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BT hits broadband milestone
By Nick Farrell [02-12-2002]
Half a million connections and counting
BT has signed up 500,000 broadband customers, putting the company on course to hit its target of five million customers by 2006.
The telco said that a mobile phone firm based in Barking, east London became the 500,000th customer this week.
Alison Ritchie, BT's new chief broadband officer, maintained that the broadband bandwagon is now gaining momentum.
"Awareness and demand are fuelled not only by our own intensive advertising and marketing, but by that of other internet service providers [ISPs]," she said.
BT is connecting around 20,000 users to ADSL every week, according to Ritchie. About half are through its own ISP, BTopenworld, and the rest from wholesale connections via ISPs such as AOL and Freeserve.
BT is also planning to introduce a 128Kbps 'Midband' service next year.
http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk/News/1137257
Related articles
Mixed reaction to Blair's promises
http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk /News/1137166 [27-11-2002]
Im EXcited! Listen
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Take a look at what you get up here for your $300,000 lol
http://www.vivianmattson.com/ciProp.asp?ID=530661232-1392164-5433667-4556&SID=7
and.....
http://www.vivianmattson.com/ciProp.asp?ID=830650454-5392509-4421729-3196&SID=7
Im going to call Rosie O'Donnell and tell her there are Ding Dongs and Ho Hos in my fire wood :P
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Ha Ha very funny! I didn't see that, it was a type-o.
Makes you think I had a friend named, "Jar Jar binks"
lol
What exactly are the 12 days of Christmas?
My wife and I were diving to a friends house for Thanksgiving dinner and there were Christmas songs playing on the radio.
I asked her, "What exactly the 12 days of Christmas, was it something we used to do a long time ago?" She said, "I do not know"
So guys please, tell me what the 12 Days of Christmas are or where it came from?? lol
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What exactly are the 12 days of Christmas?
My wife and I were diving to a friends house for Thanksgiving dinner and there were Christmas songs playing on the radio.
I asked her, "What exactly the 12 days of Christmas, was it something we used to do a long time ago?" She said, "I do not know"
So guys please, tell me what the 12 Days of Christmas are or where it came from?? lol
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NV should release a PR about releasing a future PR about the Numbers in DEC. :)
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Happy belated Thanksgiving!!! Iv been out all day, Im stuffed!
As she drinks and winks, I seem more attractive to her. lol
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Don't forget to call your Mom on Thanksgiving!
Are we on the NASDAQ?
Exchange: NASDAQ
And what does "Trade type: Acquisition (Non Open Market)"
mean?
From AOL:
NEW VISUAL (NVEI)
0.54 0.00 (0.00%)
as of 11/26/2002 at 15:59 EST (Nasdaq Delay: 15 minutes)
Form 4: Update Filing for NEW VISUAL (NVEI)
Nov 26, 2002 (Vickers Stock Research via COMTEX) --
Document Processing Date: November 26, 2002
Stock Name: NEW VISUAL
Stock CUSIP: 649099207
Filer: COOPER, THOMAS
Position: President
Stock Symbol: NVEI
Exchange: NASDAQ
Stock Type: COM
Transaction period: November 18, 2002
Trade amount: 32258 shares
Trade type: Acquisition (Non Open Market)
Trade price range: $.620
Shares still held: 32258 shares
Own Type: Direct
Copyright (c) 2002, Vickers Stock Research Corporation. All rights reserved.
-0-
Form 4: Update Filing for NEW VISUAL (NVEI)
Nov 26, 2002 (Vickers Stock Research via COMTEX) --
Document Processing Date: November 26, 2002
Stock Name: NEW VISUAL
Stock CUSIP: 649099207
Filer: COOPER, THOMAS
Position: President
Stock Symbol: NVEI
Exchange: NASDAQ
Stock Type: COM
Transaction period: November 18, 2002
Trade amount: 32258 shares
Trade type: Acquisition (Non Open Market)
Trade price range: $.620
Shares still held: 32258 shares
Own Type: Direct
Copyright (c) 2002, Vickers Stock Research Corporation. All rights reserved.
-0-
Any idea what all that means?
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Is anything sacred any more?
MILWAUKEE - The jolly man in the red suit is a popular fixture at local shopping malls this time of the year. And chances are good that before Santa Claus hears one Christmas wish, he's undergone a criminal background check and drug testing.
``It's just a sign of the times for all businesses that provide services to families and children,' said Barbara Sacco, vice president of marketing for Faison & Associates, which manages The Shops of Grand Avenue mall in downtown Milwaukee.
Nancy Conley, marketing director at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, said background checks and drug screening have become common place when hiring Santas.
``Even the elves are finger-printed and drug-tested,' Conley said.
Pre-employ.com specializes in background checks for job applicants. It found that about 70 of 1,000 shopping mall Santa and Santa helper applicants had committed misdemeanors or felonies in the last seven years. The offenses included indecent exposure, soliciting prostitution and drunken driving.
Santa Plus, of O'Fallon, Mo., scrutinizes the backgrounds of more than 500 Santas it places in 250 malls in 46 states, including Mayfair and Bayshore mall in Glendale.
``Once we have a contract with a mall, we will run a nationwide criminal background check, and put them through a drug test, on all our Santas whether real-bearded or synthetic,' said Jerry Helton, vice president of marketing at Santa Plus, a division of Eastman Kodak.
That goes for Mrs. Claus and Santa's helpers, Helton said.
11/25/02 08:49 EST
I sent that one around the world also, funny stuff!
Ex, I sent that link to MIT they should enjoy it. Even tho its from Cal Tech lol
That is a great link, Thanks!
It's time once again to consider the candidates for the annual Stella
Awards. The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who
spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case
inspired the Stella Awards for the most uniquely successful lawsuits in
the United States for last year. Actually, joint awards should be given
to the plaintiff attorneys and the flaming idiots on the juries who
awarded anything at all to these morons--who deserved NOTHING!!!! The
following are this year's candidates:
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $780,000 by a jury of
her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was
running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving
little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical
expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr.
Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the
car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had
just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was
malfunctioning.
He couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the house and
garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and
Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He
subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food.
He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him
undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and
medical
expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's
beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award
was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just
a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it
repeatedly with a pellet gun.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her
coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had
thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a
night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window
to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while
Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to
avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental
expenses.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This year's favorite could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago
motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he
set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go
into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the
RV
left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago
for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do
this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The
company
actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case
there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.
BT and Microsoft: Their first broadband baby is due
No teething problems expected...
BT and Microsoft have announced the first fruit of their recently forged broadband alliance - a high-speed net access product based around Microsoft's MSN offering.
Details are thin on the ground, but the companies said today that the product will be released in January. MSN 8 itself will be unveiled tomorrow.
BT, Microsoft, and Dell: Broadband revolutionaries?
BT's 'no-frills' broadband product, BT Broadband, costs £27 a month, with Microsoft planning to charge £5.99 a month for MSN 8. They confirmed today that customers of the new product will be expected to pay £32.99 a month for access and content.
AOL UK's service costs £27.99 a month.
BT and Microsoft first said they were working on a wide range of broadband applications aimed at both residential and business customers earlier in November.
The alliance will see the companies contribute development teams to work on 30 projects, covering areas such as mobile technology, web services, broadband portals - of which MSN 8 could be an example - and multimedia home computing.
The deal comes at a time when BT Retail is spending millions of pounds promoting its controversial "no-frills" broadband package - called BT Broadband - which does not include services such as email, web hosting or broadband content.
BT has made no secret of the fact that it hopes to capture half of the UK's consumer broadband market with BT Broadband.
The two companies said they will spend £2.5m marketing the new service.
For related news, see:
Microsoft and BT form broadband alliance
www.silicon.com/a56278
Microsoft to give BT Broadband a boost, says analyst
www.silicon.com/a56316
BT signs broadband deal with Dell
www.silicon.com/a56297
http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?j53017097
Fam, you are the best! And you deserve a...............
BONE!!!
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OT: Did chat explode again?
EW, is it a female Yellow? If it is then I think if you would introduce the dogs, soon after it would want to make puppies? IMHO
Labs are cool! My brother had a Chocolate Lab, His name was Ralph. He still had his boney tail,it was like a whip when he wagged that thing, and still had his his floppy ears. He was almost human. He made a great drinking buddy lol.
Funny thing was, if you took him hunting, you fire off the shot gun, Ralph goes running, he never comes back :(
Well, he does a few days later smelling like he rolled in a dead animal, yuck!
Oh, Great find EW 2x!
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CAMBRIDGE, MA – October 16, 2002 – With technologies that would curb gas guzzling already well-advanced in the lab and in some cases readily available, isn’t it possible to build a reasonably priced SUV that can get 40-mpg and still provide the performance, safety and comfort consumers expect? Yes, a 40-mpg SUV could be in showrooms within five years, and the result would reap rewards for society, says Technology Review in “Why Not a 40-MPG SUV?”, the cover story of its November 2002 issue.
What’s more, if all new vehicles adopted emerging gas-saving technologies, the average fuel economy of U.S. cars and SUVs would surge to a minimum of 40-mpg. The result: A huge impact on U.S. oil dependence and the environment. The nation would save 2 million barrels of oil a day (75% of the oil the U.S. imports from the Middle East), while also achieving a 30% decrease in greenhouse gases.
But don’t bother looking for such advances anytime soon, writes Mark Fischetti, contributing writer to Technology Review. With no mandate from Washington or outcry from the public, automakers have little motivation to change fuel emission standards set over 17 years ago.
Further details can be found in the full article, now available at www.technologyreview.com and on newsstands October 29, 2002.
Other features in the November 2002 issue include:
• “Digital Entertainment Post-Napster” – Providers of digital content are turning to digital rights management and copy protection technologies as their main weapon in the mounting war against digital piracy, yet the controversy between consumers, artists, record labels, movie studios rages. This special report includes separate stories - one focusing on music, the other on the film industry - that examine the latest technological advances affecting digital media.
• “The FBI’s Cybercrime Crackdown” – With computer hacking and virus threats rapidly increasing (up 20% since 2001), cybercrime has become one of the FBI’s top priorities – even above fraud, drugs, and gun running. The bureau’s goal: bring computing power to bear against cyberattackers and beat them at their own high-tech game. But, do they have the skills, systems and technical knowledge to get ahead of the hackers? Technology Review steps into the offices of special agent Nenette Day to find out.
• “Holograms in Motion” – After more than 13 years of development, a new generation of holographic displays promises to provide doctors, scientists, researchers, and product designers with unobstructed 3-D images that can be altered in real time and sculpted like clay. Technology Review outlines the details of the latest holographic technology and the companies that are competing for marketshare.
NOTE to editors: Technology Review editors are available to discuss topics featured in the November 2002 issue.
About Technology Review
Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation, was first published in 1899 and ranks as the world's oldest technology magazine. The magazine, as well as its signature events and Internet businesses, delivers essential information on emerging technologies on the verge of commercialization. Since 1998, Technology Review’s paid circulation has more than tripled, from 92,000 to over 310,000. Several hundred thousand current MIT alumni, faculty and students, venture capitalists, chief scientists, researchers, senior corporate executives, investors, and innovators throughout the world -- constitute the Technology Review community.
Contact:
Kristen Collins, kristen.collins@technologyreview.com, 617-475-8000
http://www.technologyreview.com/gen_info/3646_pr101602.asp
'Jesus,' government eye SUVs
Religious, environmental coalition begins campaign as government considers new rules.
November 20, 2002: 12:31 PM EST
RALEIGH, N.C. (CNN) - Church and state are getting involved in the gas-guzzling SUV debate.
A coalition of religious and environmental groups is launching a "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign Wednesday, hoping to get people to switch to more fuel-efficient cars.
The move comes as the Bush administration reportedly considers a proposal to increase fuel efficiency standards for SUVs and light trucks. According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposal, currently at an early draft stage, is likely to draw intense opposition from car manufacturers.
The religious and environmental campaign is likely to draw more immediate attention, however. The group plans a news conference Wednesday in Detroit. Members hope to meet with the Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers union. Car buyers in four states will soon hear an advertised appeal to their environmental conscience: "What would Jesus drive?''
It's a joint effort of the National Council of Churches and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. The group is planning television advertising in North Carolina, Iowa, Indiana and Missouri to urge consumers to park their sport/utility vehicles -- claiming that Jesus would prefer a cleaner vehicle.
Meanwhile, top regulatory officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are considering a proposal to increase fuel efficiency standards by half a mile per gallon a year, starting in 2005. The overall increase would add up to 1.5 miles a gallon by 2007, according to the Journal.
Bush administration officials, contending with foreign oil dependency issues, are believed to be somewhat sympathetic to the proposal, although industry concerns about the new standards may sway the final requirement.
-- Associated Press contributed to this story.
I think Jesus would drive a Hum-V
Mac-only broadband launch
[MacUser] 16:44
Macunlimited will be launching its broadband services at MacExpo.
The company is planning a range of service options, including ADSL and SDSL packages at 512kbps, 1Mbps and 2Mbps. No further details such as prices have yet been released. Instead the company is asking prospective customers what service they are interested in and how much they would be willing to spend.
You can register your interest at www.macunlimited.net/adslpromo.htm.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=35227
BT: Forget broadband, here comes Midband
Could bring high-speed net to 97 per cent of the population...
BT has unveiled details of a new product that could make high-speed internet access available to 97 per cent of the UK population.
Called "Midband", the product will provide a connection running at up to 128 kilobits per second (Kbps), and although it will not be a true always-on service like ADSL or cable broadband, it will offer some of broadband's benefits.
Blair: "Every school will have broadband"
Danon announced Midband at the e-Summit in London on Tuesday. He said the Midband service is being developed because even under the best conditions, BT's ADSL network is only likely to ever cover 90 per cent of UK households. Midband, he believes, could push coverage to 97 per cent.
"Midband consists of two 64Kbps connections bundled together to create a 128Kbps channel. It will not be completely always-on, but it will provide 'always-on' email," explained Danon.
Trials of Midband are expected to begin in March or April of next year. Danon would not disclose how much it will cost, except that it will be "cheaper, but not much cheaper" than BT Broadband, which costs £27 per month. He added that BT did not regard Midband as a broadband product.
Danon told the e-Summit he was optimistic that BT Wholesale's ADSL network, which currently covers 66 per cent of the population, could eventually reach 90 per cent. He said he believes that the existing measures BT is taking to address the broadband divide, such as its pre-registration scheme, would bring coverage up to 80 per cent, with further progress dependent on technological progress.
These could include measures to extend the physical distance over which ADSL will work, satellite and wireless broadband, and mini-DSLAMs. "We believe that by mid-2005, broadband services could be available to around 90 per cent of the country," predicted Danon.
Danon warned, though, the government and regulators also have their part to play - and welcomed the speech made at the e-Summit by Tony Blair in which he announced that all schools will be given a broadband connection by 2006.
"Regulatory bodies need to really understand that this is an emerging market and it cannot be regulated by a heavy hand. We need smart regulation that enables competition that does not kill the market," Danon insisted. "We need to understand that making the strong weak will not help. We need to make the strong play fair, and we are up for that."
http://www.silicon.com/public/door?REQUNIQ=1037777449&6004REQEVENT=&REQINT1=56457&REQSTR....
Counties get grant to study broadband availability, needs
By MICHAEL ELIASOHN / H-P Business Writer
Berrien and Van Buren counties have received a combined $140,000 from the state to study the current availability of broadband, or high speed Internet access, in the two counties and future needs.
Combined with local funds, a total of $195,000 will be available.
"Broadband Internet access has become as vital as being next to a major highway or having a power supply," said Ken Hoffman, director of information systems for Berrien County, who is administering the grant. "That's essential for business now days."
Officially, the LinkMichigan grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) was awarded to Connected Communities, which is a consortium of the Berrien and Van Buren intermediate school districts, Cornerstone Alliance and other economic development groups in the two counties, Lake Michigan College and some businesses.
Hoffman said of the local funding, $30,000 is coming jointly from Cornerstone Alliance, the Twin Cities area economic development organization, and IPC Communication Services Inc.; $10,000 from Berrien County and $5,000 from the Van Buren Development Council.
IPC in St. Joseph earlier donated $15,000 in the inception stage of the project.
LinkMichigan is a statewide project, administered by the MEDC, to improve the state's telecommunications systems.
"Access to high-speed telecommunications is an important component of ensuring the healthy economic future of Michigan's communities," Doug Rothwell, MEDC president and chief executive officer, said in a news release.
At Inverness Castings Group in Dowagiac, which makes die cast parts for various industries, it used to take 6 to 8 hours to download a series of drawings of parts to be manufactured. After getting high-speed wireless service, the same information could be downloaded in 6 to 8 minutes.
Hoffman said Connected Communities will first schedule a meeting in each county to acquaint county and local officials with the project and the goals of LinkMichigan.
Next will be two meetings in each county for business owners and executives to acquaint them with the project and the need to participate in a survey to determine broadband needs. "The better we can show the need here, the higher we are on the list from the state (for future funding)," Hoffman said.
The final step will be to survey present Internet service providers in the two counties and potential providers to determine what services they currently provide and may be able to provide.
"One of the goals is to make sure we're not losing business because we're not providing broadband to that area," Hoffman said. For instance, he said auto manufacturers will be requiring all suppliers to have high-speed Internet access.
Hoffman said the goal of Connected Communities is to have broadband available everywhere in the two counties, and in areas that already have it, to hopefully create competition, in order to lower the cost to users.
He said all counties that received LinkMichigan grants have until fall 2003 to complete their studies. "We anticipate being done before then."
The certified public accounting and management consulting firm of Plante & Moran, which has an office in Benton Harbor, has been hired to do the study.
Cass County received a $37,000 LinkMichigan grant, to be combined with $12,500 in local funds, to assess current telecommunications infrastructure availability, perform a needs assessment, and determine technology options and providers, according to MEDC spokeswoman Susan Novakoski.
She said Allegan, Kalamazoo and St. Joseph counties received a joint grant of $225,000 from LinkMichigan for the same purpose.
http://heraldpalladium.com/display/inn_news/news6.txt
High-speed broadband for 2003
BT is to extend its high-speed SDSL broadband trial to include new services such as video-conferencing and teleworking.
If successful, the trials will lead to a wider launch of SDSL products and services mid-2003.
SDSL broadband provides faster up- and downstream speeds than current ADSL offerings. An initial trial was announced for London in June but only covered a limited set of services. This new trial will include 20 London exchanges before being extended to as many as 50 in Manchester and Yorkshire.
BT will test at least two SDSL products giving access speeds of up to 2Mbit/sec in both directions. Current ADSL offerings offer 512Kbit (1Mbit in some cases) downstream (from the Internet to your computer) but only half that upstream (from your computer to the Internet).
BT Data Stream Symmetric is aimed at service providers and other telecommunications companies for them to sell on to businesses. Services will include Internet access and data transfer as well as audio- and video-conferencing, teleworking, wide area networking and remote database access.
BT IPStream Symmetric will enable businesses to deliver applications and content to customers via any IP-based network. According to BT, it will be 'ideal' for fast email and file transfer, wide area networking and Web hosting.
UPDATE: The locations of the London trails are now listed at ISPreview.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/front_cookie.php?ip=1&page=%2Fnews%2Fnews_story.php%3Fid%3D32276
Not sure if they updated this yet but keep an eye on it.
http://quotes.barchart.com/texsnap.htx?sym=NVEI
Now that's what I like!!!
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Puppy Poo Poo Platter
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Tune into next weeks show of "The Clintons" when Monica, JR. says, "Bill is heading towards the house and I think I can f**king get a shot off at Hillary."
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Contest for best caption for this pic lol
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Ah, so sarry,did not work <:)
You could delete if you like.....
The most powerful trigger of heart attacks
http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/conditions/11/13/heart.inflammation.ap/index.html
New group to campaign for Broadband
Blairgowrie area online by 2003?
A BLAIRGOWRIE Broadband Group has been formed to campaign for the installation of broadband in Blairgowrie and surrounding area.
The group was formed at a well attended meeting called by Dr James Tweedie, of GeoMem Software, 1 High Street, Blairgowrie.
Dr Tweedie said a lot of things are now happening on the Broadband front.
''I'm optimistic that we will get ADSL broadband within the Blairgowrie area sometime in 2003 - hopefully the first half,'' he said.
''A number of rural town exchanges are being ADSL enabled at present. These mostly had registration targets of 200.
''BT are full of praise for local campaigns - they would be wouldn't they!
And he added: “We’re doing all their advertising and marketing work for them. It would be good to see some movement with their registration levels in recognistion of the work.
''We could perhaps ask why some places have levels of 200 and some 400.
''A quick calculation shows that if BT are getting about £15 per month per person for the ADSL provision then they will cover the cost of a £100,000 installation in 1.5 years with 400 users.''
Dr Tweedie thanked everyone who attended the meeting held in the Angus Hotel on Tuesday evening last week, making it a great success, and apologised to others who could not attend because of the short notice.
''There was a very good discussion and airing of views from all those present, representing business and home users,'' Dr Tweedie continued.
''We much appreciated the attendance of Councillor Sandy Bushby, Rosemount, and Alan Nairn, director of Information System and Technology at Perth and Kinross Council, whose comments and information about developments throughout Perth and Kinross were most useful in planning further action. We were interested in particular in the the facts that there will be broadband systems in Blairgowrie Library before the end of this year and that BT and PKC will have a broadband seminar in Blairgowrie early in the New Year.
''Also present was Angus Stewart, from Kirrimuir, who is in the process of setting up a similar group in that town and had come to see how we were proceeding.
''The pros and cons of various broadband delivery systems were discussed, including those being trialed at present. Also discussed was the problem of getting broadband beyond the 5.5km limit from the ADSL enabled exchange.
''The main conclusion of the meeting was to concentrate on getting 400 people to register in Blairgowrie and who would be reasonably likely to take up subscription when the time came. By this week there were 63 registrations.
''This would involve education about broadband (ADSL) in leaflets describing what it is, what its benefits are and how to register in easy to follow steps.
''It was also decided that while the main thrust would be to get broadband within Blairgowrie, there should be support for outlying towns and rural areas and that links should be made with other groups, such as at Kirriemuir, to enable us to share information and methods used.
“We would hope that we could have a demonstration slot at the library using..
http://www.inside-scotland.co.uk/perthshire/badvertiser/NEWS/NBFB-N07.html.html
Rural broadband drive 'hit by fraud'
17:30 Wednesday 13th November 2002
Graeme Wearden
Someone is submitting false entries to BT's broadband registration scheme in an attempt to get a local exchange ADSL-enabled, and the practice could be widespread
BT's broadband registration scheme, which lets people who can't get ADSL in their area tell the telco they want broadband, is being hampered by people who are submitting false information.
The company told ZDNet UK News on Wednesday that it had spotted that several hundred false expressions of interest in broadband had been submitted for the Wrexham North local exchange. These have now been stripped out of BT's scheme.
BT has been working with an unnamed ISP for the past few weeks to identify the false information.
"There were over 200 fraudulent entries for Wrexham North, based on multiple consecutive phone numbers," explained a BT Wholesale spokesman.
BT's broadband registration scheme is based on 'trigger levels' -- the number of broadband customers that BT has calculated it needs for upgrades a local exchanges to become economically viable. In Wrexham North's case this trigger level was set at 400, which was "achieved" at the end of September.
Wrexham North will now be returned to the registration scheme, where it will stay until it again reaches 400.
This is disappointing news for those local residents who had already registered their interest in getting broadband, and who would have hoped that their exchange was only a few months from being upgraded.
"This doesn't help anyone, and the people in Wrexham North who really want broadband must be particularly frustrated that someone has used a not particularly sophisticated method to try and cheat the system," said the BT Wholesale spokesman. "This is probably the worst case of its kind that we've seen," he added.
People do not directly register their interest with BT. Instead, they register via an ISP, which will then contact them to take an advance order once the trigger level is hit. For this reason, it can take some time for fraudulent entries to be detected.
The full extent of the problem of fraudulent entries in BT's system is not known, but it is thought to have played a part in several other exchanges hitting their trigger levels.
False information has been suggested as one reason that insufficient advance orders were placed at the Knaresborough local exchange. As ZDNet UK reported this week, just 99 advance orders were booked by ISPs after 400 expressions of interest were registered, well short of the 75 percent, or 300 registrations, needed for the exchange to be upgraded.
Another local exchange, St Budeaux, also failed this week to attract enough advance orders.
Ian Buckley, marketing manager at Zen Internet, believes that false information has played a part in St Budeaux's failure. "It's an exchange where we saw a large increase in registrations in a small period of time," he said.
Zen Internet is one of the ISPs that are collecting registration data and forwarding it onto BT. Buckley told ZDNet UK that, at one local exchange, he is having to strip out a large amount of false data every day. This is presumably being submitted by someone who mistakenly thinks it will help them get broadband more quickly.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2125883,00.html
Jack decided to go skiing with his buddy, Bob. They loaded up Jack's van
and
headed north. After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a
terrible blizzard. They pulled into a nearby farm and asked the
attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.
"I realize it's terrible weather out there and I have this huge house
all
to
myself, but I'm recently widowed," she explained. "I'm afraid the
neighbors will talk if I let you stay in my house."
"Don't worry," Jack said. "We'll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if
the weather breaks, we'll be gone at first light."
The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled
in for the night. Come morning, the weather had cleared, they got on
their way and enjoyed a great weekend of skiing.
About nine months later, Jack got an unexpected letter from an attorney.
It
took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that
it was from the attorney of that attractive widow he had met on the ski
weekend. He dropped in on his friend Bob and asked, "Bob, do you
remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski
holiday up North?"
"Yes, I do."
"Did you happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house
and
pay her a visit?"
"Yes," Bob said, a little embarrassed about being found out. "I have to
admit that I did."
"And did you happen to use my name instead of telling her your name?"
Bob's face turned red and he said, "Yeah, sorry, buddy. I'm afraid I
did. Why do you ask?"
"She just died and left me everything."
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