Virgin to drop broadband price!
July 27, 2009 at 6:31 pm
If you’re thinking about getting high-speed broadband then now could be the time to act. Virgin has dropped the price of its 50Mbps service so that you’ll only have to pay £28 a month for one of the fastest connections in the UK. It used to be £35, so an immense saving of £84 is possible over the course of the year.
Like all good things, there is a catch. You won’t be able to get the broadband package alone. Instead, you’ll have to get a phone line from Virgin as well, which costs £11 a month. However, the deal is available to both existing and new customers and it will begin on September 1. If you want the broadband on its own it will cost you an extra £10 a month.
The cut in price is arriving as a result of the completion of Virgin’s DOCSIS 3 broadband network. This has allowed Virgin to triple its bandwidth, and a spokesperson for the company has said that the new “cost efficiencies” have meant that they can now “pass these savings onto our customers”.
You have to be living in the right area to be able to get access to the 50Mpbs service. However, 12 million can currently get access to it, representing just under a fifth of the country. It is the latest stage in the growing broadband battle with BT, which is about to unveil its 40Mbps service. Despite being slower, BT has the advantage that its service will be available to up to 40% of the country.
‘Telephone Tax’ to fund Fibre-Optic Britain
July 23, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Like it or not, Britain is a hotbed of broadband services. From the dizzy heights of corporate industry to the tortured postings of lonely teenagers, high-speed internet has permeated every facet of modern culture, business, and leisure.
It should come as no surprise to discover that many Britons consider broadband to be an integral part of daily life, a service as “indispensable as electricity, gas, and water” – to quote the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
Earlier this week, the “Digital Britain” report unveiled a number of sweeping changes to media and broadband services. TV licensing funds, once the exclusive domain of the BBC, will be appropriated to other content providers, whilst illegal file sharers could find themselves in hot water by 2010.
Perhaps the most controversial element of the Digital Britain scheme was the introduction of a “telephone tax,” forcing ‘’everybody’’ with a fixed phone line to pay a £6 annual levy to the government. Far from being an indulgence, the new tax is destined to pay for the expansion of fibre-optic broadband into remote parts of the UK.
Industry experts are perplexed. “The numbers don’t add up,” Conservative minister, Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, “the telephone tax raises £150m a year, but the cost to get broadband to the most rural parts of the country will cost £3bn.” It will take two decades to raise enough money to saturate UK markets with 2mb/s broadband.
The Digital Britain white paper can be found at the official website. For a shorter summary, consider reading this article on the Guardian website.
O2 in 2 months free broadband offer
July 23, 2009 at 3:28 pm
If you’re thinking of signing up to a broadband deal anytime soon then you could save a few pounds by going with O2. The broadband provider has just announced that new customers can save up to £44 if they go with its new promotion, and the deal is also available to existing mobile phone customers.
The promotion is for two months of free broadband for customers who sign up to one of its home broadband packages in July for a minimum one-year contract. This will mean that they only have to pay for the rental of their landline. On top of that, it also offers other perks such as a free wireless router and free connection.
After the two months of free broadband has come to an end, the amount customers will pay will depend on which package they have gone for. The Standard package costs £12.23 per month, with the Premium costing £14.68 and Pro costing £22.02. So for those getting the Pro package a massive saving of £44 is theirs, for the Premium they will save £29 and for the Standard they will save £25.
But it’s not just the prices and special offers currently available that will sway potential customers towards O2. The provider regularly receives plaudits for its broadband speeds, which currently go up to 20Mbps. It has been named the fastest provider in the UK in the past, as well as getting the Best Customer Service award from Top 10 Broadband. This has led Jessica McArdle from Top 10 Broadband to state that customers of O2 are “among the most satisfied in the sector”.
Laptop deals keep getting cheaper
July 21, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Top 10 Broadband has released the results of its research into mobile-broadband contracts, and is claiming that customers can now enjoy a high-quality laptop for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a week when they get one thrown in with a contract.
Laptops were once the preserve of the rich, but now the new deals have made it possible for people to get their hands on one, and sometimes even a high-end model, without having to break the bank.
Mobile contracts mean that people can spread out the price of the laptop over months and years so that they don’t feel the pinch so much.
The way that the statistic has been worked out is that when you compare the cost of a standard mobile broadband contract to a contract that includes a laptop thrown in, the price difference can be as low as £7.50 a month, which works out as cheaper than one coffee a week.
3’s new deal was used as an example by Top 10 Broadband, which allows customers to take out a mobile broadband contract with an Acer Aspire A150b laptop for £22.50 a month, only £7.50 more than the contract would cost without a laptop.
The marketing manager at Top 10 Broadband, Jessica McArdle, said that “the days of a laptop being thought of as a luxury purchase are long gone”.
Mobile companies have certainly allowed average consumers to get their hands on technology that was until very recently out of the reach of many. And with the growing need to be connected to the internet whenever and wherever, this can only be a good thing.
Is broadband really that great?
July 21, 2009 at 3:59 pm
With all the talk lately of how important and essential broadband is to our lives, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to discover that 43% of adults in the UK without an internet connection have no desire to connect to the World Wide Web, even if they were given the connection and the PC completely free.
This startling statistic comes courtesy of Ofcom, the industry regulator, who carried out the research to find out just what the opinion of the masses really was, and whether there was really such a great need for the internet and broadband.
It turns out that 30% of the population of the country are offline at the moment, which is quite a large percentage. But these people can be split into two groups: those who choose to stay offline, and those who cannot go online due to lack of access or financial restrictions.
The people who choose to stay offline are generally older people with less need for the internet, and out of this group it turns out that over 60% of them have never even used a computer.
However, although a large number of people without the internet have no desire to get online, a further 20% plan to become connected within the next six months.
Surprisingly it doesn’t even seem that cheaper broadband deals or free training would entice many to become connected, with only a very small percentage saying that this would make them try it out.
Peter Phillips, the market development partner at Ofcom, said that “creativity will be required” to “capture the imaginations” of those who are still unconnected.
It is interesting to see such results because, for the younger generation at least, broadband has become such an important feature of their lives that it is easy to forget that not everyone needs or wants to be connected.
Tesco breaks into mobile broadband with free laptop deal
July 10, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Carphone Warehouse has just got itself a new competitor in the shape of Tesco. The supermarket chain has announced that it is going to start to offer customers mobile broadband deals that come with free laptops in exactly the same way as Carphone Warehouse has been doing with such success lately.
Tesco has already stated its bold aims of becoming the leading telecoms company in the UK, which is certain to get a few executives at Carphone Warehouse more than a little bit worried.
So far, Tesco has announced that it is going to provide customers with a number of different broadband packages from Orange and 3, and that it will be offering free laptops with some of these at 50 of its phone shops, which are located within the supermarkets. As an example of what is on offer, customers can get a free Dell Studio XPS 16 on a 24-month contract on 3 for £29.36 a month.
It was back in September 2007 that Carphone Warehouse began to provide its customers with free laptops, so Tesco has a bit of catching up to do. But the format has proved hugely popular so it won’t be hard for a giant like Tesco to get in on the act.
With computers being used for so many things these days, staying connected is becoming increasingly important for the population. The combination of broadband access wherever you are and a free laptop on top is perfect, and has allowed many more people to enjoy the benefits of a laptop that they might otherwise not have been able to afford.
The chief executive of Tesco Mobile, Lance Batchelor, said that Tesco thinks that mobile broadband is “really going to take off" this year and that they wanted their customers to “get the very best deals”.
Broadband is now ‘essential’
July 10, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Broadband is now an ‘essential’ service according to 84% of the population of the UK. The news comes on the back of a study carried out by the CCP (Communications Consumer Panel) to find out how people in the country now see broadband in their lives.
We all know that broadband is a very important part of our work lives and our free time, with more people than ever getting connected to social networking sites and using their computer as their main source of entertainment.
The study was pretty large, asking 2,000 people for their opinions, and the results went beyond establishing how many people think that broadband is now an essential service.
73% of the people surveyed said that it was important to have a high-speed connection and that the people on the lowest incomes should not suffer when it comes to getting connected. They also felt that not having the internet would lead to people missing out on financial benefits such as online banking.
However, there was not an overall agreement on whether broadband should be subsidised by the government. Although an ‘essential’ service, a lot of the people questioned said that broadband deals were now cheap enough so that most people could afford them. Others, however, said that the government should help when it comes to getting those on low incomes connected.
Most people would agree with the results of this research. After all, we use broadband in so many different ways. But if it is considered essential now, just think how much more essential it is going to become in the future. For this reason, even if the government are not prepared to subsidise it at the moment, perhaps this will become a serious consideration in the not-too-distant future.
New broadband satellite gets funding
July 3, 2009 at 1:18 pm
There’s been a huge development in the broadband industry with the news that a new broadband satellite has been given funding to the tune of £220,000 by the ESA (European Space Agency).
The new satellite is to be named Hercules, and will be able to deliver super-fast broadband speeds to large areas of the country that are currently not getting access to broadband. It will be created by Avanti Communications, and the funding will now help it to develop a plan to get the satellite up and running in the UK.
This is Avanti’s response to the Digital Britain Report from the Government, which includes the proposal to get 2Mbps broadband into every home across the country by 2012.
This is the second satellite from the company, following on from Hylas, which is set to be launched in 2010. Hylas, however, can only reach 100,000 users, meaning it will not be able to provide broadband to enough people to make a significant difference.
The chief executive of Avanti, David Williams, claimed that the satellite would be able to provide broadband access of between 2 and 50Mbps to about 2.5 million rural households across the country which do not currently get access to broadband. It would provide a low-cost solution to getting broadband access to the masses and would help the government to stick to its pledge.
Satellite broadband is a relatively new technology, but it is growing in popularity across the continent. However, it is still unclear just how economically viable the service is, so the government has to decide whether it is better to go ahead with the satellite broadband, or whether it would simply be cheaper to provide standard broadband to remoter areas.
What is clear, however, is that it could provide a real solution to solving the problem of numerous rural communities being unable to access broadband.
Flexible working a reality as more staff take advantage of mobile broadband
July 3, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Orange has released the results of a survey that it commissioned which has produced some interesting results. According to the mobile-broadband provider, it turns out many more businesses are now offering their staff a greater degree of flexibility through the use of mobile broadband in the workplace.
The research involved asking 500 businesses and 4,500 members of staff for their feedback. The areas they were asked about included how mobile broadband was used by them at work and whether it allowed them to enjoy more flexibility.
The results suggest that businesses in the country are now working very differently, as staff in many more companies are now being offered the chance to work from anywhere now that flexible broadband is becoming an increasing reality.
The best place in the country for flexible working practices was Wales, with 29% of employees being able to work from outside the office. The south of England was not far below at 25%, and Scotland had 22%. The East Midlands was the lowest with 16%.
Paul Tollet, the vice president of business at Orange, said that although it was great that so many workers could take advantage of the benefits of flexible working, it is “surprising” that “over 35% of employers have yet to consider it”.
The results also showed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the mobile and IT sectors where flexible working was most encouraged, with 39% of businesses in this sector offering flexible working.
However, it wasn’t all good news. The survey also uncovered the fact that half of those who said that they could work flexibly were not provided with the tools and technology that they needed in order to do so.
