Posted by Admin on September 6, 2011 – 5:38 pm
Which UK’s largest independent consumer body has recommended Plusnet the broadband provider which is based in Yorkshire.
Plusnet, who employ over 250, staff brought its contact centre operation from South Africa to Sheffield in 2010. The company believes that this may have been one of the factors that helped them to acheive such high marks for its excellent customer service.
Over 750 Plusnet customers were questioned and gave an overall score of 72% in the survey. Plusnet Value home broadband was awarded a 5 star for value for money and a 4 star connection speed , reliability, technical support and customer service.
Broadband providers assessed by Which must receive and overall score of 70 % in the survey which covers ease of setup, connection speed, technical support, reliability and customer service.
Which magazine believes that broadband services today are considered by many people to be as vital as electricity or water supplies.
Plusnet will now be able to use the Which
Posted by Admin on July 27, 2011 – 11:20 am
Plusnet had been offering a half price deal for nine months but this offer has now been replaced by an offer of free internet for four months instead.
The offer still applies to Plusnet Value broadband deals when they are taken on line with home phones.After four months the packags costs just £6.49 per month with line rental at £11.99. Anytime calls are an extra £3.50 per month. This is a very competetive deal from Plusnet.
BT is offering its BT broadband and anytime call deal at 4 months free and then £18 per month. BT’s cheapest package is £16 per month, which is suprising when you compare the Plusnet deal which uses the same lines as BT. It is worth noting that Plusnet also include unlimited downloads in some of their deals.
Tesco offer a better priced deal than O2 with unlimited downloads all round. They charge £8.50 per month after the first 3 months of the contract.
Orange offer the first 3 months free with their off peak calls deal. It is then £7.50 per month.
There are some good deals out there and it is worth shopping around for the one that suits you.
Posted by Admin on July 17, 2011 – 5:41 pm
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that the UK Government will give £57 million to Wales to improve its broadband coverage.
This includes the £10 million which was pledged by Chancellor George Osborne in February.
Mr Hunt said that once the infrastructure was in place 90% of Welsh homes and businesses should be able to access superfast broadband.A recent Ofcom report showed that Wales has the worst broadband access in the UK.
Of the 22 council areas in Wales twelve had the lowest overall score for broadband access. These areas are mainly rural areas in the North , mid and West .
Mr Hunt also said that the £57 million was Wales’ share of the £530 million pledged by the Uk Government for the broadband investment fund.
The UK Government promised in December that all communities in the UK wil have access to superfast broadband by 2015. This should mean that all should have speeds of 24 Mbps which is a necessity for businesses that depend on the internet for their survival.
Posted by Admin on June 12, 2011 – 5:52 pm
Plusnet Pro is a new additional bolt-on to both Plusnet Value and Plusnet Extra which has just be launched by Plusnet at an extra cost of £5 per month.
Plusnet Pro is a traffic priortisation service aimed at gamers and home workers. The customers traffic is prioritised and maintains stable and reliable broadband at full speed for the entire day. No matter how busy the network becomes there will be no slow down in their broadband commection. . Users are guaranteed lower latency and can experience uninterrupted downloads.
This product is unique to Plusnet and confirms the importance that Plusnet has always given to traffic management. Fast speeds are available regardless of when you are online. It also means that even when someone in the house is web browsing or downloading a film facilities such as FaceTime and Skype will still be at the best possible level.
Plusnet, who’s parent company is BT, was launched in Yorkshire in 1997 and takes great pride in its relationship with its customers. Rewards are given to anyone who introduces the company to friends.
Posted by Admin on June 7, 2011 – 2:22 pm
Ofcoms recent study into mobile broadband speeds conducted more than 4.2 million tests on dongles and data cards in areas that have strong 3G coverage.
It was found that 02 downloaded webpages faster than Orange ,Vodafone, T Mobile and 3 Mobile. Its average latency , which measures the speed of the connection, was also found to be lower tha Orange ,Vodophone and 3 Mobile.
Ofcom also praised 02 for providing the best download speeds at peak periods.
The average download speed during the busy period 20.00 to 22.00 was 1.7Mbps for all five companies. Webpages were taking 2.2 seconds to load. Outside peak periods Ofcom disclosed average speeds of 2.1Mbps
A spokesperson for 02 was reported as saying the results were evidence of 02′s commitment to providing the best possible service for its customers.The acheivement is just reward for the amount of money the company has spent on improving its infastructure.
Orange was named as the poorest performing company in the report but a spokesman for the company said that this was due to capacity issues that affected the infastructure when the trials were being carried out. Changes have been made since the study was carried out.
Posted by Admin on May 30, 2011 – 4:27 pm
Nick Herbert MP for Arundel and South Downs along with the West Sussex County Council is promoting the need for improvements to broadband access accross the county. A summit meeting was held on Friday 20th May to discuss ways of improving broadband coverage to the county.
Mr Herbert reportedly said ‘We are less than 50 miles from London and yet parts of rural West Sussex have no broadband coverage at all, while many areas have slow speeds. Poor broadband holds back local enterprise and disadvantages rural communities. We need to get West Sussex better connected, first of all ensuring that everyone has access to broadband, and the bringing superfast speeds to as many people as possible.’
The Governement has given Broadband Delivery UK £530 million to help fund the laying of cables in more rural areas and West Sussex hopes to receive a share of this money . They hope to hear the the outcome of their bid any day now. The Governement hopes that Britain will have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015.
MP Jeremy Hunt who is in charge of broadband policy will be speaking at a meeting to discuss the Governement subsidy of broadband cables for rural areas along with other speakers including John Peel who is Head of the new Coast to Capital LEP , local community representatives and also Bill Murphy Managing Director of BT Next Generation Access.
West Sussex County Council is hopeing that the summit will provide a solution to counties problem with poor broadband access.
Posted by Admin on May 16, 2011 – 2:33 pm
BT’s profits increased by 71% to £1.72 billion for the year to March. This was in spite of a 4 % drop in revenues to £20 billion mainly due to a fall in mobile phone traffic on its network.
BT is now without doubt the UK’s biggest broadband supplier and has seen a huge increase in the number of new customers during the final quarter. 162,000 new customers were added for normal broadband during the past three months, plus around 5,000 per week for superfast broadband which offeres BT Infinity. 30,000 new customers were gained by BT Vision.
BT’s boss Ian Livingston was reported as saying that 75 % of people say broadband is just as important to them as electricity ,while a third of small to medium sized businesses sell on-line.
BT also saw an increase in the demand for copper telephone lines for the first time in five years which was put down to more new homes being built and more people changing from mobile only to fixed lines.
Further good news for the group was that their pension fund deficit has shrunk from £9 billion to £3.2 billion.
Posted by Admin on May 12, 2011 – 6:40 pm
There are so many broadband deals available just now which makes searching for the best option so complicated. Quite a few people feel it is such a minefield it is easier to stay with the internet provider that you know.
However quite a bit of cash can be saved by shopping around .
Broadband download limits vary greatly from package to package. Think about how much you need. Do you download music or films which will use up your download usage limit. Also consider the broadband speed. This is probably the most important consideration when surfing online. Location usually determines your speed as some superfast packages may not be available in your area. Look at line rental costs too as these tend to vary and a home phone line is required for most broadband services except for mobile broadband packages and fibre optic broadband from Virgin Media. Technical support and customer services are also very important.
Some of the best deals at the moment are Plusnet who are offering broadband at half price for 12 months at £3.24 per month plus line rental at £11.99 per month. This includes a 10GB download allowance and up to 20Mbps broadband speed with free evening and weekend calls to UK landlines. Set up is £4.99
02 have an offer for excisting customers of up to 20Mpbs broadband speed with an unlimited download allowance and free evening and weekend calls to UK landlines. This costs £2.50 for 3 months, then increasing to £15.00 plus £7.50 line rental
Talk Talks package is called Talk Talk Essential and costs £3.49 plus £12.60 line rental. They offer up to 24 Mpbs and a 40 GB download allowance with again free evening and weekend calls to Uk landlines. This has a 12 months contract.
There are a number of other great deals around just now. This is a good time to move and save money.
Posted by Admin on April 17, 2011 – 2:24 pm
The Telecoms Regulator Ofcom has unveiled plans for 4G coverage to mobile phone networks which will provide internet speeds up to 16 times faster than is currently available.
Ofcom say there will be an auction for licences which will provide high speed services to businesses and other consumers . The sale is expected to take place next year and could raise up to £10 billion for the Treasury.
The system should offer speeds of 4 to 8 Mbps per second which is very much faster than the 3G service of 0.5 to 2 Mpbs speeds currently available to most hi-tech handsets .
It is expected that the new 4G system will be available from 2013 allowing customers to stream high- definition TV and films to laptops, tablets and smartphones. It is expected that four companies will buy the right to offer this facility in the auction.
Unfortunately rural areas will have to wait a little longer as the four companies have until 2017 to acheive coverage for up to 95 % of the UK.
The auction in 2000 for the 3G licences raised £22.5 billion for the Treasury but it is thought that too much was paid by the networks at that time and offers should be much lower this time round.
4G will allow users to do the same on their smartphones etc as they do on broadband in the office or at home.
Posted by Admin on March 22, 2011 – 5:58 pm
Trowbridge is set to be one of the first towns in the South West to receive the Uk’s fastest broadband with speeds of 100Mb which is nearly 20 times the national average.
The 100 Mb broadband service, which will be offered to residents by Virgin Media, will be on sale in Trowbridge making it one of the fastest internet locations in the whole of the UK.
Executive Director at Virgin Media Jon James was reported as saying ” We know residents in Trowbridge will be blown away by what 100Mb can deliver and the real impact this can have on day to day life, be it uploading family holiday videos to share with friends or downloading an entire music album in a matter of seconds.’
The new service will allow users to download a high definition film in about seven minutes, a television programme in 30 seconds and an album in five seconds.
