A busy week for line rentals, Be Broadband have also announced their prices for their own landline service. Prices should start at ?9.50 for a completely basic landline designed for people who only use a land line for their broadband service. Be also provide an evening and weekends package for ?10.50 and an anytime package for ?13.50 which includes 600 minutes of free calls to 20 other countries. These prices mark out the service as being considerably cheaper than standard BT line rental.

A new promotion from Orange UK allows customers to take up their Home Max ADSL package for free for the first three months. The package comes with line rental and free evening and weekend calls for an extra ?10.50 a month. The deal comes with a free wireless router, mail and security software, but is on an 18 month contract, so may only be worth considering if you?re planning on staying put for some time!

Finally, despite kicking up a massive fuss about the now scrapped line tax that would have seen more than 50p added to the bills of everyone with a phone line, Talk Talk are rising the prices for their phone rental service by nearly the exact same amount; 55p. The company has spoken out multiple times against such a rise in prices when proposed by the government, suggested that over 100,000 of the lowest income homes could lose their net connections if such a tax was passed.

Obviously the survey is quite skewed by the fact it was conducted on a site where many readers could be considered more tech savvy than the average broadband consumer, with the vast majority reporting to be aware of both their advertised speed and the speeds they are currently achieving from their connections. However, they still signify that many people know the difference between the two ?speeds? ? a gap which has been getting increasingly larger in the last few years.

As we?ve seen from many other polls of this type, over 50 per cent of respondents weren?t happy with their broadband speed. How much of that has to do with a difference between perceived speed and advertised speed is unknown, but with the average advertised speed currently sitting at over 11 Mbps and the UK average at a much more muted 5.2 Mbps, it wouldn?t be surprising that the gap contributes to the overall ?bad feeling? about broadband in the country.

Over the last few years many net packages have increased their maximum speed by more than double what they used to offer, but without any upgrade in the actual phone lines that are being used for ADSL services the actual speed consumers receive hasn?t changed my nearly as much. Cable services, which use fibre optic cable, don?t have the same problem and in general advertised speeds aren?t far off from what the consumer ends up receiving.

Of course, Ofcom?s efforts are about bringing that expectation down rather than actually focusing on improving the network and bringing those advertised speeds closer to reality.

The announcement was made as broadband ISP InmarSat signed a contract with Boeing for three of the new satellites.

It?s going to be a while before the service will be available however. The satellites will be part of a new installation called Inmarsat-5 (I-5) which will be put into orbit during 2014 as part of an entirely new telecommunications network. The projects development has so far cost nearly ?750 million to produce.

Andrew Sukawaty, Chairman of Inmarsat commented:

?This is a new investment for growth. With the Global Xpress network, we will be the first operator to offer global broadband coverage, offering unparalleled speeds and bandwidth to customers in remote locations around the world.

Global Xpress will be faster and less expensive than current Ku-band market offerings, it will be delivered to smaller and cheaper terminals and be the first offered on a seamless, global, end-to-end basis with high-quality of service. Picture 50Mpbs services to a ship or aircraft, and 10Mpbs to an antenna the size of an iPad (20cm).?

Previously InmarSat had only run a small scale service that offered speeds no greater than 0.5 Mbps, so this move is massive step up for the company. For those of us that don?t spend all that much time on cruises and airplanes though, another communications company, Avanti Communciations, should be launching its European satellite later this year which could provide speeds of up to 8 Mbps across the entire country.

Not every provider out there is trying to deceive you and take your money, but when picking a new internet provider it certainly doesn’t hurt to be aware of just where you might find details about hidden charges.

Exit Fees

These days it’s really common to see providers taking on new customers without asking for a setup charge, in order to remain competitive. However, despite what you might think there is actually a cost that the provider has to take on when adding a new customer to their network. Normally, they recoup that cost by putting you on a contract, so when you leave early you’ll have to pay leaving fees that you would normally have paid at the start of your contract.
Leaving before the end of a contract can be very tricky and should only be done as a last possible resort. The ISP is completely within their legal rights to ask for all the money for the remainder of your subscription. There are ways to appeal this however, and if you can prove the service was bad and complain through Ofcom, you could get out of a tricky contract much easier.

Non-Direct Debit and other billing Charges

Like many other services, broadband providers may charge you for paying your bill through a service other than direct debit. The charge should exist purely to allow providers to cover the cost of dealing with whatever payment you normally use, but in reality this isn’t always the case. You could find yourself having to pay as much as £3 per month more than the advertised price if you don’t want to use direct debit. On a 12 year contract, that’s a hefty £36 extra to pay the way you want.

In addition, you might find that trying to get a paper bill rather than online copy could set you back another £1 – £2 a month. Ofcom recommends not paying more than £1.50 for this service, but many providers charge more. Shop around and you will find some that provide this as standard, however.

Premium Tech Support

The price of technical support should always be factored into any broadband service. There’s a high chance that something will go wrong with your provider within a normal 12 month contract, and even the most tech savvy user won’t be able to fix a problem if it’s being caused by the phone line itself, or the exchange. Technical support for an internet connection can mean calls lasting up to an hour, so checking out the price of those phone lines is crucial.
Some providers charge up to £1 a minute for technical support, while others offer it free of charge. It’s normally worth it to spend a little bit more on a provider and get the cheaper tech support than risking it and hope you won’t have to pay out. Think of it as insurance.

Other Problems

These are the main ‘traps’ that consumers fall into, but there are more. Telephone fault charges from BT, charges for sending out a ‘free’ router or charges for sending one back at the end of your contract. Then there’s late payment, VAT, extra data usage… it’s vital that you check up on the small print and do your research when choosing a provider. It could save you a ton of money later!

Fair Usage

A Fair Usage Policy (FUP) can normally be found buried within the terms & conditions on a provider’s website or advertising material. You know the pages and pages of legal text that you just click through? Somewhere in there will be a clause that states that once a customer reaches an unspecified amount of usage that the provider deems unacceptable, that provider can then take action against that user.

Exactly what that action might be can vary. Most ISPs will notify a customer first and ask them to curb their usage, usually by writing. After that, punishment for heavy usage could be anything from applying extra charges to an account or slow down speeds for that customer so they can’t download as much as they did before.

This can be a very tricky situation for a consumer because each provider has their own idea of what ‘fair’ is. Some ISPs are well known for never acting on their fair usage policy at all, while others are likely to start reducing the speed of their customers very quickly. It can be hugely limiting for people who are expecting unlimited broadband to suddenly be told they need to stop downloading or curb their internet habits.

Several consumer groups are calling for FUPs to be more transparent and explain more to the consumer. They are also calling for providers that heavily employ their fair usage policy to be banned from using the word ‘unlimited’ in their adverts altogether.

Traffic Management

Traffic management is the other way providers get around offering unlimited broadband to consumers. It’s not quite the same as an FUP though. Traffic management normally occurs during peak times when a lot of people are connected to the internet at once. In order for a provider to keep up a decent level of service to every subscriber, everybody becomes limited to a certain speed for a short period of time.

While it can be just as frustrating as Fair Usage policy, traffic management is usually on a temporary measure, although it’s often a regular one. For example, many providers will employ traffic shaping every day between about 5pm-10pm in the evening, which are the busiest times for UK providers.

Details about traffic shaping can also be difficult to find, but unlike FUPs when you do find a providers traffic management policy it’s very likely it will have specific details about when it will be slowing the net down and when it will be speeding it back up again. Most providers that use a regular traffic management service turn it off after midnight.

How to Avoid Being Trapped

Giving a list of ‘good’ providers in this article would be useless, as providers change their methods and policies quite often. This means that the only way to avoid being stuck with a provider that reduces your speed is to do your research first. Comparison sites and other blogs and news websites normally have a way for you to find out how much traffic shaping goes on within an ISP, and many sites also have reports from users, as well.

Of course, if you’re only a very light internet user who doesn’t download files often, you may not have to worry so much about traffic shaping or FUPs. Don’t think that being a light user means you won’t be affected at all though – some of the biggest ISPs in the UK throttle the net so much that even using YouTube during peak times can be difficult, so you should always be mindful of these tactics when choosing a new provider.

It’s certainly a much more forward looking document than anything we’ve seen come out of the UK government for some time, and rather than attempting to just get its citizens connected, the strategy hopes to get them connected at a very good speed; one that will still prove useful years down the line.

Normally UK schemes focus on connectability rather than future proofing, with the now delayed USC only ever promising 2 Mbps, slow by today’s standards and possibly completed outdated for most UK net users by 2015. The reports suggests that the average user will be using about 10 Mbps by 2012, and suggests that any attempt to seek high speed broadband in the area should aim for at least 20 Mbps by 2017.

Speaking to the Southern Reporter, Jeremy Purvis said:

“It is totally unacceptable and extremely bad for the economy if almost half the entire population of the region would be excluded from the higher broadband speeds up to 2017.

The meeting by the UK Government and operators (last week) is a positive move and I am also making contact with them about a combined effort to put forward a market-led solution for delivery. That should be used as the basis to lobby the government for specific support for the region.”

Of course, announcing a plan and writing a strategy is one thing; actually putting the plan into action is quite another. The plan suggests helping homes rewire their telephone cables to get better speeds, supporting a more widespread and efficient mobile broadband network and extending free Wi-Fi networks.

The ISPs themselves have remained anonymous, but it’s pretty likely from previous opposition to the act that one of the providers is TalkTalk, and the other may be BT. Anonymous spokespersons from various ISP told the BBC of the problems they are facing in sending out such a huge amount of letters:

“It’s a monster thing to do, to write to hundreds of thousands of people. Some will move to another network, there might be thousands of appeals.”

“Will they have to secure their wireless networks, or sit over their children’s shoulders making sure they’re not being naughty, or perhaps stop using perfectly legal peer-to-peer services like Spotify? It’s a dog’s breakfast.”

Indeed these letter figures don’t seem all that exaggerated, especially when you consider that the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) is suggest that there are between 6 and 7 million people in the UK who regularly engage in illegal filesharing. However, the BBC have suggested these figures could easily be wrong.

Last year the BPI sent BT over 20,000 cases of file sharing, but only a small percentage of those were actually potentially valid cases. Many proved to be duplicated, unmatched with a proper address or non BT addresses, so it’s not hard to imagine the BPI aren’t being that rigid with their data collection in this case.

Either way sending out this many letters is going to be a massive undertaking for any provider, and for many this won’t be the end of correspondence either, as others warning letters will have to be sent before any further action can take place. The government and record industry are hoping that a large volume of letters will be enough to stop people from filesharing.

Currently, Ofcom take into account ongoing costs related with the pension service, but not the actual deficit itself, so this is great news for providers and has saves a hike in costs for everyone else, too.

However, it’s not great news for BT, who are facing a massive deficit which has been caused by employees taking out more cash than they are paying in. A recovery plan has been put in place which may help to clear the problem out within the next five years, providing it doesn’t get any worse, but time will tell in the effectiveness of this plan.

Of course the money might find its way from the public in to BT through some channels anyway, considering that the previous conservative government had promised to help support the operator when they became privatised nearly twenty years ago. BT have issues a legal challenge to try and get some assistance from the government.

Of course given the current economic climate and the amount of spending cuts going on right now, it certainly won’t be an easy ride for the company, which has seen threats of strike action and spending of over £2 billion for the next generation broadband rollout. A statement on the BT situations is expected before the end of the year but until then, it seems consumers have avoided having to pay extra for their internet connection.

The USA and Japan will be rolling out the technology on their networks before the end of the year, thanks to telecommunications networks Verizon and DoComMo, respectively. The UK is ever so slightly behind that schedule with rollouts being made on the O2 network due to start by the end of 2010 and continue into early 2011. It’s worth noting that rolling out the technology does not mean that the devices will be in the hands of consumers straight away, though Verizon plan to get the technology out to Americans by May next year.

LTE can manage about 1 Gbps speeds in total, but before you get too excited these lines are likely to be shared by many people, and speeds of 8 – 36 are much more likely. Of course, even 8 mbps would be many times what many people who currently use mobile broadband are experiencing on mobile broadband. There’s also the risk that mobile broadband providers will take this news technology and use it to overcrowd existing lines meaning more of a profit margin for them, but no big speed increase for the users.

Bhavya Khanna, an ABI Research analyst said:

“Don’t expect [LTE alternative] WiMAX to bow out just yet. Despite setbacks including Russia’s Yota switching to LTE, 188 WiMAX networks are now in trial or commercial operation worldwide. With India’s wireless broadband spectrum auction recently concluded, expect that number to grow in 2011.

Clearwire, a WiMAX service provider in the United States, continues to build out its network and add subscribers, buoyed by the launch of a popular WiMAX-capable handset, the HTC EVO 4G.”

Something not quite as prestigious was the Internet Villain Award, which was this year scooped by Lord Peter Mandelson for his role in the Digital Economy Bill; a change to piracy law in the UK – amongst other things – that the industry has been near universally opposed to in its current form. Mandelson won over heavy handed copyright infringement law firm ACS Law and the UK Parliament for passing the Digital Economy bill “without proper debate”.

Meanwhile Labour MP Tom Watson won the Internet Hero award for his opposition to – yes, you guessed it – the Digital Economy Act. Watson won over both Bridget Fox and the 38 Degrees Campaign, both of whom were also in the running thanks to their vocal dislike of the Digital Economy Act.

Other winners include Namesco (Best Shared Hosting), NewNet (Best Dedicated Hosting), Gradwell (Best Internet Telephony), Clara.net (Best Business Customer Service and Best Fixed Business Broadband), PlusNet (Best Consumer Customer Service), Cybermoor (Access Innovation Award), Childnet (Internet Safety Award), Bolton Literacy Trust (Digital Inclusion Award) and Orange (CSR Award).

The ISPAs have been running since 1999, and aim to celebrate best practice and innovation in the industry every year. It runs both ISP and Special Awards, and is attended by senior decision makers, government representatives and the mainstream media.

If your ISP wasn’t on the list this year, you could always switch over if you’ve already come to the end of your fixed line contract. Moving providers and obtaining MAC codes has never been easier, and it may well save you money, too.