BT signs up three million broadband users

BT Retail has signed up its three millionth broadband subscriber and passed cable company NTL Telewest to become the UK's leading ISP. The telecoms company secured one in four of all new ADSL customers in the period between July and September 2006 and now has 32 per cent of the total DSL broadband market. During that period, it launched BT Total Broadband offering speeds up to 8Mb, free Internet voice and video calls and a suite of security software through its Home Hub technology: 350,000 of the WiFi-enabled devices have now been sold. ...more

Opera pours itself into BitTorrent

Opera Software is incorporating built-in support for BitTorrent into its eponymous browser. The company is hoping to make it easier for users to complete the download of popular files via the BitTorrent system - making the most of available bandwidth and reducing the chance of in-transfer delay when multiple users are downloading the same file. To Opera it will just be another protocol. ...more

Microsoft lawyers descend on Plays4Sure buster

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against the unnamed person who managed to crack its its PlaysForSure DRM technology. The company has previously released two patches disable the FairUse4WM hack, which stripped copy-protection code from media files. The hack prompted at least one company, BSkyB, to suspend access to Web-based content until a fix was provided. ...more

Mobile phones to topple PCs?

The CEO of leading mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, claims that by the year 2002 mobile phones with Internet capabilities will outnumber PCs. The comments were made at Nokia's annual global analysts meeting where Nokia Chairman and CEO, Jorma Ollila, revealed revised performance forecasts. The company now projects that revenue during the first half of 2001 will rise 25-35 per cent. ...more

Broadband growth in Europe set to plateau

Broadband growth across Europe is expected to falter at about 60 per cent, according to analysts Datamonitor. In its latest report, 'Consumer broadband markets: approaching maturity?', the company predicts that in the next 18 to 24 months the aggressive pace of broadband adoption across Europe will follow a similar pattern to the uptake of dial-up and begin to plateau. 'The current situation in many markets can be best described as one of rapidly increasing penetration, where broadband has effectively entered its growth sweet spot,' says Tim Gower, enterprise communications analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report. ...more