Posted by Admin on September 3, 2010 – 6:09 pm
Last week BT signed up its 15 millionth user to its high speed network.
It is now 10 years since broadband was first introduced in the UK and it is now used by almost three quarters of the UK’s homes and small businesses. Britain can now boast a higher take up rate than any other developed nation due to widespread availability and low prices.
It was Virgins predecessors NTL and Telewest who first offered broadband services in 2000. BT became serious about broadband services in 2002 when prices were slashed by former chief excecutive Ben Verwaayen after broadband equipment was installed in local telephone exchanges.
BT was signing up almost 5,000 new customers each day although that rate has slowed down in the last couple of years due to a price war in the fixed broadband market.
Virgin Media serves 4.2 million customers over its cable network although last week it was revealed that 9 million people in the Uk have still never used the internet. Almost two thirds of the 15 million customers using BT’s network are using a rival internet provider such as Sky or Talk Talk who use BT’s infrastructure.
BT is now investing a further £2.5 billion to roll out fibre broadband to 2 thirds of the UK.
Posted by Admin on May 17, 2010 – 2:11 pm
Oftcom has revealed findings in a mystery shopper test conducted in March this year.
BT and Sky were found to be the two least likely Internet Service Providers to inform new customers of the maximum speed achievable on their line when signing up for an internet connection
O2 came top in this catogory in the test by informing 58% of callers with the information. BT provided the information without prompting to only 28% of callers and Sky to 39%.
However when prompted by the callers O2 came out worse by providing only 80% of the shoppers with the maximum speed information. Pulsnet, after prompting, provided 93% with the requested information. They came top in that category.
Overall Ofcom said that 15% of mystery shoppers failed to obtain a likely speed for their line , with 42% having to prompt the provider for the information. In addition 40% were told that the speed was an estimate and 31% were warned that a number of factors were involved in the actual speed.
Ofcom is planning to work with Internet Servics Providers to tighten the Voluntary Code of Practice on Broadband Speeds by creating a universal speed measuring test in an attempt to ensure UK customers are provided with more consistant and accurate information.
Posted by Admin on May 4, 2010 – 2:04 pm
Orange has abondoned its own broadband network in a deal with BT. Orange has handed over its fixed line network to BT after spending millions of pounds installing its own equipment in a bid to improve services to its customers.
It is thought that Orange would need to make substantial investment to maintain its broadband network but feel that the BT deal will allow them ” to take advantage of future technology developments” such as home and TV entertainment. Constant investment is needed to stay up to date.
In a report in the Times Bruno Duarte, vice-president of strategy said the reason for the change is because of dwindling demand for its broadband services. However they do need to remain in fixed line broadband and using BT’s network will almost double its broadband reach.
Orange is the 5th largest fixed line broadband provider and has around 840,000 customers. This figure was however around 1 million a year ago. It is hoped that the deal will allow Orange to become more competitive in the broadband market.
Orange recently joined forces with T-mobile and has nearly 30 million mobile phone customers.
Posted by Admin on April 19, 2010 – 3:16 pm
BT has been unable to deliver high speed broadband to the UK village of Lyddington so the residents have raised £37,000 to launch their own network.
Several telecom companies had said it was uneconomical to provide fast services to the village ,but Rutland Telecom can now offer the residents of Lyddington speeds of up to 40Mbps
The Rutland Telecom scheme was a joint effort between villagers and a local ICT company that was reselling BT’s broadband.
Dr David Lewis , Managing Director of Rutland Telecom was reported to have said” We found that any company could do, on a smaller scale, what Carphone Warehouse has done and take over BT’s network.”
They approached Openreach, the BT spin-off responsible for the UK’s network, to supply fibre optic cable to a street cabinet in the village. It was quite a slow process and the Ofcom regulator did intervene regularly , but after 2 years the network is up and running and already has 50 customers. The telephone lines of these customers are now completely cut off from the local BT exchange and running independantly.
Rutland Telecom have now been approached by 40 other rual community groups interested in a similar network for their own areas.
It was reported that BT said that they were delighted to help Rutland Telecom although they added that they hoped that other service providers would be allowed access to the new network.
Posted by Admin on April 7, 2010 – 5:53 pm
The 50p per month broadband tax planned by the Government has been scrapped in a last minute rush to get key legislation through before Parliament is dissolved next week.
The other two taxes to be scrapped are tax releif on holiday homes and the 10% tax increase on cider.
The £6 per year tax which would have affected all households with a land line was expected to raise roughly £170million per year in a bid to bring high speed broadband to rural areas that companies such as BT and Virgin Media could not reach.
The Conservatives planned to scrap the tax if they win the General Election. They have plans to use some of the TV license fees set aside for digital switchover. The tax has been labelled unfair as the people paying the tax would not benefit from it.
The future of super fast broadband for all is now un-certain although if Labour win the election next month it may well be re-instated.
Posted by Admin on March 17, 2010 – 1:24 pm
Virgin has stepped up its broadband speed battle with BT by declaring that it will roll out its 100Mbps by the end of the year.
The company signed up over 63,000 new customers over Christmas and claimed that over a third of the new customers had taken the more expensive 50Mbps service. There will clearly be a demand for an even faster speed.
The fiber-based 100 speed network will allow users to download a music album in 5 seconds and a hour long TV show will only take 31 seconds.Virgin has also announced that it will extend the testing of a 200Mbps service to other parts of the UK after initial testing was announced in May 2009.
Virgin Media provides broadband, TV,phone and mobile phone services to around 4 million homes in the UK currently offering services of 10Mbps,20Mbps and 50Mbps. Already some customers are using the 50 Mbps service to its full capacity as some homes use different services such as watching high definition TV and downloading music at the same time.
It seems there is nothing that these new fibre optic cable networks can do and the days of the 2Mbps services are numbered.
Posted by Admin on March 1, 2010 – 2:14 pm
A Committee of MP’s cosisting of 6 Labour MP’s , 3 Conservative and 2 Liberal Depmocrats all agree that the Governments proposed 50p ‘broadband tax’ is unfair. They consider the tax to be an ill-directed charge saying that most of the people who pay the tax will not benefit from it.
‘The charge will have a greater impact on the less well off who will be paying for an enhanced serivce which only a minority will enjoy’, said the report which was published on Tuesday.
The plan for the 50 p tax was announced last year by the Government in its Digital Economy Bill. The Government promised a universal minimum speed of 2Mbps for all parts of the UK by 2012 followed by a super speed broaband by 2017. It is intended that the this will all be paid for by the 50p tax which all landline customers will pay.
However this tax will only raise about £175 million a year and many in the industry say that the fund will not cover the amount needed to provide such a service to every home in the UK. BT have already estimated that the cost is more likely to be around £5 billion.
The MP’s on the Commitee believe that funding for the broadband should be done out of general taxation and not as a seperate levy on landlines.
The Conservative party has already said that they will scrap the scheme if they come into power at the next gereral election.
Posted by Admin on December 5, 2009 – 4:11 pm
The Government and BT have agreed on a £48 million deal to give businesses in Northern Ireland greater access to high speed broadband.
The investment will allow BT to upgrade up to 166 existing exchanges with new high speed fibre optic cables over the next 18 months. £18 million is available through funds associated with DETI and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. BT is investing £30m. The technology will benefit both urban and rural areas. The investment is considered to be hugely significant and could indirectly create up to 1,000 new jobs per year.
DETI said that businesses in urban areas should receive a minimum downstream speed of 10Mbs and businesses in rural areas 2Mbs. This will be very welcome to both farmers and rural householders.
Posted by Admin on September 15, 2009 – 4:32 pm
A major shake up in the mobile phone industry is expected after Orange and T-Mobile agreed to a merger. The new company will have 28.4 million customers and almost a 40 % share of the market. The 2 companies are currently the third and fourth largest in the market but they will take the lead over O2’s 27% .
Analysts say that this deal could trigger off further similar deals especially with smaller companies. Vodafone and BT were mentioned but this was dismissed. Other experts are worried that there could be less incentive to offer good deals. However Tom Alexander from Orange and Richard Moat from T-Mobile are insisting that any savings will be passed onto customers. They are confident that the merger will not see any price increases and will benefit consumers with a better quality service and an improved network coverage.
Richard Moat will be the chief operating officer in the new company, while Tom Alexander will become the new chief executive. Moat has admitted that job losses are inevitable but the two brands will continue to operate seperately for at least 18 months. The deal will mean fewer phone masts . The deal is expected to generate savings of £3.5 billion and should be finalised by the end of October.
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 10, 2009 – 2:19 pm
BT is offering a free I- plate broadband speed booster to its BT Total Broadband customers. ( £1.20 postage and packing).The I- plate is available to non BT customers for around £7.
The I- plate replaces your ADSL filter. BT say that it filters out interference to your broadband service caused by electrical appliances and lightening. In tests BT found that broadband lines fitted with an I- plate had a speed increase of up to 1.5Mbps. It is hoped that the I- plate will boost speeds for people who are too far from their local exchange or anyone struggling to get a reliable, fast speed.
The I- plate will not improve broadband speeds for everyone but BT estimate that about 9 million households could benefit ftrom using the filter.
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 13, 2009 – 3:40 pm
The Government is planning to impose 50 pence per month broadband tax on every household with a fixed line telephone to fund broadband installation to rural properties.
Some experts believe that Gordon Browns idea of broadband for all is just not achievable while others think that the tax will help to provide fast networks to most homes within a decade.
BT plans to upgrade 40% of UK homes to FTTC by 2012 (Fibre to the cabinet Technology) but this will not include difficult to reach rural areas.
Virgin Media plans to upgrade to speeds of 50Mbps. Virgin supplies broadband to 50% of urban and suburban homes.
It is estimated that the Government will raise about £170 million per year with the £6 per year tax although it is expected that some people will give up their lines to avoid the tax. Some experts think the tax may not be enough because it will be expensive to provide broadband to homes miles away from existing networks.
Gordon Brown has said that broadband is as essential as water, electricity and gas and the Government has earmarked £200 million to roll out broadband at speeds of 2Mbps to approx 2.5m homes who currently do not have access.
He believes that the Digital Britain report could make the UK the broadband world leader. However the final decisions will not be made for some time and we may have a new Government by then.
Posted by Admin on July 10, 2009 – 4:49 pm
The Digital Britain Report, which is due out today, should set out the Governments plans for broadband for the future decade. It is expected that the report will make a commitment to getting a minimum of 2 mbps broadband to every home in the UK by 2012.
However statistics show that 43% of adults who currently do not have Internet access would not want it even if they were given a free computer and broadband connection.
Many in this group tended to be retired or older and had never used a computer others said the reason for their lack of interest was financial or simply lack of skills.
Although the research which was carried out by Ofcom found that one in five adults who currently do not have the internet plan to go online within the next 6 months.
30% of the population, which is 1.7 million UK homes, are currently offline.
An Ofcom spokesperson said ‘ Broadband is becoming increasingly important to peoples ability to participate in the economy and society. The report shows that some creativity will be required if we wish to capture the imaginations of those who have yet to engage with the benefits the internet can bring.’
Ofcom estimates that 70% of people in the UK have access to the Internet. 65% of these have broadband with 2% using dial up and 3% using mobile broadband. Read More »
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.
