2009 May 
TalkTalk has just launched its new Home Mover service, which will see those moving home into a non-cable able to bypass the usual route of having to sign up with BT first before switching providers. As TalkTalk is now taking on the cost of providing a service at the new property, the consumer will be able to avoid shelling out for the process, which usually costs around £120.
Instead, existing TalkTalk customers would pay £29.99 to have their service moved to a new address – the same amount as the normal connection fee for TalkTalk broadband. New customers would have to stump up £59.99 for the process and sign up for TalkTalk broadband for 18 months.
Moving house is a pretty stressful affair already. Wendy Becker, MD of TalkTalk pointed out: “Customers have more than enough to worry about when moving home, so we’re pleased to be able to take the hassle – and a lot of the cost – out of the process of getting your home phone and broadband up and running.”
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Posted by Tom on May 28th 2009 in BT Broadband, TalkTalk
What is a hot spot not? A recent study by leading independent broadband research website SamKnows reveals that millions of UK consumers are living in broadband ‘not spots’ – areas where download speeds don’t even come close to 2Mbps.
What’s surprising about the report is that many of these not spots can be found in built up suburban areas as well as in remote rural regions. “We had assumed that these not spots were in remote parts of the countryside. That may be where the most vocal campaigners are but there is a high incidence of them in commuter belts,” says SamKnows co-founder Alex Salter.
The general rule of thumb with broadband (specifically ADSL, the type delivered over phone lines) is that the further away you are from a telephone exchange, the slower the speed gets. Naturally its fair to assume that if you live in a built up area, then you’re almost guaranteed a semi-decent level of service – this recent survey however has proven that this isn’t always the case.
What the survey reveals is that any residence more than 4 kilometers from an exchange sees the speed dropping below 2Mbps.
This is the case in Basingstoke in Hampshire; a built up commuter belt with direct rail access to London, but one where 50 per cent of the population cannot get speeds greater than 2Mbps because their homes are some 6km away from the nearest exchange.
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Posted by Tom on May 27th 2009 in Next Gen Broadband
Orange have pulled out of plans to buy up the catch-up TV service that went by the working titled of Project Kangaroo. France Telecom, Orange’s parent company had this to say in the following statement:
“We can confirm that we are not pursuing our interest in the catch-up TV service Kangaroo. After in-depth due diligence, we concluded that it was unlikely that an outcome which benefited France Telecom’s Orange operations would be met.”
The ill-fated Project Kangaroo is a collaboration between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 and was conceived as a kind of merger of the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and 4oD video on demand platforms. First of all it was blocked from going ahead by the Competition Commission, which ruled that it would be too much of a threat to competition in the IPTV market, currently only occupied by BT Vision and Tiscali TV.
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Posted by Tom on May 21st 2009 in BT Broadband, IPTV, Orange Broadband, Tiscali
After both BT and Virgin Media have been busy making their next-gen plans public over the last few weeks, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), an independent Government body, has announced that it is spending £1 million on developing new broadband technology.
The research projects could yield technology capable of delivering speeds from 1 and 10 Gbps, or Gigabits per second, and will hopefully ensure that the UK won’t lag behind other countries in the future when it comes to broadband.
“The challenge is to identify ways to address the technical issues facing the introduction of Ultra-Fast Broadband within the next decade and to build European collaborations to exploit the technology,” said Mike Biddle, a spokesman for the TSB.
There are 13 projects currently being undertaken, all of which are concerned with different aspects of how the future of Broadband Britain might take shape. One will look at the possible technology used for Ultra Fast Broadband, and another at how best to connect homes to fibre networks.
It is thought that the final result of these projects will be an extensive roadmap which will lay out the best way for the Government to prepare for the future of broadband in the UK.
[Source: Google Earth]
Posted by Tom on May 19th 2009 in BT Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media
Virgin Media is planning to add a further half a million UK homes to its existing network, with some 50,000 homes and businesses to be added this year alone. The Virgin Media network currently covers some 12.5 million premises, which accounts for roughly 50 per cent of the UK.
Virgin Media will be initially focussing on places where ducting and infrastructure has already been set up in order to minimize costs and delays, close to or within areas already fully or partially covered by the cable network.
A Virgin Media spokesperson, quoted in DigitalSpy earlier this week, said that the move will “improve our consumer offer and lay the foundation for future growth.”
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Posted by Tom on May 19th 2009 in BT Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media
It looks as though BT is set to double the pace of its next-gen fibre optic broadband rollout, bringing up to 100Mbps broadband within reach of more than a million premises as early as next year.
In a statement following publication of the broadband market leader’s financial report for the last three months of 2008, CEO Ian Livingstone said:
“We will examine doubling the pace of the rollout of super fast broadband next year within existing capital expenditure plans, bringing fibre based services within the reach of more than a million homes and businesses and securing the jobs of a thousand BT people.”
Perhaps BT were spurred to act fast after it was announced that Virgin Media has begun trialling a 200Mbps service, and has mentioned plans to roll out a 150Mbps service to customers in 2010.
“If BT were to meet the time frame they have suggested – of finishing by 2012 – I would see us as having much, much faster upstream speed, running at a minimum of 100Mbps downstream and possibly more,” said Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett in March.
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Posted by Tom on May 19th 2009 in BT Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media
As well as offering Tiscali customers thinking of switching to Sky a free Sky+ box and £50 Credit, Sky are now giving everyone else the opportunity to qualify for free Sky+ with a Sky TV package if they switch from their current broadband provider, and take up the full line up of Sky’s services.
Normally costing you £49 when you sign up for Sky TV, the Sky+ box allows you to pause, record and rewind live TV. With Sky Active, you can also set your Sky+ box to record from your desktop at work or anywhere in the home thanks to the Remote Record service.
If you’re already with Sky and have the standard Sky Broadband Base package, then you can also benefit from upgrading to the Sky Broadband Mid and Max packages.
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Posted by Tom on May 19th 2009 in Sky Broadband, Tiscali
TalkTalk/Carphone Warehouse has released a list of FAQ’s (complete with answers) that they’ve been receiving from Tiscali customers since news of the buyout was announced a couple of weeks back. The blog post is keen to stress that, although Tiscali has accepted TalkTalk’s offer, they “don’t own Tiscali yet. We’ve had our offer accepted and, subject to EU approval, it will be signed off at the end of June.”
It turns out that the Tiscali TV service will continue to run as normal, so those of you who were worried about this service suddenly disappearing can rest easy. It also looks as though contracts signed with Tiscali before the acquisition will remain binding for their duration. Billing arrangements are also to remain the same for the time being.
TalkTalk, who are understood to have been in talks with the increasingly unpopular Phorm have also said that there are no plans to introduce Phorm’s tracking software to any of their customers, including Tiscali.
Click on the link below for the full list of questions and answers, which was first published over on the TalkTalk blog.
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Posted by Tom on May 18th 2009 in Broadband, TalkTalk, Tiscali
Despite broadband news this week being largely dominated by the Carphone Warehouse takeover of Tiscali, BT Broadband has just announced figures that reveal that it is still top dog in the UK broadband stakes.
The broadband provider BT claims that its customer base has increased to 4.8 million, keeping it head and shoulders above the competition. The Tiscali buyout saw Carphone Warehouse leapfrog Virgin Media into second place, with its customer base swelling to 4.25 million – impressive, but still not enough to pip the British Broadband crown from BT.
Today also saw the publication of Tiscali’s results for the last quarter, which saw the troubled company steadily losing subscribers right up until the deal with Carphone was done.
The figures released show that BT Vision now has 423,000 customers, up from 398,000 on the last quarter. Use of BT’s Openzone Wi-Fi minutes, amounts of which are bundled free with BT Broadband packages, has also increased by 80 per cent over the last 12 months.
Posted by Tom on May 15th 2009 in BT Broadband, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali, Virgin Media
Tiscali has just released its latest list of figures for the last quarter, which shows a steady decline in subscribers from nearly 1.76 million at the end of last year, to 1.7 million at the end of Q1 2009 (31st of March).
This news comes just a week after it was announced that TalkTalk and AOL owners Carphone Warehouse bought the UK arm of the Italian firm, which was struggling with debt repayments, for £263 million, £20 million of which went towards clearing debts, according to the press release found here (PDF).
It is thought that once the transaction is complete next month, Tiscali subscribers will be migrated to the TalkTalk network and be offered the basic TalkTalk Essentials service (8Mbps speeds, 40GB download limit, Evening & Weekend calls) as standard.
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Posted by Tom on May 15th 2009 in AOL, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk, Tiscali
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