News and Press
Below are the latest updates from Fluid Network Solutions.
Click on the headlines to read full stories:
Ofcom publishes UK Communications Market Report 2008
August 15th, 2008People in the UK are spending more time using communications services than ever before - but paying less for them, according to Ofcom's latest annual report into the UK's £51 billion communications industry.
C&W closes further in on Thus
August 15th, 2008CABLE & Wireless has closed in on Thus and a takeover is looming large on the horizon.
Ex-Crane Chairman joins Redwood
April 22nd, 2008DAVID George, the former Chairman of Crane Telecommunications until its sale to Datatec in May last year, has joined Redwood Telecom as executive chairman and taken a 'significant stake' in the company. George's role will be to develop Redwood's strategy for growth, manage key elements of the company administration and maximise profitability. He will take over the management of relationships with Redwood's key suppliers and seek out new partnerships to meet the needs of the 21st Century customer.
RECORD NUMBERS DESCEND ON
April 22nd, 2008DELEGATE numbers hit an all time high at the Managed and Hosted Services seminar during Comms Solutions 08 (Wembley Stadium, 16-17 April) where top channel players debated the future of the PBX
Carphone sales fall short of forecasts
January 21st, 2008Carphone Warehouse, the mobile phone retailer and telecommunications group, has joined a growing band of consumer companies that missed sales targets over Christmas.
Skype must 'rebuild trust' after number debacle
November 29th, 2007Skype needs to "rebuild trust" among its small-business users if it is to continue as a serious option for enterprises, an analyst has warned.
Thousands to lose jobs at BT as company plans shake-up
November 1st, 2007Unions and analysts are gearing up for thousands of job cuts at BT after a radical shake-up of the telecoms giant.
Hundreds for chop as Tiscali launches Pipex jobs purge
October 31st, 2007Tiscali will slash hundreds of customer care jobs at recent acquisition Pipex broadband and voice, staff were told yesterday afternoon
Be Unlimited Blocking Legitimate Content
October 16th, 2007The O2 owned 24Mbps offering UK ISP Be Unlimited is in hot water with some of its customers after blocking access to some websites hosted by Lycos. It's understood that the problem stems from a poor implementation of the Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) child abuse block list:
ICSTIS is renamed
October 16th, 2007Icstis, the premium rate phone services regulator, has rebranded itself
as PhonepayPlus.
Telecoms companies will have to keep phone records
October 8th, 2007Telecoms companies will have to keep phone records for a year under a new law which came into force on 1st October. The law only applies to phone calls, and not internet activity records or VOIP calls. The Data Retention (EC) Regulations were approved by the House of Lords, and transpose most of the EU's Data Retention Directive into UK law
O2 restricts its broadband reach to avoid cost of BT link
August 8th, 2007O2 is understood to have decided not to make its residential broadband service available across the entire UK, to keep costs under control.
murphx announces Cable&Wireless customer acquisition
August 2nd, 2007murphx Innovative Solutions today announced a multi million pound deal that will see murphx acquire 102 broadband wholesale customers and resellers from Cable&Wireless Europe, Asia and US. The acquisition will also provide the murphx Channel with access to LLU products provided via the Cable &Wireless network.
Anti-spam products “don't work”
July 24th, 2007Most people are not happy with their anti-spam products, according to a new survey.
BT looks at ultra-fast broadband
July 24th, 2007BT, the UK telecommunications group, is considering the case for an ultra-fast broadband network that could deliver internet download speeds of up to 50 megabits per second.
T-Mobile ordered to stop blocking WiFi rival's calls
July 18th, 2007The fledgling WiFi phone company Truphone has won the first round of its battle against mobile phone giant T-Mobile.
A smarter, quicker process for transferring mobile telephone numbers
July 18th, 2007Ofcom today announced proposals for a new swift and simple process intended to make it easier for mobile customers to transfer their mobile number to an alternative supplier. Ofcom is seeking views on its proposal that, in just over two years, transferred numbers will need to be up and running on the customer’s new network within two hours.
BT gives WLR3 update
July 4th, 2007BT today gave an update on its progress on WLR3 - the new product designed to give all UK communication providers the same system for ordering and repairing standard telephone lines for their respective new customers.
Scotland 'leading the broadband revolution'
May 31st, 2007Broadband firm BT has announced that Aberdeenshire and Shetland are the first places in Britain in which more than half of all homes and business are connected to broadband internet.
BT should sell Openreach, says Cable & Wireless boss
May 31st, 2007Competition in the British telecoms market could grind to a halt if BT is allowed to load its local network arm, Openreach, with debt to free up cash for the rest of its operations, according to John Pluthero, head of UK business at Cable & Wireless.
BT boasts business wins
May 17th, 2007BT's fourth quarter profit rose to £454m from £391m a year earlier, but still came in below City expectations of £457.9m. Revenues rose 3% to £5.292bn. The operator announced a £2.5bn share buyback plan.
UK business broadband may be too slow
April 17th, 2007According to a report from the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), UK
ministers and regulators have only two years to find ways of encouraging
investment in the next generation of high-speed broadband if UK
competitiveness is not to suffer.
Coup for Carphone as it poaches top Ofcom strategist
April 17th, 2007Carphone Warehouse has strengthened its broadband management team after poaching Andrew Heaney, a key architect of Ofcom's broadband regulatory framework, to be the company's head of regulatory affairs.
BT sings ISDN swansong
April 17th, 2007BT is to scrap its consumer ISDN services later this year. We are withdrawing consumer ISDN. The demand for it has dived with the availability of fast cheap, fast broadband, said a BT spokesman.
Last-ditch lobbying on roaming tariffs
March 8th, 2007Mobile phone companies will today launch a last-ditch lobbying effort over a European Union plan to force them to slash the cost of international calls by up to 70 per cent.
Last-ditch lobbying on roaming tariffs
April 4th, 2007Mobile phone companies will today launch a last-ditch lobbying effort over a European Union plan to force them to slash the cost of international calls by up to 70 per cent.
Skype and Google to grow market share
March 7th, 2007Telecoms researcher Analysys believes that new players such as Skype and
Google are successfully fostering novel forms of communication and
billing models over the internet.
Rural broadband gets EC green light
February 27th, 2007The European Commission has backed plans to give rural parts of North Yorkshire broadband connectivity.
Branson promises telecoms shake-up
February 9th, 2007SIR Richard Branson today pledged to shake up the telecoms and entertainment industry with the launch of Virgin Media - a direct rival to broadcasting giant BSkyB.
Unbundled lines set to number 1.5 million
February 6th, 2007The UK's broadband industry will hit a key target by the end of this week, when 1.5 million lines will have been unbundled.
Carphone fined £35,000 over silent calls
February 1st, 2007Carphone Warehouse today became one of the first companies to be fined for making silent sales calls to homes
Prisoners to get email access?
January 4th, 2007The Home Office is planning to give inmates email access so they can keep in contact with their families.
Ofcom to get tough with telecoms operators
December 21st, 2006Ofcom has issued an end-of-year warning that telecoms operators and
broadband internet services will face the threat of a crackdown on
mis-selling and other abuses in the New Year.
BT Openreach comes under fire
October 23rd, 2006Operators are becoming increasingly concerned that the year-old system for ensuring "equivalence" of access to BT's network is fundamentally flawed, and needs to undergo a significant revision, according to The Sunday Times.
Indian data theft 'exposed'
October 6th, 2006A man in India offered to sell the front man of a Channel 4 sting operation the credit card details of 200,000 people, the programme Dispatches will reveal tonight.
BT to finance and run SME IT
October 4th, 2006BT has launched its new nationwide service for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and promises it will "give them the equivalent of their own IT manager at a fraction of the cost of employing one".
One in 10 homes houses a teleworker
August 30th, 2006Around 10% of all UK households say they have at least one person who works from home for at least part of the time, according to a survey by Point Topic
Milton-Keynes to get city-wide wireless
August 22nd, 2006Milton Keynes will be the first place in the UK to enjoy city-wide wireless super-broadband
Pipex, with the help of Intel and Airspan Networks, is setting up a WiMAX network which should be working within a month.
PlusNet deletes more customer info
August 17th, 2006PlusNet today admitted that some of the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) data it accidentally deleted has gone the same way as the emails it deleted earlier this month - as in gone forever
COLT revenues fall while profits rise
July 20th, 2006Despite a 3.6% fall in revenues, COLT Telecom has this morning reported a 7% rise in second-quarter earnings compared to the same period last year.
2006 the 'year of cyber-crime'
July 20th, 2006The volume of targeted cyber-crime attacks has reached its highest ever level, a security firm has claimed.
Network Box said that small firms are the most vulnerable to online attack as they have the lowest levels of IT security protection in place.
PlusNet obliterates customer emails
July 14th, 2006PlusNet has deleted hundreds of gigabytes of its customers' email during a storage update. The blunder also left about half its 140,000 punters unable to send and receive new email until this morning.
Data recovery engineers have been called in to try and retrieve the more than 700GB of data that was lost by the Sheffield-based ISP.
Fire damages BT Chatham exchange
July 5th, 2006Fire has damaged a BT exchange at Chatham causing problems for phone, mobile phone, internet and broadband users across the Medway area.
Teleware forms strategic partnership with Griffin Internet
June 6th, 2006TeleWare business development director, Steve Haworth, commented: “Griffin operates an uncongested voice-ready network and can set wholesalers up selling own-branded broadband in five working days.
BT in breach of General Condition 1.2 states Ofcom
June 1st, 2006Following the recent long-running series of complaints from dealers concerned that BT Local Business franchisees are benefiting unfairly from their position as the only route into the company for line and product orders, Fluid Network Solutions has learned that the company could be in breach of Ofcom regulations.
High cost of telocoms and email misuse
May 24th, 2006The misuse of telephones and email at work is hindering workers from doing their jobs, increasing bad habits at work and lengthening the working day according to a national study released by ntl:Telewest Business.
Opal snaps up Totem`s business and assets
May 24th, 2006Inbound voice specialist, Totem Telecommunications has gone into receivership. Totem’s assets and business were sold to Opal Telecommunications on Monday this week by BDO Stoy Hayward, which is handling the company’s administration.
Global PSTN voice revenues set to tumble
May 17th, 2006Global PSTN voice revenues are set to diminish significantly over the next four years as incumbent telcos switch to VoIP.
BT tears up Strategic Sales Referral Agreement with Nimans
May 12th, 2006BT and Nimans have clashed over the distributor`s multi-vendor strategy and in the fall-out BT has torn up its Strategic Sales Referral Agreement with the Nimans Connect business unit.
Fluid unveils new website
May 11th, 2006Fluid Network Solutions today launched its new, enhanced website.