Last week we had the opportunity to catch up with our fellow network operators. Amongst the interesting topics discussed were IP address depletion updates – suggestions that broadband providers might NAT their entire customer bases!
As most users have NAT on their broadband already, this effectively means double NAT – if you rely on a fixed IP address to the outside world, this has major consequences.
We also enjoyed a humourous talk on care of fibre optic cables. Unfortunately the detailed warnings on only using specialised cleaning equipment costing thousands of dollars was left a little deflated after a quick wipe on someone’s jeans gave excellent results!
New data released this month by ICANN shows a 99.7% drop in domain tasting since it changed the fees back in April 2009.
Domain tasting is the practice of registering a domain name for a few days, seeing if it can make any money through advertising, then deleting it for a full refund.
ICANN changed it’s rules so that the ICANN refund didn’t apply, and most registries changed their terms so that registrars could only return about 10% of their monthly registrations.
To give an idea of the scale of this practice, in June 2008, nearly 17.7 Million gTLD domains were tasted. Now in June 2009 just 58,000 were returned (probably due to errors in registrations)
The net result – should mean more domains are available for the general public to buy.
2020Media announced today a new incoming telephone number.
0370 321 2020
This new number replaces all our 0870 and 0370 321 2020 numbers that we’ve been using since we started 10 years ago and have followed us faithfully from office to office as we’ve expanded. The reason is two-fold.
Calls to 0330/0370 numbers are cheaper – they cost the same to call as standard landline numbers, even from a mobile phone, and are included in many calling plans.
0870 numbers have come under regulatory changes from OfCom which rules out their use for businesses like ours.
So, if you’d like to talk to 2020Media, there’s just one number to note: 0370 321 2020.
Want your own 0330 or 0370 number? We recommend Flextel
2020Media is a leading UK business internet service provider, founded in 1999. We offer UK web hosting, domain names, internet connectivity and server hosting. Please see our website for more: www.2020media.com. Latest products include Wifi Hotspots for business and non-profits with premises, advanced WordPress hosting, and new top level domain (ntld) registrations.
A Wiki is a collaborative website that can be edited by multiple people, usually without having to log in. The encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis. Ward Cunningham described a wiki as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.
We’ve recently started a documentation project here at 2020Media. We started out using WordPress, but we’re now trying out a Wiki. WordPress has some advantages like alerting the administrator when comments are made to articles, but the Wiki approach allows us to quickly add new pages and content in the shortest possible time.
As we’re already familiar with Wikipedia (it’s so well ranked on Google it must make the SEO ‘experts’ green with envy) we decided to use the same free software, MediaWiki.
If you’re thinking about a new website, take a look at wikis. 2020Media have hosting plans that are perfect for any wiki website.
EcoServ is a new service from 2020Media, an established UK hosting provider. We use new technologies to lower the environmental cost of server hosting, without sacrificing any of the essential services – power, ping and support. The server we use consumes less electricity than 40W light bulb!
News, tips and reviews from one of Britain's leading web hosting companies
