Orange is offering half price broadband.
The Orange Broadband Starter package is £7.49 per month for the first 3 months. The normal price is £14.99. Orange Broadband Starter includes 2Mb broadband with a 2GB cap.
The Orange Broadband Unlimited is £9.99 per month for the first 3 months. The normal price is £19.99. Orange Broadband Unlimited includes 8Mb Unlimited broadband.
Orange Broadband Starter is 4th on the broadband best deals list
Tiscali broadband is now £7.99 for the first 3 months and £12.99 there after. You will get a 1Mb Unlimited connection and free weekend calls.
This Tiscali deal is 3rd on our list of best broadband deals.
In an interesting twist in the negotiations between Carphone Warehouse and Orange, Carphone has reportedly agreed to offer Orange’s free broadband to some customers. This is despite the fact that Carphone Warehouse’s own broadband brand, TalkTalk, also has a free broadband package that is offered in store.
If you want super fast broadband, then look no further than Be. They offer the fastest broadband download speeds in the UK at 24 Mb. Be Lite is available with a 1Gb download cap for £14 per month. Be Unlimited is available with unlimited downloads for £24 per month. There is a £24 connection charge for both products.
For a limited period, we are able to bring you a special offer with no connection charge, saving you £24. Just type promotion code FREE when placing your order. Offer ends March 31st.
Tiscali have launched a stellar deal: 1MB unlimited broadband and free weekend calls to UK landlines for just £9.99 for the first 3 months and £12.99 per month there after.
That is a great deal for anyone who is interested in unlimited broadband and weekend calls. 1MB is not the fastest speed on the market, but it fine for the average user. And being unlimited means that you do not have to worry about how much you download.
BT has improved the download limit on all three of its broadband products.
BT Broadband Option 1 now has a download limit of 5GB per month (was 2GB per month). BT Broadband Option 2 now has a download limit of 8GB per month (was 6GB per month). BT Broadband Option 3 now has unlimited downloads (was 40GB per month).
BT Group is set to connect its 10 millionth UK household by the end of this week, as strong broadband uptake continues in the UK.
Most of those households are customers of providers other than BT Retail, like Pipex, AOL and Virgin, who are themselves customers of BT Wholesale. BT Retail has about 3 million customers.
It seems that Britain’s love affair with broadband has not dampened. 69% of internet connections are now via broadband.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Ofcom announced that broadband providers will be forced to issue a Migrations Authorsiation Code (MAC) to customers who want to switch providers, in a move to make switching providers easier. A Migration Authorisation Code from your current provider is required to switch to a new provider. You must obtain the number from your current broadband provider and give it to the new one before you can switch providers. Currently, broadband providers can voluntarily follow this process, but they do not have to.
More than 75% of internet connections are now broadband connections. Competition is fierce and many customers capitalise on this by switching providers to lower cost deals. Some broadband providers attempt to block customers leaving by refusing to issue, or delaying, the MAC code.
This move by Ofcom should make switching broadband providers easier. This is always good news, as healthy competition and ease of transfer is the best way to ensure prices continue to fall.
BT has made a cash offer of £67 million to buy broadband provider Plusnet. If accepted, Plusnet will remain as a separate brand. Plusnet has over 200,000 broadband customers.
This is yet another example of a rapidly consolidating market with bigger providers continuing to swallow up smaller ones.