Internet service providers (ISPs) have evolved significantly in their role as key enablers of business success, growing alongside the sky-rocketing demand from organizations to take full advantage of the power of the internet. 

Despite their relatively humble beginnings, ISPs have grown to become behemoths in the world of technology, on which much of the industry relies to provide their services.

Now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are both expected to place unprecedented demand on ISPs’ infrastructure. As these new technological advancements gain momentum, ISPs must now continue to adapt and evolve alongside the market. 

To look forward, though, it’s important to take a little look back…

Step back in time

The first commercial ISPs emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the rise of dial-up as the first form of internet access that saw widespread uptake among ordinary people. Those households around the world that already had computers were purchasing modems and using software provided by the ISP to dial into the connection via their phone lines.

Although impressive at the time, it was a fairly rudimentary solution with very limited functionality. For example, the household could not use their phone line to make calls while using the internet, which was not very practical.

As such, the expectations placed on the ISP were relatively limited, offering basic connectivity with no firm promises on the speed of your connection or any additional services. 

Speeds topped out at 56kb/s so the most strenuous tasks these connections could handle were stripped back to email and file transfer (which itself was fairly limited due to the speed). Downloading any type of media was a painful process, but the limits of the dial-up connection ISPs could do little to improve their customers’ experience.

Security or any advanced functionality was not a massive priority for the ISPs operating in this nascent market, who were mainly catering for enthusiasts excited to get on the web for the first time, but this would soon change.

ISPs’ current role in business connectivity

The arrival of broadband in the 2000s expanded the range of connections to cable and fibre optic, which vastly increased the potential speeds available to end users. This fired the starting gun on expanding what the internet could do for consumers and businesses alike. 

High-speed, dedicated business networks meant businesses could take advantage of exponentially faster, more reliable internet that has now become vital for most organizations’ operations.

The emergence of cloud computing, facilitated by this leap forward in connectivity technology, ushered in the era of the as-a-service model, where businesses can make use of infrastructure, platforms, and software through subscription models without having to stump up exorbitant up front costs or pay to maintain them.

This model has proliferated rapidly across sectors and verticals, leaving the majority of businesses reliant on their ability to connect to their cloud providers, as well as the ever-increasing number of other service providers this revolution has created. 

As such, the ISPs have entered the realm of critical infrastructure underpinning the operations of many essential services, meaning the reliability of the connection has become the highest priority.

Any disruption in connectivity could impact their productivity, customer service, and bottom line, so businesses expect a fast and reliable internet service with minimal downtime for their day-to-day operations. 

Part of this puzzle involves having access to fast and effective customer service when things do go wrong, which means ISPs are often expected to deliver round-the-clock dedicated business support teams with quick response times. 

A reliable connection encompasses the security of the devices using it and the data passing through it. Businesses handle various forms of sensitive data and are frequently the target of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. 

Accordingly, they expect ISPs to offer a number of robust security features such as firewalls, threat monitoring,  spam filtering, DDoS defenses, and intrusion detection features.

Faster, more secure connections for the intelligent era

One area in which businesses are continually placing higher expectations on their ISP is increasing bandwidth as they scale. 

As enterprises grow and become more digitally proficient, they will look to adopt the latest and greatest tech for their organizations, and in this era that will almost inevitably place new burdens on their ISP.

AI, for example, has received huge interest from businesses of all sizes looking to implement it in all its forms across their operations, but having a strong connection is often vital, particularly if the business in question is one of the many that won’t have an on-premise solution.

ISPs will be expected to not only provide the low latency, ultra-high bandwidth connectivity to help businesses leverage their AI deployments, but also use AI to improve their service. 

This includes using AI to optimize their network management, enhance customer service with LLM-powered chatbots, and provide expanded security capabilities with enhanced threat detection.

In a similar vein, as businesses embrace other technology trends such as IoT, edge computing, and hybrid working models, ISPs will play an increasingly critical role in providing the low latency, ultra-high bandwidth connectivity to support their hyper-connected infrastructure.

To cater to this new demand for performance and scalability, ISPs will need to invest in high-capacity networks that can handle this increased throughput with minimal latency.

As cloud integration becomes an integral part of almost every organization, ISPs will have to work to build out streamlined integrations with all the major cloud providers, as well as cater for increasingly common multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments.

Evolution to support changing demand

To support this, ISPs will need to ensure they have robust data center infrastructure to make sure they can offer reliable and fast cloud services that cater for the large-scale data storage and retrieval tasks their customers require.

Another consequence of businesses accelerating their digital growth for the intelligent era is that it introduces new openings for malicious actors to compromise their IT environments and cause damage by exfiltrating data or simply causing a business shutdown.

This means ISPs will need to prioritize cybersecurity infrastructure including the aforementioned AI-based threat detection but also advanced network security such as zero-trust models, identity and access management, and enhanced network monitoring.

Finally, Regulations like DORA, GDPR, and NIS2 have levied new pressure on businesses to take control of their operational resilience and data protection. This means ISPs must also be aware of and comply with global and local regulations, especially when handling business data. Looking forward 

Overall, as the industry continues to be shaped by an era that is more connected than ever before, ISPs have become increasingly crucial pieces of critical national infrastructure. Their responsibility extends far beyond simply connecting users to the internet, but managing this connection and providing an array of additional services businesses need to get the most out of it.

Bandwidth and speed have never been more important as new technologies like cloud computing, IoT, and AI, place unprecedented demands for high data throughput and low latency, while guaranteeing the security and privacy of that traffic is also becoming a growing priority for businesses.

By focusing on the infrastructure considerations laid out above and aligning with the business needs as they evolve to match the new technological landscape, ISPs will continue to be essential business enablers facilitating the digital transformation and underpinning success in an increasingly connected world.

The largest internet service providers in the UK have agreed to reduce the prices of their cheapest plans in a bid to help their most vulnerable customers combat the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

At a summit held at Downing Street, ISPs and telcos including BT, Openreach, Virgin Media O2, Vodafone, Three, TalkTalk and Sky all agreed to introduce several measures to support poorer customers. The measures, which will take effect immediately, include removing penalty charges for struggling customers who wish to move to a cheaper deal, and supporting flexible payment plans if necessary.

Internet providers have also pledged to support customers who may be struggling with the rising cost of living and to treat them with understanding, making an explicit commitment to prioritise protecting the connectivity of customers known to be vulnerable.

As part of efforts to address this issue, the government has already negotiated the introduction of 'social tariffs', which slash the cost of broadband and mobile packages for customers claiming Universal Credit. These plans can reduce internet bills by up to 50% compared to the average annual broadband cost, and some plans are as low as £10 per month.

However, less than 2% of eligible customers are on social tariffs, and part of the newly-agreed commitments from ISPs is a commitment to promote these deals more widely and improve their value in order to increase uptake. The government has also encouraged providers that don't yet offer social tariffs to introduce them.

“Families across the country face increased anxiety about keeping up with bills," said digital secretary Nadine Dorries, "so today I agreed with broadband and mobile industry bosses what more can be done to support people during this difficult time. I’m pleased to report the industry is listening and has signed up to new commitments offering customers struggling with the cost-of-living help to stay connected.”

Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “We’re pleased to see these pledges to help those who are struggling most with their broadband and mobile bills. This must progress to tougher, permanent protections.”

“People bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis often face the dreadful choice between heating or eating. For many, paying to get online is no longer even a possibility,” she added. “Yet we still see too many examples of sharp practice like overcharging loyal customers, inflation busting mid-contract price rises and a shockingly low take up of social tariffs. So, this is by no means job done.”

The semiconductor shortage is affecting internet service providers (ISPs) in the US, choking off supplies of key networking equipment, according to a Bloomberg report.

The problem lies with the chips used in internet routers, which are in especially short supply, according to the report. ISPs are seeing up to 60-week delays getting the routers that use these chips, Bloomberg said, citing unnamed sources. This is more than twice the waiting times the industry experienced before the shortage.

ISPs face a double whammy. First came the COVID-19 pandemic, which squeezed electrical component supplies and then the switch to remote working drove up demand for better broadband.

Bloomberg quoted Karsten Gewecke, head of European regional business for router vendor Zyxel Communications Corp, on the shortage. He said the situation had worsened since Chinese factories reopened last year.

"It’s a snowball effect that we’re pushing in front of us, and the situation since then has just become worse and worse and worse," Gewecke said, adding the company is asking ISP customers to order a year ahead to cope with the crisis. "When I talk to some of the chipset vendors, some of them tell me that they have something like overbooking of 300% of their capacity.”

Making the routers is only one part of the challenge for manufacturers, Bloomberg reported. The other hurdle is getting the equipment to its destination. Shipment space is limited, and routers must compete with other products. The recent blockage of the Suez Canal by the Ever Given container ship has exacerbated the problem.

The supply chain will face stress for the next six months, and some ISPs could run out of routers by that point, Gewecke added.

The semiconductor shortage is an ongoing crisis that has primarily affected the auto industry. It forced Ford and GM to temporarily close some of their US plants in February. Those closures expanded last week.

The router shortage is another sign that the chip shortage is metastasizing across other sectors beyond the auto business. In March, Samsung warned the supply shortage could force it to delay its next Galaxy Note device. Reports of a supply crunch at Apple also surfaced last week, affecting MacBook and iPad production.

Broadband providers will soon be unable to advertise their fastest broadband speeds if they're only accessible by a small number of customers.

Under changes announced by the Advertising Standards Authority, which come into force in May 2018, internet service providers (ISPs) will be forced to create advertising that is based on download speeds available to at least 50% of its customer base at peak times.

Under current rules, the threshold for an ISP to be able to advertise its fastest speeds possible is 10% of its customer base. Research over the past year concluded that advertising of this kind is misleading for customers, with many confused by "up to" speeds that they could never reach in their homes.

The ASA expressed concerns over broadband advertising last November, saying at the time that ISPs were exploiting "low levels of knowledge and understanding of broadband speeds" among customers, with many "not knowing what speed they need to carry out daily online tasks".

These issues were raised with the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP), which worked alongside ISPs and Ofcom to produce proposals for new standards, early results of which were published in May this year. Potential solutions included ISPs limiting advertising based on median speeds across a 24-hour period, or 24-hour download speeds available to 20-80% of the user base.

Today's decision, which will restrict advertising to speeds available to 50% of the customer base, will come into force on 23 May 2018 after a sixth-month implementation period. Part of the rules also insist that ISPs use the term "average" when mentioning speeds, instead of the current "up to", and that part of the advert encourages customers to use speed checkers to ensure they're getting the service they subscribed to.

"There are a lot of factors that affect the broadband speed a customer is going to get in their own home from technology to geography, to how a household uses broadband," said Shahriar Coupal, director of the Committees of Advertising Practice.

"While we know these factors mean some people will get significantly slower speeds than others, when it comes to broadband ads, our new standards will give consumers a better understanding of the broadband speeds offered by different providers when deciding to switch providers."

The new rules will also govern the advertising of fibre services, which the ASA found was considered a "buzz-word" among customers for modern broadband rather than a term describing a specific service. Under the rules, ISPs will no longer be able to claim state-of-the-art technology if it's only part-fibre, and advertised speeds will also be subject to the new rules set out by CAP.

"Up until now, broadband has been the only utility you can buy without knowing precisely what it is you're going to get," said Dan Howdle, telecoms analyst for Cable.co.uk. "The speeds advertised are the expectation you set, no matter how you try to qualify them. Advertising speeds only a fraction of customers can receive helps no one it damages provider reputation and stokes fury among customers. Adding the words 'up to' was never going to cut it."

"Today's ruling means advertised speeds are going to come down to more closely match the expectations of the average customer by April/May next year," added Howdle. "Up until now the most common complaint from broadband customers concerns receiving less than what they thought they were going to get. This will go a long way to alleviating that most persistent of gripes."

05/05/2017: ISPs' dubious speed claims are finally coming to an end

The days of ISPs claiming broadband speeds that ordinary customers could never hope to achieve might finally be coming to an end, after the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) issued proposals to crack down on misleading claims.

CAP, the regulatory body that is responsible for advertising codes in the UK and part of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has published a 10-week public consultation seeking views on different options on how to strengthen standards around broadband speed claims.

Among the options, it will look at whether ISPs should base speed claims on peak-time median download speed; 24-hour national median download speed; range of peak-time or 24-hour download speeds available to 20%-80% of users.

Each option would also require any company advertising their broadband speed claims to urge potential customers to check with the broadband provider the actual speed they're likely to receive.

CAP added that the options are "intended to better manage consumers' expectations of the broadband speed they're likely to receive from different broadband providers, with each of them offering tougher standards for broadband speed claims in ads than the current position".

Research commissioned by the ASA found that the current regulatory standards were likely to mislead consumers.

According to current standards, headline speed claims are allowed if they are achievable by at least 10% of customers, where they are preceded by the words "up to" and qualified, as appropriate, to help manage consumers' expectations of achievable speeds. The research said that speed is an important factor for a lot of people making decisions on which provider to choose.

However, broadband speeds differ on several factors and traditional advertising "cannot reasonably be expected to provide the same information as one-to-one information direct from each provider about the speed an individual consumer is likely to get."

But CAP said that research was unable to find consensus on an alternative advertising standard that would ensure consumers are not being misled, and therefore the consultation would now ask for views on the four options outlined above, as well as welcoming other options proposed by respondents.

"We take an evidenced-based approach to our work," said Shahriar Coupal, director of CAP. "Research commissioned by the ASA persuades us that tougher standards are needed to prevent consumers from being misled by advertised broadband speed claims."

He added that the CAP was "determined to ensure the information it provides, including about broadband speed, is trusted and welcomed by consumers".

Which? has revealed TalkTalk as the worst broadband provider in the UK, with almost a quarter of customers saying their broadband speed is poor or very poor.

Sky also ranked badly in the company's customer satisfaction survey, with its position dropping by three places over the last six months, from eighth place to eleventh place. BT came in at third from bottom with a score of 46%, just one percent better than Sky.

At the top of the table, the smaller companies ranked much better. Zen came in at the top of the charts with a rating of 85%, followed by Utility Warehouse with a 76% rating and SSE in third.

Making Zen an even more favourable option is the ability to drop the 16.99 a month line rental by opting for a broadband-only package. Because of its flexibility and competitive cost, 92% of the provider's customers said they would recommend the ISP to friends and family.

Utility Warehouse also offers more flexibility in its packages compared to the bigger players, dropping standard 12 and 18 month packages and instead a rolling monthly option costing just 26.49 a month including line rental. Existing customers of the broadband service described it as "excellent" and "good value for money."

Continuing the trend of utility companies entering the broadband market, SSE came in at third place for customer satisfaction with 68% of customers being happy with the service the company's packages offer.

"Far too many people are still getting a poor deal from their broadband provider," Alex Neill, Which? managing director, said. "Big players need to improve their service across the board or expect their customers to take their business elsewhere."

Which?'s biannual report asked 1,700 customers about their experiences with their broadband providers.

The Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) recently launched consultations on broadband advertising, as ISPs are currently able to advertise maximum speeds as long as they are achieveable by at least 10% of customers.

TalkTalk will block all content unsuitable for children if customers don't opt out of its Homesafe porn filter.

The company says any users who don't want parental controls switched on automatically will see a pop up box appear when they try to access adult themed content. They will then be able to decide whether to turn Homesafe on or off.

TalkTalk's four million subscribers will be diverted to the Homesafe account settings to set exceptions and the level of security they require, the company said. Although the Homesafe option will be pre-configured to be 'on', customers can switch it to off whenever they like.

Alex Birtles, TalkTalk's head of external communications, said in a blog post: "Filters will only ever be applied if the customer has consented and they're able to change their mind or edit their level of protection at any point."

Homesafe was introduced in 2011, but TalkTalk didn't start pushing the service until March 2012, when it began asking all new customers to decide whether they wanted to activate HomeSafe as part of the sign-up process when they joined TalkTalk.

Birtles said 80 per cent of its customers welcomed the move, while nearly two thirds said if TalkTalk hadn't prompted them, they wouldn't have switched the controls on at all.

Homesafe is just one of the actions TalkTalk is taking in order to make the online environment a safer place for children. "Last year we helped launch InternetMatters.org, a ground-breaking not-for-profit organisation that gives parents expert advice about online safety issues, such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content and sexting," Birtles said.

"Establishing an independent online safety organisation is a big commitment, but it's an important part of how we're making Britain better off."

The government is appealing for UK ISPs to clamp down on terrorism by adding reporting buttons that users can click to report potentially harmful content and including filters to block extremist and terrorist material.

Cameron told the Australian Parliament in Canberra that the UK government is asking ISPs to get involved in the fight against terrorism: "In the UK we are pushing them [ISPs] to do more, including strengthening filters, improving reporting mechanisms and being more proactive in taking down this harmful material."

"We are making progress but there is further to go. This is their social responsibility - and we expect them to live up to it."

While the idea hasn't been formally agreed by UK ISPs, they have confirmed they will be discussing the requests further with the government. The four big ISPs: BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media all said they are committed to working with politicians to help their customers report extremist activity they see online.

A spokeswoman for BT told the BBC: "We have had productive dialogue with government about addressing the issue of extremist content online and we are working through the technical details," while Sky said: "We're exploring ways in which we can help our customers report extremist content online, including hosting links on our website."

TalkTalk also confirmed it would be working with the government: "We are committed to working with the government to help address extremist content and are exploring ways to achieve this," while Virgin Media said: "We're exploring options that will enable more extremist content to be filtered and reported. We'll continue talks with government as we work through the technical details."

The Open Rights Group has criticised the plans, saying it amounts to political censorship. Jim Killock, the groups's executive director said: "The government must be clear about what sites they think should be blocked, why they are blocking them and whether there will be redress for site owners who believe that their website has been blocked incorrectly."

The BBC has said people who repeatedly infringe copyright should not have access to an internet connection and that ISPs should be responsible for making sure they cannot break the law.

The statement was made in a submission to the Australian government's online copyright infringement paper, saying: "ISPs need a policy to deal with repeat offenders," the BBC Worldwide submission reads.

"Possible sanctions could include subjecting repeat offenders to a slowing down of their bandwidth, but stopping short of cutting off the internet service, except in the most serious and egregious circumstances, as is the case in the United States. A competent court or authority should be involved in such cases."

The BBC used the example of Dr Who being distributed illegally in Australia before it was even aired on TV, saying although the leak was down to the broadcaster not putting secure enough controls in place, those who leaked the programme should be punished.

It said, despite the BBC dedicating considerable resources to taking down and blocking access to the materials, 13,000 download attempts were made from Australian IP addresses.

The BBC would like to go down the educational route, warning those who infringe copyright and educating them about the law. If they do not stop illegally downloading content, they should be subject to more serious action - such as their connection being terminated.

Additionally, the BBC said anyone who is proven to be using VPN-style services and consuming a lot of bandwidth in the process should be investigated for piracy.

It said: "It is reasonable for ISPs to be placed under an obligation to identify user behavior that is suspicious' and indicative of a user engaging in conduct that infringes copyright. Such behavior may include the illegitimate use by Internet users of IP obfuscation tools in combination with high download volumes."

BitTorrent site Pirate Bay has launched a mobile version of its website, with separate TV, music and movie sites.

The new design, which is the first change to the site for more than ten years, includes clearer navigation and it's hoped using separate domains to the full site will make the website harder to close down.

Pirate Bay has already introduced a number of protocols to prevent authorities blocking or taking the whole site offline, including removing the tracker, trading torrents for magnet links and moving its server to the cloud.

Anyone using a mobile domain to access the Pirate Bay website will be forwarded to the Mobile Bay domain and although like any mobile website, this can be overridden if you want to access the full site instead, Pirate Bay doesn't think many users will do this telling TorrentFreak: "The normal version of the site renders like crap on mobile devices."

The Pirate Bay has more changes in the pipeline including the addition of RSSbay, allowing users to use RSS feeds to access the torrents they want remotely.

A spokesperson told TorrentFreak: "We will add more features later on, such as personal RSS feeds so users can browse torrents at work or school, and start the downloads at home."

iOS users won't be able to download torrents onto their iPhone or iPad unless it's jailbroken, but both Android and BlackBerry mobile users can download a torrent client.

Last week, it was reported that The Pirate Bay's traffic has doubled since ISPs started blocking the torrent download site. The majority of this traffic comes from the US, but it demonstrates the struggles the industry has in trying to stop people illegally downloading music, films and TV shows.

Users can download PirateBrowser to access torrents on Pirate Bay even if their ISP has banned it.

Recently, the government announced the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (Vcap) that will form part of the Digital Economy Act 2010. To try and reduce instances of piracy, ISPs will send letters to repeat piracy offenders in the hope to educate them about how their activity is affecting the industry.

Those who pirate music, films and other media will start receiving emails from their ISP from next year, in the hope it will educate offenders of the damage illegal downloading is having of the music and film industry.

The initiative, officially called the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (Vcap) forms part of the Digital Economy Act 2010 and states that household can receive up to four warnings per year, but if those in receipt of the messages decide to ignore them and continue to illegally download material, no further action will be taken.

Those in the film and creative industries whose work is repeatedly illegally downloaded also want the warning letters to include information about penalties people face if they decide to download material without paying and have also requested that a database of repeat offenders is published.

Vcap brings together some of the UK's biggest ISPs including BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky and a number of film industry bodies including the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) and the Music Publisher Association (MPA). It was announced by Vince Cable as part of a 3.5 million campaign to promote legal ways to listen to music and watch films. It's expected smaller ISPs will take the lead of the larger ones and join the scheme in the future.

The MPA's Chris Marcich said: "It is fantastic that the UK creative community and ISPs have come together in partnership to address online copyright infringement and raise awareness about the multitude of legitimate online services available to consumers. We are also grateful to the UK Government for backing this important new initiative."

However, P2P sharing site TorrentFreak announced the ruling on its site with a more negative stance, saying: "While the scheme is being overwhelmed with praise, the parties also announced that the first warning emails will not be sent out before next summer, possibly even later. These delays are a thorn in the side of both copyright holders and the Government, suggesting that negotiations behind the scenes are less uplifting."

UK Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are blocking almost one in five websites in an effort to protect children from adult content.

In some cases the blocked sites contained no illegal content and had no reason to be kept from the public.

The Open Right Group (ORG) revealed that 19,000 out of 100,000 sites tested by it were blocked by at least one ISP. It discovered the trend as part of the "Blocked" project a scheme that tries to help out sites that have been wrongly filtered.

The blocked content found by ORG included an article on postnatal care, a feminist rights blog and a salesman's sportscar website.

That such a wide variety of normal sites have been blocked indicates that ISPs are "not consistent in protecting children", according to ORG.

The group found that TalkTalk was the most likely to block a website, as it filtered 13,126 pages, while BT followed in second place with 5,229. The ISP least likely to block a website was found to be Plusnet, which only blocked 2 out of the 100,000 tested.

Those affected by the blocks have shed light on how being wrongfully labelled as inappropriate has affected their operations.

Paul Staines, editor of political blog Guido Fawks, hit out at TalkTalk, who blocked his website: "The only people who block us are them and the Chinese government," he said.

"Through the Blocked project we wanted to find out about the impact of web filters ... and the problem of overblocking seems much bigger than we thought," said Jim Killock, executive director at the Open Rights Group.

"Different ISPs are blocking different sites and the result is that many people, from businesses to bloggers, are being affected because people can't access their websites," he added.

"Social networking filters are not switched on by default, and we will only filter out blogs and social networking sites when a customer has actively logged into their online account area and chosen to enable filters for this specific type of content," a TalkTalk spokesperson told IT Pro.

"There is also a clear description of what each category covers so customers are making an informed decision."

Seven Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from the UK, US, Netherlands, South Korea and others have banded together to take the UK intelligence service GCHQ to court.

It is the first time GCHQ has had to defend itself in court to a corporate body and it will have to answer snooping accusations that stem from the Edward Snowden leaks.

The group claim the government agency performed a series of "network attacks" that undermined "the goodwill the organisations rely on".

Charges filed against GCHQ include claims that Belgian telecoms company Belgacom was infected with malware, that the agency used intrusion technology to covertly monitor communications and that it spied on internet traffic flowing through Germany.

The ISPs involved in the case are GreenNet (UK), Riseup (US), Greenhost (Netherlands), Mango (Zimbabwe), Jinbonet (South Korea) People Link (US) and Chaos Computer Club (Germany).

All seven are noted as being easy targets' as they are not independent firms and not the major service provider in their respective countries.

A supporter of the case, Privacy International, claimed "the type of surveillance being carried out allows them to challenge the practices... because they and their users are at threat of being targeted."

The campaign group has filed two similar cases in the past against the surveillance programmes Tempora, Prism and against GCHQ's deployment of spyware.

"These widespread attacks on providers and collectives undermine the trust we all place on the internet and greatly endangers the world's most powerful tool for democracy and free expression," said Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International

Cedric Knight, of ISP GreenNet, added: "Snowden's revelations have exposed GCHQ's view that independent operators like GreenNet are legitimate targets for internet surveillance, so we could be unknowingly used to collect data on our users. We say this is unlawful and utterly unacceptable in a democracy."

GCHQ told the BBC that all its work is conducted "in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate".

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to look into why Netflix customers are not always able to watch streamed content without interruption.

In a statement on Friday, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the organisation would collect information on how traffic from the streaming service was handled by ISP Verizon during negotiations between the two firms.

"To be clear, what we are doing right now is collecting information, not regulating," Wheeler said. "We are looking under the hood. Consumers want transparency. They want answers. And so do I."

He added the FCC has received copies of agreements Netflix made with Verizon and fellow ISP Comcast. These agreements have put a strain on relationships between Netflix and the ISPs, it is claimed.

Following a deal with Comcast in February to ensure there was enough bandwidth for Netflix customers, its chief executive Reed Hastings said ISPs were "extracting a toll because they can."

Netflix made a deal with Verizon, and even notified subscribers if it thought the ISP was to blame for poor download speeds. These messages were removed after Verizon threatened legal action.

In response, Verizon and Comcast alleged Hastings was misleading consumers and trying to pass the cost of Netflix's video traffic demands onto all of their customers, even non-Netflix subscribers.

Wheeler said the situation merited scrutiny. "Consumers pay their ISP and pay content providers like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon," Wheeler said.

"Then when they don't get good service they wonder what is going on. I have experienced these problems myself and know how exasperating it can be."

In a statement, Comcast welcomed the move by the FCC.

"We welcome the Chairman's attention to these important issues in the internet ecosystem. Internet traffic exchange on the backbone is part of ensuring that bits flow freely and efficiently and all actors across the system have a shared responsibility to preserve the smooth functioning and highly competitive backbone interconnection market," Sena Fizmaurice, Comcast's vice president of government communications, said in a statement.

"We welcome this review which will allow the Commission full transparency into the entire Internet backbone ecosystem and enable full education as to how this market works."

Netflix also welcomed the move. "Americans deserve to get the speed and quality of internet access they pay for," a spokesman said.

Moves to combat online film and music piracy with the help of the ISP community have been criticised for being too lenient.

The big four ISPs - BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin Media are close to striking a deal with the BPI and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) to clamp down on individuals who illegally download music and films online.

As part of this, repeat offenders will receive "educational" letters from their ISPs that will reportedly point them in the direction of sites offering legal download services.

Individuals will receive a maximum of four such alerts, in the form of either a written letter or email, but they will face no further action from their ISP after this point.

The ISPs will only be allowed to send out 2.5 million of these warnings per year, although this number is expected to go up if other ISPs decide to join the scheme.

The first letters are expected to be sent out next year.

According to a report on the BBC, the original draft proposals suggested these letters should warn people who repeatedly download illegal content about the legal implications of their actions.

The BPI and MPA had also originally requested access to a database listing details about repeat offenders, so that they could pursue legal action against them.

However, the final draft of the proposals which have been four years in the making contain no mention of either of these measures.

In a statement, the MPA and BPI said: "Content creators and ISPs, with the support of government, have been exploring the possibility of developing an awareness programme that will support the continuing growth of legal creative content services, reduce copyright infringement and create the best possible customer experience online."

Andrew Goode, COO of ad tech provider Project Sunblock, hit out at the plans, claiming the ISPs' proposed letter writing campaign will not stop people downloading content illegally.

"Sending out letters to consumers won't come close to quelling the tide of illegal downloads from sites like the Pirate Bay. Letters issued by ISPs will be entirely unenforceable and without threats of punitive measures, like internet throttling, it simply won't work and, even worse, the initiative targets the wrong side of the illegal download exchange," he said.

"Instead of targeting consumers, what's needed is to cut off the flow of advertising revenue that fuels these copyright infringing sites. These sites are funded almost exclusively by ad revenue, which in many cases comes from some of the UK's biggest brand names."

Therefore, he wants to see more being done to cut the flow of ad revenue to the sites that facilitate illegal downloads.

"Advertisers must act in collaboration with the police and other enforcement bodies in order to make any real impact; otherwise, letters from ISPs will fall on deaf ears," he added.

Anti-porn filters may be responsible for blocking updates to popular PC game, League of Legends.

Users trying to download patches to the game found the update stalled when downloading two files called VarusExpirationTimer.luaobj and XerathMageChainsExtended.luaobj.

Both files contain the letters S,E and X in succession, prompting fears the files have been blocked by internet filters looking for questionable content based on keywords.

The problem was discovered by gamers and posted on social news site Reddit. According to site user LoLBoompje, UK porn filters are to blame. The problem was also discussed on the game's user forum.

At present the problem does not appear to be extensive, as only new internet subscribers or those changing ISPs are affected by porn filters.

Users may have to turn off any filters to allow the update to come through or have a fellow player email the updates in a zip file to get round this.

Last October, ISPs BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk said subscribers to their services would have to opt out of filters to view adult content. However, concerns have been raised over how far the filters go in stopping content.

As reported by IT Pro, attempts to block porn have been panned by experts. At the time, Jim Killock, executive director of civil liberties campaigners the Open Rights Group said "promoting reliance on network filters is very bad advice."

League of Legends developer Riot Games told gaming publication Eurogamer that it was monitoring the situation and asked users that are having problems to contact them.

"Our feedback to players is to double check with internet service providers and if anyone experiences a problem, get in touch and we will be able to help," a Riot spokesperson told the publication.

TalkTalk is making all privacy features free for landline customers to help them avoid nuisance, scam and unwanted calls.

The telecoms company claims to be the first and only internet service provider in the UK to offer Last Caller Barring and Anonymous Caller Reject for free to both new and existing customers.

The free features come in additions to Caller Display, Withhold Number and 1571 voicemail services, which are already free to all customers on TalkTalk's network.

The Last Caller Barring feature allows users to block the last number to call or specific numbers of your choice, while the Anonymous Caller Reject feature blocks incoming calls from anyone who withholds their number.

Set to come into effect from 19 January, TalkTalk said the measures would save customers up to 140 a year when compared to BT.

This is because charges for Last Caller Barring and Anonymous Caller Reject can cost as much as 3.70 and 4.50 per month, respectively.

"Nuisance and unwanted calls are a huge source of stress and frustration," said TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding. "We don't believe that people should be charged for the privilege of protecting their privacy.

"Our customers can now benefit from even more free features to help them avoid nuisance calls, helping to make TalkTalk homes even better off," she said.

Marie-Louise Abretti, telecoms expert at uSwitch.com, said up until now phone users had to make a choice between protecting themselves from nuisance calls and keeping a lid on their bills.

"It's particularly welcome as those who rely most heavily on their landline are often those who require the most protection, but can least afford to pay for it. We now hope that other providers follow TalkTalk's lead and start to protect their customers for free from this scourge too," she said.

Government plans to introduce online pornography blocks for every internet connected household in the UK have been widely criticised by privacy groups and industry watchers.

The Prime Minister David Cameron outlined a series of anti-porn measures yesterday, many of which were geared towards making it harder for children to access adult content online.

"I want to talk about the internet, the impact it is having on the innocent of our children, how online pornography is corroding childhood," Cameron said.

"And how, in the darkest corners of the internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children, and that must be stamped out."

The measures he announced included the rollout of new internet content filters that will be automatically switched on for new customers to prevent them accessing adult online content by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, existing customers will be contacted by their chosen Internet Service Provider (ISP), and asked to choose between having the filter switched on or off.

Users that fail to respond will automatically have the filters switched on by default.

"And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account," Cameron added.

"It should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing. So we have agreed with industry that those filters can only be changed by the account holder, who must be an adult."

Search engines will also be asked to block access to illegal content by October. Meanwhile, a secure database of banned child pornography images will be created to track paedophiles trying to view them.

Other measures the Prime Minister announced included the introduction of new laws to ensure streamed video content is subject to the same restrictions as similar shop-sold content.

Furthermore, the Government plans to introduce warning pages that will pop up when people try to search the internet for illegal content, featuring contact details for helplines and support.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is to be given new powers to trawl secretive file sharing networks, which are commonly employed by criminals to circulate child abuse images.

In addition to this, the possession of "extreme pornography", including content depicting scenes of simulated rape, will be made a criminal offence, as it is in Scotland.

"These images normalise sexual violence against women and they are quite simply poisonous to the young people who see them," Cameron claimed.

However, the proposals have not proven popular with industry watchers, with some claiming the introduction of default filtering could lull parents into a false sense of online safety and security.

IT Pro reader, Stoatwblr, described the filters as a "very low safety fence" that people will simply step over.

"Leaving kids unsupervised on the internet is on par with letting them play in traffic.There is zero substitute for parental oversight," he wrote.

"Cameron's deliberate fudging of illegal and legal material on the internet is not helping matters. This seems mostly to be a dog and pony show to distract from his more immediate and personal political problems," he added.

Online content confusion

Andrew Ferguson, site editor of thinkbroandband.com, fears the proposals will create confusion, as the Prime Minister talked about restricting access to child pornography and adult content filters.

"[These] are two very differently sized topics. Adult content covers subjects such as National Lottery, alcohol, smoking, dating, pornography, any film with a 15 or 18 certificate and a good many other areas that are not pornographic but simply aimed at adults," Ferguson explained.

Meanwhile, Jim Killock, executive director of civil liberties campaigners the Open Rights Group, cast doubts about how effective the filtering plans would be.

"Network filters are easy to bypass, [whereas] device level filters are more robust. Promoting reliance on network filters is very bad advice," said Killock.

"We are glad that network level filters will not be forced on people, but remain worried by the rhetoric around this topic, and the stream of half-baked comments from the Prime Minister."

Danvers Baillieu, chief operating officer of online encryption provider HideMyAss.com, called on the Government to release more details about how the proposals would work.

"One of the many problems with the planned bill is the lack of information on what happens to the list of people who opt-in," he asked.

"It is inevitable that a list, or a set of complied lists of those who opt-in will be created. Will the police or indeed GCHQ have access to this list? How will this list be secured and privacy be protected?

"These questions have been left unanswered or worst still, unconsidered. Even with the best possible intentions, more detail is required to understand why the Government wants to place online users on official lists and go against the open spirit of the internet," Baillieu added.

*This article was originally published on 22 July, and was updated on 23 July to reflect industry feedback.

The Government wants four of the UK's largest internet service providers to make urgent changes to their internet safety strategies, according a letter leaked to the BBC.

The document was sent by a Department for Education representative, and sets out four areas it claims the Prime Minister David Cameron would like Talk Talk, Sky, Virgin Media and BT to address as a matter of urgency.

For example, the letter asks the group to help fund an internet safety awareness campaign, the details of which still need to be hammered out, the letter acknowledges.

"The Prime Minister would like to be able to announce a collective financial commitment from industry to fund this campaign," the letter states.

"I know it will be challenging for you to commit to an unknown campaign, but please can you indicate what sum you will pledge to this work that the PM can announce."

Elsewhere, the letter also requests the ISPs follow Talk Talk's lead by "trialling a browser intercept" that prompts customers to make a decision about the parental controls they employ.

"The Prime Minister wants to announce that by the end of the year, every household with a broadband internet connection will have had to make a decision to opt-out' of installing filters," the letter reads.

"Will the other three ISPs consider making a commitment to adopting this approach, even before it has been trialled?"

Further to this, it also calls on the ISPs to clarify the steps they take to verify the ages and identities of people that try to make changes to their household's internet filters, and adapt the language they use when discussing internet safety.

All of the major ISPs gave their backing to an initiative last year called active choice, which lets users choose between enforcing online parental controls.

However, the letter asks the ISPs to consider replacing the words "active choice" with the phrase "default-on", for simplicity purposes.

"Without changing what you will be offering, the Prime Minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions as default-on' as people will have to make a choice not to have the filters [in place]," the letter explains.

"Would you be able to commit to including default-on' or similar language both in the set-up screen and public messaging?"

The letter gives the ISPs until Friday to respond to the requests, and warns them they will receive further missives from the Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about how to clampdown on illegal images online.

"We are all aware of the really excellent work that you are doing...but there are a number of specific areas that the prime minister thinks need further immediate action," the letter concludes.

According to the accompanying report on the BBC, the ISP community has taken a dim view of the letter and its content, with one source telling the site he found the requests "staggering."

Ofcom has told ISPs to slash the cost for customers to switch broadband providers by up to 80 per cent.

The regulator said that the minimum length of the wholesale contract between BT and the switched customer's new supplier would be reduced from a year to just one month.

"The proposals are designed to promote competition in the superfast broadband market at the wholesale level," Ofcom said in a statement.

"These would be expected to flow through to consumer benefits in the form of lower retail prices and easier switching between superfast broadband providers."

At present, if a consumer wishes to change fibre broadband providers, the company they are switching to must pay a 50 fee to Openreach a charge that is often passed on to the customer, said Ofcom.

Ofcom is proposing to cut the switching fee to between 10 and 15 when an existing superfast customer switches in addition to cutting wholesale contract times between the provider and BT.

It said the move would "provide flexibility to allow telecoms providers to offer shorter-term contracts."

The watchdog said it was pushing broadband price cuts as it believed the cost of fibre broadband was being "constrained by the availability of standard broadband services, and by competition from Virgin Media's superfast cable network".

"Ofcom is also concerned not to undermine the investment case for rolling out fibre. Instead, Ofcom proposes to maintain a requirement that BT's charges for access to its fibre network are fair and reasonable," the regulator added.

It was also looking into ways to ensure the performance of BT's Openreach "remains at an acceptable standard", and proposed requirements for Openreach to meet specific performance standards for new line installations and fault repairs. Sanctions may apply if performance falls below these new standards.

Ofcom also wants to strengthen reporting requirements on Openreach to make it clear how well the company is performing. Ofcom will monitor the service Openreach provides to BT Retail, relative to its other wholesale customers.

It said its consultation on the Fixed Access Market Review would close on 25 September 2013.

Marie-Louise Abretti, broadband expert at uSwitch said Ofcom's plans to encourage stiffer competition amongst the ISPs will be "very welcome".

"A more competitive market should mean bigger savings for those looking to cut their household spending," she said.

Virgin Media has reinforced its commitment to letting customers make an "active choice" about accessing explicit web content.

The company was responding to national news reports over the weekend that claimed it was one of several internet service providers (ISP) planning to rollout an opt-in system for customers that want to access explicit content by 2014.

However, a Virgin Media spokesperson played down the reports during a conversation with IT Pro, and said the ISP will not block content by default.

"The bottom line is, all of the major ISPs signed up to something last year called Active Choice. A principle by which as a customer you have [to decide] do you use parental controls?

"That's what we did last year, we're not going to filter stuff ahead of people making that decision, we are certainly not going to filter content without people's knowledge or understanding.

"They must make that decision and depending on what that decision is, we will act accordingly," the spokesperson added.

Talk Talk was another ISP name-checked in the weekend's articles. It recently started rolling out Home Safe, an Active Control-like service to its existing customers, that allows them to choose if they want to block adult content or not.

The company introduced the service to new customers back in early 2012.

Dido Harding, the company's chief executive, said one-in-three of its customers have opted to block adult content.

"[In June] we became the only company to begin asking all our existing customers to make the same unavoidable decision," said Harding.

"Currently about 6,000 more homes each day are choosing to use our HomeSafe scheme and to help keep their children safer online as a result."

In a statement to IT Pro, Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), said these Active Choice schemes should also be backed by education to help users to make informed choices about the content they want to view.

"Whilst filtering has a role to play, it should not be viewed as a silver bullet, and in agreement with a majority of respondents to the government consultation, we do not support a default filter," Lansman added.

Last month, Claire Perry MP, David Cameron's special advisor for the prevention of childhood sexualisation and commercialisation, announced that ISPs will be forced to offer parental filters that block pornographic content by default to new and existing customers before the end of 2013.

Efforts to curb the availability of child abuse images online should not be limited to the searchable web, as criminals are increasingly turning to P2P networks and the dark web to distribute content.

This week has seen a series of ISPs and web firms talk up the work they are doing to clamp down on the proliferation of child abuse images on the net.

Google announced plans to invest millions of pounds in this area, while Talk Talk, BT, Sky and Virgin Media committed to collectively invest 1 million over the next four years in tackling the problem.

The bulk of their activities seem to be centred on the eradication, tracking and blocking of child abuse images on the searchable web,

However, concerns have been raised that not enough is being done to clampdown on similar content being shared via P2P and anonymised web networks.

Speaking to IT Pro, Christian Berg, chief executive of NetClean, said criminals are likely to use these alternative networks more to distribute illegal content if it becomes harder to do on the searchable web.

"You cannot solve this problem simply by blocking [http traffic]. It is an important piece of the puzzle, but there are so many ways of sharing this material and http [addresses] are not the preferred [method of distribution]," he explained.

"There's definitely not enough being done to tackle these [hidden networks], and I know there is a will by law enforcers to do more, but resources are tight."

He also said it is easy to tell search engines, social networks and the ISP community they need to do more, but the issue is not quite as straight forward as that.

"People look at Google and the ISPs and say this is a problem of the internet and you're a bit part of the internet, you have to fix it," he explained.

"Obviously, the internet is being used to spread it, but child abuse is really not an internet problem. It's a human one."

A lot of this week's discussions about how to approach the issue have centred on URL blocking, but Berg questioned how effective a tool this is.

"It is usually employed to protect UK citizens from accidentally stumbling on illegal content, rather than track down criminals, he said.

"If you are into this material you don't have to be very tech savvy to know how to circumnavigate it," he added.

His company develops technologies and software that blocks and tracks the online spread of child abuse content, which is used by law enforcement agencies and enterprises.

"We sell our software to organisations that can scan their servers, their laptops and desktops for known child abuse images and videos," he explained.

"We're not talking about URLs, but actual files, which means we can find things on USB sticks too, [and]

"[We then tell] the organisation they need to do an investigation and notify the police," he added.

ISPs will be forced to offer parental filters that block pornographic content by default to new and existing customers before the end of 2013.

The announcement was made by Claire Perry MP, David Cameron's special advisor for the prevention of childhood sexualisation and commercialisation, at last Friday's Westminister eForum.

Speaking at the event, Perry said pornographic content will be blocked as standard, unless users intervene, according to a report on Wired.

"There's something different about the online world," she said. "It is anonymous, it is easy and it is efficient to share imagery."

The filters can also be made time dependent, she added, so they can be switched off during certain times of day.

A similar service has been offered to new customers by ISP Talk Talk since March 2012, before being rolled out to its existing customers more recently.

In a statement to IT Pro, Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), said it disagreed with the Government's push for default filtering tools.

"ISPs have already taken several steps on making the internet safer, with many offering or working towards an active choice +' system," said Lansman.

"Whilst filtering has a role to play, alongside education and equipping parents with the tools they need, we remain opposed to default filtering, as it is only one part of the solution, and can be circumvented and lead to over or under blocking".

Lansman then called on the Government to provide "greater clarity" about its plans, claiming "it is not quite clear if this goes beyond what the big ISPs have already committed to," he added.

Internet search giant Google has reinforced its commitment to combating the spread of child abuse imagery on the internet by donating $7 million towards eradicating such content.

The company said the money will be shared among the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, the Internet Watch Foundation, as well as similar organisations in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Latin America.

Further to this, Google has also launched a $2 million Child Protection Technology Fund to finance the development of technological tools to help reduce the availability of abusive images on the web.

"We're in the business of making information widely available, but there's certain information' that should never be created or found," said Google in a blog post.

"We can do a lot to ensure it's not available online, and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted," it added.

The post also detailed some of the technological work Google has already done to curtail access to child abuse content online.

These include the use of "hashing" tools that tag offensive images, so their distribution can be monitored and the creation of a cross-industry database of child abuse material.

"This will enable companies, law enforcement and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images, and to take action against criminals," the post continued.

Pressure has been growing on search engines and ISPs in recent weeks to clamp down on the availability of child abuse images online, in the wake of the April Jones and Tia Sharp murder cases.

Google, in particular, has come under fire for failing to do enough to restrict access to sites hosting abusive content, which prompted the firm to issue a statement last month setting out its "zero-tolerance" stance to child pornography.

Telecommunications provider TalkTalk has been fined 750,000 by UK regulator Ofcom for repeatedly subjecting potential customers to abandoned and silent calls.

Citing "persistent misuse of an electronic communications network or electronic communications service", Ofcom conducted an investigation into TalkTalk and found it responsible for making 9,000 silent calls to consumers between 1 February and 21 March 2011.

This is not the first time TalkTalk has been targeted by the watchdog. In 2011, the company was fined 3 million for billing thousands of customers for services it never rendered.

While organisations are allowed to get away with making a certain number of abandoned calls, Ofcom's investigation found that TalkTalk had far exceeded this limit.

Abandoned calls occur when a person answers a phone, but the caller hangs up. Silent calls are what happen when a person answers the phone, only to be greeted with silence on the other end.

"Silent and abandoned calls can cause annoyance and distress to consumers," said Ofcom consumer group director Claudio Pollack.

"Today's penalty sends out a strong message to organisations using call centres that they must comply or face the consequences."

TalkTalk has moved to distance itself from any allegations of misconduct by focusing the blame on two of its call centre operators: Teleperformance and McAlpine Marketing.

In a statement to IT Pro, a TalkTalk spokesperson said: "TalkTalk demands high standards from the companies it works with, and as a result [we] immediately stopped using these suppliers.

"TalkTalk works with all its partners to ensure that regulations are adhered to and that customers continue to get good service and best value," it added.

TalkTalk has up to thirty days to pay the Ofcom fine, the entirety of which will be passed onto the HM Treasury.

ISPs have been ordered to block more torrent websites following a ruling from court ruling

Virgin Media, BT, BSkyB and other UK ISPs have been told that they must block access to three file sharing websites: Kickass Torrents, H33t and Fenopy.

In a written ruling, Judge Richard Arnold said that users and operators of the torrent websites had infringed on the copyrights of ten music companies "on an industrial scale".

Music and film industry groups welcomed the news.

"The growth of digital music in the U.K. is held back by a raft of illegal businesses commercially exploiting music online without permission," said Geoff Taylor, chief executive officer of the British Recorded Music Industry group BPI. "Blocking illegal sites helps ensure that the legal digital market can grow."

One of the ISPs that will have to block access, Virgin Media, said in a statement that it "supports the clear, legal framework put in place to protect against copyright infringement and we continue to comply with court orders specifically addressed to the company."

But critics of the tactics deployed by the music and movie industry said that blocking access wouldn't solve the problem of piracy.

"The British music industry has nothing positive to show from their site blocks and personal legal threats. Looking at sales figures from 2012, you can't draw the conclusion that stopping access to the Pirate Bay did anything to help artists," said UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye.

"Even so, the industry is insisting on pushing for ever greater blocks, just as we in the Pirate Party have been warning."

Kaye said that this latest move meant that the UK has now "handed the power over what we see on the Internet to corporate lobbyists."

Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said that blocking was "an extreme response", which will encourage new forms of distributed infringement.

"The BPI and others should be mindful that their tactics may have the opposite effect to their intention, by legitimising and promoting resistance to their actions," he said.

"We are concerned that these orders are not protecting speech, are overblocking forums and discussion, and are prone to error as the actual block lists are private."

Five of the major ISPs in the US have begun a 'Six Strikes' policy against users they deem have committed copyright infringement.

The system is the brainchild of the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). This umbrella organisation comprises of five of the US's biggest ISPs - AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The system works by serving suspected copyright infringers warnings. After six such warnings, ISPs will limit but not cut off a suspect's internet access.

"Our content partners will begin sending notices of alleged peer-to-peer copyright infringement to ISPs, and the ISPs will begin forwarding those notices in the form of copyright alerts to consumers," CCI's executive director Jill Lesser said in a blog post.

"Most consumers will never receive alerts under the program. Consumers whose accounts have been used to share copyrighted content over P2P networks illegally (or without authority) will receive alerts that are meant to educate rather than punish, and direct them to legal alternatives," she added.

However, civil rights groups have branded the scheme tantamount to ISPs acting as "judge, jury and executioner".

"These mega-corporations now claim the authority to undermine your Internet access - and want to serve as judge, jury, and executioner," said activist organisation Demand Progress. "Tell them to back off - or that you'll start looking for other places to bring your business."

Other organisations have raised concerns about the scheme. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said such a scheme would undermine the open Wi-Fi movement, " even though open wireless is widely recognized to be tremendously beneficial to the public."

It said an independent body should be in charge of vetting the process.

In the UK, Ofcom's draft code would see users with three strikes within 12 months have anonymous information collected about the which would then be sent to copyright holders. These holders could then seek a court order to find out the identities of the suspected infringer.

The policy had been due to come into force March next year, but was delayed by a House of Lords committee that questioned whether the code, as part of the Digital Economy Act, compiled with Treasury rules.

The Government has rejected calls to automatically block internet access to porn to prevent children from accidentally seeing it.

Ministers said the proposals were not widely supported.

The Government made its decision last month but has only now revealed its conclusion following a public consultation.

During the ten-week consultation, over 3,500 submissions were made and the majority did not support an automatic block.

If the Government had agreed to the block, it would have meant users would have to contact their ISP to view adult material.

Just over a third of respondent (35 per cent) supported ISP blocking.

The Government is said to be working with ISPs to encourage parents to use filters to block adult sites and verify ages of those setting up filtering controls.

Those that opposed the move said this could lead to non-pornographic material being blocked, such as sites dealing with sexual health and identity.

The report praised the four largest UK ISPs - BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Sky - for signing up to a code of practice and offering customers a choice of filters.

However, it added that providers should go further and actively encourage users to turn filters on.

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, one of the campaign groups opposing default filtering, said: "This is a positive step that strikes the right balance between child safety and parental responsibility without infringing on civil liberties and freedom of speech.

"The policy recognises it is parents, not Government, who are responsible for controlling what their children see online and rightly avoids any kind of state-mandated blocking of legal content," he added.

Local projects to roll out fibre broadband in mainly rural and remote communities might not be financially viable, unless they can offer a choice of telecoms and internet service providers, a Lords committee was told.

Speaking to the House of Lords Communications Committee, Labour Shadow Business Minister Chi Onwurah and former BT Openreach chief Steve Robertson said that community project to connect faster broadband to remote parts of the UK could become "digital islands", as they would both own the fibre network and be the ISP.

They urged common standards so that local groups could still own the network but would then invite ISPs to compete with each other to offer customers broadband, phone lines or TV.

Robertson said that in the Digital Region project in South Yorkshire, where more than 100 million has been spent, that project was now looking for a commercial owner as it failed to find enough customers to cover costs.

He added that UK ISPs had asked BT Openreach to extend its network into areas where Digital Region operates, as it was too expensive to integrate their own services onto Digital Region's fibre network.

Onwurah said common standards, such as Active Line Access, would make it possible for a community fibre project to connect to national infrastructure such as BT's. She added this common standard would encourage projects here to copy Scandinavian countries, where people dug their own connections.

Ohwurah, former head of telecoms technology at regulator Ofcom said that Fujitsu, which competes with BT for Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds, has agreed to use Active Line Access in any contract it wins, but BT has yet to sign up.

Ohwaruh also warned that BT should not be allowed to monopolise fibre broadband and the UK was "sleepwalking into another monopoly" and said competition by Virgin Media was not enough to halt the possible BT dominance.

"BT must be made to understand that if superfast broadband is a monopoly, they will not be allowed to enjoy it," Onwurah told the Lords' committee. "I think structural separation is something we are going to have to look at," she said. "It's a significant intervention and BT would rightly complain but monopoly provision of superfast broadband just isn't an acceptable option."

She added: "The government is doing so much to get competition into the NHS where nobody really wants it, and doing so little to get competition into telecoms where everybody agrees it is the best way."

She urged Ofcom to encourage more competition. "Ofcom need to make clear that they are committed to competition in superfast broadband."

A High Court judge has ordered several UK ISPs to block access to notorious file sharing site, The Pirate Bay.

Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media will have to stop customers from accessing the Swedish website, which features pirated films and music.

We will comply with the decision made by the court and are in the process of doing this.

Geoff Taylor,BPI chief executive, welcomed the ruling and claimed The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.

"Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists. We urge anyone using The Pirate Bay to explore the many digital music services operating ethically and legally in the UK especially those carrying the Music Matters trustmark," he said in a statement.

TalkTalk and Virgin Media have confirmed they will accept the ruling.

"We have received a court order requiring us to block access to The Pirate Bay. We will comply with the decision made by the court and are in the process of doing this. TalkTalk have always maintained that we are not in principle against blocking provided there is a court order," said TalkTalk.

Virgin Media claimed that legal alternatives also need to be put forward to help change consumer behaviour.

"As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company, but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives."

Justice Arnold had ruled in February that The Pirate Bay infringed on the copyright of major record labels. BT faced pressure to block the website, but is one of the high-profile ISPs that is missing from judgment.

"We continue to have discussions with the BPI and we hope to announce an outcome acceptable to both of us soon," BT said in a statement.

Since it was rushed through the legislative process, both before and after the general election of 2010, the Digital Economy Act (DEA) has been a contentious piece of work.

ISPs, with some justification, didn't take kindly to this plan.

The result of an initial report by Lord Carter Of Barnes, it headed to the statute book with concerns about just how deeply it had been interrogated. It was introduced by the Labour government just before the close of Parliament, and picked up by the subsequent coalition administration, none of whom threw any particular sticks in its wheels.

Alarm

From the off, many businesses and professionals, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) very much included, were sounding alarm bells. In particular, the proposed three strikes rule for broadband customers has remained a major point of contention. For amongst its many clauses in the Act is one demanding that ISPs send warning letters to people suspected of illegally downloading copyrighted material, and in extreme cases, terminating their connection.

ISPs, with some justification, didn't take kindly to this plan (which gives them a policing role of sorts), and many have been strongly resisting it ever since. BT and TalkTalk, in particular, have been following due legal process in their battle against parts of the Digital Economy Act, arguing that asking them to effectively police their customers by sending them letters and threats was in contravention of European Union law.

Earlier this month, this case finally made it to the Court Of Appeal. Unfortunately for BT and TalkTalk, their appeal was dismissed, and that's certainly cleared the path a little more to the implementation of the act.

The Court basically rejected the suggestion that the Act was in contravention of EU laws in its ruling, and that leaves the pair of ISPs with a decision to make. Their next step, if they want to take it, is to argue their case at Supreme Court level. This is trickier (and further appeals become trickier still), as the court can refuse to even hear the case should it choose. It's unclear, at this stage, whether TalkTalk and BT want to pursue this path, although neither is showing any signs of wanting to give up the fight.

The upshot of the failed appeals is that this puts the Digital Economy Act very much back on schedule.

It's not an inexpensive business, though, with this latest appeal reported to have cost at least six figures, the two firms responsible for paying the vast bulk of costs.

Back on track?

The upshot of the failed appeals is that this puts the Digital Economy Act very much back on schedule, with a summer 2013 target date in place for the sending out of the first batch of letters.

It's only at this stage the long-mooted three strikes policy will properly come into force. This, as most are aware, introduces some warning stages to users, before they're hit with the aforementioned possibility of having their account revoked.

Many groups for creative industries have expressed their pleasure that things are finally pressing ahead, with the likes of the BPI expressing their happiness with the ruling. Given that it's been talked about in one shape or another for two to three years, there's a vocal group who are simply keen for the government to finally enact the legislation.

The onus, then, will be on the ISPs to keep tabs on the customers suspecting of downloading copyrighted material, and furthermore, the legislation requires that they can marry up an IP address to a user.

There's still technical work that needs to be undertaken here, which is likely to be going on for much of the year.

As things stand, the Digital Economy Act targets the named person to whom a broadband bill is sent, irrespective of whether they've personally done anything or not.

Happiness

Unsurprising, the ISPs remain unhappy. TalkTalk, for its part, has taken umbrage not with the fight against piracy per se, but rather the way it's being handled.

As things stand, the Digital Economy Act targets the named person to whom a broadband bill is sent, irrespective of whether they've personally done anything or not. Also, there's widespread displeasure at the plans to charge 20 for a user to appeal if they think they've been wronged by the process.

For small businesses, and perhaps even bigger ones, there are obvious concerns. Who is supposed to take responsibility for the actions of employees? What can a business do to ensure that its own web connections aren't abused? There are obvious answers, in terms of the technical restrictions that are easily deployable, and a firm acceptable use policy is clearly a must.

It's unlikely that a business runs the risk of losing its web connection altogether, though, with arguably the bigger threat coming from potentially negative publicity.

The road ahead

That said, there's still some way to go. Proposed US law was affected by the strength of the protests against SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act), which eventually resulted in a government climbdown.

For the time being, though, the Digital Economy Act is flying under many people's proverbial radar, only likely to resurface when it starts to affect end users in some way. That moment is likely to come when the first letters arrive on people's doormats, and the full extent of the Act is implemented.

End of the road?

However, pressure from creative industries is telling, and the Digital Economy Act's teeth are surely soon to be felt. There's only so much of a battle that ISPs can put up, and the runes thus far seem to indicate that the chances of successfully appealing parts of the Act, in the immediate future at least, look slim.

Whether the likes of BT and TalkTalk want to gamble another hundred thousand or so on a further legal challenge remains to be seen. Either way, it seems all but certain that the force of the legislation is about a year away from being felt.

Virgin's 100Mbps fibre product is now available to 10 million homes, meaning the ISP is ahead of schedule in rolling out the service.

The announcement came as 100Mbps connections were established in areas of Bromley, Dundee, Norton Hawkfield in North East Somerset and Staverton in Gloucestershire.

Virgin had initially planned to reach the 10 million figure by mid-2012.

Broadband is coming of age as more people give up on slow DSL.

"Soon half the country will be able to get superfast 100Mbps broadband from us. Reaching today's milestone puts us ahead of schedule as we help propel the UK up the global broadband rankings," said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media.

"Broadband is coming of age as more people give up on slow DSL in favour of superfast fibre optic speeds."

Last week, Ofcom said Virgin was providing the fastest average speeds to customers. The company's 'up to' 50Mbps offering had the highest average download speeds of around 49Mbps.

BT's fibre product Infinity achieved average download speeds of 36Mbps. Infinity achieved the highest average upload speeds of 8.8Mbps.

Last month, Virgin pledged to double the speeds of its broadband for all four million of its customers, apart from 100Mbps customers, who will be upgraded to 120Mbps.

Price rise

Whilst delighting customers with speed increases, Virgin has also upset them by revealing prices will go up across various services from 1 April.

On average, customers are set to see the cost of their contracts go up by around 2.68 a month.

Customers of the likes of Sky and TalkTalk could see broadband prices go down, however, as Ofcom proposed cutting BT Openreach's wholesale prices.

Ofcom said it expected the savings ISPs will make from lower infrastructure costs to be passed on to consumers, as that was what happened in the past.

However, BT said it was considering appealing Ofcom's decision if it is ratified by the European Commission.

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year, it is little wonder that January sees a plethora of tips, especially in the popular press, for losing weight and saving money.

Indeed, the more proactive PR firms send these "feature ideas" out well before December.

But among the exercise regimes and the make-do-and-mend suggestions, one piece of research, from ISP Review stood out. According to the website, one in three consumers are considering switching their broadband provider this year.

Cutting down on over-priced or over-specified broadband is a fairly painless way to stretch the family finances. And it is a trick that businesses, and not just smaller businesses, could copy.

For SMEs, switching broadband or indeed telecoms suppliers is a fairly simple process: use a comparison site, or Google, to shop around for a better deal, request a MAC (migration authorisation code), and sign up with the new provider.

There are a couple of caveats, such as checking on any fees to terminate the existing contract, and ensuring that if the business uses ISP-based email (not usually a great idea anyway) that mail services and any domains are transferred. All in all, it should be done in a couple of weeks, and the savings, in percentage terms, are

significant. There are business-grade ADSL deals out there

for 10 a month, but plenty of companies on legacy contracts pay 25 or more for fairly basic internet connections.

For larger businesses, or those that make more demands of their internet pipe, it is a little more complicated. But there are also some more interesting options.

Companies that do not rely too heavily on their broadband might, for example, be able to switch from an expensive, dedicated leased line to business-grade DSL, and save a significant monthly sum. ADSL2, especially Annex M, provides upload speeds of over 1Mbps: more than enough for IP telephony, for example. Put in two bonded connections, and there's the added benefit of additional redundancy as well as more bandwidth.

But companies should also look at products such as metro Ethernet, and also fibre from the likes of BT and Virgin Media. BT, for example, has been rolling out its fibre connections to more towns over the last year, and

Virgin Media now has services designed specifically for data-heavy applications.

Even if these products do not suit, the fact they are available should be a useful tool for renegotiating with existing suppliers.

That, really, should be the lesson businesses draw from squeezed consumers. With the outlook for 2012 still uncertain, it makes sense to keep the fixed costs of doing business as low as possible.

And if that means spending some time on researching broadband, telecoms and mobile contracts or even software licences, support deals and other outgoings and giving suppliers a hard time when the contracts are due for renewal, so be it. It's your money after all.

Stephen Pritchard is a contributing editor at IT Pro.

The European Parliament has voted in favour of keeping the internet "open and neutral" as it looks to ensure telecoms firms don't throttle citizens' connections.

A resolution agreed on by MEPs stressed the need to scrutinise telecoms providers' traffic management practices so certain users are not given preferential treatment, meaning others miss out.

It also asked the European Commission to issue guidelines to guarantee rules on net neutrality are properly applied.

It is clearly understood that traffic management practices must not be used for anti-competitive purposes.

Parliament called for assurance that "internet service providers do not block, discriminate against or impair the ability of any person to use or offer any service, content or application of their choice irrespective of source or target."

"Reasonable data traffic management is required and very useful to prevent network congestion and the smooth running of applications and services. Nonetheless, it is clearly understood that traffic management practices must not be used for anti-competitive purposes," said Industry, Research and Energy Committee chair Herbert Reul.

MEPs expect to enshrine the conclusions around net neutrality in law on 13 December.

The European Parliament's work has been applauded by a number of onlookers.

"Neelie Kroes and the European Commission have taken a balanced approach to net neutrality and rightly so," said Dominique Lazanski, head of digital policy at the Tax Payers' Alliance.

"We enjoy competition in internet service providers, mobile access and content in Europe unrivalled anywhere else in the world. There has been no issue or event to even consider bringing net neutrality in Europe."

Lazanski said it would be unwise for the EU to enforce additional legislation to keep the net neutral.

"We feel that any further step in legislating for net neutrality is not necessary due to the fact that the Telecoms Package is more than sufficient to deal with issues of competition and poor consumer services," she added.

"The need to grow the European economy is essential in these difficult economic times. Unnecessary regulation on an already competitive internet service market will impede Internet access, take away from internet infrastructure development and impact economic growth throughout Europe."

BT was recently accused in a New York Times article of throttling three quarters of its broadband connections in the UK.

BT dismissed the report as outdated, telling our sister publication PC Pro that some companies in it were not in existence anymore.

However, the Max Planck Institute, which provided the data for the New York Times, said the information was current.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is continuing to lead the charge in asking ISPs to block access to Newzbin 2, although providers indicate they may not play ball.

BT was told to shut off access to Newzbin 2 last month after a lawsuit issued by rights holders was successful.

Now those rights holders are going after other ISPs as they look to get filesharing sites shut down.

"We have received a letter from the MPA asking whether we would object (in court) to an order for TalkTalk to block access to Newzbin," said Andre Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk.

"We are considering our position since there are some objectionable elements to the proposed injunction."

Virgin said it would like to see legal alternatives used to fight piracy.

We are considering our position since there are some objectionable elements to the proposed injunction.

"The recent Newzbin2 ruling clarifies the legal process for content owners to challenge alleged copyright infringement," a Virgin Media spokesperson said.

"As a responsible ISP, we will comply with any court order addressed to us but strongly believe such deterrents need to be accompanied by compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, which give consumers access to content at the right price."

Earlier this week, music industry body BPI joined forces with a number of other record companies and Hollywood film studios to send a letter to BT asking it to block The Pirate Bay.

BT said it is looking for court orders before blocking any websites in the future.

"In line with the Newzbin judgment, a court order will be needed before any blocking could begin," a BT spokesperson said.

Iranian web users were the real target of the hack on Dutch certification authority (CA) DigiNotar, which resulted in over 500 fake certificates being issued, evidence has suggested.

The CA was hacked in July, leading hackers to produce a host of fraudulent SSL certificates for sites including Google.com and an MI6 website.

Trend Micro said it had "concrete evidence" suggesting the DigiNotar attack was used to spy on Iranian internet users "on a large scale."

"We found that Internet users in more than 40 different networks of ISPs and universities in Iran were met with rogue SSL certificates issued by DigiNotar," a blog post from Trend read.

"Even worse, we found evidence that some Iranians who used software designed to circumvent traffic censorship and snooping were not protected against the massive man-in-the-middle attack."

What we think...

The use of attacks at both the CA and DNS levels shows the hackers were determined, or perhaps ISPs themselves were involved.

The involvement of an ISP was suggested by an Iranian web user the same one who discovered the fake Gmail certificate that kicked off this unsavoury saga in the first place. For Iranian citizens, the situation will only fuel their fury against the Government more.

Tom Brewster, Senior Staff Writer

Trend noted a spike in the number of Iranian users who loaded the SSL certificate verification URL of DigiNotar. As DigiNotar is a Dutch authority, most of its traffic normally comes from Dutch end users, so it is odd to see any noticeable Iranian traffic coming through.

"These aggregated statistics from the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network clearly shows that Iranian internet users were exposed to a large-scale man-in-the-middle attack wherein SSL-encrypted traffic can be decrypted by a third party," Trend Micro added.

"Because of this, a third party was probably able to read all of the email messages an Iranian internet user sent with his/her Gmail account."

The security firm even found evidence suggesting Iranians using anti-censorship software could still have had their internet usage watched over.

"Closer analysis of our data revealed even more alarming facts like outgoing proxy nodes in the US of anti-censorship software made in California were sending Web rating requests for validation.diginotar.nl to the cloud servers of Trend Micro," the company added.

"This very likely means that Iranian citizens who were using this anti-censorship software were victimized by the same man-in-the-middle attack."

Meanwhile, Fox-IT, the security auditors brought in to investigate the DigiNotar hack, found that in the lookups on DigiNotar's OCSP servers, which browsers check to see if a certificate has been revoked, more than 99 per cent of queries originated from Iran during the "active attack period."

Fox-IT found almost 300,000 unique IP addresses from Iran attempted to gain access to Google services using rogue certificates from DigiNotar.

"This is the most solid evidence yet that these certificates may have been used by the Iranian government or ISPs to spy on private communications of Iranian internet users," said Chester Wisniewski, Sophos senior security advisor, in a blog post.

"Many of the other requests not originating from Iran appear to have originated via Tor exit nodes or other proxies used by Iranians to avoid censorship. This indicates that the method used to perform the man-in-the-middle attacks with these certificates likely depended on DNS poisoning at the ISPs."

Ofcom has told BT to reduce its wholesale prices for broadband in rural areas where it is the only provider.

BT will have to cut its prices by 12 per cent, with the charge controls coming into effect by mid August, Ofcom said today.

The changes mean other ISPs could bring more options to end users in areas where BT is the sole provider. Ofcom believes the decision will benefit competition, in turn bringing better value broadband to end users.

"Ofcom expects these price cuts to generate more competition between retail ISPs and to lead to cheaper retail prices which will benefit consumers," the regulator said in a statement.

"The changes may also lead to better quality services by enabling ISPs to allocate more bandwidth per customer which could deliver faster broadband services."

Ofcom said the changes could benefit around 3 million homes and businesses in rural regions.

"Ofcom expects the level of the charge control to incentivise efficient investment by ISPs to roll out their own networks in these areas and enable them to compete with BT Wholesale," the regulator added.

"It will also incentivise BT Wholesale to upgrade services where it is efficient to do so."

In December 2010, Ofcom announced it would set a cap on the amount BT could charge for its wholesale product in an attempt to encourage competition.

In January, the regulator proposed wholesale price cuts of between 10.75 per cent and 14.75 per cent below inflation.

BT said the impact of Ofcom's decision today would be almost insignificant in terms of material impact on the telecoms giant.

"The impact on BT Wholesale will be non-material," a spokesperson said.

"Unlike many other providers, despite the higher costs involved, BT Retail's consumer broadband products have always been priced the same in rural areas as in urban areas. This ruling is therefore of more relevance to those ISPs who currently charge a supplement in rural areas".

Michael Phillips, product director at Broadbandchoices.co.uk, questioned how much of an impact the cut would have.

"The reality is that a 12 per cent reduction in prices will have limited impact. The economics of serving rural broadband customers means that they already fork out an additional 10 per month over their conurbation-dwelling counterparts if the local exchange has not been enabled by LLU providers," Phillips said.

"I would also question the quality of the service they are currently receiving as Ofcom's recent broadband map of the UK highlighted how huge swathes of the UK countryside are enduring poor connection speeds. If the UK is to be taken seriously as a tech economy, the government needs to dedicate time and resource to bringing the whole of the UK into the online age."

Virgin today announced its 100Mbps service is now available to a quarter of UK homes.

Meanwhile, the rollout of fibre broadband to the UK could be hampered by squabbling over infrastructure, as found by a recent IT Pro report.

UPDATED Virgin has added its two cents to the debate, saying the Ofcom ruling is not the answer for securing the long-term future of rural broadband.

"These changes, which apply to areas of the country where BT is the sole infrastructure owner, are not the long term solution to the inherent problems of broadband in these rural areas," a Virgin spokesperson told IT Pro.

"Here we need more than just patching up the aging existing network, but a game-changing alternative."

The ISP cited Fujitsu's proposal to invest in a new "future-proofed fibre optic service" as an example of what kinds of radical moves it believed were required.

BT and TalkTalk will not be allowed to appeal the decision on their judicial review of the Digital Economy Act (DEA), the High Court has ruled.

The two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) won the right to a review of the controversial Act back in November, which would see alleged illegal filesharers have their internet cut off after "three strikes."

Their legal campaign was quashed when Mr Justice Kenneth Parker dismissed the case in April.

Yet, both BT and TalkTalk vowed to fight on, albeit dropping the claims against proportionality one of five issues they had with the DEA. They launched an appeal against the decision at the end of May.

However, their fighting words have been silenced yet again in the High Court this week, with Judge Sir Richard Buxton refusing to grant the appeal.

Tony Ballard, digital media specialist at law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said: "If it really marks the end of the litigation, its significance lies in Ofcom being able now to implement the procedure for discouraging peer-to-peer file sharing under the Digital Economy Act without the cloud of uncertainty as to the validity of the Act hanging over it."

"Opinion in the industry remains divided, however, as to whether the procedure is a good idea or not."

It may not be the end of the fight though, as Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk's director of strategy, told IT Pro.

"There are a number of options open to us and we are considering these," he said. "We still consider our challenge is sound."

A BT spokesperson merely added that the company was "considering our position."

The Digital Economy Act was brought in during the wash-up phase of the last Government in April 2010, drawing criticism it was rushed through without proper scrutiny.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have lost their judicial review against the Digital Economy Act (DEA), it was confirmed this morning.

BT and TalkTalk launched the challenge against the controversial legislation - designed to tackle illegal filesharers back in November 2010. They claimed they should have been notified under the EU Technical Standards Directive of the bill before it was passed in the wash-up phase of the last Government.

They also claimed it went against the EU Electronic Commerce Directive and the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, in addition to infringing a number of pieces of human rights legislation.

However, the judge presiding over the review in the High Court Mr Justice Kenneth Parker has dismissed the claims this morning, saying the directives had not been breached.

A spokesperson from BT sent IT PRO a statement, concluding it was disappointed for the outcome but hinting the fight may not yet be over.

"We are reviewing this long and complex judgement," the statement read. "Protecting our customers is our number one priority and we will consider our options once we have fully understood the implications for our customers and businesses."

"This was always about seeking clarity on certain points of law and we have to consider whether this judgment achieves these aims."

Peter Bradwell, campaigner at the Open Rights Group, added: "It is important to remember that this is not a judgement on whether the Digital Economy Act is good public policy. We still believe that if enacted the Act will hurt people's privacy and access to the internet for no proven gain."

"We hope that BT and TalkTalk will appeal and we will support them if they do."

The Government said it was happy with the outcome and the department for media, culture and sport tasked with handling the DEA released the following statement:

"We are pleased that the Court has recognised these measures as both lawful and proportionate. The Government remains committed to tackling online piracy and so will set out the next steps for implementation of the Digital Economy Act shortly."

He added: "Shareholders and customers of BT and TalkTalk might ask why so much time and money has been spent challenging an Act of Parliament to help reduce the illegal traffic on their networks."

"It is now time for BT and TalkTalk to work constructively with Government and with rights holders to implement the Digital Economy Act."

The ISPs did win a slight reprieve in relation to the costing model. Initially, they were set to pay out for a lot of the implementation of the new system. However, the judge ruled they would only be responsible in collaboration with rights holders for the cost of operating the system and the appeals process.

However, the bill for the costs involved in the set up, monitoring and enforcement of the Act by Ofcom will not fall under their remit.

ISPs including Virgin Media and TalkTalk have sent an open letter to communications minister Ed Vaizey to complain about the cost of BT's superfast broadband infrastructure.

In the letter, ISPs claimed BT charged competitors too much to use its ducts and poles, to the extent it threatens the rollout of superfast services to rural areas.

The letter, dated 4 April, said "urgent intervention" was needed if the Government's 530 million Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project was to succeed.

BT's pricing also threatened "vigorous competition" in the superfast market, the ISPs claimed.

"We have prepared a body of evidence that demonstrates categorically that BT are charging between four to five times their underlying costs for PIA [physical infrastructure access]," the letter said.

"Moreover we have shown that it would be more cost effective to build an entirely separate duct and pole network in parallel with BT's existing network, than to consume the PIA product."

The letter suggested BT may not be "satisfying its regulatory obligation to provide access to its physical infrastructure estate on fair and reasonable terms."

ISP wars

"The current PIA prices are substantially above cost," a TalkTalk spokesperson told IT PRO.

"This means that other operators cannot compete against BT to build fibre networks using BDUK money so BT will become the only game in town."

The TalkTalk spokesperson described the pricing as "a crude tactic by BT to be the monopoly supplier" for bringing superfast broadband to the final third of the UK.

"Whilst BT shareholders may profit, UK consumers will get worse services, the public purse won't get value for money and rollout will be slower and less extensive," the spokesperson added.

"Ofcom and Government need to crack down on this behaviour quickly and decisively."

Virgin Media declined to comment on the letter.

BT hit back at its rivals, questioning their commitment to the UK's broadband rollout.

"It is highly ironic that we are being criticised by some companies who provide little or no wholesale access to their assets," a BT spokesperson said.

"BT is the only company who has installed broadband equipment in exchanges serving the last 10 per cent of the UK and so we would question whether these companies are genuinely interested in serving rural Britain given their track record."

The telecoms giant said its prices for duct access compared "very well with European averages," whilst claiming its plans for pole access have been held up due to others delaying trials.

"Once those trials are underway we will be in a far better position to understand the costs involved and so we would encourage these companies to start trialling with us as soon as possible," the BT spokesperson added.

"It is very disappointing that this letter was shared with the media several hours before ourselves. It's a shame that some of the companies involved seem keener to spend more time talking about this process than actually working on it."

Last week, Ofcom proposed enforcing cuts to BT Openreach's unbundling prices, providing further evidence the UK comms firm is under pressure to lower costs for other providers.

The letter came after BT announced an extension of its 20Mbps copper broadband, pledging to bring the services to 80 per cent of UK businesses and homes.

BT has confirmed customer data held by MediaCAT, the porn licensee involved in the controversial ACS:Law case, has been deleted.

MediaCAT used the data to locate customers who were suspected of illegal filesharing and employed ACS:Law to send letters to those people, telling them to pay a fine or face court action.

BT was ordered in July 2010 to hand over yet more data on thousands of customers, but refused to do so and has now confirmed that information would not be sent to MediaCAT.

The porn licensee confirmed all BT customer data it held was deleted.

The telecoms giant has also been working to ensure it does not have to hand over additional data to other former ACS:Law clients and is hoping to see more information expunged.

BT managed to gain a court order meaning it would not have to send further details to Ministry of Sound, whilst a battle with media company DigiProtect looks set to see customer data erased.

"We have now taken the matter back to court and secured an order requiring DigiProtect either to issue proceedings or delete the data. The time for issuing proceedings has now expired and the data should be deleted," BT said in a community forum post.

BT had disclosed some customer details to DigiProtect under a court order in early 2010.

"As a business we must facilitate genuine rights holders who wish to enforce their copyright in a proportionate way," the firm added.

"With that in mind we have been working on a new framework policy to deal with future applications, in a bid to protect our customers."

The DEA judicial review

BT will be arguing its case against the Digital Economy Act (DEA) today as part of a judicial review into the legislation.

The firm, which believes the Act was rushed through Parliament, wants to know whether or not the law is enforceable under European telecoms, e-commerce and privacy directives.

BT and TalkTalk joined forces last year to question the Act and were successful in getting a judicial review.

Many have raised concerns about the DEA's allowance to block internet access of those suspected of repeatedly downloading copyright material.

The London School of Economics this week published a report criticising the legislation, claiming it played too much into the hands of copyright holders and ignored interests of others such as web users and ISPs like BT.

The Open Rights Group, meanwhile, has suggested the review should mark the beginning of the end for the DEA.

"We hope that this is the first step on the road to abandoning this deeply flawed Act," said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group.

"It is an Act which simply won't work except in disproportionately harming the UK's internet providers and users. We need to start again and find a new policy settlement which embraces, rather than tramples on, the exciting possibilities that the digital age offers."

Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee argued the case for net neutrality during a Government-held roundtable yesterday.

Communications minister Ed Vaizey brought together industry and consumer groups, including the BBC and Facebook, to discuss the issue of an open internet.

"While transparency about traffic management policy is a good thing, best practices should also include the neutrality of the net," Berners-Lee said.

"The web has grown so fast precisely because we have had two independent markets, one for connectivity, and the other for content and applications."

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, and another attendee at the meeting, claimed internet service providers (ISPs) were "not putting forward anything that looks like meaningful self-regulation."

"In contrast with the US, where rules are being put in place through the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), or Norway where ISPs have agreed a meaningful code, our ISPs are not offering us what we and the UK economy needs," Killock said.

"If that continues to be the case, then Ed Vaizey will find himself with the task of breaking the log jam."

Another attendee was Dominique Lazanski, from campaign group the Big Brother Watch, who told IT PRO little was achieved at the meeting.

"There is nothing new on the net neutrality front - or rather nothing earth shattering," Lazanski said.

"Basically, Ed Vaizey and Ofcom are going to take a cautious approach on it and see how the voluntary code of practice goes."

The issue could escalate when, on 25 May, the EU Directive is set to make transparency on traffic management an obligation.

Ofcom is also due to release guidance on how it will look out for transparency breaches, among other open internet issues, Lazanski noted.

Despite the apparent stalemate at the meeting, which also featured the likes of Yahoo, Skype and Ofcom, Vaizey described the roundtable as "productive."

Vaizey previously voiced a preference for a two-tier internet, saying ISPs should be allowed to manage their networks and charge content providers and users for faster access.

Yesterday, he praised the move by a number of ISPs to be more transparent with their traffic management.

Earlier this week, BT, Virgin Media and Sky were amongst a host of companies who signed up to a new code of practice, drafted by the Broadband Stakeholders Group (BSG), to reveal how they restrict broadband speeds.

"It is good to see that industry has taken the lead on agreeing greater transparency for their traffic management policies," Vaizey said.

"I am pleased that someone with the expertise of Sir Tim has agreed to work with industry on expanding that agreement to cover managing and maintaining the open internet."

The communications minister said the agreement should ensure users could access all legal content, whilst no discrimination against content providers on the basis of commercial rivalry should exist.

Furthermore, traffic management policies should be clear and transparent, Vaizey added.

Following the meeting, BSG chief executive (CEO) Antony Walker said any decision on net neutrality should be "based on the realities of what is happening in the UK market, rather than what is happening elsewhere in the world."

"The challenge ahead is to build a common view on how we safeguard the benefits of the open internet whilst also ensuring ongoing investment and innovation," he added.

A number of high profile internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to reveal how they restrict broadband speeds through traffic management.

BT, Virgin Media and Sky are amongst the companies who have signed up to a new code of practice, drafted by the Broadband Stakeholders Group, in the hope it will show its users why restrictions need to be placed on speeds to ensure their networks remain in good health.

The ISP argument is the slowing of connections during busy periods allows them to maintain a strong network, with the breaks being put on less time critical activities.

However, there are concerns this practice will lead to a two-tiered internet, where ISPs will charge for websites to be prioritised something critics, such as the BBC, are strongly opposed to.

But Antony Walker, chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, thinks the new code is key, as whatever policy is made around traffic management in the future, it is important for the numbers to be transparent.

"There has been more heat than light in the debate about traffic management over recent years," he said. "This commitment to provide clear and comparable information in a common format is very important."

Walker added: "It will not only help to ensure consumers are better informed about the services they buy and use, but will also provide a clearer picture for policy makers of the way in which traffic management is actually used in the UK market."

Other companies backing the code include O2, TalkTalk, Three and Vodafone. All the signatories together account for 90 per cent of fixed line customers and 60 per cent of mobile customers across the UK.

The initial code will be piloted throughout 2011, with a review set for early 2012 to "fine tune" the practice. At this point, consumer groups and other interested bodies will also be invited to put their thoughts across on how the code should be formalised.

"Consumers need to be able to make informed choices about the services they buy and policy makers need to be able to make informed decisions about the policy and regulatory framework they set," Walker added.

"This new commitment provides an essential building block for getting both of these things right."

The Open Rights Group (ORG) has written to communications minister Ed Vaizey asking to be included in discussions about the Digital Economy Act (DEA).

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has been leading talks with internet service providers (ISPs) focused on how to deal with illegal files sharers.

Controversial clauses brought in by the DEA in April 2010 could see those found guilty of file sharing having their internet connections cut off something the ORG has strongly opposed.

Now its executive director, Jim Killock, has asked for his organisation, fellow rights group Liberty and customer watchdog Consumer Focus, to be included in the DEA meetings.

"These issues raise very serious problems relating to freedom of expression, access to knowledge and privacy. But it is likely that these issues will not be given sufficient weight should discussions feature only rights holders and ISPs," Killock wrote in the letter.

"To include only these voices means there is a real risk that the flaws of the Digital Economy Act will be repeated."

IT PRO contacted the department for media, culture and sport for a reaction to the letter but it had not responded to the request at the time of publication.

The next meeting between Hunt and the ISPs including representatives from TalkTalk and Virgin Media is due in three months' time.

Internet service providers (ISPs) have been told to stop using "up to" in adverts for broadband speeds as the term has been deemed misleading.

The Communications Consumer Panel wants ISPs to use clearer language rather than continuing to make claims of speeds which are often unobtainable for customers.

"The current approach of advertising 'up to' broadband headline speeds is no longer credible or sustainable and is causing widespread scepticism amongst consumers," said panel chair Anna Bradley.

She suggested a "typical speed description" detailing the average connections received by customers, would be a more fitting method of advertising the technology to the public.

The panel made the statement following the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) consultation of the use of the words "up to" due to finish at 5pm today.

It has in turn asked for the ASA's Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) to form a straightforward template for ISPs to advertise, ensuring it becomes effortless for consumers to understand what adverts are promising to deliver.

"The onus should be on ISPs to substantiate speed claims by providing robust data," concluded Bradley.

Talks between the Government, internet service providers (ISPs) and representatives from the entertainment industry were held this week to brainstorm ideas for legal media content services online.

Following the introduction of the Digital Economy Act, ISPs and members of the music and films industries were put at loggerheads in how to deal with illegal downloaders and P2P filesharers.

A controversial "three strike rule" was introduced with the legislation whereby users would have internet connections cut off - after three warnings - if they were found to be illegally downloading material.

However, the Government has now taken a more encouraging rather than punishing approach to the issue by bringing together both industries to discuss ideas for legal content access for music, film and games online.

The discussions were lead by the minister for the department of media, culture and sport, Jeremy Hunt, and included representatives from TalkTalk and Virgin Media.

In a statement released this week, Hunt claimed positive steps had been taken by all involved.

"I am pleased to hear that real progress has been made by ISPs and the music industry on developing new and attractive services for consumers," he said. "The more choice consumers have, the less attractive the unlawful alternatives will be."

IT PRO asked Andrew Heaney, director of strategy at TalkTalk, how he thought the meeting had gone but he seemed less enthusiastic than the minister.

"[The] meeting basically involved [an] update on progress of negotiations between ISPs and music industry on developing digital music services, progress on search engines prioritising results for legal' services and how to progress discussions on web blocking," he said.

"I will leave it for Government to opine on whether it was real progress.'"

The companies and Hunt are due to meet again in three months.

It's not that difficult to shut the internet down completely, just as the Egyptian Government managed to do recently, according to Bill Gates.

The Microsoft founder was responding to a question from CBS News presenter Katie Couric, who asked whether he was surprised President Hosni Mubarak had been able to kill the internet.

"It's not that hard to shut the internet down if you have military power where you can tell people that's what's going to happen," Gates said.

"Whenever you do something extraordinary like that you're sort of showing people you're afraid of the truth getting out, so it's a very difficult tactic, but certainly it can be shut off."

Gates said with the coming of the internet age, nations have found it tricky to keep a hold on the dissemination of data.

"Really only North Korea has a situation where they can hide information," he added.

The internet appears to be back up and running in Egypt, following the complete blackout.

Web traffic analysis firm Renesys said sites such as the Egyyptian Stock Exchange and Commercial International Bank of Egypt were accessible.

The Noor Group, one of the last main ISPs to go down in Egypt, was online as well.

BGPMon, a networking firm that monitors internet traffic routing, said it had seen signs of an internet resurrection in the country too.

"Egypt has been offline for 5 days, this is truly unprecedented in these modern days. It's been interesting to see how alternative ways of electronic communications have been used and how ad hoc internet connections have been made available," a blog post from the company read.

During the downtime, citizens were still given the chance to communicate with the outside world.

Google and Twitter joined up for a service allowing internet-deprived Egyptians to post messages on the micro-blogging site.

People could dial up international numbers, leave a voicemail and then their message would be delivered as a tweet.

Google and Twitter have teamed up for a service allowing internet-deprived Egyptians to post messages on the micro-blogging site.

Internet access in Egypt now appears to have been cut off completely after the last main ISP, the Noor Group, lost connectivity this week, according to reports.

The speak-to-tweet service will let protestors in Egypt, and indeed anyone in the country, by leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers: +16504194196 or +390662207294, +97316199855.

The message will then be automatically tweeted using the hashtag #egypt and people can listen to messages by dialing the same phone numbers or visiting to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

Google's recent acquisition SayNow was also involved in setting up the service.

"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," said Ujjwal Singh, co-founder of SayNow, and AbdelKarim Mardini, Google product manager in Middle East & North Africa, said in a joint blog post.

"We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there."

Protestors have taken to the streets in Egypt to challenge the 30-year rule of president Hosni Mubarak.

Thousands gathered today in Cairo as they stepped up their efforts to remove Mubarak from power.

Facebook appears to have been important in helping Egyptians organise revolutionary activity.

The social network was home to 42 per cent of the country's traffic on 27 January, the day before Egypt's main ISPs went offline, figures from zScaler showed.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) face further scrutiny when making claims about their broadband speeds, thanks to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Last year, the ASA asked the organisations responsible for writing advertising codes to look into the way ISPs promoted broadband speeds, specifically the use of "up to" and "unlimited" in their adverts.

Both the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) are now consulting on new guidance for ISPs.

"The objective is to produce guidance for the industry to aid their interpretation of the Misleading Advertising sections of the CAP and BCAP Codes," said a statement from the ASA.

The consultation period will end at 5pm of Friday 25 February.

ISPs have already felt the wrath of the ASA before this consultation began.

BT had several adverts banned last year, firstly for claiming its internet connections were "instant" and secondly when customers disputed claims of 20Mbps broadband access. The ASA deemed the adverts misleading and forced the ISP to pull them.

Take a look at our round up of the top 10 tech advert fails here.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new bulk and transactional email service aimed at businesses and developers.

Through the offering, named the Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES), users will be able to send a significant number of messages without having to worry about ISP compliance issues and so ending up in spam folders.

"Amazon SES takes proactive steps to prevent questionable content from being sent, so that ISPs receive consistently high-quality email and therefore view the service as a trusted email origin," the company said.

"This maximises deliverability and dependability for all of our senders."

Amazon said its new service would help firms get around time consuming licensing and installing a third-party service, or maintaining an internally hosted email solution.

"Sending email through Amazon SES is as simple as calling a single API, and Amazon SES makes it easy for you to monitor your sending activity and deliverability statistics," the retail and services firm said.

Amazon EC2 users can send 2,000 messages for free every day, but outside of that mail messages have been priced at $0.10 per thousand.

Also included in the service is a built-in feedback loop, which will notify customers of bounce backs and spam complaints, as well as failed and successful delivery attempts.

Earlier this month, AWS revamped its cloud support offerings with some revised pricing and the new Bronze and Platinum packages.

Ofcom has forced BT to cut its Wholesale broadband prices in areas where it is the sole provider of internet connectivity.

By lowering the cost of leasing BT's broadband infrastructure, Ofcom hopes to encourage more competition from retail internet service providers (ISPs) in the often rural areas and to pass on cost savings to the consumer.

The regulator has proposed price cuts of between 10.75 per cent and 14.75 per cent below inflation.

"Ofcom's aim is to incentivise BT Wholesale to continue to improve its efficiency," said a statement from Ofcom. "This could make it cheaper for other communications providers to roll out services and should ultimately benefit consumers in those areas through lower prices."

The price cuts could influence up to three million homes in the UK 12 per cent of all households in areas such as the South West, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Northumberland, as well as remote areas in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ofcom also hoped the changes would help improve broadband speeds as ISPs would be able to buy more capacity. It also confirmed it would exclude ADSL 2+ connections from the price cuts, encouraging BT to invest in the new technology that could carry much faster speeds over copper networks.

The new pricing is set to come into effect in the summer.