John Lewell

PSINet Wednesday acquired The Internet Company (TIC), the second largest Internet service provider in the Swiss business-to-business sector. “Switzerland, as the fourteenth largest telecommunications market in the world, is an important part of our global expansion plans. This acquisition, further enhancing our Swiss presence, allows us to offer our global network and services to the […]

The BBC Tuesday launched its new integrated online and TV channel, BBC Knowledge, hailing the event as “our digital TV D-day.” Having lost around £15 million (US$24 million) of licence fee revenue on its news network BBC World, and having spent £20 million (US$32 million) on the late-night News 24, the BBC is now putting […]

Scoot.com plc has announced that it will be offering a free directory enquiry service via its scoot.co.uk Web site, beginning June 28. Users who register will receive all business and residential enquiries free of charge. Although full details were not revealed, Scoot said that a “powerful organisation” has agreed in principle to sponsor the site […]

UK Internet investment company Arts Alliance has joined with Warner Brothers to provide funding for AtomFilms, a company that plans to distribute films via new media channels including the Internet. AtomFilms was launched earlier this year and has already acquired the rights to over 100 short films which it intends to market via Internet sites, […]

Internet services company NetBenefit had a successful flotation Thursday on the London Stock Market, with shares priced at 200p, valuing the company at £25 million (US$39.9 million). One of the five registrars currently able to register .com, .net and .org domain names in addition to Network Solutions, NetBenefit provides Internet connectivity, registers domain names, and […]

The UK government Thursday said it is making the Regen.net Web site, launched last February, into a focus for the New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme. The purpose of the £800 million (US$ 1.27 billion) NDC is to help economic and social recovery in the poorest neighbourhoods of Britain. A new forum on Regen.net will […]

Philips and Italian mobile operator Omnitel are bringing together mobile communications, speech recognition technology and the Internet to create what they call “the world’s largest Net portal, complete with speech recognition.” Omnitel 2000, the portal platform, will be available to all Omnitel Pronto Italia mobile customers. Among the services on Omnitel 2000 will be access […]

4Front Technologies Wednesday announced winning three contracts in Europe for networking, infrastructure and support services which together are worth over $12 million. The largest contract of the three, worth $9 million alone, is between an Italian private sector organization and 4Front’s Italian operation. Of the three contracts, two are in Italy and one in France. […]

David Svendsen, the head of Microsoft UK, Tuesday savaged UK attitudes to the Internet in his keynote address at Internet World ’99 in London. He not only attacked the government’s record in formulating e-commerce policy, but he also criticised UK business for its slowness in grasping online opportunities. “Time is running out, and it may […]

Freeserve, the UK’s leading ISP, suffered an embarrassing crash of its e-mail servers over the weekend. Some users were unable to send or receive e-mail for up to 60 hours. Freeserve apologised on Monday for “any inconvenience this may have caused.” Business users who rely on being able to send and receive e-mail have complained […]

Secure e-commerce pioneer Pilot Network Services has joined the London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of Europe’s busiest exchange points. By partnering with LINX, Pilot will expand its level of services for its UK-based corporate clients and for its customers in the United States that wish to extend their operations to Europe. “We have aligned ourselves […]

BT awarded a major contract to Lucent Technologies to expand its core network using dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technology. Pioneered by Ciena Corp., DWDM splits the light inside optical fibres into multiple channels, thereby increasing capacity. “Lucent’s DWDM system will enable us to meet the fast growing demand for voice and data services. Lucent’s […]