Posted by Admin on December 5, 2009 – 4:36 pm
Virgin Media has released a new mobile broadband which they say will double the speed of the mobile broadband previously offered.
The new USB modem will offer speeds of 7.2Mbps on a range of contracts. Mobile broadband is becoming more and more popular for people on the go. If you are not near a wireless connection and are away from home mobile broadband is now considered vital by some people.
Customers are given the option of a one month rolling contract or a full 18 months with a choice of 1 GB or 3 GB data limits per month.
The deals are now available and monthly payments range from £10 to £15. The modem will cost £24.99 on the 1 Gb contract and £49.99 on other options.
Posted by Admin on August 25, 2009 – 1:20 pm
How many hours do you spend online? Broadband providers offer deals based on your usage so to get the best deal, you shouldn’t buy more than you need. Some packages offer ‘unlimited downloads’ but if you don’t surf that much, then it might be cheaper to get a capped deal. If you download a lot then check the fair usage policy to ensure your new service wont be suspended if you download excessively.
Download speed is the most important element of your package so first of all check the speed that you can get in your area with each provider. The closer you are to your telephone exchange the quicker your speed will be. Dont sign up for a 12 Mbps deal if you can only get a maximum download speed of 6Mbps for example. Bt hope to provide a 20Mbps speed deal by March 2010. They will also give free Broadband Accelerators to anyone applying online.
Save money by combining your landline, broadband and TV. Check the deals carefully as they all vary. Virgin Media, Sky and BT offer the best deals. Talk Talk and Plusnet also offer good deals.
If you are short of time consider a comparing broadband deals to see if switching provider can help save you money
It can be difficult to change providers if you are tied to a 12 month contract so make sure that you choose a reliable company. Cheap is not always the best.
Posted by Admin on August 18, 2009 – 1:42 pm
Millions of BT broadband customers will be offerered broadband speeds of up to 20Mbs at no extra cost. The cheapest BT broadband deal is currently £7.78 per month for the first 3 months.
Customers in enabled areas currently enjoying download speeds of up to 8 Mbps will find their broadbands speeds increasing to up to 20 Mbps. Initially this will affect about 10 million people ( 549 exchanges) which is 40 % of UK homes and businesses. This will increase to 55 % in March 2010. Upload speeds will also increase to 1 Mb.
The BT Broadband Accelerator ( speed booster pack worth £15) will also be free to BT broadband customers who can order it free online. ( postage £1.20). The accelerator, also known as the I-plate, includes a small plate that can be inserted into the main telephone socket to reduce the impact of electrical interference. This may also increase broadband speeds by 1.5Mb. The plate isolates a redundant wire in the socket which can slow speeds. Although this cannot be guaranteed the plate can help to stabalise broadband lines.
New customers to Bt Total Broadband in an enabled exchange area will be eligible for speeds of up to 20 Mbps for £7.78 per month. Existing customers will be asked to sign a new contract.
Posted by Admin on August 13, 2009 – 2:00 pm
Virgin Media has pledged not to advertise broadband connection speeds that it’s customers cannot acheive. Virgin is making an effort to be honest with users about the broadband speeds that it can offer and they are setting up a new marketing campaign promising that users will receive the actual speeds that they advertise.
This is now being referred to as the ‘National Broadband Speed Promise’ in a bid to move away from misleading customers into taking out broadband services that do not deliver expected speeds.
Virgin hope to be able to send IPTV services to areas that previously were unable to accesss broadband srevices by using the ADSL2+technology. This should also increase broadband speeds for everyone. The Managing Director for Virgin Media Graham Oxby said that it should not cost extra to access these high speed broadband services.
Posted by Admin on July 29, 2009 – 4:26 pm
According to Ofcom Northern Ireland has the fastest boradband speeds in the UK for anyone subscribing to an ‘ up uo 8 Mbps braodband package.
Ofcom found that a larger proportion of consumers in Northern Ireland are on ‘up to 8Mbps’ deals than in the rest of the UK although the average speed was actually 4.1Mbps compared to 3.9Mbps for others in the UK. Speeds in rural areas of Northern Ireland are much slower.
The Telecomms regulator is commited to encouraging the rollout of better faster speeds for the whole of Northern Ireland. Overall Ofcom found that most broadband customers were not getting the speeds that they are paying for and one fifth of UK consumers on an 8Mbps deal actually receive less than 2 Mbps. Only 9% of users receive more that 6 Mbps.
Ofcom say that the average quality of electrical line in Northern Ireland is of a higher standard and this may be the reason that speeds are higher there.
Posted by Admin on July 27, 2009 – 4:17 pm
Ofcom has pledged to investigate the mobile broadband market to find out why there are so many gaps in 3G ( third generation) coverage, particularly in rural areas. These areas are known as’ notspots’. Ofcom will also look at mobile broadband speeds which vary considerably.
3G services allow people to connect to the Internet via a wireless network using either a phone, a dobgle or a datacard which can be plugged into a laptop or PC.
Broadband Communications Company Epitiro has been researching mobile broadband download speeds and found that the average speed was just under IMbps. Mobile broadband users are only getting a quarter of advertised speeds. There are over 200,000 different tarrifs on the market for mobile broadband customers. Not an easy task when searching for a good deal.
It seems that consumers are now opting for mobile broadband and discontinuing their fixed line phones. Mobile calls increased by 11 billion minutes in 2008 ,while fixed line minutes fell by 8 billion.
The Digital Britain report initiated by the Government plans to free up more 3G spectrum to help reduce ‘notspots’ and hopefully to increase mobile broadband speeds.
Orange ,O2, T- Mobile, and Vodaphone are some of the service providers who offer mobile phone braodband packages.
Posted by Admin on July 24, 2009 – 6:41 pm
H20 Networks have begun work in Sheffield to bring broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps to Sheffield homes. The city-wide fibre optic network will run via the city’s sewers and will be laid in a 15Km ring around the city building on an existing network that serves flats and student accommodation.
H20 have already introduced similar schemes in Dundee and Bournmouth and there are further plans in the pipework to roll out fibre to several cities in the UK. H20 will only provide the infrastructure while service providers will be offering the broadband to consumers, although as yet no service provider has taken an interest.
Sheffield’s newtwork should be completed by the end of September.
Bt also announced that its £1.5bn fibre optic plans are to start with speeds of up to 40Mbps for 40% of homes by 2012. Trials have started in North London and Cardiff.
Posted by Admin on July 21, 2009 – 5:27 pm
With Virgin media topping the broadband speed test charts and offereing the UK’s fastest broadband, you’d think their priority might be advertising this fact and getting new customers onboard. It seems though that the company is focassing first on fine tuning its policies to cope with the extra demand for its services, which involves restricting the broadband speed of some customers.
In February Virgin announced that they were to trial “bandwidth throttling” during peak hours as a way of coping with the increase in demand for broadband that they had experienced over the previous year.
The trial started in Preston, where the top 5% of Virgins heaviest downloading customers had their bandwidth restricted. Virgin say they are only restricting users that constantly exceed their fair useage policy, and this process ensures that all of their customers receive a reasonable download speed during the peak hours of 4pm until 9pm.
With the trial in Preston now complete the bandwidth throttling policy is about to change again. Virgin now state that they will only need to restrict the top 2% of customers, and it is these customers that will be affected when the company applies the policy nationwide.
Posted by Admin on July 20, 2009 – 1:01 pm
Research by independent analysts show that Virgin Media is topping the tables in UK broadband speed tests. The average speed of 6.14Mbps is almost 2Mbps faster than the UK average of 4.3Mbps. The findings were calculated using thousands of broadband speed test results nationwide, over the month of June 2009.
O2 and Be broadband were runners up, both providing an average of 5.6Mbps download (the two companies results being the same as they share a common infrastructure). For people living outside of the areas supplied by the top 3 providers broadband speeds were below average, with the majority of the UKs other providers not managing to supply broadband with a download speed over the UK average.
When comparing how much of a broadband connections theoretical speed is actually provided to the customer Be broadband came out on top. On average Be provides over 120% of the speed that an average ADSL customer in the same area might get.
Although Virgin tops the chart for fast download, it is also notable that O2 and Be have a faster average upload speed of 748kbps, with virgin managing 467kbps. The national average upload speed is 433kbps.
Posted by Admin on July 3, 2009 – 8:05 pm
BT will upgrade its Broadband speed to 20 Mbps for millions of its home and business users at no extra cost. Uploads will be up to 1Mbps
Existing customers will need to sign a new contract with BT to obtain the boost although the speed will depend on the state of their line and the users distance from the exchange
BT’s change to ADSL2+ technology has now brought their speeds closer to those of their competitors such as Virgin media who offer a speed of up to 50Mbps to some customers. Customers on lower speed packages will also see an improvement in broadband speeds.
Forty % of the population will have access to the new speeds through 549 telephone exchanges, which cover approximately 10 million homes and businesses. BT hopes that this will increase to 55% by next March. Trials will begin this summer in Muswell Hill London, South Wales and Whitchurch.
