UK Cheap Broadband - Broadband News Podcast

Virgin Media’s new broadband deals feature a £40 credit offer for customers who sign up online.

Keiran — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:42:49 +0000

Home broadband

Customers who sign up for Virgin’s 30Mb Broadband & Phone package will be able to receive superfast broadband in any area of the home, through fibre optic technology, and will also receive Virgin’s £60 Super Hub wireless router, which offers the greatest reliability of any Virgin internet connection to date. More detail is available on Virgin’s website here.
There are no caps or hidden charges on how much Virgin customers can download, which means that, from downloading music, videos and photos to streaming films, customers can do so without limitations.

For broadband users, Virgin Media Security and Identity + is also included, which is designed to offer protection to PCs and vitally important personal information.

Free installation is offered to customers who sign up to the Broadband & Home package deal online (this normally costs £49.95), who will be able to carry on using their old broadband before the fibre optic service is usable.

Also offered to customers who sign up to the Broadband & Home package is Talk weekends. This service can be used to make unlimited weekend phone calls in the UK to both landlines and Virgin mobile numbers.

Those customers signing up to the deal online will have to pay only £4 for 8 months, followed by £14.50 a month from then on. A monthly £14,99 line rental fee is payable from the beginning of the contract. £40 in credit will be awarded to the customers who sign up online.

An even faster broadband service is available through Virgin’s 60Mb Broadband & Phone package. This package includes the same benefits as the 30Mb package, but includes download speeds that are faster.

Those signing up online will be given a wireless router free, while the £40 credit will go towards paying off future bills that are in the customer’s Virgin Media account.

The 60Mb Broadband & Phone package also includes unlimited weekend calls to landlines and Virgin mobile numbers that are in the UK. This deal begins with £5 a month due for the first 6 months, followed by £10.50 a month from then on. The line rental monthly payment is due from the beginning of the contract, and is £14.99 a month.

eBay Seller Threatens to Shoot Aleksandr Meerkat Toy.

broad — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:17:39 +0000

It is well known that a leading car insurance website gives cute cuddly toys away free when people take out car insurance via their compare service. The toys are often sought after, and are not available in retail stores.

It is not unusual for Meerkat (Aleksandr or otherwise) toys to be found for sale on eBay either, however in a strange twist, one eBay seller has stated that unless the toy sells, he will have no choice but to shoot it!

The eBayer goes on to explain the Meerkat is just a toy, and that no animals will be harmed in the process of shooting the Meerkat toy, however perhaps this is still a clever marketing tactic for the eBay’er to use.

It is well known in Marketing circles that emotion seller. Everyone from companies marketing chocolate to life insurance use similar tactics… Life insurance sellers play on the emotional response that is created by saying things like ‘what will happen to your family when you are gone’… Chocolate sellers play on things like indulging yourself, and taking time out to ‘relax’ and be still.

It is rare to see such marketing techniques applied to eBay listings for cuddly toys though, and it will be interesting to see if the tactic works, and if people bid to try to save the Meerkat!

Charity

It should also be mentioned that the eBay seller has stated that if the listing goes over £50, then they will donate the amount over that figure to a charity of the buyers choice (minus a 3% fee).
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Broadband Deals and Quick News

Francis — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:20:11 +0000

Zen Broadband has followed many other providers in the UK in offering their own phone line rental alongside their broadband service. The service will offer two packages called Home Talk for ?10.99 a month and Business Talk for ?13.49 a month. Unfortunately the service doesn?t come with any new package deals from the provider. However, it?s worth noting that the service can be had on a 1 month rental contract, which may appeal to people who don?t want to be held down the more usual 12 or 18 month contracts.

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.Tweet

Most Britons know all about their net speeds? and they aren?t happy

broad — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:19:48 +0000

With Ofcom continuing its investigation into how broadband providers should be selling connections and the differences between actual speed and what?s advertised, there?s been an assumption that many UK net users don?t actually know the difference about the two speeds, or that they aren?t even aware of the advertised speed of their connections. New figures released this week from an ISPreview poll have found this assumption to be untrue however, with over 500 respondents suggesting that the vast majority of people are aware of the speeds they are receiving.

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.Tweet

50 Mbps Satellite to be provided to Cruise Ships and Airliners

Francis — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:19:39 +0000

Some people in the UK might be struggling to achieve even 2 Mbps broadband speeds from their fixed line connections, but many people travelling across the world on planes and ships may soon be able to enjoy speeds of up to 50 Mbps thanks to the new range of Ka-Band satellites built to provide super fast internet to travellers.

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.Tweet

How to Avoid Hidden Broadband Charges, Compare Your Options

broad — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:31:12 +0000

Despite several different laws being passed over the last 10 years or so, there’s still a lot of confusion in the broadband market. The increased competition has led to many ISPs trying to make their ‘advertised’ price as low as possible, while trying to make any other charges involved vanish into a lengthy terms and conditions contract that they hope nobody will read.

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!
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The Truth about Cheap Unlimited Broadband

broad — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:27:52 +0000

How much of broadband in the UK is really unlimited, and exactly how can you tell if you’re going to get an unlimited service when you’re looking for a new internet provider? This article takes a look at how many UK providers stretch out the word ‘unlimited’ to mean whatever they want, and what you can do to avoid it.

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.
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Scottish Borders Region could be ‘most connected’ by 2020

Francis — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:59:51 +0000

Jeremy Purvis, MSP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale has been promoting his action plan for the area entitled “A digital strategy for the Borders”, which aims to make the region one of the best connected parts of the entire country, boasting to make it the most connected rural region in Scotland by 2015 and in the whole of the UK by 2020.

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.Tweet

“Hundreds of thousands” could face letters about file sharing

Francis — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:59:55 +0000

Rory Cellan-Jones has reported that two of the biggest internet providers in the country have warned net regulator Ofcom that they expect to issue “hundreds of thousands” of letters warning users about their copyright infringements online every single month. These letters will be sent out to those who are suspected of engaging in illegal file sharing online after becoming a fundamental requirement of the Digital Economy Act.

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.Tweet

Wholesale Broadband won’t be linked with BT Pensions, Says Ofcom

Francis — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:59:38 +0000

It has been decided by Ofcom that BT’s £9 billion deficit on pensions won’t be taken into account when they are decided the regulated charges for wholesale broadband for providers. Had Ofcom moved in the other direction, we could have seen a rise in the cost of renting out the service to providers; a cost that would almost certainly have been passed straight onto the consumer.

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.Tweet