Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Plusnet - the Sheffield-based ISP that had 176,000 broadband punters at the last count - is "evolving".

In a long-winded and meandering email to customers yesterday it said how it was "evolving - in an evolving world".

It went on: "In the future it looks like your Internet connection will deliver more than just the web pages you search for and the emails from your friends. No one can predict the future, but it doesn't stop us trying - here at Plusnet we believe our customers will combine their Internet, telephone, mobile phone, TV, film watching and more things than we have room for here.

"We're getting ready for that day - we want to continue to deliver you a reliable service and be here to help you make sense of the changing technology."

Wow. Is Plusnet bracing its punters for some amazing announcement about future strategy and a giant leap into the new and exciting world of digital communications?

Nah.

When Plusnet says it's "evolving", it actually means that it's going to charge 50p a minute for a "consultancy" helpline to explain techie things it doesn't currently support. Issues such as "why ain't my broadband working" or "my email is knackered" will still be dealt with by Plusnet's existing 0845 support line.

But if it's "how do I use CGI scripts on my website", then it's a call to the 50p a minute consultancy help line.

"We don't want to make money from your phone calls," said Plusnet, "we want to provide answers online and keep our cost as low as possible." ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth