 |  | By Neil Hawkins Staff Writer Friday, 08 February 2008 |
THIS week should be renamed the Tiscali roundup as the ISP has announced plans to protect children on the net and expand its TV service but has also been accused of over-protecting its network by gamers! Also, Sky proves that broadband bundles are the way forward, and what's Al Qaeda been doing with a pair of underwater bolt cutters?
Tiscali launches anti-grooming service
BROADBAND provider Tiscali has teamed up with online safety experts Crisp in an effort to help protect children from developing dangerous relationships online.
In a nutshell, the technology provided by Crisp analyses online conversations and alerts parents via email or text message when it identifies elements which point to the development of inappropriate relationships.
Tiscali says that, “only the parts of conversations Crisp identifies as potentially dangerous can be seen by parents, which protect young peoples (sic) privacy.”
It’s not clear whether the technology alerts the young person to the potential danger as well as parents. Most kids would agree that they don’t want their parents to be analysing the transcripts of their conversations.
Hopefully it won’t lead to children abandoning their parents PC’s and keeping all online activity hidden.
Tiscali accidently hits gamers and beefs up TV content
TISCALI has also been in the news this week for another reason. It has been accused of throttling gamers.
Before the lawyers are called let me make it clear that no Tiscali employee has been caught strangling anyone.
Instead it seems that Tiscali’s traffic shaping policy has been inadvertently blocking some gaming traffic from reaching its destination, which is a serious problem because, who wants to fire virtual bullets that stop at traffic lights?!
Theories abound but most likely is that p2p gaming traffic got caught up in traffic management policies which are designed to de-prioritise this type of traffic.
Tiscali denied it was deliberately blocking traffic in a message to the Next-Gen message boards saying that they are, “constantly working to upgrade and refine our network to ensure our customers can enjoy their favourite applications."
We suggest hardcore gamers shift their focus to Plusnet's Broadband Your Way Pro package which is specifically designed for online gaming, or plump for super fast broadband from O2 Broadband or Be Broadband.
...Elsewhere in Tiscali-land,
A deal has been struck with Disney/ABC which will allow Tiscali TV customers access to shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives for £6 a month.
Is this is enough to help the service regain the customers it has recently lost?
It’ll be difficult and with the likes of Sky, Virgin Media, BBC iPlayer, 4On-Demand, BT Vision – I could go on! – all competing for the same custom its getting increasingly tough out there!
Growth in broadband subscribers for Sky
IT’S that time of year again when the news is full of profits, losses, annual reports and other really dull stuff.
Whilst it may not exactly be the most exciting news it does give us an insight into how broadband providers are performing as we get to see how many subscribers they’ve gained, or indeed lost.
This week Sky released figures which showed that they had rapidly increased the number of broadband customers on their books.
Sky, which offers satellite TV, an up to 16Mb broadband connection and phone service, gained 260,000 new broadband customers in the last quarter of 2007 alone, that’s an increase of 28%!
Over half of Sky’s broadband customers also have a Sky Talk package, showing how broadband and phone bundle packages are proving to be good value for money and very popular.
Internet cable cutters cause bottleneck
INTERNET users throughout the Middle East and Asia were badly affected this week after three undersea cables running along the Mediterranean seabed were damaged.
Speculation is rife as to what severed the cables and bloggers have been coming up with all sorts of craziness and conspiracy theories, but then again they are bloggers.
Officials have said that it was most likely a ship’s anchor, then again, it might have been Osama Bin Laden with the world’s biggest pair of cable cutters.
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