According to today’s Telecoms News, Zen Internet is introducing faster broadband services with download speeds of up to 20Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1Mbps at no extra cost for customers this summer.

Zen will start moving existing residential and business customers over to the new services later this summer, as long as they are available in their area. The new services, which will be on a “like for like” basis with current products, will not change in price but customers can, in most cases, expect to receive a higher speed.

Even though Zen will be providing these new faster services it will not be introducing a traffic shaping policy. ‘Zen has always had a very clear proposition around our services. We are retaining our current monthly contracts and just want customers to enjoy the benefits of our new faster services at any time of the day, with no gimmicks or restrictions hidden in a fair use policy.’ added Saunders.

The speed customers can expect to receive will depend on how far they are from their local BT exchange. Based on the results of Zen’s current trials, it is estimated that the average download speeds will be between 9Mbps and 13Mbps, but some trial users are already achieving over 20Mbps.

Zen has upgraded its own network and is using elements of BT’s new 21st Century Network (21CN) project to bring customers these faster broadband services. 21CN is a UK wide communication network upgrade project currently being rolled out by BT. This will involve enabling all BT exchanges for 21CN including the faster ADSL2+ broadband technology. BT plan to cover 55% of homes and businesses by March 2010, depending on demand.

The standard rate of VAT will increase from 15% to 17.5 % on the 31 December 2009.  In practice the rules which govern rate changes mean that a rise in rate is likely to create more issues for a business than a VAT rate fall.  There are also more opportunities.  HMRC have recently released their ‘anti forestalling’ measures which prevent pre supplies at the lower VAT rate.  These rules are more generous that many expected and will not apply to supplies of less than £100,000.  It follows there will be scope for bringing the date of supply forward to benefit from the lower VAT rate.

According to the Times, millions of families were threatened with rises in their water bills of up to 29 per cent after Britain’s water industry submitted plans to Ofwat.

Thames Water asked Ofwat for permission to increase its customers’ average annual bill by 17 per cent from £283 to £331 in 2015.

Some of the smaller companies, such as Bristol Water, which supplies water, but not sewage services, to more than half a million customers in the South West, announced proposed rises of 29 per cent from an average annual bill of £146 to £189 in 2015.

The ten largest companies have proposed spending £22.5 billion on network upgrades from 2010 to 2015, representing a total average increase in their annual charges of just under 7 per cent to fund improvements to pipe networks, pumping stations and sewerage plants.

Proposed increases varied from only £2 above inflation at Welsh Water, to £48 at Thames Water, the largest of Britain’s 22 water companies with 13.6 million customers in London and the South East.

Thames, which plans to invest £5.5 billion over 2010 to 2015, blamed the deteriorating economy for the price rises.

David Owen, its chief executive, said: “The recession is having an impact on our business, just as it is on all our customers. Many of our costs are increasing, and particularly the cost of financing vital improvements to our networks.”

Britain’s water companies submit their spending proposals for upgrades to their water and sewerage networks to Ofwat every five years.

The regulator will offer a draft response to their proposals in July and in November will issue its final determination, which will fix the total amount they are permitted to charge consumers until 2015.

The Times reports on Incentives for investing in green energy!
Ministers were last night considering fresh incentives designed to spur investment in renewable energy amid evidence that the credit crunch is threatening government energy targets.

The Energy Minister hit back at claims that the Government was failing to deliver on an ambitious plan to foster a green energy revolution by building thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines. Mike O’Brien told a meeting of renewable-energy chiefs that he was determined that Britain would meet its goal of generating as much as 35 per cent of all UK electricity from wind, wave and solar power by 2020, up from less than 5 per cent at present.

Responding to news of a further collapse in financing for the UK wind industry, he said that the Government was examining new ideas to increase investment, which has been hit by the recession as banks rein in lending and the price of conventional fuels plunges.

Mr O’Brien said: “We are fully aware of the investment challenges facing some parts of the industry. We are examining how we can help ensure there is sufficient finance and other support available for viable projects which are short of the investment they need.” Mr O’Brien was speaking after The Times revealed yesterday that Iberdrola Renovables, the Spanish energy company that is the world’s largest investor in wind energy, plans to cut its UK investments in renewable electricity this year by up to 40 per cent from as high as €700 million in 2008 to €400 million

Doug Parr, the chief scientist of Greenpeace, said the UK renewables industry was moving “at a snail’s pace” and called for urgent action by the Government to accelerate its plans for a green energy revolution.

“It really is a case of getting off their backsides and doing what they said they were going to do,” Dr Parr said.

Lifting the UK’s share of renewable electricity generation to 35 per cent will cost an estimated £100 billion, but a string of investments have collapsed in recent months because of the credit crunch. Onshore wind energy generated only 1.14 per cent of UK electricity in 2007 and offshore wind accounted for only 0.2 per cent. Hydroelectric schemes, some of which were built decades ago, accounted for the biggest single slice at about 1.3 per cent.

“No sector is immune from the economic downturn, and that includes the energy sector,” Mr O’Brien said. “To meet our commitments on renewables, we have changed the planning laws and increased support for the sector.

“We also are working with National Grid and Ofgem to ensure sufficient access to the grid and we very much welcome the announcement last week about the timetable for an extra 450MW of grid connection.”

Meanwhile, a skills shortage in nuclear engineering is threatening the Government’s hopes that new nuclear plants will be operating by 2020, a Commons committee says today in a report. Many of the engineers working in the industry are approaching retirement and not enough young people are being trained. Failure to increase the number of qualified engineers entering the nuclear field will leave Britain dependent on foreign experts, who are already in great demand abroad.

Expressing concern at the “lack of a clear and detailed plan for delivering the next generation of nuclear power stations”, MPs on the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee called for ministers to create a “master road map” for all big engineering projects to address issues such as the numbers of engineers available.

Phil Willis, the chairman of the committee, said: “If there’s a great drive postrecession to deliver on civil nuclear power, we will be competing in a small pool for that talent. The difficulty then is delivering on time at a cost we can afford.”

The report says that the Government is neglecting the potential of geoengineering to limit climate change if a greenhouse gas treaty cannot be reached.

Find out how George Buchanan from Service Source Europe benefited from working with Auditel!