The Techies service will enable small business customers access to technical experts should they encounter any issues or problems with their mobile broadband or other O2 services.

The new dedicated support assistance even offer on-site help in some situations.

“This is yet another example of O2’s commitment to helping its customers get on with the job of running their business, and leave the hassle of setting up and managing technology to us.” – Simon Devonshire, head of small business marketing for O2.

The Techies support service is available for a one-off fee, with O2 ensuring that all the support staff are correctly trained on how to use the technology correctly.

The partnership aims to help Spotify “significantly improve its portability”.
The HTC Hero mobile phone will be the first 3 handset to include the Spotify application and will be available in time for the Christmas period.

Pricing and tariffs for the new 3 mobile phones with Spotify are yet to be announced although the handsets are expected to include the premium version of the Spotify mobile application.

The Talk Talk Essentials package includes fast broadband speeds of up to 8Mbps with a 40GB monthly download allowance and unlimited evening and weekend calls to UK landlines.

The package is priced at £6.49 a month with £11.25 for the phone line rental.

Sky Songs will launch in the UK on October 19th and will offer users access to new music releases alongside back catalogues from every major music label, independent label and distributors.

Sky are offering access to the service with two monthly subscription options. The first is priced at £6.49 per month and allows for download of either a £6.49 album or 10 tracks. The package also offers unlimited streaming and access to over 4,000,000 tracks online for 1 month.

The second package is priced at £7.99 and allows subscribers to download either a £7.99 album or 15 tracks, again this package also includes the unlimited music streaming access.

Mike Darcey, Sky’s chief operating officer, said: “Our music partners bring an outstanding catalogue and unrivalled expertise that complements Sky’s strengths in content distribution.

“Sky Songs will reach out to consumers who want legitimate digital services offering choice, ease of use and great value. Offering legal access to digital music is a vital step in combating illegal downloading.”

Alongside the monthly subscription packages, customers will also have the option of purchasing additional music on a per-song basis, with individual tracks priced from 65p and albums starting from £6.49.

Sky are also offering a free downloadable album worth £6.49 to all existing Sky customers that access the Sky Songs service.

BT’s fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) roll-out will offer customers download speeds of up to 100Mb with the capacity for 1GB a future possibility.
The company had originally planned to begin the FTTP roll out to a million homes by 2012, with the aim to offer 9 million more homes a broadband connection of up to 40Mb through fibre connections to the streets outside.

Speaking to the Financial Times, BT Openreach’s head Steve Robertson told the newspaper: “As we step forward, we are more confident about the direction of our strategy. We are willing to be aggressive.”

“This development shows that we are determined to bring world-leading broadband speeds to UK homes and businesses. Service providers have asked us for more FTTP and so we have listened to them.”

“The UK already leads the world when it comes to broadband availability and today’s announcement will help the UK climb the speed league tables as well. The UK is well placed but we need to invest for the future so that customers can access the rich applications that will be popular in a few years time.”

Fibre-to-the-Premises BT broadband trials will run from January until March 2010, with areas in Milton Keynes and London taking part in the pilot.

The PAYG package includes access to O2’s mobile broadband network, with broadband connection speeds of up to 3.6Mb with unlimited access to 6100 O2 Wi-Fi hotspots.

The O2 PAYG top-ups can be purchased in ‘Daily’, ‘Weekly’, and ‘Monthly’ blocks.

• Daily: £2 for 24 hours usage with 500MB of data allowance
• Weekly: £7.50 for 7 days with 1GB of data allowance
• Monthly: £15 for 30 days with 3GB of data allowance

The O2 mobile broadband dongle is also covered by a 30-day happiness guarantee, whereby if you’re not entirely satisfied with the O2 mobile broadband service, the dongle can be returned for a complete refund.

This O2 PAYG half price offer expires on October 12th.

Today, O2 have spoken out on the restrictions by promising that actual connection speeds for file-sharers won’t be reduced during their new peak time restrictions that begin on Saturday.
O2 plan to reduce the bandwidth available to users of P2P and Newsgroup services during peak times of 8pm to 11pm.

“We will never limit a user’s actual connection speed during peak periods and no applications are prohibited on our network. Customers will still be able to use P2P and newsgroups but the download speed may just be a little slower than normal”

“The policy has been designed to give the best online experience for the majority of customers using our Access package during peak usage times,” added the spokesperson. “’Real time’ applications such as surfing online, video & audio streaming, gaming, internet voice calls, instant messaging and email will be given priority.” – O2 spokesperson.

O2 are hoping that new traffic management initiatives will help to manage overall broadband traffic, and help to speed up broadband connections for all users.

The bandwidth restrictions will coincide with the England V Ukraine World Cup qualifying match this Saturday, although they aren’t expected to affect the live streaming for O2 users.

Available on a pay-to-view basis, the Ukraine v England game will be the first ever England international match to be streamed exclusively live across the internet.

The match will be broadcast live at 5.15pm on Saturday 10th October from www.ukrainevengland.com, with subscriptions prices starting at £4.99 and increasing to £11.99 if you order on the day of the game.

As football fans gear up to watch the game online, many UK broadband providers are preparing themselves for the additional upsurge to make sure that customers have enough broadband bandwidth available to watch the game without issue.

But what can you do to make sure you get the best possible video playback at your end?

Well, to start with, the video quality will be mostly dependent on the connection speed you currently receive from your broadband provider. According to Perform (the digital agency behind the stream), the live stream will be available at speeds of 450kbps and 800kbps. With customers needing a minimum broadband connection of 550Kbps (0.5Mbps) for reliable video streaming.

Many UK broadband providers are already preparing for the event, with BT and Virgin Media currently working to make as much bandwidth as possible available for customers watching the match online. Eclipse Internet are also offering a broadband optimisation tool to help customers get the most our of their broadband connection.

Providing you have a decent broadband connection and the live stream itself holds up under the stress, the majority of users should be fine. But if you’re still a little concerned, here are a few ways you can help to keep the live streaming of the England Vs Ukraine World Cup match as smooth as possible on your PC or Laptop.

• If possible avoid sharing the connection with any other users or devices. If there are other users in your home sharing the same internet connection (for example gaming online, or downloading), then this can slow streaming video buffering times down to a crawl. Ideally it would be best to ensure that the PC or Laptop you’re using to watch the World Cup match online is the only device active on your home network.
• Try to free up as much memory on your laptop or PC as possible. You can do this by closing down any windows or browser windows apart from the active window with the live stream. Cutting down on the number of programs running in the background will also help to free up some of your computer’s memory and inturn will allow it to load more content quicker from the stream.To see what processes are currently running you need to enter the Windows Task Manager buy using either Ctrl+Alt+Delete or by using Start -> Run, typing, qttaks, and hitting Enter. The resulting window will list a number processes that are currently running on your computer, and will enable you to quickly end the ones you don’t need.
• If you plan on streaming the match over a home wireless connection then it is a good idea to test different locations in your home to find the area with the strongest possible signal. It might even be a good idea to connect to your home network via a wired ethernet connection to ensure that the best possible network connection is established for the live stream.

It is also worth taking into consideration if you plan on streaming the England V Ukraine match on a pay as you go, or cheaper mobile broadband package, that you may burn through 1-2GB of data allowance for the event. On some cheap broadband packages with restrictive Fair Usage Policies there may be additional charges imposed. Some providers may even restrict access to streaming services on their cheaper packages, so please make sure you check with your provider first to rule out any possible hidden charges or issues.

The 2010 World Cup qualifier is only viewable online, where it will be streamed live from www.ukrainevengland.com

Eclipse Internet allows their customers to prioritise their broadband connection, giving them greater control in optimising video streaming for the match.

“Delivering the England game via the internet will be an exciting challenge for all ISPs in the UK, we are confident that our significant investment in technology and capacity, together with our Optimisation Tool will give our customers a ‘virtual’ pitch side vantage of the match” – Eclipse director Clodagh Murphy.

The Eclipse Optimisation Tool will enable customers to prioritise for the live audio and video streaming whilst turning the other options off.

Coverage of the England V Ukraine World Cup match kicks off at 5.15pm on Saturday 10 October. To watch the match online a subscription fee of £4.99 is required so long as you sign up before midnight tonight. The cost rises to £9.99 for subscriptions made on Thursday and Friday, and up to £11.99 for subscriptions made on the day of the match.

O2 are also restricting popular newsgroup services like Giganews and NetNews.The new traffic restrictions will affect O2 IPStream broadband (not LLU) subscribers between the hours of 8pm and 11pm.

“From now on, we’ll give first priority to the things most of us want to do in the evening – things like emailing, looking at websites, watching video on sites such as BBC iPlayer or YouTube or using programs like Skype or Messenger” – O2 statement.

Here’s a full list of the affected Peer 2 Peer and Newsgroup services:

File-sharing:

• BitTorrent
• Blubster
• Gnutella
• KaZaA
• WinMX_6688
• WinMX_6699
• eDonkey
• Filetopia
• eDonkey_UDP
• Hotline
• Hotline_1234
• DirectConnect
• GuruGuru
• Soribada
• Soulseek
• Ares
• Rodi
• JoltID
• eMule_UDP
• Waste
• Konspire2b
• ExoSee
• FurthurNet
• MUTE
• GNUnet
• Nodezilla

Newsgroups:

• NNTP
• NNTPS
• TAC_News
• Audio_News
• NTalk
• NetNews
• NAS
• DDI
• Giganews

[via broadband.o2.co.uk]