Blueyonder afflicted by service outage

Most of Telewest's Blueyonder Internet services were unavailable for some time yesterday and continue to be affected after a 'network fault' blocked access to the company's servers. Blueyonder services including Selfcare, webmail and email were affected, though the company said that since then access has 'greatly improved' but could still be 'slow and intermittent'. Telewest added that the fault causing this would also be affecting other ISPs. ...more

Interactive TV without cable access

Set-top box allows truly interactive TV even in areas without access to cable networks. Netgem's i-Player was launched last November complete with a dial-up connection for pay-as-you-go Internet access, but is now available with the ISP of your choice. Previously you had to use Netgem's ISP and associated email addresses. ...more

3G licence bids will take 15 years to recoup cost

A report released by Arthur Andersen Consulting and investment bank JP Morgan predicts that it will take the five winners of the UK auction of 3G licences 15 years to recoup their costs. The TIW, Vodafone, BT, Orange and One2One, which put in winning bids ranging from ?4bn to ?5.96bn, now face the prospect of establishing the network that will allow mobile devices high-speed access to the Internet. ...more

Criminal gangs threaten online bookies with denial of service attacks

Criminal gangs are trying to blackmail online bookmakers in advance of the Grand National in April, according to the Financial Times. The gangs are threatening DDoS attacks on online web sites servers making it impossible for visitors to contact them to make bets. According to KPMG the British Internet gambling market was worth ?2. ...more

Go shopping with Smart Creds

We all know that conventional hard currency is no use for Internet shopping, but are you aware that you can now shop on the World Wide Web without using your credit card? A new scheme called Smart Creds by UK Smart has been launched this week in association with Consignia (er, the Post Office). The pre-pay payment cards are targeted at under 18s and those of us who do not have a credit card but still want to shop on the Internet. The cards themselves will be available from Post Offices and come in ?20 denominations. ...more