Category: Internet

Google Local & Maps

Finally a UK version has been launched. Google Maps and Google Local provide high quality maps, directions and addresses for all things local. Here’s my address, how to get to Shakeels and also the essentials in my area. Click and drag the maps to move them around. I really like clicking on the pins in the directions map which gives you a pop-up of the end-point in detail which can also be zoomed and scrolled. Just need the Google browser now.

Cheaper Broadband

After a short wait and lot’s of hoping PlusNet have finally launched their new pricing structure. So today I was able to switch to 1Meg broadband, around 200Gb download cap and a hopeful upgrade to 2Meg in the next month or so for a monthly fee of £21.99. Lovely. Had to pay £14.99 to change from paying £29.99 a month but I’ll make that back by summer.

Just need to wait for BT to start rolling out their 8Meg products later in the year to get 8Meg for £21.99 – that will be a bargain.

Hard Sell

UK Online have now installed their LLU gear in my exchange. I know because in the last 4 days I’ve had two letters and two phone calls telling me all about it. That means I could have 8Meg downloads with 400k uploads for a mere £39.99 a month. That speed comes with a 500Gb monthly cap and a free wireless router – not too shabby a deal especially compared with NTL/Telewest who’s 3 & 4Meg deals seem dear in comparison, especially with the new caps introduced by NTL although it will be interesting to see how they implement them – kick people off who regularly abuse? (The cable company’s really should be offering far more to hammer home their fibre network advantage. Shame.)

Despite the temptation I will be sticking it out with PlusNet. From next month I will hopefully be on 2Meg for £21.99 a month. If the BT trials are successful I should then have the opportunity to move to up to 8Meg download and 1/2Meg upload later in the year again for £21.99. Bargain. Even if that falls through the UK Online deal will still be there – they just need to improve their performance if Adslguide forums are anything to go by. More speed – can’t wait.

PlusNet Upgrades

PlusNet have announced changes to their broadband packages. As expected they’ve moved to charging on a download capacity basis rather than speed. April will see all their customers moving to the fastest line possible from their exchange and later in the year onto 4 & 8Meg connections if the exchange supports it. Class. Details of the fair usage policy can be found here – £21.99 per month for 2Meg speed and potentially 230Gig download a month sounds an absolute bargain 🙂

Sea Change

After mentioning broadband earlier this week it looks like some exciting developments will start to move fast internet access forward in the UK. ADSL has been for many the only way to get broadband access, and has always looked a slightly poorer cousin compared to cable. NTL but more so Telewest have always offered faster download speeds for a comparable if not cheaper price than ADSL providers. Indeed Telewest now offer 4Meg downloads with NTL offering 3Meg.

However Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is now starting to happen across the country and not just in London and the South East. UK Online and Bulldog are offering ADSL speeds of up to 8Meg with an increased upload of 400k. BT has also announced they will be trialling 8Meg download speeds from April this year and also testing ADSL2+ this year which can see broadband speeds go up to 18Meg (depending on line length from exchange). All this is great news but the pricing structure of broadband will have to change radically to support these speed increases.

This is where (I think) Max DSL comes in. From April BT will launch Max DSL which allows ISP’s to set your download speed to the maximum available on your line. Initially this will be to 2Meg but hopefully by year end it will be whatever your line can take up to 8Meg. This is great for the customer as it can be done transparently by the ISP but how will the price of your connection change? I think most ISP’s will move to a pricing structure that gives you bandwidth rather than speed. So £20 gives you 50Gig per month, £25 70Gig and so on. This will allow then to charge the heavy users who use up bandwidth the most money and likewise charge less for the smaller users who only use a few gigabytes per month. Most of the big ADSL providers have been introducing download caps and indeed NTL will be doing likewise for their broadband users. This is all well and good as long as the ISP provide clear guidelines and allow users to track their usage which is something my provider, Plus Net, has done since day one.

Indeed Plus Net is seemingly going to make an announcement next week on their future pricing structure for premier account holders. I’m hoping it will include details on upgrades, their fair usage policy and also future plans for the year ahead but it may just detail price and speed changes. I’ll just need to wait and see but finally the UK market is starting to catch up with the rest of Europe…but not the Swedes who can get 100MBit/s for 54 US dollars a month. Drool.

Giving up Broadband?

Read an article on the BBC news site about a user giving up on broadband. Now that I’ve used broadband I just could not do without it. In some ways that’s a fairly sad statement to make and obviously there are more important aspects to life. But to go back to dial-up, wait an age for a simple page to come up, watching the minutes that I’m online, worry about receiving large e-mails and a total lack of online gaming would be unacceptable. When I moved house last year one of the first checks was could I get broadband!

It can no longer be a cost issue either. PlusNet are now doing a lite broadband package for £14.99 – and that’s for a 2Meg connection. Many dial-ups are either the same price or only slightly cheaper. Even AOL has just announced an unlimited 2Meg package for £29.99. In my book connections, I hope, can only get faster and hopefully they will address uploads as well.

Speaking of broadband, to see what’s available at your exchange check out the Broadband Availability Checker at The Broadband Resource. You can also see what capacity is like at your exchange (mines is full and been awaiting upgrades since November).

Gmail

I’m guessing they are either about to open this up to everyone or are at least in the final stages of doing so as most users have now got 50 invites to give away. I’ll never use them up and most folk I know have one now – if you need an account drop me a mail.