Tag: .uk
Your phone bill to get marginally less obscene – Competition Commission demands 1.5p per minute cut
There’s been a bit of a tangled web of a technical argument going on between phone regulator Ofcom and the Competition Commission, with the latter investigating the former after BT complained that Ofcom set UK connection prices too high.
The end result is this – your phone calls might be about to get 1.5p per minute cheaper, thanks to the CC agreeing that Ofcom did indeed get it a bit wrong when it capped the networks’ termination fees – the prices phone companies are allowed to charge you for ringing other networks – too high…
UK Lycos/Tripod users: you're unprofitable, get lost
There was a time when the black labrador at Lycos was a fairly common sight, but times change and the RSPCA may have to step in shortly to rescue the poor little mutt.
That is, if Lycos UK does to him what it’s doing to its email and web hosting users.
You see, it’s not very profitable running free email and web hosting services, particularly when there are much bigger (Hotmail) and better (Gmail) ones out there.
From 15th February, users with Lycos Mail or Tripod web hosting accounts will lose all of their data and no longer be able to send or receive emails. While I’ve not visited a Tripod page in about ten years, nor seen anyone in the UK with a Lycos email address for about the same period of time, a little piece of Internet history is slipping away…
Vodafone to trial 21Mbps HSPA+ high speed mobile network
Vodafone has announced that it has been testing technology that could succeed HSPA, successfully having completed trials of 16Mbps “HSPA+” and with plans to test a 21Mbps service in the spring.
With a theoretical top speed of 21Mbps, Vodafone claims real-world download speeds of up to 13Mbps, and at least 4Mbps across its entire network…
Over a decade of web archives blocked by Demon's overzealous "dirty old men" filter
Yet again it seems that systems designed to block out illegal/deemed objectionable content have gon into overdrive and blocked a huge chunk of the Internet, including the company itself.
If you haven’t discovered the Wayback Machine before, it’s a massive archive of what’s been published online since 1996. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that, amongst that hideously large (but interesting) archive will be some material that some deem inappropriate. This seems to have triggered Demon Internet’s IWF-inspired filters to block the entire archive, including pages of — yep, you’ve guessed it — Demon and its owners Thus Internet, plus the IWF…
The UK has gone GAMING MAD – 22 million consoles in use, PS3 dead last
Gfk-ChartTrack, the Europe-wide sales-counting conglomerate that tracks how many games and how much hardware we’ve all been buying, has sad there are now a staggering 22 million games consoles in the UK.
That’s an increase from January 2008’s 13.5 million, a figure which presumably doesn’t include all our childhood Mega Drives and SNESs that are sitting in mum & dad’s loft. Nintendo sold 2.9 million Wiis between Jan 2008 and Jan 2009, Microsoft shifted 1.4m Xbox 360 consoles and Sony moved a rather poor 1m PS3s, making it…
Average UK broadband speed is 3.6Mbps – and you're probably only getting half the speed you're paying for
Ofcom, the communications watchdog that’s in charge of making sure everyone’s phones work and no one’s getting ripped off too badly by the ring tone companies, has revealed the results of a massive survey it conducted into the UK broadband scene.
As you might expect, we’re not getting what we pay for – as anyone who spends most of their evenings conducting broadband speed tests and sighing at the results will already know…
Nokia 5800 'Tube' finally touches down in the UK
We were wondering when the Nokia 5800 was going to show up, but it wasn’t ‘in time for Christmas’, after all. Nokia has just dropped us an email to confirm that you’ll be able to get your sweaty hands on the ‘Tube’ in the UK on Friday 23rd January.
Initially, it’ll only be available in Nokia’s Regent Street and Heathrow Terminal 5 flagship stores, as well as online, but come Friday 30th, it’ll be available from anywhere. Interestingly, Nokia will be selling it unlocked and SIM-free to start with, for £250. I would get excited, but with the N97 just round the corner, the Tube can get stuffed.
Nokia Shop
Related posts: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic coming very soon, in time for Christmas perhaps? | Shiny Preview: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic aka The Tube
Xbox 360 shifted "almost double" the units this Christmas compared to 2007
Credit crisis, financial disaster and aura of commercial misery everywhere you look? What credit crisis, financial disaster and aura of commercial misery everywhere you look?
That’s what Microsoft UK will be thinking at this very moment, having sold “almost double” the number of Xbox 360s in the UK over the Christmas period compared to Chrimbo 2007, thanks to the price cuts and its zany new casual interface for girls/children/the elderly…
URGENT BARGAIN NEWS: Get a Nintendo DS Lite for £75 today if you ACT NOW
In a clever piece of pre-Christmas sales marketing, online tech-flogger Buyitplayit is knocking out Nintendo’s DS for only £75 – £24.99 less than your standard devastated wasteland high street retail price.
There are two catches – it’s only selling the frankly hideous turquoise and pink versions of the DS Lite so it’s only of use as a Christmas gift to any children you know under the age of eight or ironic media employees, plus the site is only selling 50 at the lower price…
Be Broadband steps up to the challenge, trial doubles 24Mbps service to near-match Virgin Media
Not to be outdone by Virgin Media’s 50Mbps broadband announcement yesterday, Be Broadband has completed its trials of speed-doubling technology which would take the current 24Mbps broadband up to 48Mbps – almost the same as Virgin Media’s theoretical top speed.
The trial ran at the London Paddington exchange, with Be customers reporting real download speeds of between 30-45Mbps.
Be is keen to point out that its service will run through standard BT phone lines…
