We’ve just heard that TalkTalk is to replace its offer of free M&S vouchers with an offer of free connection. The £30 M&S voucher deal was originally thought to run up until this Thursday the 3rd of December, in order for the vouchers to be able to arrive in time for Christmas.
TalkTalk connection usually costs £29.99 and so customers hoping on signing up for the vouchers can at least save an equivalent amount by avoiding paying for connection. It is not yet known if the offer of free connection will last until the 3rd of December, or the rest of the year or will continue indefinitely. We’ve contacted TalkTalk for more info but have not yet heard back. We’ll update this post as and when we hear things.
Update: We’ve just seen over on the TalkTalk site that the offer of free connection on the TalkTalk Essentials and Pro packages is runs until the 15th of Decemeber, exactly two weeks time.
First it was PlusNet now it’s Be Broadband offering customers credit for spreading the word.
If you’re a Be Broadband customer and you’ve got the love, then you can earn a bit of extra cash by putting the word about. From now until December the 31st, you can earn £30 for every friend you get to sign up for Be Broadband.
You can invite up to 7 friends which means total earnings from now until the end of 2009 work our at £210, or enough to pay for Be Unlimited for a whole year.
This Christmas you might wake up to find a different kind of Orange in your stocking. Orange is bringing two new laptops to the broadband bundle, the Asus 1005HGO and the Compaq CQ61 laptops.
These machines are available now on 18 or 24 month Orange mobile broadband tariffs, are compact and lightweight and both come with Windows 7 installed.
The Asus laptop is the lower-specced of the two and is ideal as a notebook for workers and students who travel a lot and want to be able to hammer out reports/dissertations on the train rides in between meeting/lectures.
Be Broadband is the latest ISP to publicly distance itself from the Digital Economy Bill and the anti-piracy measures suggested within. Be Broadband is concerned that the proposals are “open to errors,” and that there is a “risk that innocent customers could be penalised.”
Be Broadband lists a number of potential scenarios which highlight the problems posed by the bill.
Internet cafes, pubs and coffee shops which offer Wi-Fi (such as Starbucks) “would find the time or cost burden unworkable.” An entire household of people living in shared accommodation – students for example – could see themselves disconnected over the actions of just one housemate.
A wireless connection could be hijacked if the router was hacked into or left unsecured, allowing a third party to illegally download thousands of files for which the owner would take the rap.
Like many critics of the bill, Be Broadband is worried about the apparent “lack of technical understanding” and points to a more creative approach to combat illegal downloading.
Earlier this year it was suggested that the rise in popularity of sites and applications such as Spotify, YouTube and Last.fm had helped cut illegal downloading over the last two years.
The gloves are now off. Andrew Heaney of TalkTalk has posted a petition at petitions.number10.gov.uk, calling for an urgent reconsideration of the so-called ‘Pirate Finder General’ legislation proposed by current Secretary of State Peter Mandelson. The petition reads:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abolish the
proposed law that will see alleged illegal filesharers
disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair
trial.
The proposed laws see the Government attempting to clamp down on illegal filesharing. Under the proposals announced in the Digital Economy Bill, ISPs such as TalkTalk would have to forward warning letters from copyright holders to subscribers suspected of illegal filesharing and that a list of warnings received by each subscriber be maintained.
Allergy Warning: This article may contain traces of pun.
Over the next two weeks, Eclipse Internet is giving away up to £100 worth of high street gift vouchers as part of a cracking Christmas deal. New customers who place an order from today Monday the 23rd of November to the 14th of December will be able to qualify for free vouchers.
The vouchers are from giftvouchershop.co.uk can be redeemed in over 60 high street retailers including Argos, Burtons, Currys, Toys R Us and WH Smith.
Customers who sign up for Eclipse Home Select (£17.95 p/m, up to 24Mbps, 10GB download limit) will earn £30 worth of vouchers whilst those who take out Eclipse Home Pro (£29.95 p/m, up to 24Mbps, 50GB download limit) will get £50.
From now until the 3rd of December, customers who sign up for either TalkTalk Essentials or TalkTalk Pro will qualify for £30 worth of M&S vouchers.
This should see you saving a few pennies on the Buck’s Fizz and salmon canapes or whatever you want to put on for your Christmas Day spread.
The vouchers are sent within 28 days of your TalkTalk broadband package going live, so if you don’t receive them by Christmas then they will almost certainly arrive in time for the January sales.
Research company YouGov rated Orange’s Mobile Broadband packages the best in terms of ‘overall quality’ and ‘value for money’ in their recent Dongle Tracker survey.
In addition it was also rated highly in nine out of 15 categories, including ease of use and overall network coverage.
These results are yet another feather in Orange’s cap. Orange has recently acquired carriage rights for the Apple iPhone, breaking rival broadband provider and mobile network operator O2‘s long-held monopoly on the device.
PlusNet is currently offering customers new phone line installations for a real snip – £49.99. In a post on PlusNet’s Community blogs the broadband provider revealed that new customers who place an order for a new line before the 31st of January next year can get it for just £49.99, reportedly less than half of the wholesale cost.
As PlusNet’s Home Phone service has no contract (new BT lines are subject to an 18 month contract), this is ideal for students or people renting who want to get a new line installed but won’t necessarily be living at the same address for long.
The offer of a new line for less than £50 was originally due to end on the 30th of this month but PlusNet has decided to extend the offer right into the new year. PlusNet is also offering a referral scheme, which sees you earning a 25p discount on your monthly broadband bill for every new customer you recommend. This doubles to 50p per month if your referrals sign up for the PlusNet Premium.
Want Pro broadband but don’t want to fork out a City Trader’s salary each month for the privilege? TalkTalk has just launched it’s new premium Pro broadband package which promises top speeds of 24Mbps and unlimited downloads and is being billed as one of the more cost-effective high performance broadband packages going.
TalkTalk Pro costs just £14.99 a month plus £11.25 for TalkTalk line rental and £29.99 for the one-off connection fee.
The TalkTalk Pro package also includes a free wireless router with N technology for improved wireless signal range and strength. Unlimited anytime calls to 01, 02 and 03 UK landlines are also included in TalkTalk Pro.
ADSL Broadband
Wireless Broadband
Unlimited Broadband
Student Broadband
Laptop Broadband
First it was 
This isn’t just a TalkTalk Broadband promotion… this is an 
Orange Mobile Broadband
Want Pro broadband but don’t want to fork out a City Trader’s salary each month for the privilege? 