Leading pay-TV platform and rising broadband star Sky has done a deal with Mircosoft which will allow the Sky Player video on demand platform to be accessed through any Xbox 360 console with a broadband connection.
Best thing about this is that you don’t have to be a Sky TV or Sky Broadband subscriber to watch Sky programmes on your Xbox 360. However there is a £15 monthly subscription for non-Sky TV customers wishing to make use of the Sky Player platform, and Sky TV customers on the Sky Broadband Unlimited package (20Mbps, Unlimited downloads from £10 a month) can get access to this service for free.
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Posted by Tom on October 29th 2009 in Sky Broadband
Orange Broadband is now putting the pedal to the metal on all of its fixed-line broadband packages. Thanks to the rollout of ADSL2+ connections across the country Orange is now offering top speeds of 20Mbps (where available) on all of its broadband services.
There has also been a tidy up of the three existing Orange Broadband packages – Home Starter, Home Select, and Home Max – and the introduction of a new heavyweight package, Home Ultra.
Orange-branded wireless routers are now available on all of the services allowing everyone to set up space efficient home networks in no time at all. Unlimited downloads are now also available across the board.
Orange broadband services are now grouped into two distinct tiers – with Home Starter and Home Select you get broadband internet access but pay line rental to whoever your provider is.
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Posted by Tom on October 21st 2009 in Broadband
Customer who sign up TalkTalk’s Essentials broadband and phone package before 31st October can benefit from free connection, saving them £29.99.
The package, costing £6.49 a month (plus £11.25 monthly line rental), offers fast reliable broadband up to 8Mbps, a large 40GB download allowance, unlimited evening and weekend calls to UK landlines and 0870/0845 numbers and free local calls.
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Posted by Ellie on October 14th 2009 in Broadband, TalkTalk
Sky’s the limit right? Leading pay-TV operator and rising star of UK broadband Sky is preparing to launch a new digital music service to rival the likes of Spotify and iTunes as well as Virgin Media’s recently announced Music Unlimited platform.
Called Sky Songs, the service launches on the 19th of October in a week’s time and will be available to anyone in the UK with broadband. Over four million songs will be available to both stream and download on a subscription basis.
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Posted by Tom on October 12th 2009 in Next Gen Broadband, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media
Virgin Media’s ground-breaking unlimited music streaming service looks like it’s going to have to shift that ‘unlimited’ tag, according to an exclusive article in The Register. The platform was thought to be called ‘Music Unlimited’, was supposed to offer streaming of music a la Spotify and would come in a number of tiered subscription packages, the most expensive of which would provide unlimited downloads of songs.
The platform, announced back in June, attracted a considerable degree of press attention at the time. An unlimited music download package would have been a world-first for Virgin Media and the UK music industry. At the time Virgin Media had struck a deal with Universal Music Group and said that it was “negotiating with other UK major and independent music labels and publishers,” in order to offer a “complete, compelling catalog.” The Register piece cites that there was some resistance to a fully unlimited package from certain fronts, with anonymous fingers pointed in the direction of Sony Music.
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Posted by Tom on October 9th 2009 in Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media
To paraphrase music legend Gil Scott-Heron, the Ukraine v England match this Saturday will not be televised.
Football fans will already be aware of this fact and that the only way to watch this 2010 World Cup qualifier is to head over to www.ukrainevengland.com, where the match will be streaming live.
Supporters living in an area where broadband speeds aren’t great won’t be best pleased, but if you get your broadband through Eclipse Internet, then you’ll of course be able to tweak your connection with the Eclipse Optimisation Tool.
From the control panel of the Optimisation Tool, Eclipse Internet customers can alter their connection settings to prioritise for general web browsing, gaming, email as well as live streaming of audio and video. Using the Optimisation Tool, you’ll be able to turn everything else off during the match to make sure you get the best possible viewing experience.
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Posted by Tom on October 7th 2009 in Eclipse Internet
Sky is helping those getting ready for the Digital Switchover save money with a Sky+ and Sky HD TV bundle deal.
OK, so we know this strictly isn’t broadband-related news as the deal is based around the Sky TV packages, and it look like it will only available in those TV regions where the Digital Switchover is taking place. But you have to have Sky TV in order to get Sky Broadband and of course, Sky Broadband Base (up to 2Mbps, 2GB, £15 set up) is included free with a basic Sky TV and Sky Talk bundle deal.
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Posted by Tom on October 2nd 2009 in Broadband Bundles, Sky Broadband
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