AOL Goes Out with A Twitter August 20, 2009
Posted by kewroad in internet, ISP, Twitter.1 comment so far
Woke up this morning to find my AOL connection was kapput. After some DIY kit testing I realised my WLAN, DSL and claptop were AOK but the Internet was dead. Discovering whether it was a big outage or just my personal bit of the Internet was something of a trial. When I got online in the office, no alerts on technical support page, found UK message boards have been culled and web chat was down for “improvements”. Other than a cryptic message on the technical support line, I found out the scale of the problem through a quick experiment in crowdsourcing via Twitter. On a day when some media are turning cold on Twitter’s value, I found that all that useless babble was invaluable and the best way to find out exactly what was going on. Thank you Twitter
Ofcom on message? June 16, 2009
Posted by fundamentalz in Broadband, internet, ISP, IT, new media, Twitter.add a comment
A recent study by Ofcom revealed that around 30% of people in the UK don’t have an internet connection at the moment. The same survey also highlights that 43% of these people would stay offline if they were offered a free computer and broadband. Main reasons for not having internet at home was a lack of interest or need. These results seem to indicate that a lot of work is still to be done to engage this group and highlight the benefits the internet can bring both to their lives and work.
According to the much awaited Digital Britain report which will be published today (lots of buzz around this on Twitter), everyone in Britain could be guaranteed broadband access by 2012 at speeds of 2Mb per second. Ofcom’s report reveals that average broadband speeds across the UK are currently around 3.6Mb. While these sorts of speeds are adequate for general browsing and online shopping, activities like downloading music, online gaming and streaming video, making the most of services like BBC iPlayer, will prove to be a challenge for most. Add to this, currently, rural connections are not good enough for even basic surfing most of the time, in some cases connection is even non-existent.
So what else needs to be done to make Britain truly digital? As with any service, maybe there is scope to target broadband offers more specifically to certain target groups, making the internet experience relevant to where you are, who you are and what you’re trying to do online.
For example with the iPhone fever taking over the globe, Nationwide Insurance recently launched a new advertising campaign promoting how customers could utilise their iPhone in the event of an accident, highlighting the various features such as GPS and camera.
Therefore a campaign showing how David Jones, 73, uses the internet to stay in touch with his family in Australia would surely be much more effective than terms such as fibre, 50Mbps and social networks.
E-Budget Days Long Past April 22, 2009
Posted by kewroad in government, internet, ISP, pr.add a comment
Budget Day here in the UK. Brings out the nostalgia in me for when this was the biggest day in the Internet calendar over here.
Ten years ago ISP pioneer UUNET used posting of the budget speech online as a demonstration of its bandwidth muscle.
In those dial-up, pre-ADSL days big document downloads took yonks or crashed in the process. UUNET struck a deal with the Treasury and the Beeb (I recall) to upload the full speech onto a dedicated webpage for easy downloads. Our job was to promote the service and encourage journalists to use the web page.
All sounds very quaint today alongside Budget promises on broadband for all etc. And UUNET is now consumed within Verizon, following the collapse of Worldcom.
Snail Mail’ll Get You! July 24, 2008
Posted by kewroad in anti-piracy, ISP, music.add a comment