Eclipse Internet

A lot has happened in the UK broadband market in 2009. Here’s a quick round up of the some of the big changes in broadband that have taken place over the last 12 months.

Tiscali gets bought by TalkTalk

Poor old Tiscali spent 2008 looking for a buyer without success and its woes continued into 2009. Despite many ISPs sniffing around hoping to steal a quick march on BT, nobody was willing to dig deep in their wallets. With deals collapsing at the last minute and its parent company losing millions of Euros on the continent times looked bleak for Tiscali’s UK arm. Then TalkTalk came to the rescue at the eleventh hour and swept Tiscali of it’s feet.

Speeding Up

2009 has seen a lot of speeding. BT, Orange and PlusNet all revved up their top download speeds to 20Mbps and 24Mbps in the case of Eclipse Internet. BT also released the Broadband Accelerator speed booster pack allowing customers to benefit from a more reliable broadband experience.

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Allergy Warning: This article may contain traces of pun.

Over the next two weeks, Eclipse Internet is giving away up to £100 worth of high street gift vouchers as part of a cracking Christmas deal. New customers who place an order from today Monday the 23rd of November to the 14th of December will be able to qualify for free vouchers.

The vouchers are from giftvouchershop.co.uk can be redeemed in over 60 high street retailers including Argos, Burtons, Currys, Toys R Us and WH Smith.

Customers who sign up for Eclipse Home Select (£17.95 p/m, up to 24Mbps, 10GB download limit) will earn £30 worth of vouchers whilst those who take out Eclipse Home Pro (£29.95 p/m, up to 24Mbps, 50GB download limit) will get £50.

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Simplicity is the key, they say. SimplicITy Computers, the maker of a the newly launched PC platform designed to help older people experience the benefits of the internet, is recommending that so-called ’silver surfers’ sign up with Eclipse Internet broadband packages. SimplicITy Computers is giving Eclipse the thumbs up due to its “approach to customer service”.

Nigel Houghton of SimplicITy said: “We were really pleased with the enthusiasm and professionalism displayed by Eclipse and have been impressed by their approach to customer service. These factors making them an ideal partner to work with. Their UK based call centre answers calls quickly and has a reputation for resolving any issues on that first call. That is ideal for everyone, but particularly those using the internet for the first time who may need a little extra assistance.”

SimplicITy specifically recommend the Eclipse Internet Home Lite and Home Select services which both provide top speeds of 24Mbps and usage limits of 2GB and 10GB respectively. Home Lite costs £11.95 a month whilst Home Select costs £17.95 a month.

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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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Illegal downloads are on the wane in the UK according to a survey results published yesterday on Music Ally. A survey of 1,000 UK music fans suggested that illegal downloads and file sharing of audio content had decreased to 17 per cent in January 2009 from 22 per cent in December 2007.

Music streaming sites such as Spotify and YouTube are said to have contributed to the decline in P2P and torrenting.

Paul Brindley, the CEO of Music Ally said, “File sharing is a moving target, so industry and Government policies need to recognise this. It’s already being somewhat displaced by other means of accessing music for free. Some are licensed [Spotify] and some involve a bit of both [YouTube]…

Kids find services like YouTube much more convenient for checking out new music than file sharing. But even YouTube can become a source of piracy with some kids ripping YouTube videos and turning them into free MP3 downloads”.

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Broadband comparison site Broadband.co.uk have released the results of their anecdotal speed tests for January 2009, which sees Virgin Media sitting pretty atop the pile with an average download speed of 6.018Mbps - a speed and position no doubt bolstered by the recent launch of the premium Size: XXL 50Mbps service.

Sitting just behind Virgin in second place is O2, owners of Be Broadband’s ADSL2+ infrastructure, with a top average download speed of 5.319Mbps. Third place is Sky Broadband, with a top downstream average of 3.521Mbps.

The three ISPs offer theoretical maximum download speeds of 50Mbps, 20Mbps (or 24, if you’re with Be) and 16Mbps respectively.

Market leaders BT were nowhere to be seen in the upper echelons of the speed test, lurking second to last with a top average download speed of 2.331Mbps, just about AOL’s 2.011Mbps.

In the upload speed stakes, O2 performed considerably better than Virgin, with a top average of 0.734, well above the cable group’s 0.466Mbps.

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Broadband speeds tests have revealed that Virgin Media now offers the fastest broadband speeds, snatching the crown from rival internet service provider O2 for the first time.

An industry official involved in the testing stated: “Virgin Broadband have finally overtaken O2 broadband as the UK’s fastest average download speed supplier. Data shows that the average download speed for a Virgin user is now 6.13Mbps as compared to 5.32Mbps for O2.”

The report indicates that Virgin Media also came ahead of other high-speed broadband providers, including Be Broadband and Sky Broadband.

Both O2 and Virgin offer high-speed packages of 20Mbps, helping ensure they fared well in speed tests against other providers who do not offer such a service. Virgin Media is likely to perform even better in future speed tests as it carries out plans to roll out its 50Mbps broadband service to a wider area.

Other broadband providers did not fare so well in the speed tests, with AOL and Eclipse Internet yielding the poorest results. AOL also scored worst on the upload speed tests along with TalkTalk, another Carphone Warehouse owned provider. For the month of September, the average download speed for Virgin Media was 6.128Mbps compared to an average speed of 5.321Mbps from Be Broadband and 5.32Mbps from O2.

Eclipse Internet Home and Business Broadband customers can now enjoy maximum download speeds of up to 24Mbps thanks to the recent installation of ADSL2+ hardware across the Eclipse Internet LLU footprint.

All of the Eclipse packages, from Home Lite, to Business Unlimited now feature maximum download speeds of 24Mbps across the board, with varying download limits.

The head of sales and marketing for Eclipse internet, Mark Thomas, said “These new packages represent excellent value for consumers. As well as having access to high speed broadband and the ability to customise the connection, we’ve included additional benefits including everything from free telephone calls to an automated backup service for home computers.

Consumers can select a package based on their usage requirements, from simple surfing to those wanting to use more bandwidth-hungry applications.”

Best of all, this is a free speed upgrade – the cost of the Eclipse packages remains the same as they did when they had the older top speed of 8Mbps.

Broadband provider Be Broadband is offering existing customers ultra-fast downloads for a trial period using a new line-bonding technology that could bring speeds of up to 40Mbps.

The 30-day trial is open to all current Be Broadband customers including a large number of online gamers who are likely to benefit greatly from this speed increase. Participants could receive broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps, although this will verymuch depend on the customer’s current connection speed, as well as the length and quality of the ASDL lines. The faster connection will be achieved by combining two telephone lines via a single ADSL2+ router, harnessing the strength of two lines to get a single broadband connection.

To be considered for the trial, current Be Broadband customers must apply to the ISP before Friday 26th September. Contact Be on 020 7479 5029 or email them at linebondingtrial@beunlimited.co.uk. Be Broadband will then contact BT on behalf of successful applicants to order the two telephone lines. A new router will be given to customers by a Be Broadband employee. Customers who participate in the trial will receive the 30 days free of charge, as well as the following month’s subscription. They may also keep the two lines for a year without charge.

While customers participating in the trial should see their broadband speeds dramatically increase, it is unlikely they will double. Generally a second line will be of a lesser quality than the first that was installed, and in the long run customers are unlikely to see paying for two lots of line rental as value for money, even when speeds go up significantly.

Eclipse Internet has proudly published results showing that the KCOM-owned ISP successfully blocked some 98.2 per cent of spam emails from reaching customers’ inboxes during the month of July – equivalent to over 503 million emails.

Whilst the majority of spam emails which offer you Viagra, cialis and access to offshore African bank accounts left to you in the will of some relative you’ve never heard of are pretty easy to detect, flag and delete, some spam emails are cleverly constructed hoaxes of emails sent from legitimate organisations which would plausibly try to get in contact with you via email – eBay, for example.

All Eclipse Internet packages come with their own branded VIRUSsheild and SPAMsheild security solutions, allowing customers to get set up and surf safely out of the box. As well as identifying and blocking a large proportion of spam before it reaches customers’ mailboxes, the anti-virus/anti-spam solution allows customers to check and delete suspect mail before it can do any damage.

The entry on spam at the website of security experts Symantec says that “messages that do not include your email address in the TO: or CC: fields are common [hallmarks] of Spam,” and therefore should be deleted before opening any attachments which come included.

Clodagh Murphy, Director of Broadband Operations at Eclipse says that “Spam email is a real nuisance and can pose a security threat to customers. Unsolicited email unfortunately is becoming more prolific as internet usage continues to increase. At Eclipse, we try to ease the pain for our customers with our very effective anti-virus/anti-spam solution.”