Category: Internet
Britons don’t want web filters, says Ofcom
UK web users must really like their porn. Either that, or they just don't like the government telling them what they can and cannot look at online. A new report from Ofcom shows that broadband customers in the UK are overwhelmingly choosing not to use parental-control systems foisted on ISPs by the government - with…
Netflix hits 50m global subscribers as profits double
Streaming video may not have supplanted broadcast TV, DVD or Blu-ray quite yet, but it appears to be well on its way. Online TV and movie streaming service Netflix announced this week that it now had more than 50 million subscribers in more than 40 countries worldwide. Releasing its results for the second quarter of…
BBC technical problems affect iPlayer and homepage
TV viewers were unable to watch or listen to their favourite BBC shows online for more than 24 hours over the weekend, when the corporation's TV and radio iPlayer service was hit by technical issues. The gremlins also got into the BBC website's front page. An error message on the page reads: "Due to technical…
Anti-piracy campaign set to kick off in UK
In an effort to fight digital piracy, the movie and music industries have announced a deal with the UK’s leading ISPs to send warning emails to alleged copyright infringers. Called the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme, the campaign will focus on alerting people to the fact that their activities infringe copyright. Starting next year, up to…
Netflix ranks Virgin Media as UK’s fastest ISP
Not all of its customers might agree, but Virgin Media has been rated the UK's best ISP by streaming service Netflix. Virgin Media tops the current list on the official Netflix blog with an average speed of 3.30Mbps, with BT in second place at 2.96Mbps. Sky is in third on 2.74Mbps, then EE on 2.62Mbps…
Bell Labs pushes 10Gbps over copper phone lines
The imminent death of the copper cable appears to have been greatly exaggerated. To paraphrase a certain character from Monty Python and The Holy Grail: "It's not dead yet." The BBC reports that researchers at Bell Labs claim to have set a new broadband speed record of 10Gbps using traditional copper telephone lines. In…
UK aims for 100% superfast broadband coverage by 2017
Sick of slow downloads and constant buffering while trying to watch a TV show on the iPlayer or Netflix? Well, the internet in the UK should see some improvement over the next few years. The government has today said that it aims to achieve 100% superfast broadband coverage in the UK by 2017. Communications minister…
UK digital banking reaches £1bn a day
Remember the very, very old days where, if you wanted to get money out of your bank account, you had to walk into a building and conduct a conversation and a physical transaction with an actual human being? How those times have changed - most of us now do pretty much all our banking online…
Social media 'influences TV viewing'
Have you ever started watching a TV show because everybody you know on Facebook and Twitter is already watching it and won't stop talking about it? Well, you're not alone. In news that will surprise nobody, a study by internet…
Virgin Media suffers nationwide DNS outage… just days after BT (fuelling my made-up conspiracy theory)
It is not a good time to be a UK broadband customer. Last night Virgin Media suffered a nationwide DNS outage – rendering most of the web inaccessible for its customers. Loving this "month-long service disruption" (customer service quote) from…
