BT looks to IP future

BT Wholesale outlined its vision of the future yesterday, and that vision centres squarely on the Internet. Speaking at the Next Generation Networks Symposium in London yesterday, BT Wholesale's chief executive Paul Reynolds said the days of separate networks for the likes of Internet, telephone and TV are numbered. 'Customers,' he said, 'want a simple, integrated, joined up communications experience. ...more

Blair pledges ?1 billion for UK Online

The Prime minister has announced that the government will spend ?1 billion on making all government services available online by 2005. The move is part of an initiative called UK Online, which aims to revolutionise government procedures, encourage UK businesses to get online and to end the digital divide between the rich and poor. "We have three targets we have to set for Britain: to be the best place in the world for e-commerce, to get universal access to the Internet and to put all government services on the Net," said Blair. ...more

US tech companies snub China talks

Efforts in the US Congress to agree on ways to halt the ease with which the country's tech companies bend to the demands of Chinese authorities ran aground today, when four of the biggest names turned down an invitation to discuss how best to go about it. Red Herring reports that the Congressional Human Rights Caucus interest group had set up a briefing on how to deal with human rights and Internet issues in China and invited Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Cisco among others. However, all four said they were unable to attend despite the poor image this sends out at a time when these companies claim to be thinking long and hard about how to deal with these very issues as they march into China. ...more

BTopenworld launches even faster ADSL service

ADSL speeds will increase this month, as BT announces an upgraded business service running at 2Mbps. The business 2000PLUS service has a download speed four times greater than the already available 512kbps version, and costs ?60 more, at ?159 ex VAT. A 1Mbps (1,024kbps) option, known as business 1000PLUS, will cost ?129. ...more

AOpen claims Blu-ray drives by the end of November

Taiwanese firm AOpen has claimed that it will begin selling Blu-ray drives for PCs by the end of November, several months before the high-definition storage technology was expected to become available. As you might expect prices will initially be very high. 'When they are first launched, Blu-ray drives will be sold at a premium,' Mike Chiang, senior director, AOpen told ITP Technology. ...more