2006 Broadband, Mobile, Home Phone and Digital TV round up
It is the last day of the year and what a year it has been for the broadband, home phone, digital TV and mobile markets.
Broadband
2006 was the year the free broadband was born and totally revolutionised the industry. In April, TalkTalk were the consumer champions, entering into a brave new world of “free broadband forever”. Now they are the villains, with massive customer service and connection issues. Orange has also suffered similar problems with their free broadband service. Have they tainted the reputation of free broadband? Well, in 2007 consumers will no doubt be very suspicious of free broadband offerings from TalkTalk, Orange and Sky. Many people are already opting to turn their backs on free broadband and instead choosing to pay for a service that is more reliable. Over time, free broadband will recover as providers sort out the problems with the service.
Home Phone
The days of home phone providers being called “Telco’s” and broadband providers being called “ISP’s” are gone. 2006 was the year in which the two became interchangeable. “Convergence” was the new industry buzzword. Home phone providers moved into broadband if they hadn’t already and ISP’s offered home phone and broadband bundled together.
BT finally became slightly competitive with price controls being lifted by the industry regulator, Ofcom. You are still better off to use an alternative provider though.
Digital TV
The UK’s biggest Digital TV provider moved into broadband with its free broadband offering to Sky Digital customer.
Awareness “digital switch over” increased with more noise being made by Ofcom, DigitalUK and providers like Sky, Telewest and ntl.
Mobile Phone
Naturally, advances in mobile technology continued. 3 mega pixel camera phones became the new threshold that aspiring manufacturers had to reach, with Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia leading the pack.
Cash back deals from mobile retailers became common place with retailers giving money back to customers as long as they send in their mobile bills at designated times.
Convergence with broadband extended to mobile operators with Orange entering the free broadband club (following the rebrading of Wanadoo as Orange Broadband), Virgin Mobile merging with ntl/Telewest, O2 buying broadband provider Be and Vodafone developing its broadband product. T-Mobile is also rumoured to be entering the broadband market soon.
2007 Predictions
In 2007 we are likely to see the big players like Virgin, Orange, TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT will battle it out of market share. We are likely to see even more consolidation in all markets with these bigger providers buying up the smaller providers. Smaller providers will simply not survive in this cutthroat world.
Convergence will continue with companies offering the triple play products of broadband, home phone and digital TV or broadband, home phone and mobile.
The newly merged Virgin Mobile, ntl and Telewest will be determined to gain some dominance in the market with its quad play offering of broadband, home phone, digital TV and mobile.
It will certainly be an exciting year ahead, and we are likely to see more stellar deals!
Happy New Year