What you get:

• Unlimited 8MB BT broadband
• Free evening and weekend BT broadband calls
• Free Wireless BT Home Hub with Hub Phone
• BT ToGo smartphone to take broadband with you everywhere
• 50 minutes and 50 texts included

Let’s start by saying that this isn’t the cheapest broadband offering on the market but hte mobility features more than make up for that. The BT ToGo deal effectively gives you all the advantages of BT’s Option plus mobile broadband and a free handset - more on that in a moment.

Ok, the free smartphone - there are two choices. The package comes with a free HTC s620 which is great for reading emails or browsing on the move. Trying to create documents on it is a different story - don’t bother. It’s far too fiddly. Now, if you want that little extra in the form of the HTC s710 you have two options: pay an extra £29.99 for the smartphone or FREE when you upgrade to 250 or 600 additional minutes. The sliding keyboard on the s710 is far easier to use. I had no problems creating documents. The only downside to this device is that it has no 3G - so if you’re not range of WiFi you’re back to the GPRS snail express! The real bonus with the ToGo package is that you can use BT cells to connect to WiFi - there are currently thousands of these around the UK and the number is growing. The best place to find these cells are either in large towns or cities (and motorway service stations). You get 500 free BT Openzone Wireless hotspot minutes so unless you spend your life online whilst you’re travelling you’re unlikely to use these up.

Both handsets feature Windows Mobile Edition with the usual range of additions like voicemail, Snap and Send (send photos from your handset BT Digital Vault - for FREE), contacts and calendaring services etc. The usual things you’d expect in a smartphone. I was pretty impressed the the Snap and Send feature - this actually worked rather well. The only problem I found was that transfer times could be slow over GPRS.

Free texts, etc.

The standard package gives yout 50 free texts and 50 free minutes to any UK network. Not great if you’re a textaholic!

You also get unlimited BT FON Wireless minutes.

The BT FON connection is made up of other BT customers around the country who offer a little secured section of their broadband service for wireless users. In return, they get access to the other BT FON hotspots around the country.

There are heaps of these, and they’re rapidly gaining in numbers.

Right, let’s get down to the crux, home broadband. I’ve been using BT for about 3 years now and I have to say that I haven’t always been impressed. All I can say is that I’ve made a lot phone calls to the helpdesk. Things have changed since I upgraded to BT ToGo. Now this could simply be because it’s a relatively new product and BT want to pull in as many customers as possible or it could be that they have got their act together. BT states a connection speed of 8Mb on their site but I’ve yet to see that. I’m seeing a max of 5Mb. But remember this; BT states that you will receive a maximum of 8Mb - that doesn’t mean you’ll get 8Mb. The really nice part about this package is that there’s no download limit - but do check AUP first.

The home broadband package comes complete with the updated Home Hub which provides connections of PC’s and consoles. On top of that you can connect your house phone to the hub and make internet calls, which is just like using Skype. Internet call quality over the Home Hub was very good. Not like the bad old days of VoIP!For more traditional phone users you get free evening and weekend landline calls.

Overall signal strength from the Home Hub was very good. I could even browse the web from the comfort of my garage (no comment!) which has pretty thick walls.

One aspect of this package that catches many peoples eyes is the free telephone support -24/7 and considerably better than what I’ve become accustomed to. The only gripe I have about the free support is that it seemed to be frequently engaged - users must have been having problems at exactly the same time! That said, when you get through the teams are genuinely helpful but sometimes need a little push if you want them to put you through to deeper technical support.

The contract is 18 months long but there are no set-up fees!

On the whole, I’m pretty impressed by the BT ToGo package. I’m not so concerned about the home broadband, even though the overall service was very good. For me mobile usage was key as I travel a great deal. I’ve never had any form of outage with the mobile aspect of the package but I’m frequently  in London where there are a huge amount of BT cells to connect to. If you’re happy with periodic use of EDGE when you’re on the move then this could just be the mobile broadband offering for you.

If you’re interested, here’s the link so you can take a look for yourself: BT ToGo.

Popularity: 87% [?]

Demand for video and data traffic on the internet is rocketing. Cue Cisco and the next generation hardware for telcos.

4 years development and $200 million has put Cisco in a position to reap some serious profits from the ever increasing demands being placed on the internet. The new Cisco router, ASR 900, is capable of 6.4 terabytes throuhput every second - that’s some serious bandwidth for downloading ‘men’s entertainment videos’! Here’s an idea of how fast this router is: you could download 250,000 songs or 200 movies in ONE SECOND!

The new router should help telcos cope with the tidal wave of data currently being experienced,wel, at least until some bright spark gives us Gig ADSL connections to our houses!

Popularity: 63% [?]

…again

The Google Yahoo ad deal is dead, share price is down (read ‘abandon ship’) and it would appear that Yahoo doesn’t have a clear idea of where it’s going. Time to post the ‘For Sale’ signs again.

Straight from the Yang horses mouth - “To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo,”

“I don’t think that is a bad idea at all, at the right price whatever that price is. We’re willing to sell the company,” he told the audience at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.

“But why not sell earlier?”  I hear you say. According to Yang, Microsoft walked away from a public offering even though Yahoo were prepared to negotiate. I thought Microsoft walked away because Yahoo wanted more - is that what they mean by negotiation? A further deal by Microsoft to buy Yahoo’s search engine also fell flat on its face. It’s pretty easy to see why also these setbacks spawned rumours of Yang quitting Yahoo.

So, the door is still open to Microsoft but are they interested?

Popularity: 58% [?]

Ask.com has been in the search game for a long time and has a history of novel ideas and innovations which have been copied by their larger search cousins. Unfortunately for Ask.com, this approach hasn’t helped grow their market share (Ask.com is currently in fourth place with about 6% of the market).

But “Try, try, try again” seems to be the mantra for Ask.com. Today sees the rollout of an updated version of its search engine - results are returned from the Web and “structured” sources of data in certain categories like entertainment, health and jobs.

Also included is an index of Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers. Ask.com Chief Executive Jim Safka said, “Some of the best content is coming from individuals, not necessarily from professional publishers,”.

Other changes include a return to two panel layout that was dropped last year in favour of three columns. If you liked the three column feel you can always select this option on the search results page. Apparently, the shiney, new Ask.com is faster and returns more relevant results for common queries than the last incarnation.

To be honest, as a search engine user I don’t care if the results come back 1.3 or 1.4 seconds. For me relevancy wins hands down. It’s good to see that Ask.com is still in the game but I don’t think these changes alone will be enough to see a significant rise in their market share.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Things haven’t been looking good for StumbleUpon just recently. First, traffic levels have been flat for some time now. Second, eBay announced the are looking to sell their acquistion after only 18 months. Although these signs don’t look promising the actual number of users registering has been steadily growing. StumbleUpon is hoping that a new web toolbar will cure the current traffic malaise (note - apparently, users are signing up but not coming back to the home page which, in turn, returns low traffic figures for the site).

The key aspect of this new toolbar is that it doesn’t require installation. No more browser plugins to slow down Firefox - I’m up for that. The toolbar works like this - it runs algorithm based on your, and other users, preferences to direct you to websites that you’ll find interesting.

To use the toolbar, simply go to StumbleUpon’s updated home page and click on one of the ‘Recommended Sites’ links and you’ll see the toolbar, complete with Stumble icon, on top of the page. Nice and easy. The one flaw with this toolbar is that many new users will unaware of what it does. In other words, it’s time to get out there and beat the StumbleUpon drum!

Popularity: 47% [?]

But not until 2010!

Ok, I admit that it’s some way off but I’m pleased that Mozilla has finally decided to take aim at the mobile market.  The latest info comes as Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, laid out her plans for the coming two years.

Other plans include making more internet data public and developing existing products to be more effective.

Baker is also committed to expanding the role of Firefox and growing its market share, at thet same time as developing new browser technologies such as Aurora.

This isn’t new news. Mozilla is already working on a mobile version of the Firefox browser but no delivery dates have ever been announced. Baker’s current stand is that she will not commit to an explicit timeline. So, in line with current policy, expect the Mozilla mobile browser release ‘when it’s ready’!

Popularity: 66% [?]

Access blocked to Chinese users.

The Chinese government has a history of blocking websites that are deemed sensitive but is iTunes a hotbed of anti-Chinese propaganda?

The reason behind the Chinese decision was the availability of a pro-Tibet album which has become a hit on the online music store.

Over the past week, many Chinese users have been unable to access iTunes although Apple’s Beijing-based spokeswoman Huang Yuna said she did not know why music fans were unable to log on.

“We’ve noticed the problem. It’s true that users may fail to log in to iTunes store right now,” she told AFP.

Investigations are still ongoing.

The restrictions started after a pro-Tibet album, “Songs for Tibet”, was launched on iTunes on August 8. The album soon become a hugely popular download all around. It seems the albums review page became the epicentre of a huge pie slinging contest between pro-Tibet web users and Chinese nationalists. The page registered over 400 posts before it was eventually taken down by Apple. Amongst the less complimentary comments was this blinder: “The Tibetan culture has been massacred by the oppressive Chinese government.” Rumours suggest that the review page comments were the reason the site was blocked in China.

Historical note: China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending troops in to “liberate” it - I’m not entirely sure what they needed to liberated from. Facist Yetis, maybe?

Popularity: 23% [?]

…defying scarey economic predictions

Recently, Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England, pretty much said “we’re stuffed” ! Ok, those aren’t his exact words but over the next few years we should all expect some pretty hard times.

So it would seem that we’re going to slow down on buying, business will dry up, unemployment will rise… It may well happen but I don’t think many consumers (that’s you and me) are listening according to a report released by IMRG and Crapgemini. The figures show UK internet sales reached £4.8bn in July - that’s a massive 11.3 per cent rise  over June. This figure is equivalent to £79 spent for every person in the UK.

‘Hooray, the economy is going to be fine’ - not exactly! Online spending went up, high street sale went down by 0.9%. So, do we finally trust technology to help do our shopping or are we just lazy? Look at is this way, why go to town when you have it delivered?

The largest sales increases were seen in clothing, footwear and accessories, which rose by 22.8 per cent. Call me a sceptic, but a lot of this could be parents getting ready for their kids going back to school!

Popularity: 22% [?]

New Domains cause headaches

Enterprise web filtering specialist, Bloxx, has welcomed the the announcement by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to extend the currently available top level domains. The move should, alongside longer IP addresses available under IPv6, protect the Internet for all perceived domain name and world population growth rates.

From January next year, anyone can then apply for one of these new, inexhaustible domain names which will be made available by opening up top level domain possibilities (rather than the currently acceptable .uk, .fr, .de etc).

In addition, the widespread adoption of IPv6 lengthens the available IP addresses, which at the current rate would expire in 2010. With IPv4 there were potentially 4.2 billion IP addresses available for use. By moving to IPv6 this figure has increased this to 340 trillion, trillion, trillion - that’s a lot of domains.

“The recommendations from ICANN will future proof the Internet so that it can be used and enjoyed for many generations to come,” says Bloxx Managing Director, Eamonn Doyle. “However, we predict a land grab for these additional top level domains which will see a dramatic increase in the number of registered domains and URLs. This will be a significant
challenge for first and second-generation web filtering suppliers whose products depend on keeping a URL database up-to-date.”

“The problem with first and second generation web filters is with the growth and turnover of the web, as soon as a URL database or “blacklist” is updated, it is out of date - these new recommendations mean this problem has never been more relevant,” explains Doyle. “Third-generation filters, such as Bloxx Tru-View Technology, analyse and categorise sites on the fly and make an informed decision as to what risks are associated with accessing them, and are now clearly the only viable way to manage user access to the web.”

So, expect to see a slew of new products on the market as vendors seek to keep up with the implementation of IPv6.

The opening up of the TLD’s also represents huge potential for anyone interested in domaining - fingers and credit cards at the ready!

Popularity: 21% [?]

Whole lot of browser love going on.

Yes, Firefox 3 has has notched up a staggering download figure in its first week of availability. What is even more impressive is the figure for the first 24 hours - 8 million downloads.

Reports show that the US took the lead with 5.48 million downloads with Germany coming in second at 1.7 million. The UK managed a healthy 807,900 copies of Firefox downloaded. Hey, we’re only little!

Mozilla have been urging users to download en masse in order to set a world record for the number of software downloads. The campaign by Mozilla was so successful that is almost knocked out their servers!

Browser market share for Mozilla now stands at 19.17%, up from 18.41%.

Does Microsoft have an answer to Firefox? We’ll have to wait for the next release of IE.

Popularity: 21% [?]