A combined O2 /Be Broadband mobile and internet looks set to be launched sometime around September, when it is estimated that the radius of the Be network will have expanded to cover over 50% of the UK, although, again there has been no definite word from O2 on any plans.

This means that if O2 do indeed launch in September, then they could only feasibly advertise their services in selected areas in the country, or have to negotiate a deal with a wholesale provider, mostly likely BT, if they intend to supply the services across the whole of the UK. If O2 do choose to clamber into bed with BT it would make for an odd turn of events, seeing as the telco used to own the mobile network back in the BT Cellnet days.

O2 are typically reluctant to give any specific date, preferring to wait until the time is right to launch their service; Peter Erskine, Chairman of Telefonia O2 Europe’s mobile phones division has said that: “The one thing I will not do is launch something that isn’t ready, on the customer.”

O2 bought then-small UK ISP Be Broadband for a cool £50million over a year ago and had originally planned to have a multi-platform service up and running by the start of this year. However, technology problems have led to targets not being met, resulting in entire advertising campaigns being scrapped.

Given that 2006 was ‘the year of Broadband’, and the fortunes of many internet service providers has in those twelve months been turbulent, a fashionably late entry into the converged communications market may be a wise move. We’ll just have to wait until the end of the summer to find out…

Customer suspicion of Broadband with free phone calls/mobile contracts/digital TV/Faberge egg has been high since last year’s TalkTalk/Carphone Warehouse farce – now Orange, one of the more popular providers currently holding fort between tier-1 and tier-2 territory (having plateaued at around 300 unbundled lines) are breaking with the code of practice set out by ISP trade association and consumer group ISPA.

Any ISP who wishes to become a member of ISPA has to ensure that their business practices fall in line with the codes and conventions of the association, codes which are set up to ensure that disputes are resolved fairly and customers can’t be shafted.

Orange’s line is that Broadband internet should be considered by their customers to be a free addition to a mobile contract, and not the other way around. Ergo, as Orange are primarily providers of a mobile phone service and not an internet service, their codes of practice should not be regulated by an internet trade panel.

Orange have said that customers can refer any complaints to CISAS – the Communications & Internet Services Adjudication Scheme – a body which acts as an arbitrator in consumer/corporation quarrels, if an issue cannot be resolved after three months. By contrast, a disgruntled customer is free to contact the ISPA if their ISP cannot sort the problem out after 10 days.

Customers have become increasingly less enamoured by the offer of free Broadband services from providers who aren’t chiefly ISP’s. With the ability to register complaints now obscured and lengthened by this move, Orange have made the offer of their services to new customers less attractive than before.

The security of residential wireless networks in the house has been thrown into question after police have arrested two people who were caught stealing people’s bandwidth in the streets.

The two arrests, made in the same area of Worcestershire, but apparently unconnected, were made after residents spotted people sitting in parked cars using wireless-enabled laptops, to ‘piggyback’ someone else’s Broadband connection for free.

There has been much debate about this practice, also called ‘leeching’ and ‘mooching’ which has been spotted in Canada and the US. As well as stealing effectively what is someone else’s property, the implications of piggybacking are more severe than just petty bandwidth theft – a piggybacker could use a wireless network to steal bank details, or download illegal material such as music files or pornography, for which the owner of the connection could be prosecuted and fined for something they haven’t done.

Typically, piggybackers will access the wireless signal from a roadside, as glass does not impede the radiowaves in the same way that masonry and brickwork does – it is not yet known if lead-lined panes in stately homes can block the signal.

This is a problem for customers, households with multiple users in particular, who want to sign up for the obvious advantages provided by a wireless connection.

Programs specifically designed to counter drive-by piggybacking include McAfee’s Wireless Home Network Security 2006 and Zone Labs’ ZoneAlarm Wireless Security; most of these programs are compatible with the wireless routers that come with the Sky, Be, Eclipse, etc.

BT’s Home Hub and the Orange Livebox both come with their own pre-configured wireless security measures which automatically secure all connections within the radius of the signal with a login name and password set by the user – anyone trying to leech your signal from the outside will need to know these security details.

Police from the West Mercia Constabulary are reminding people to be vigilant when setting up wireless networks in their own home, and are encouraging people to purchase or set up security setting as soon as possible, lest they have their Broadband connection compromise and be used for illegal purposes for which they could see themselves getting charged for.

It appears certain that mobile phone network operator O2, who wholly own Be Broadband, plan on releasing a converged mobile/broadband service later this year – we just don’t know exactly when.

The firm have been somewhat sketchy on the details, although Matthew Key, chief executive officer of O2 UK has in the past stated that they “don’t think of broadband as just something to throw in for free. Proper broadband takes continual innovation and focus.”

With consumers becoming increasingly wary of converged services offering ‘free’ broadband, O2’s strategy if holding its cards close to its chest seems wise, for now. Key said: “Customers are rebelling against free broadband. They associate free with substandard.”

As of February this year, Be Broadband - which currently offers the fastest connections speed in the market - unbundled equipment in its 500th exchange, increasing their coverage of the country to just over a third. Key said at the time that “We are working at unbundling 200 more exchanges by June and we are already testing new technologies that will enhance the network and our speed.”

Be Broadband said it is on target to unbundle in 833 exchanges by the end of the summer, which will then mean that their network footprint will cover over 50% of the population of the UK.

If O2 decide to unveil a converged service when this target is achieved, it will put them somewhat behind Virgin Media (whose cable network currently covers 80% of the UK) and Sky, who have now unbundled in close to 900 exchanges. But faster speeds and an emphasis on a better quality of service may mean that O2/Be may emerge as a prominent player on the market by the end of the summer.

Despite enjoying a position as the 3rd largest supplier in the market, poised modestly behind Virgin Media and BT (second and first place respectively), Carphone Warehouse – the mobile phone retailer which owns AOL’s UK services and provides ‘free’ Broadband access to TalkTalk subscribers – has had something of a rough ride ever since its emergence on the ISP scene in April last year.

Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse has stated that the free Broadband fiasco had been a logistical “nightmare”, and it has been acknowledged by many that the company underestimated the demand for fast net access.

However the firm remain confident that sales will pick up. Aside for hiring hundreds of extra staff members, the mobile retailer is also preparing to restore public faith in its services by launching a home tech support service, the Geek Squad, based on the American service of the same name.

The original Geek Squad was founded by Robert Stevens of Minneapolis who paid for his college fees by fixing friends computers for cash. Dunstone, hoping to cash in on brand loyalty has proudly declared that, “Geek Squad is the Coca-Cola of tech support, and we wanted the authentic product.”

The moped-mounted Geek Squad answer home calls to help with problems such as installation, viruses, recovering lost files, and offer other educational services such as tutorials on Word and PowerPoint for those who are less than computer confident. A home call costs £99.99, which seems steep, but there is no fixed time limit, and if the problem can’t be fixed there and then, there is no charge.

The current 20 members of the Geek Squad operate in areas around the M25, but there are plans recruit more to the cause, and extend the service to all major cities in the UK within the year.

As the fastest-connection-speed Broadband battle continues, ISPs that aren’t directly affiliated with phone networks or large media companies are looking at other ways to improve the quality of their services and attract more customers. Offering help and direct human contact to customers who are frustrated and fed up with talking to answer machines and technicians over the phone could prove to be a big plus in terms of TalkTalk’s appeal.

Access to the Internet in the UK has changed considerably over the last few years, most notably with the advent of Broadband in 2004. Offering much faster access times to the net than before, Broadband revolutionised the way in which people use computers, superseding ISDN technology by a considerable amount in terms of speed and in the amount of data that could be transmitted – enough to allow for TV programmes to be watched on people’s computers. A report in August 2006, it was estimated that over 70,000 UK households a week were signing up for Broadband. However, the real recent leaps forward with regard to broadband have been less to do with technology and more to do with marketing.

We’re currently experiencing the communications world narrowing in terms of suppliers, as mobile phone network providers such as
Orange and Virgin Media move in on the broadband market, but dramatically broadening in terms of what customers can do, with Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones that can connect up to the Internet or make use of a wireless router at home. People can download and/or watch favourite TV episodes either at home or via their mobiles, the music industry has dramatically changed with the introduction of MP3s and portable players such as the iPod, chat portals such as MSN and AIM are as popular as they ever were and using myspace.com has become one of the most popular ways for people to talk and interact with each other.

As such, offering ‘free’ access to Broadband Internet has increasingly becoming a way for companies to sell their services to consumers. These so-called ‘bundle deals’ are often the approach taken by larger companies such as BT, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, etc offering their main services (phone lines, TV, mobiles, etc) alongside broadband, and are an attractive offer, especially when you consider existing customers of these companies, who are already subscribers (and therefore already paying) as they would essentially be getting Broadband for free.

For anyone who isn’t a subscriber, these companies will charge a fee for the installation of either a modem, or a cable/satellite/wireless link-up to connect users to the net, which may be in addition to the monthly charges for the ‘parent’ service of line rental, such TV/mobile subscription – providers can generated money in this way, allowing them to fund their broadband operations. Existing subscribers may even find themselves having to ‘upgrade’ to broadband for a fixed fee.

This also means that BT are, and for a long time will be, in a unique position of strength in that the majority of Internet connections are made through their phone lines, many other ISPs rely on there being a BT connection in a customer’s house for their service to work, so one way or another, they will have plenty of extra revenue from line rental with which to cross-subsidise their Broadband service.

Contracts often last for a year – 12 months – although it is becoming more and more common to see 18-month contracts on offer. Such a long contact would be ill-suited for customers such as students who probably will not be residing at the same address for over a year. Being committed to a contract can often be a frustrating experience, as mobile phone users will know. Ducking out from a contract early could incur penalty charges for breaching the terms of the contract – fines that could cost customers more than any ‘free’ broadband may be worth. In contrast to this, Be Broadband’s Unlimited package is based around much smaller 3-month contracts, which, for now, serves as a unique selling point in terms of contract flexibility.

As broadband becomes more and more common, more and more companies will be thinking of increasing ways in which to tap into an ever-widening consumer base. Virgin Media have anticipated this by seemingly offering everything that a modern mobile consumer could want – mobile phone, landline, Digital TV, and Broadband. The Broadband service on offer here isn’t free, but with the customisable deals on offer (2 for £20, 3 for £30 and 4 for £40) mean that there is potential to save more money here than what you possibly could on certain deals that offer ‘free’ broadband.

Broadband maybe free, only you’ll have to pay for something else first. As communications technology increases, and consumers demands change, this, may or may not be a bad thing.