New broadband minister coming soon
May 28, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Ed Vaizey has been given the new post as broadband minister. He has been appointed as minister for culture, communications and creative industries, and he will work in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with broadband being one of his biggest priorities.
The post of broadband minister is now seen as a very important position. The need to provide the country with a fast, effective broadband network to make us more competitive on the international market is becoming increasingly important.
The main role of the new broadband minister will be to ensure that the previous government’s pledge of a minimum 2Mbps broadband speed for the entire country by 2012 will be realised.
This won’t be easy, with many industry figures stating that it is going to prove a real challenge. Especially in the current economic climate, it will be tough to get the finance necessary to make it into a reality.
This is also made more difficult by the cancellation of the 50p-tax scheme that had been proposed by the previous government, where every household would have to pay 50 pence a month for each landline to pay for the development of broadband across the country. The new government has scrapped this and will have to find another way to pay for it.
The new broadband minister will also have to work on the unrolling of next-generation broadband across the country to provide faster speeds to as many areas as possible. Many think that the proposed 2Mbps is not enough and that much faster speeds are needed, so he will certainly have his hands full.
50% would pay more for high-speed broadband
May 20, 2010 at 10:48 am
Higher broadband speeds are something that no one would complain about. As broadband becomes an increasingly integral part of our lives, and online content demands ever faster speeds, super-fast broadband may soon become something that we come to depend on.
But until that happens, would anyone be willing to pay more for the service now? According to ISPreview.co.uk they would.
The website has just released details of its own research that show that 51.5% of its 601 respondents claimed that they would be willing to pay extra for a super-fast 100Mbps broadband service – even if they already enjoyed a 10Mbps service.
Is this surprising? As mentioned, no one would say no to high-speed broadband, but it’s interesting to see that people would actually pay more for it even when they are getting what some already consider to be a high speed.
In the same survey, 24.4% of respondents said that 50Mbps was enough for their needs. This was compared to only 6.8% who said that 2Mbps was a high enough speed. This is slightly worrying considering that 2Mbps is the speed that the government has committed to delivering to all homes by 2012.
Although more than half of us would pay extra for super-fast broadband, it’s important to remember that it is not stated exactly how much extra we would be willing to pay. Would people pay just a few pounds extra, or would it be a lot more?
Mark Jackson, the founder of ISPreview.co.uk, said that the news “will be welcomed by any ISP that is investing heavily in new infrastructure and products.”
Bills down, speeds up but we are still unhappy
May 7, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Bills are down by 4% and speeds are up by 33%, yet many of us are still not happy with our broadband provider. Are we just a nation of whingers or do we have real cause for complaint?
It seems that when it comes to customer service, many of us are totally justified in our dissatisfaction. According to uSwitch’s recent report (The 2010 Broadband Customer Satisfaction Report) which sought the views of more than 7,500 broadband users, there is a huge difference between the good guys of the industry and those who could definitely do better.
The relative newcomers to the market, O2, Plusnet and Sky, come out of the survey with gold stars all round, whilst Orange, yet again, languish at the bottom of the league table.
O2 have come out top for the second year in a row and in fact won ten out of eleven of the accolades on offer. They scored 92% in overall satisfaction and have attracted over 250,000 new customers over the last year, bringing their customer numbers up to 600,000, an impressive total for a company which only entered the market less than three years ago.
Orange may have more customers (a million) but less than half would recommend them to a friend. There has been a history of service problems after they installed their own equipment at exchanges and they have recently appointed BT to run their operation in an attempt to improve matters.
Fans of O2 will be interested to know that they are about to enter the home telephone market with bundles available for as little as £17 a month.
