ISPA Awards Entries in and Testing to Begin

The ISPA Awards 2012 registration deadline has now passed and ISPA has seen the usual high number of entries and excellent take-up of the new Customer Choice and Best New ISP categories.

Voting for the Customer Choice category will be enabled and a link to the voting page announced shortly. Companies will be able to distribute the link to their customers and the page will also be publicised in the media.

For companies entering the broadband, hosting and VoIP categories there is an element of technical testing. Thinkbroadband and Malden electronics, the ISPA Awards testing partners, will be distributing instructions to entrants this week for testing to start on the 13th February.

All categories must submit written entry forms for each category they enter. These can be linked to from the category pages on the ISPA Awards website here. Finalists will be announced in June.

Key dates:

13th February – Deadline for testing to start (five categories only)

30th March – Deadline for written entry form

June – Finalists announced

July 3rd – ISPA Awards ceremony

ISPA is also pleased to announce that Geo is sponsoring the Best Business Customer Category this year. Geo is a dedicated fibre network provider with a 3000km footprint.

Magrathea is sponsor of the Best Internet Telephony Award, Be Wholesaleis sponsor of the Best Business Fixed Broadband Award and CISAS is sponsoring the Best Consumer Customer Service Category. For more information on sponsoring please contact awards@ispa.org.uk or visithttp://www.ispaawards.org.uk/page/sponsorship.

Geo Sponsors Best Business Customer Service ISP at the ISPA Awards 

Geo is pleased to be sponsoring the Best Business Customer Service ISP at the 2012 ISPA Awards.

As a dedicated fibre network provider with a 3000km footprint we know a few things about networks and how crucial resilience, flexibility and high speeds can be.

Guaranteed high-bandwidth enables our ISP customers to offer the highest business class levels of connectivity, leaving them to focus on their customers’ needs and satisfaction.

For more information about our connectivity solutions visit www.geo-uk.net or you can follow us on Twitter @geonetworks for the latest updates.

Wishing all the entrants best of luck.

ISPA Meets With James Brokenshire

Following his keynote speech at the ISPA Conference last year, ISPA met with the Home Office Minister James Brokenshire MP to discuss the newly formed government/ISP partnership to tackle cyber security.

The Minister stated that the government is keen for the UK to be seen as the most secure place for business on the Internet and views a partnership approach between ISPs and government as an important way to achieve this.

ISPA will continue to liase with government on this self-regulatory partnership to tackle e-crime and online safety and ensure the Internet continues to be a safe place to communicate and do business.

ISPA is supporting Safer Internet Day 2012 – Connecting Generations 

ISPA is supporting Safer Internet Day on the 7th February and will be hosting information on the ISPA website, as well as tweeting and sharing updates about the day with ISPA members.

Safer Internet Day 2012 is celebrated worldwide and this year is an opportunity to encourage users young and old to "discover the digital world together safely". An inspirational array of activity is taking place nationwide, coordinated by the UK Safer Internet Centre, with all activities focusing attention on empowering all generations to safely benefit from the opportunities that the internet offers.

If you would like to tweet on the day then the the official hash tag #SID2012.

For further information on national activities taking place for Safer Internet Day, please visit www.saferinternet.org.uk

Discount for Members 

In March there is discount for members at the following events, Cable Congress, Internet Retailing Expo, IP and Media in the Digital Age and Social Media World Forum. ISPA has also negotiated a special exhibitor package available for the Convergence Summit North for ISPA members. Call Mat or Jamie on 01892 538348 for more details.

More information on the ISPA Events Calendar.

ISPA in the News

ISPA was quoted in the news on issues including; copyright, broadband and the ISPA Awards.

You can get regular updates from ISPA by following us on Twitter -twitter.com/ISPAUK.