Tech Digest

Carphone Warehouse buys out AOL UK, becomes UKs 3rd largest ISP: silly name though

The Carphone Warehouse have bought out the UK subsidiary of AOL in a deal worth £370m. It's a somewhat bizarre merger in my view.

Even the names are odd. Take "America Online" but operating in the UK, and merge it with "Carphone Warehouse" whose name was compromised even by selling ordinary mobile phones, letalone branching into broadband and fixed-line phone services.

As to reputation: Well AOL has always been the butt of jokes at its questionable service (sending out landfill quantities of free trial CDs didn't help much either), and the Carphone Warehouse has recently had a ton of complaints to good old BBC Watchdog for being a potential death trap - err, well OK not quite, but for providing a shoddy broadband service.

A merger?? Whoa. I bet AOL UK's 2.1m subscribers are pleased...

Quite who's going to inherit and maintain the AOL broadband connections I'm not sure yet. AOL are still advertising their services profusely, so presumably the companies are still going to keep their individual branding. There'll be a degree of input from AOL/Time Warner in terms of content provision and advertising revenue sharing. CW will continue to charge AOL subscribers in the same way they are billed at present.

However it works, the deal will initially put CW in 3rd place, behind NTL:Telewest and BT, of residential Internet Service Providers.

What do you reckon to this deal? Good news or a mess?

Rent the Geek Squad for your home IT problems

The rise in home technology and high-speed broadband connections is apparently leading to problems when customers are left to their own devices (no pun intended). Sign up for broadband and, apart from an installation CD and some skimpy instructions, you'll probably be left with the modem or router and expected to set it all up yourself.

Now, for many, that's not a problem (in fact I'd rather do it myself to save the embarrassment of showing off my untidy working environment to a telecoms engineer) but to appeal to customers who have little time or expertise, and some cash to spare, many companies are setting up on-call engineers.

BT will charge you £50 if you want an engineer to come round and plug in the USB or Ethernet cable between your PC and modem. The Carphone Warehouse have set up a 'Geek Squad' and PC World have 'TechGuys'.

You can be sure there'll be some premium prices around, so if you're the techie person in your family, you may start getting more calls from your technophobe relatives when they realise how much it'll cost to hire a corporate geek for the day. They can use you instead - you only charge a beer or two, don't you?

It's a nice little moneyspinner for the companies, at least.

Mac gets Skype 2.0 beta: free video calls beckon

Mac users are now able to catch up a little with a free download of version 2.0 (beta) of the Skype software. This adds the option of free video calling to other Skype users with a webcam, regardless of their operating system.

These one-on-one video calls can be viewed within the Skype window or in full screen mode. There's also another window so the user can see their own appearance.

Skype have always claimed that their system just works, without messing with settings and hassles with firewalls and such like. Though Apple have been pushing their own multi-chat video system through iChat AV, that's only really good for connecting multiple Mac users. Not many of my friends have Macs (shame) so having Skype with video should make it a lot easier.

Then again, I'm not sure I always want my friends to see me on video...

It needs a G4, G5 or Intel processor running at least 800MHz, and obviously a webcam, as well as the usual requirements. Hopefully beta doesn't equate with unstable - but there's always version 1.5 to fall back on if it does prove unreliable.

Skype web site

Vodafone to offer fixed-line broadband deals in the UK before Christmas

A little later than most of the competition, Vodafone has announced it is to launch fixed-line broadband services in the UK, along with combined mobile/broadband deals. The mobile giant has announced a deal with BT Wholesale to provide the broadband service, which should launch before the end of the year.

According to Nick Read, Chief Executive of Vodafone UK: "Today's announcement is a strategically important step in the evolution of Vodafone's business in the UK.  Choosing BT as our partner enables us to provide high quality fixed-line broadband services to customers quickly and cost-efficiently right across the UK, and this perfectly complements our national mobile coverage and mobile broadband service. This news is further evidence of Vodafone delivering on its strategy and providing its customers with a total communications solution wherever they are."

In other words, if you're a Vodafone customer, expect a competitive price deal for your landline and mobile through the letterbox before Christmas.

Vodafone website

More broadband:
Sign up with Virgin Mobile - get free Virgin broadband
Carphone Warehouse "free broadband" - demand means long wait

Virgin Mobile launch free broadband offer

Not to be outdone by everyone else offering free broadband for a year so long as you take some other service offering, Virgin will be offering free broadband to anyone who signs up for a new Virgin SIM-only mobile contract at £15 or £30 per month. The broadband service on its own would cost £17.99 per month for 8Mb download speed and 6Gb monthly usage allowance.

As there's no contract for a Virgin mobile, if you actually want a mobile phone and broadband and don't have either, you could sign up, take the year of mobile use and get the free broadband, and then either scrap the phone or the broadband after the year if you find another deal. Of course, they'll hope that you won't.

I'm no great fan of these 'free' offerings but then I tend to shop around for each service individually without going for bundles like this.

Sign up with Virgin Mobile - get free Virgin broadband

  Another week, another free broadband offer - this time, courtesy of Virgin Mobile (now, of course, under the NTL:Telewest brand), which is offering free high-speed access with Virgin.net if you sign up to a Virgin Mobile monthly deal.

The deal seems fairly straightforward - if you sign up top one of Virgin Mobile's SIM-only pay monthly tariffs, you will be offered a year's worth of up to 8Mbps broadband, a service that would normally cost £17.99. The offer is available between now and 31st October. Once your SIM is activated, you can get the free broadband service by dialling a number you'll be given.

Last month, NTL:Telewest launched Britain's first quad-play service, offering digital TV, broadband, fixed-line phone and a mobile phone deal from Virgin for £40.

Virgin Mobile

Via The Register

Boeing Axes In-Flight Internet

Here’s some more bad news for travellers, Boeing has just announced that it is scrapping its Connexion division, which was behind the plane-maker’s in-flight Internet service. Boeing has spent upwards of $1.5billion over the past six years rolling out the satellite-based system and users were mostly enthusiastic but clearly there weren’t enough of them and according to The Seattle Times Business & Technology report it just didn’t bring in enough revenue to make it viable and it will close down by the end of the year.

Kids' favourites to kick off BT Vision broadband TV service

Perhaps BT are hoping to appeal to young families with the announcement that its soon-to-be-launched BT Vision broadband TV service will feature Basil Brush and Postman Pat, in just one of a collection of deals BT have struck with content providers.

Oasis will also be making some kind of appearance on the new service (presumably not launching it in a grown-up version of how the Spice Girls opened Channel Five)

Actually, the service will air Oasis: Live by the Sea and Duran Duran: Live at Wembley.

There's a few comedies and documentaries in the offing too, including Doc Martin and Rosemary: Queen of the Kitchen. Err, yeah OK. And we already know we'll get time-delayed coverage of selected Premiership matches.

BT Vision will be non-subscription based, with some content on a pay-per-view basis, though it sounds as if customers will have to cough up about £100 for the set-top box, plus of course they'll need BT Broadband.

What do you think about BT Vision? Does it sound like a worthy competitor to standalone Freeview, Sky and Telewest, or are BT a bit late to the party?

Read

Monday interview: RawFlow on why Peer-to-Peer technologies will revolutionise webcasting as we know it

Peer-to-Peer technology isn't just about cheerfully downloading the new Justin Timberlake album from some bloke in Greenland. Really. In fact, P2P could be the gateway to watching legal, full-screen webcasts from big broadcasters and media companies.

At least this is the view of RawFlow, a provider of, you guessed it, live P2P streaming technology. So why are the concepts that powered Napster, Kazaa, BitTorrent and co now being taken up by Big Media? Tech Digest talked to RawFlow's Mikkel Dissing and Ian Keeling to find out.

The problem with current video streaming technologies is that they're costly for the content providers, says Keeling. “Right now, when you broadcast over the Internet, there’s a success penalty. Every new audience member incurs a cost for the broadcaster in terms of bandwidth and server capacity."

His view is that this is why webcasting hasn't taken off properly yet. In a layman's nutshell, RawFlow's P2P technology harnesses the unused bandwidth of internet users to provide more efficient streaming, and lower the costs for broadcasters.

 

The firm is ultra-keen to make a couple of things clear, however. Firstly, this is a live streaming service, it’s not about downloading stuff. And secondly, this isn’t piracy – a stigma that Keeling says has been attached to P2P technology since Napster was in its heyday.

“It’s live, and it’s not possible for an end user to capture the content,” says Keeling. “You consume the content, and it’s gone. It doesn’t download onto your computer, so you can’t pass it on or share it in any way.”

Rawflow’s technology also supports full copy protection technologies as well as ‘geo-locking’ – where webcasts can only be viewed by users with an IP address in a specific country or territory. That’s great news for Big Media, but what's the benefit to us consumers sitting in front of our PCs?

“The bottom line is that now, if you’re an end user who wants to watch video on the Internet, chances are you’re watching it in a small window not much bigger than a business card, and if lots of people log on, you get buffering and jittering,” says Keeling.

“P2P is a more efficient way of using bandwidth, so if a broadcaster invests £100,000 in webcasting a music concert, rather than watching this little window, you could be watching it full-screen. And because P2P is more cost efficient, they don’t have to roll the costs of the webcast onto you, the consumer.”

Keeling says there’s a big surge in the number of large broadcasters and media firms who want to use P2P technology for live streaming, naming the BBC, Disney and Warner Brothers as examples. However, CEO Mikkel Dissing says that P2P streaming also suits smaller companies who want to broadcast online, but haven’t been able to afford the bandwidth before.

“Say you were Swindon football club, there’s no way you’d be interesting enough for Rupert Murdoch to put you on the Sky platform,” he says. “But that’s the beautiful thing about the Internet, as you can do it yourself. But it’s not been affordable for a lot of these smaller broadcasters and companies before.”

With that in mind, RawFlow has just announced a new tool called QuickStart, aimed at small-to-medium sized broadcasters, media companies and presumably home counties football clubs. The results will hopefully be an explosion in niche webcasting.

But back to Big Media. In its dealings with broadcasters, Keeling says he has seen a number of them loosen up when it comes to their attitude towards copy protection and digital rights management.

“We’re seeing content owners be a lot more relaxed about how content is being used,” says Keeling. “The biggest earner is advertising, so the more people you can get in front of your content, the better.”

To take the example of a music concert, this might mean that you could live stream a gig, which when it finishes downloads to your computer, although you'll have to pay to watch it again. Or you might be able to share it with friends, although again, they'll have to pay to watch the whole thing. There's still plenty of work to be done though in convincing the Hollywood studios and record labels to make full use of P2P.

 

“We see ourselves as spokespeople for P2P,” says Dissing. “We want to convince people that it’s not bad, it’s good. And in my opinion, it’s the only way the Internet can become a broadcast medium. There’s no way you can build proper business models around a model where every single new viewer costs more money than you can demand.”

Post Office looking to enter UK broadband market

Oh no, not another company looking to offer broadband? Yep, the Post Office is apparently looking at ways to introduce broadband to UK homes. They already offer a BT-competing phone service, and look like they want to expand that and offer high-speed Internet access at the same time.

I'm all for competition but this is starting to get ridiculous. I suppose it's vaguely ironic, nearly 25 years on, that the Post Office is seeking to compete with British Telecom, given the history. But anyway, to the bigger picture, why does every company now seem to think broadband needs to be a core part of its business?

Still, it keeps the broadband comparison websites in business. I'm just waiting for those little Post Office ants to start running around my TV shouting about the Internet. Joy.

TV gives way to new media for a new generation

The younger generation - the 16-24s - are placing less significance on the TV and other traditional media for their entertainment and information, and instead using the Internet.

Maybe not that surprising. The figures aren't hugely different: 1 hour per day less TV than the average TV viewer, and 15 minutes less radio.

The Ofcom report for 2005 said that 'the Internet plays a central role in daily life' for 16-24s, with 70% using social networking sites (compared to 41% of the general Net populous), with 37% contributing to blogs or online message boards.

Part of the increased success is due to the increase in broadband coverage, and a significant decrease in its price. 27% of responders said they now read newspapers less because of their online usage.

Seems to fit well with this Swiss research. Mind you, I can't see the TV dying out any time soon. I believe some previous research has shown that many people use the Net and watch TV at the same time (I do - who said men can't multitask)

Britons on broadband spend 50 days a year online

Apparently we're a nation of Netaholics. Not only has broadband taken off in a huge way, but the amount of time that we're spending on the Net has also grown massively, to the point that one survey said that we spend 50 days (one-seventh) of each year online.

That's according to USwitch.com who said on average we spend 23.5 hours online per week. Though a recent Ofcom said that only 12% of broadband users spent over 25 hours per week, with the majority spending 12 hours per week online.

I wouldn't be surprised if the USwitch survey is closer to the truth, particularly as it measures activities including listening to online radio, which can be a background task.

The helpfully titled "General surfing" is the main activity that people are engaged with online, at nearly 8 hours per week, followed by playing online games (4.5 hours), emailing (3 hours), downloading film/trailers (3 hours), listening to radio (3 hours), downloading music (2 hours), and making phone calls (1.5 hours)

This won't correlate exactly to popularity - for example I'd expect music downloads to outnumber video downloads, but the latter takes proportionally longer.

Even so, it's an interesting reflection on our growing love affair with the high-speed Internet.

How much time do you spend online in an average week, and what do you  do (apart from read Tech Digest, of course)?

Read

Skype offering free calls to anyone every Thursday in August

OK, you've got half of today left, and then four more Thursdays, to make totally free calls from Skype to your non-Skype mates on any landline or mobile phone anywhere in the world.

Yes, really.

OK, it's not unlimited, but they're still offering 100 free minutes to every UK registered user, dished out at 20 minutes each week.

Of course, they're probably hoping you'll enjoy chatting to people on your Skype connection so much that you'll carry on calling them - hopefully then to convince them to get a broadband PC of their own so that you can carry on the conversation for free.

Sounds like a nice little promotion that's easy to set up - just click on the 'Get 20 Free Minutes Now' banner and take it from there. If you're not a Skypee yet, you'll need to sign up at skype.co.uk.

UK's top town for broadband? Swindon

Swindon has topped the list of towns with the greatest home broadband usage, with 51.1% of all households having at least a basic package, according to 'estimated research' by Point Topic.

Factors that seem to have influenced this include:

• Good overall availability of broadband
• Strong competition between BT and ntl:Telewest
• Town is in the south of England
• Town has a high proportion of young families with children

All towns in the top 10 were in the south of England. Conversely, over 50 local authorities have a broadband takeup of less than 25%, though many of these are in rural areas - not that surprising.

Point Topic chief exec Tim Johnson said the results were "the most accurate estimates available, especially as the broadband market is becoming more deeply divided and even the biggest suppliers no longer have a complete view of what is going on"

Top 10 towns/areas are:

1. Swindon 51.1%
2. Wokingham 49.3%
3. Wycombe 48.7%
4. Milton Keynes 48.5%
5. Watford 48.4%
6. Stevenage 48.0%
7. Bracknell Forest 47.9%
8. Aylesbury Vale 47.5%
9. West Wiltshire 47.2%
10. Surrey Heath 47.1%

Read

UK broadband price checker coming soon

Moneysupermarket.com is to launch a broadband price comparison tool that will let users check out the best UK broadband providers.

The service should cover both standalone and bundled deals, such as those offering TV and telephony options. They're seeking to work with the broadband industry to develop an informative service to make it simple for the consumer to use.

Good luck to them! The broadband market seems to be shifting more quickly these days, with traditional and new players competing for custom.

Sounds like a useful service because it's quite a minefield. You'll probably still find that once you've picked the best deal and signed up for a 12 or 18 month contract, all the prices will change again. Isn't that just the way.

I'm inclined just to stay put with one provider and hopefully become a valued customer. Yeah, but then I stayed with British Gas, too...

Sky's Brian Sullivan on Sky Broadband, the next gen Sky+ boxes (they could be wireless), HD via the web, YouTube and more

Over at sister blog HDTVUK they have an intriguing interview with Brian Sullivan,  Sky's Director of Customer Products and Services. Sullivan drops a few hints on the next generation Sky+ box (there's a good chance it will wirelessly stream video from one room to another), explains why he thinks satellite beats broadband when it comes to HD delivery and has lots of good things to say about YouTube.

ntl:Telewest raise the stakes with UKs first quad-play service

Pretty exciting news today as UK cable giant ntl:Telewest have announced the launch of Britain's first quad-play service, coming by September.

Quad-play: that's a digital TV, broadband, fixed-line phone and mobile phone package.

Though it has the potential for 'eggs in one basket' worries, I've been pretty impressed with ntl:Telewest's services and innovation to date, and this looks like it'll shake the market up.

Providing they can deliver, there's a pretty tasty package lined up:

• Free digital TV for all home phone customers - the starter package (40+ digital channels) which can be upgraded at any time.
• Free for life of subscription
• Freeview and then some - advanced next gen services (ie high-def and Video on Demand). They claim that even Sky can't match that (yet)
• Home phone service with unlimited local and national weekend phone calls
• Virgin mobile phone contract
• 2Mb broadband service
  

The service is a combo of ntl:Telewest's '3 for £30 quid' service and a Virgin Mobile monthly pay contract, all for just £40 a month.

Pretty impressive.

First impressions?

• 2Mb broadband is rather sluggish these days (there's no mention yet of whether this can be upgraded as part of the deal - Telewest currently offer up to 10Mb speeds on their Elite package) but there's no reason why they won't bump the speed as BT have done.
• The TV package is good - it doesn't come with TVDrive as standard but does have the Teleport VoD service - and can be upgraded.
• It will be interesting to see how BT respond, as before the end of the year they should have all the components in place to offer a similar package (BT Vision and BT Mobile). Whatever they do, ntl:Telewest certainly seem to have the first-to-market advantage.

Is this a deal you'd go for? Would you be happy to take all your communication, digital TV and Internet services from one company?

Monday interview: BT futurologist Graham Whitehead on why intelligent agents will roam in your connected home

The connected home used to be a pipe-dream for the consumer tech industry. If it wasn’t internet-connected fridges / microwaves / nostril-trimmers, it was big firms like Panasonic, Microsoft or Orange showcasing their visions of future homes where every device would be connected to the network and able to talk to each other.

In 2006, this futuristic utopia is finally hoving into view. Broadband rollout is steaming ahead, gadgets of all kinds are having Wi-Fi stuck inside, and the prospect of triple or quad-play TV/broadband/phone/mobile bundling at least gives us hope that the devices on the end of those may work together more seamlessly.

Want to know what all this means? Talk to a futurologist like Graham Whitehead, who works for BT Exact, the research arm of BT. "We're about to witness more change in the next 10 years than in the previous 150!" says Whitehead. "Things are going to move very fast indeed..."

As you may know, BT has been busily planning to rebuild its network for the 21st century, chucking out its existing Public Switched Telephone network in favour of a spiffing new internet protocol (IP) network. It’s being trialled in Cardiff this year, but by 2009 the whole of the UK should be hooked up to it.

"You'll have this big core network, then DSL to your home to deliver everything, and then you'll have Wi-Fi around the home so that everything can be connected," says Whitehead. "Your TV set will be Wi-Fi-enabled, your fridge...”

Tsk, those pesky internet fridges will still be around then. Advantages to the new network include better-quality voice calls and all manner of on-demand content services. But Whitehead is equally excited about the idea that human beings can “be extracted from the process of finding information”. No, this doesn’t mean robots doing your Google searches. At least, not yet.

Instead, it’s about ‘intelligent agents’ - small pieces of software that reside within your network helping you grapple with the huge mass of content and information that can be squirted down your broadband pipe. Whitehead gives the example of a TV agent.

“When there are 4,000 channels of digital TV coming to us, as stupid little humans we'll be unable to cope!,” he says. “The TV agent will effectively sit next to you, learn what you like, and then sort, sift and pre-digest what's coming in. For example, if it knows you like science programmes, it will see one that's on, talk to your diary agent to see if you're out, and if you are it'll tag the programme for recording."

Okay, so it’s a supercharged TiVo in one sense, but it’s the ability of these agents to interact with each other and the wider network that’s interesting. Whitehead cites other examples - a banking agent, for example, that can interact directly with your e-banking service (presumably along the lines of ‘he’s out on the lash again tonight, if any debits come through from Stringfellows, DON’T authorise them...’)

Of course, these agents will also function as gatekeepers, ensuring you’re not overloaded by the sheer weight of information. And spam.

“Gone will be the ability for an advertising agency to do a piece of video, seed it in a TV channel and then have customers come back and find them," says Whitehead. "It will become more of a one-on-one relationship. As an advertiser, I'll have to reach out and stroke you."

If the thought of a leering Michael Winner reaching out of your connected TV set to stroke you puts you off, don't worry (although if it excites you, seek help). Whitehead's vision is of a more benign form of opt-in advertising - the logical conclusion of current promotions where, say, Amazon might send you an email every so often alerting you to a new book by an author whose titles you’ve bought in the past.

"That's not spam," says Whitehead. "In the future, your book-reading agent might go out saying 'Any new books?', and because your agent has gone out and touched, it gives permission for people to come back to me. I see spam decreasing in the network as this targeted specific stuff comes through based on your likes and dislikes."

"You'll also have blocking filters," he continues. "If your book-reading agent goes out to Waterstones and Amazon, that gives those companies permission to come back into the system and give you information. But if a company comes back and is annoying, it would be deleted from the permission tables."

Naturally, all this throws up issues of privacy, security, and concerns that your book-reading agent might do a HAL, go mad and order the collected works of Barbara Cartland. But that’s the sort of stuff that will need to get worked out as the new IP network is deployed.

Check back on Wednesday for Part 2 of the interview, where Graham explains why the new network is safer. Oh, and why robots are our future too.

Carphone Warehouse rapped for 'free broadband' advertising

C'mon, we all know that when a company tells us something is free, that it's not really.

There's always something to pay, somewhere, or some tie-in.

Though the Advertising Standards Authority received complaints about Carphone Warehouse's advertising of its broadband offering as 'free' when it involved an 18-month tie-in to one of its talk packages, they're still allowed to call it 'free' because broadband is also bundled with another package.

Or something like that... it's all a bit contrived.

Why can't everyone agree that there's no such thing as truly free broadband, and move on?

Oh yeah: marketing.

With Sky entering the arena offering yet more 'free broadband' the confusion can only get worse. More choice for consumers is great, in principle, but misleading plans and contracts don't help consumers.

I'd rather go with a package that from the start simply says that you sign up for x months at £y per month.

Are you convinced by these 'free' broadband offerings?

Sky Broadband: The Americans kick ass

There were times today at the Sky Broadband launch I had to remind myself I was actually in Britain. First was the weather of course (sweltering heat, more LA than London). Then there were the 'folks' on stage to use modern American parlance: James Murdoch, Sky CEO, and Brian Sullivan, Sky's Director of Strategy.

Together the two Americans told us how 'People had been paying too much for too little for too long' - a thinly veiled attack on BT (didn't they used to have a telephony partnership together?). But even the likes of Carphone Warehouse didn't get away without a verbal doing over from the pair. Yes, they offered better prices, but 'there were still too many conditions attached'.

So is Sky Broadband a considerably better deal than you can get at the moment?

Well, yes - it is - though there are a few catches which we'll come to in a bit. The good news is you don't even have to subcribe to a top Sky package to get broadband for free, which was widely expected to be one of the conditions.

In fact, it seems that Sky will be making a massive loss on the offering (at least initially) which explains why Sky's shares fell 4.3 per cent following the announcement . Strangely the City, which never seems to think particularly long term, wasn't best pleased by Murdoch's pledge to put an initial £250 million into the venture with a further £400 million over the next three years.

But then News Corporation, which owns a 38 per cent in Sky, and which recently spent a small fortune ($580 million) on social networking site MySpace, knows probably more than any other company in the UK just how important the internet now is.

Certainly this is just the first step towards a fully 'converged' offering which will eventually allow Sky customers to download video content - both standard and high definition - via their broadband connection and ethernet-equipped Sky Plus boxes directly to their TV screens. Something that cable companies like NTL/Telewest which have fast two-way pipes that can bundle TV/telephony/broadband together are in a much better position to do, if only they could get their act together.

But before you get too excited by Sky's offering which it's widely claimed by the newspapers will save broadband customers 'up to £300 a year' it's worth noting that, when it comes to offering fast broadband, Sky currently has exactly the same problems as cable - that of low penetration.

Through its deal with ISP Easynet (News Corp bought the company for £211 million earlier this year), Sky is only able to offer free broadband to around one in four homes. Probably OK if you live in London or a major conurbation but if you live in the Outer Hebrides then forget it. Instead if you want broadband you'll have to sign up to Sky Connect - a service which compares badly price-wise with its competitors.

Sky certainly talks a good talk - and I'm sure there will be a few worried executives over at BT and NTL with their calculators working out a new price strategy this evening - but it will be interesting to see over the next few months whether it can actually deliver on its promise. And of course it will be interesting to see how a few more established players will react. One thing's for sure the days of paying the best part of £30 for connection speed of 2Mb/s or even slower are well and truly over. That has to be good news at least.

By Chris Price

Zyxel P-660HW: ADSL2+ router/modem on a budget

Looking for a home networking solution on a budget that's better than what your ISP provided when you signed up for broadband? If so, the Zyxel P-660HW could be for you.

It's the entry-level offering in a new range of products from Zyxel and at just £47.99 including VAT it's definitely a low-cost networking solution for the home or small office.

The price includes a USB wireless adapter, and this solution can also be used with the PL100 PowerLine Ethernet adapters for where signal strength is weaker.

Amongst the features that you expect to find on much more expensive products are a 4-port Ethernet hub, Media Bandwidth Management - allowing administrators to alter Quality of Service (QoS) settings to cater for critical network traffic like video and audio streaming - Firewall Security, IP Management, and Roaming Support.

As is usually the way, the spec sheet is littered with acronyms and technical details, but I hope to get my hands on one in the next few days, so you'll either get a report from me on how good it is, or I'll be sipping cappuccino from the local Internet café having knackered my Internet connection!

Anyone for Dynamic DNS?

Sky Broadband launch Live blog

You have heard all the rumours and the goss about Sky offering free broadband to its customers. Well we are here at Vinopolis in London Bridge listening to the full announcement.

Read on for the details, but the main points.

* Sky Broadband launches in August

* Very competitive packages, including a free 2Meg basic service

* To get the good deals users need to on Sky's broadband system - available to 28% of the population now. 50% by Xmas

* Top-end 16Meg connection

* Free wireless router thrown in

James Murdoch, Sky CEO and son of you know who, is saying that the UK market for broadband will double over the next few years. Hey he is bigging up blogging now, oh and not forgetting My Space

James is now saying that half of Sky's customers have broadband already.

We have moved on to ther big convergence speech now, citing demand for bandwidth as the key for broadband growth. Interesting home of the future diagram pops up highlighting Sky's existing offering. Boy does he speak quickly.

Over to Brian Sullivan now who is going to take us through Sky Broadband. He says it is an easy job as he feels it is a simple choice for Sky customers.

On to the details - three are three packages - 2Meg on the base level, 8Meg on the mid and 16Meg on the max. Whooa though. There's a 2 gig cap on the base - which is pretty tight. The max one is unlimited.

They are also throwing in wireless. Smart move and they are going to set it up for you via their installation team if you go for the two two tiers. There's also a small connection fee £20 or £40 - free for top-end.

The cost - base is free, mid costs £5 and the max is a £10 - that's per month. That's very very competitive. Only downer is deals are available to just 28 per cent of the population now. It will be 50-% by Christmas.

He is now comparing costs with rivals.

On to the content. You get the sky.com portal, email address, personalised home page. Just waiting for the link to My Spaces. You can also get Sky by Broadband, a photo service and nothing else. No My Space then and no blogs (phew).

Sky Talk - the Voip offering. Basically unlimted calls for a fiver a month. There's BT Line rental, but Sky will be offering its own Sky line rental soon.

Just seen a vid comparing Sky broadband with Telewest, BT etc. We'll have a good look at the figures later. Nevertheless Sky is making a huge deal out of the value for money of the service. Overall, Brian believes that Sky customers will save £1 billion within a year. Big talk.

Back to James - he's speaking quickly again. It's a landmark day for  broadband Britain apparently.  He wants to extend the reach of broadband in the UK. Better value, more flexible, transparent billing, quality content. You know the score by now, on to the questions.

Brian is talking about the possibility of video via broaband to a set top box by the end of 2007. Brian has just confirmed that from launch the top two tier services will be availalble to 50% of customers (which is 28% of the population).

We are getting clarification on the availability issue now. James takes this - today 28 per cent can have the service - 50% by end of year (this is more than cable apparently). That translates to one million Sky customers. Half can get the high speeds. I think  we have it now.

James is talking about AOL's UK portal which is up for sale and Sky is one of the bidders. He's not saying a great deal, but it would be a good fit for Sky. He's back on mesage again banging on about value for money.

James, has just outed himself as a Mac user. Apparently the service will be available to Mac users. Sky Movies and Sky Sports Broadband will be available to Mac users later this summer.

We'll have a more detailed look at the Sky Broadband offering later.

BT Broadband tops UK broadband survey

BT may not be the cheapest broadband provider around, but a recent technical survey suggests that they are the fastest and most reliable.

Though the survey from internet testing firm Epitiro did not include cable companies such as NTL Telewest, it put BT ahead of other main players including Virgin (2nd), Demon (3rd), AOL (4th) and then Orange (5th). (I'm making no comments about AOL - except... FOURTH?? Ahem...)

Software was used to connect to each ISP every 15 minutes and measure such things as connection success rate and speed. During the period from April to June 2006, BT had the highest level of performance and achieved the highest percentage of its published download speed.

The tests also look at geographical and usage differences, such as the speed to connect to the service and time taken to send and receive emails.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, price and customer service are not taken into account. This is purely technical data, folks.

Read

Sky next with "free" broadband service

  Sky should increase competition in the UK broadband market further with an expected announcement of a "free broadband" product in competition with Carphone Warehouse and Orange at a press conference on Tuesday, which will be covered live by Tech Digest.
 
A move into the broadband has been expected since the company purchased broadband provider Easynet late last year. Analysts expect BSkyB to offer free high-speed internet access to its higher spending subscribers in an attempt to gain a foothold in the market. The company will also be keen to maintain its 8.1 million customer base from the threat of TV over the internet (IPTV) from the likes of BT, with its Vision package and NTL. With over half of Sky's customers having broadband in their home, there's a real possibility that many could ditch the dish and in favour of net-based packages.

Details of Sky's package will be revealed as they're announced, so make sure you check back from around lunchtime on Tuesday.

Sky website

Via Forbes

More Sky:
Sky's free movie downloads
Sky's season of soccer on HD

World Cup on your PC and phone - was it any good?

Technology made the World Cup was the first major sports tournament we didn't need to dash home for. From mobile TV to the BBC's broadband coverage - we had the means to keep up-to-date with the matches wherever we were.

But did the technology live up to the hype? According to a report at The Register, "self-appointed mobile TV referee David Frodsham" of Argogroup wasn't convinced. He used his Monitor Master system to compare clips from T-Mobile, 3 and the BBC over ADSL, scoring the quality of images received.

Who came out on top? Read the full story over on The Register.

Pipex offers 8MB broadband for £6.50 per month

  Pipex has announced it is doing 8MB broadband for £6.50 per month, with a free modem and free connection. But there is a catch - you have to sign up with Pipex’s Anytime calls package to qualify for the deal.

The Anytime calls package is an additional £12.50 per month, but offers free unlimited Anytime local and national voice calls. It's available to over 99% of UK households. And good news for all you David Hasslehoff fans. The man who was recently voted king of the internet has been signed up to push the packages as part of a new advertising campaign.

I bet you can't wait.

Pipex website

More broadband:
NTL complete Virgin Mobile deal
Tiscali offers 8MB broadband

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NTL completes Virgin Mobile deal

NTL has finally completed the takeover of Virgin Mobile after getting High Court approval. Virgin Mobile's shares have been delisted from the stock exchange, but the company will still exist as Virgin Mobile until 2007, according to NTL. After that time, the Virgin brand will be used to front a quadruple offering of broadband, TV, mobile, and fixed phone lines.

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson is obviously pleased: "Today, we've created a unique organisation - a new, soon-to-be-branded Virgin company - which will offer the very finest in 'quadruple'. Through our new company, our aim is to offer consumers the very best, most sought-after choice available. You ain't, as the saying goes, seen nothing yet..."

The Virgin name offers NTL a "cool" brand to use when it competes with the other big quadruples players - Sky, Orange and BT, which are all intent on dominating the "one bill" market.

NTL website

Via The Register

More NTL:
NTL trials 100MB service
NTL's World Cup on demand

Tiscali offers 8MB broadband

Tiscali has announced that it's now offering 8MB broadband - and at the same price as the company's previous 2MB package.

According to Tiscali, the new speeds will mean you can now download a 90 minute film at near DVD quality in around 90 minutes. Which is good news if Apple does introduce its movie download service later this year (though still not as fast as you'd like). Tiscali Max is offered at £17.99 per month, with the 2MB service now offered at £14.99. Existing 2MB customers will be offered a free upgrade.

However, whether you can actually recevie the top speed is open to question. The majority of UK broadband users still can't get 8MB, primarily due to the quality of some BT lines or throyugh distance to a local exchange. Tiscali admits that the majority of users can receive up to 4MB, with 42 per cent getting as high as 6MB. It declines to give a percentage for 8MB coverage.

Tiscali website

More broadband:
Carphone Warehouse "free broadband" - demand means long wait
Orange rebrands Wanadoo - and offers free broadband

Carphone Warehouse "free broadband" - demand means long wait

Whether or it's "free broadband forever" or just a very clever bit of marketing, the public have really taken to the Carphone Warehouse phone bundle, with demand far exceeding the company's forecasts - leading to queues on the phones and a long wait for services to go live.

TalkTalk, Carphone's retail phone business, launched its bundled offer of line rental, calls and broadband for £21 a month in April. Since then some 340,000 people have signed up, double what the company expected. Carphone boss Charles Dunstone reckons the company connected more customers in the first eight weeks than it had planned to do in the first four months.

The downside for punters has been long queues trying to contact the firm - something that the company has admitted to. And it's not the only wait - if you fancy signing up for the package today, you'll not go get your "free broadband" until August.

TalkTalk website

Via The Register

More broadband:
BBC to show World Cup matches online
Orange rebrands Wanadoo - and offers free broadband

BBC to show World Cup matches online

Good news for the office bound and the mobile - all of the BBC's 2006 World Cup matches will also be broadcast exclusively live to UK viewers via the BBC Sport website, with four-minute highlight packages from every single game on demand.

The coverage will be exactly as it will appear on terrestrial television, with the same commentary (whether that's a good thing or not I'm not sure). In addition to watching the games, you'll be able to interact with the latest news or take up the Radio Five Live audio stream (when Lawro gets a bit much).

On a similar theme, the BBC has announced that this year's Wimbledon Championships will be broadcast live on the BBC Sport website for the first time.

BBC Sport

More broadband:
BT to offer Premiership football "on demand"
Free martial arts TV on the net

Orange rebrands Wanadoo - and offers free broadband

  Orange has announced it is bringing together mobile, fixed-line and broadband, rebranding Wanadoo as Orange in the process and offering free broadband with some mobile packages.

Customers signing up to a pay monthly mobile contract over £30 per month will get free broadband. The broadband package (previously £17.99 a month) includes a wireless modem and Orange Wireless & Talk - Orange’s VoIP service, which offers free evening and weekend calls to UK landlines. For an extra £6 per month, customers can sign up to the Orange Anytime package which gives them free calls to UK landlines. In addition, if they are an Orange Pay Monthly customer they will also be able to register for free calls to Orange mobiles (via the Wireless & Talk service).

Some services are subject to minimum contracts. Orange also mentions a proposed One Phone product, which lets you use the same phone over your fixed or mobile line depending on whether you are inside or outside the home, which sounds a bit like BT's Fusion service.

None of this is particularly new (you can get a similar deal via NTL/Telewest already) and the "free" broadband only comes when you shell out for other Orange services, much like the recent Carphone Warehouse "free broadband" offer that combined the TalkTalk fixed line phone service and broadband. With the added line rental, that service costs around £21 per month.

Orange website

More broadband:
Carphone Warehouse offers free broadband
NTL completes Virgin Mobile takeover

Review: Be Unlimited Broadband

Veteran TechDigest readers may recall this news item about Be’s Unlimited 24mbps broadband – then as now the fastest available in the UK - back in August of last year.

Like a good little guinea pig I signed up in early Spetember as a regular subscriber – no special favours here (yet!) – and waited for activation.

And waited. And waited. Eventually, on the 11th of May 2006 my Be broadband went live. Broadband installations are frequently delayed due to unavoidable issues between the ISP and BT. In this case though, I really could have created a whole new human being in the time it took between signup and logon. That, however, is pretty much all the bad news: It really is the fastest ADSL you can buy in these British Isles right now.

Your gateway to these ultra-nippy speeds is a rebadged Alcatel Speedtouch 716v5 modem with a nice little ‘*box’ Be logo on the top. It offers four Ethernet ports, a USB if you need it and 16 possible WiFi connections. There are also two telephone ports for some fancy VoIP tricks if you’re motivated. It requires a little more setting up than (say) Skype and a USB handset but once you’re done it’ s a very slick operation. Generally though, the modem is configured before despatch, so all you have to do is connect it (and the included filter) between your landline and computer to get started. Unlike a few other broadband modems I’ve tested it generates no line noise so landline calls are as quiet as pre-broadband days.

Be also offer email and web hosting, although it’s not easy to find out basic things like smtp and pop server names from their website. Luckily lots of Be subscribers have been there before you and Be’s forums are positively humming with useful configuration tips. Overall, support is pretty responsive: Although there is the predictable automated switchboard it only takes a couple of button presses to get through to a real, and surprisingly helpful tech.

So, the big question: How fast is it? The quoted 24mbps figure is of course a theoretical maximum that can be adversely affected by all sorts of transient issues and even your distance from the exchange. I can see my local telephone exchange from my back window, and the (very clear and informative) BeBox web front end tells me that right now I’m sucking down 19,800 kbps. That’s not far from my average. In real-world conditions that means that you dare click on the HD trailers from Apple without scheduling a tea break before you can watch them. Most sites – with the curious exception of TechDigest – load within a couple of seconds, and streamed audio and video content almost never choke.

Overall, if you’re already within Be’s catchment area there really is no contest – especially considering their very aggressive discounting policy. If you’re not then you maybe have to accept that top speed comes slowly.

BT to offer Premiership football "on demand"

After a successful £84.3m joint bid with Sky, BT has won the right to show Premier League football "on demand", via its broandband TV service, BT Vision.

The three year deal with the FA gives BT the rights to show 242 "near-live" Premier League football matches each season - essentially every match not already being shown live. The deal commences with the 2007-8 season. Matches will be available "on demand" via broadband from 10pm on match days, with a windown time of up to 50 hours to watch the match.

BT Vision claims to be the world's service offering digital terrestrial TV with on-demand film, TV and music programming. You can register your interest in the service now by visiting http://www.btvision.bt.com/

Via The Register

More BT:
TV over broadband with BT Vision
BT Glide - the UK's first Bluetooth home phone

Bulldog offers 16M meg broadband

Just as 8 meg broadband is set to become the norm for many UK homes, Bulldog has nudged it on a step further with a service offering speeds of up to 16 meg.

Bulldog, which is owned by Cable & Wireless, says it can double the speed of its existing service via ADSL2+ technology. The ISP has unveiled two packages - Anytime Plus which costs £15 a month and Unlimited Plus at £25 a month. A package aimed at small businesses will cost around £45 a month.

Bulldog's "DoubleSpeed broadband" is available across the operator's entire footprint of unbundled exchanges, which is currently about a third of UK homes and businesses.By the end of September, the ISP is hoping to have expanded this to half of the UK's  homes and businesses.

Bulldog website

Via The Register

More broadband:
Carphone Warehouse does "free broadband"
BT 8 meg service - wait in line

Free martial arts TV on the net

I love Enter The Dragon, but that and a bit of Jackie Chan is about the limit of my martial arts knowledge. I should be able to brush up in the coming weeks though, with Martial Arts TV launching on the net - and it's absolutely free to tune in.

The free martial arts action will include sports, movies, lifestyle and entertainment programming 24 hours a day. Initial content includes Kickboxing from Thailand, independent movies, specially created animations, quirky music videos and health & exercise training videos and more. Bigger programming deals are to follow says Narrowstep, the people behind the venture.

And it doesn't matter how fast your broadband is. The technology can offer viewing speeds between 56kb to 1800kb depending on your internet speed which the technology automatically detects on login.

If you want to tune in, just visit www.martialartstv.com

More broadband:
MTV on-demand
Carphone Warehouse does free broadband

MTV goes on-demand

MTV was at the forefront of music TV in the 80s and they show no intention of losing ground as media moves to broadband with the launch of MTV Overdrive - a site featuring on-demand footage relating to some of MTV's biggest shows.

MTV Overdrive will feature the best of the channel's hit shows including Pimp My Ride UK, Screenplay, Punk’d, Dirty Sanchez, plus news, movie trailers and music videos. Oh yes, and it's free - reason enough for a careful man like myself to tune in.

You can tune in from Sunday 23rd April. The launch coincides with the premiere of Pimp My Ride UK, series 2, with extra footage being shown on Overdrive as soon as the show ends.

Find out more

More broadband:
Carphone Warehouse does free broadband
TV over broadband with BT Vision

Carphone Warehouse does free broadband

As hinted at yesterday, Carphone Warehouse has unveiled details of a new bundled broadband and phone service, using the strapline "free broadband forever". The price significantly undercuts similar services from leading players such as AOL, BT and NTL/Telewest.

To get the deal, you must subscribe to Carphone's TalkTalk fixed line phone service. For £9.99 a month, there's unlimited local and national landline calls, unlimited international landline calls to 28 countries, plus up to 8 meg broadband access. On top of the monthly fee, there's also a monthly line rental charge of £11, which means a bottom-line price of £20.99 a month. Anyone signing up to the service is also tied in to an 18 month contract, must stick to a 40 gig a month download limit and pay a one-off £30 connection fee.

A similar package from BT would cost more than £55 a month while Bulldog would do it for just over £42 a month. Announcing the offer, Carphone chief executive Charles Dunstone said broadband was "a right, not a privilege."

Carphone is able to offer such competitive prices because it is investing heavily in local loop unbundling (LLU) - installing its kit in BT's telephone exchanges to provide services directly to end users. With 1,000 exchanges covered, this means 70 per cent of the population can sign up to the deal. Those outside Carphone's LLU footprint will have to pay an extra £9.99 for the package.

Carphone Warehouse website

More broadband:
BT 8 meg broadband - wait in line
Sky's free movie downloads

Carphone Warehouse plans free broadband

Mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse is expected to announce a free broadband service later this week. Sounds great, but it's likely to be as an incentive to sign up to its Talk Talk landline service rather than an act of charity.

The news comes after BSkyB confirmed last week that it is to start offering broadband connections from this autumn. Both moves could lead to a big shake-up among internet providers.

Alongside Carphone Warehouse's free deal, BSkyB is predicted to offer a number of low-cost deals, and it and Carphone Warehouse's move into the market is expected to start a price war in a market currently dominated by BT, AOL, Wanadoo and NTL. Which has got to be good news for us, the consumer.

Carphone Warehouse website

Via BBC

More broadband:
BT's 8 meg broadband
ITV and BBC channels go online

BT 8 meg broadband - wait in line

If you use BT broadband and hope to get an automatic upgrade to the new 8 meg service, you might well be left disappointed. BT Retail's 2.3m broadband customers will not be automatically upgraded to the new service - instead, you'll have to register your interest and wait your turn and be subject to a new 12-month contract.

A spokesman for the company said registration was "fairer", with those who most want the 8 meg service getting it first. You can get the service straight away if you pay £29.99 per month for BT's "Option 4" package, but cheaper packages with the higher speed will be available during Spring.

BT Wholesale completed its nation-wide upgrade of its broadband network at the end of March, giving ISPs the option to move end users onto faster speeds. AOL UK is taking a different approach with the 8 meg service - AOL customers currently receiving its premium 2 meg service are to be upgraded automatically to 8 meg between May and July, without charge. Others, including Virgin Net, are adopting a similar approach

Of course, once you get an 8 meg line, there are no guarantees it will reach such speeds. According to BT, eight in ten broadband users should be able to get 4 meg and above, while only those people closest to their BT exchange can expect speeds nearing 8 meg.

More on BT Broadband

Via The Register

More broadband:
TV over broadband with BT Vision
ITV and BBC channels go online

TV over broadband with BT Vision

We told you about BT's TV over broadband plans last year. Well, now it's taken a big step nearer reality. The service, due to launch in Autumn,  will be known as BT Vision and it's set to be the world's service offering digital terrestrial TV with on-demand film, TV and music programming. And if you want to be one of the first in line for the new service, you can register now.

The service will combine access to digital-terrestrial channels through the aerial with broadband-powered video on demand. It's will be delivered to the home via a Microsoft platform and a Philips set-top box, with the network enabled by the BT Hub. The hub will also allow wireless networking for PCs and laptops, as well as up to five simultaneous VoIP calls at the same time.

The company already has a number of content deals under its belt, including BBC Worldwide, Paramount and Warner Music Group and National Geographic Channel, along with newly-announced deals with Cartoon Network and Endemol. BT expects to have many more partners on board before launch.

Trials for the service will start in spring/early summer, but if you want to be one of the first users, you can register now. Just visit www.bt.com/btvision, where you can also find out more about the new service.

More broadband:
NTL offers World Cup on demand
ITV and BBC channels go online

NTL does the World Cup on demand

NTL has announced it is offering the World Cup on demand this summer - but what is actually on demand is still very much open to question.

The cable giant is introducing a new broadband website for ntl customers, featuring World Cup news, views and competitions, along with a new international calling tariff from 1st June to make calling participating countries cheaper. But the most interesting part of the announcement relates to the content available on demand.

So far, NTL has promised football films at your fingertips plus a library of football's finest songs to download, if you want to create your own pre-match build-up. When pressed about the possibility of full matches on demand, the company were unable to confirm if this would happen - but would be offering more information in the coming weeks relating to their on demand service.

We wait and hope. More news as and when we have it.

More NTL:
NTL trial 100MB service
NTL suffers customer wrath

ITV and BBC channels go online

We've seen the occasional preview show hit the net, but we're still waiting for any substantial content from the BBC and ITV to go online. Well, now it's here, but only for a select few.

The BBC and ITV have teamed up in a "multicasting" trial to broadcast their main channels over the internet. Multicasting means feeding the pictures to ISPs, who then redistribute to their customers - in effect, sharing the loads with the ISPs. In the six-month pilot, channels will be available to a group of eight providers, including Plusnet, Cable & Wireless and Janet.The BBC is multicasting its four main channels plus BBC News 24 and 10 national radio stations.

ITV is making ITV1, 2, 3 and 4 available in all areas, while the pilot service in Brighton and Hastings will also get ITV Local. Around 4,000 will be recruited to report on technical issues and assess how the service affects their viewing habits.

If you want to receive the channels, you'll need a broadband connection and the latest version of a media player to access the service. The media player sends out a high-quality signal that many users tune into, rather than giving each user an individual stream.

More broadband:
NTL trials 100MB service
freedom2surf does high speed broadband for £12.99

freedom2surf does high speed broadband for £12.99

Connections get faster and broadband gets cheaper - if you read the small print. freedom2surf has introduced a new broadband package called Connect Start, which offers speeds of up to to 8Mbit for Just £12.99.

Yes, there is a catch. Well, not so much a catch but a usage limit. The package is aimed at light users who want a fast connection for surfing, booking tickets, online banking and other tasks less dependent on heavy downloading. So you get the fast connection, but with a usage limit of just 0.5GB.

The Connect Start package is available now on either a monthly or annual contract. The £12.99 a month is only applicable when an activation fee of £49.99 is paid. Alternatively, you can take out an annual contract for £15.99 per month with free activation.

Find out more

More broadband:
NTL trials 100MB service
Be's 24MB broadband

Warner's legal movie download service

With illegal movie downloading still a big problem for the film companies, it's perhaps no surprise that Warner Bros have followed the route of the music companies by launching a service called In2Movies that will allow users to legally download film titles.

Sadly, it's not yet available in the UK, the first launch is in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With the initial rollout, consumers will be able to download movies and television shows to their PCs. The second version of the service will expand offer download programs to DVD recorders and other portable devices.

The service launches in March 2006 and will initially feature more than 80 Warner Bros new releases including "Batman Begins", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Must Love Dogs", "The OC", "Friends", "The Little Polar Bear - The Mysterious Island" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

No date for the UK as yet - we'll keep you posted.

Via Pocket Lint

More downloads
Sky's free movie downloads
3's dual downloads

24MB broadband for £14.99?

Internet service provider Be has launched Be lite - which offers home users 24MB broadband for £14 per month using ADSL2+ technology. They'll also throw in a free modem. The catch? Well, there's a limit to what you can use. Once you go past your 1GB allowance, you have to top up at a rate of £1 per gig - but you have to buy each top-up in bundles of 5 gigs!

And like many of these super-fast broadband offers, there is one other big catch - whether or not you can actually receive it in your area. I've just been over to the website and checked - and I'm not down to be compatable until July.

If you want to check if you are one of the lucky ones, visit Be's website at www.BeThere.co.uk

More broadband:
Blair goes podcasting
Sky's free movie downloads

Blair tries podcasting

Politicians certainly know a bandwagon when they see one, and so it is no real surprise that our very own Tony Blair has become one of the first world leaders to try podcasting. Engineered by The Sun newspaper the cast features the Brit PM outlining his vision for a country free from yob culture. Exhorting listeners to shop a yob Blair promises new powers for the police to close rowdy pubs, evict troublemakers and grab back drug dealer’s cash. Check it out here.
And while we are on Blair make sure you don't miss this.

Own your favourite celebrity

If you've been hiding away in a cave for the last few days, you may not know that the best of British and American showbiz are busy - and those with less commitments have holed themselves up in the Big Brother house for our viewing pleasure.

Over at Bayraider is a fine selection of memorabilia featuring these z-listers - from Pete Burns paper dolls (do they spin right round?) to Jodie Marsh's web domain. 

Get in there now at Bayraider - if one of these no-hopers wins, it could be a shrewd investment.

Sky offers free movie downloads

Sky has announced two new download services for computer and mobiles. Sky by broadband will allow customers to download a selection of movies and access highlights of the weekend’s Barclays Premiership matches on their PC. Sky by mobile offers the latest news to your phone. Both services are available free to customers with two or more premium channels as part of their existing subscription.

More than 200 movies are available at launch, ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to classic and cult movies. The broadband service will also include over 1,000 Sky Sports video clips at any one time including highlights of every Barclays Premiership and UEFA Champions League match.

Sky by mobile offers access to Sky entertainment, sports, news and weather on the move. The mobile service is available across multiple networks on a range of handsets compatible with internet access via GPRS or 3G.

To register for Sky by broadband customers need a home PC with Microsoft Windows XP and a minimum 1MB broadband connection. Visit www.skybybroadband.com and follow the on-screen instructions.

D-Link Skype USB phone adapter

We mentioned the launch of the D-Link Skype USB phone adapter during our CES coverage. Well, without wasting any time, it's about to hit the shops.

The adapter will allow you to use an existing corded DECT or cordless telephone to make Skype calls as well as traditional calls. It's effectively giving you the option of two phone accounts over a single line. So, if you are talking on a traditional telephone line and receive an incoming Skype call, you can easily switch to the other caller or vice versa. Obviously the adapter could offer Skype big inroads into the traditional phone market - taking the technology away from the PC and into the living room.

The D-Link Skype USB phone adapter is PC (not Mac) compatible, and includes two RJ-11 ports and a USB port to connect an ordinary phone line, telephone and computer. You can pick up the adapter for £39.99 from February.

More Skype:
Skype partners up for new products
Skype for Mac owners

CES 2006: Google - no PC but video downloads

As entertaining as Google CEO Larry Page’s keynote speech was (and if Engadget is anything to go by it sounds a hoot) it still lacked that little spice us techies were hoping for – the unveiling of a Google PC. Nevertheless Page did announce the arrival of an online video store and of a free offer to XP users to install and maintain the basic