At last weeks ISPA awards ceremony, Eclipse Internet, the overall winners of the 2007 awards, scooped the titles of Best Business ISP and Best Business Email at the 2008 Internet Service Provider Awards (ISPAs) in London on Friday 14 March.

Mark Thomas, Head of Sales and Marketing at Eclipse had this to say: “Over the last 18 months we have complemented the business-grade broadband access we offer with a range of new services that help businesses to operate more efficiently, including online data back-up, hosting services, hosted applications and e-commerce solutions. We are delighted that our growing reputation as the ISP of choice for businesses has been recognised by the industry through the achievement of not one but two business ISPA awards.”

All of the Eclipse business broadband packages come with no download limits, and provide top download speeds of 8Mbps, with varying levels of IP addresses and webspace; this way smaller businesses who do not require as much space for hosting are not priced out of higher speeds and can enjoy the same level of service as larger outfits.

Eclipse aren’t intending on resting on their laurels. According to Thomas, the plan is to “keep investing in the type of services and the level of customer and technical support that businesses want.” As the commercial broadband market is continually consolidating, the business broadband sector is set to become another hotbed of competition. Tiscali are to branch into the market via Pipex, and both O2 and Sky are offering ADSL2+ services to companies via Be Broadband Pro and UK Online, up against ISP stalwarts Demon
and NamesCo.

The tenth ISPA event, now in its tenth year, recognises innovation and good workplace practice (which is why HMRC were awarded the ISPA equivalent of the Golden Raspberry) in the ISP sector.

2007 has also seen much consolidation in the Broadband marketplace, with mergers and acquisitions seeing old players shake hands and donning new team colours.

At this stage in the financial year, there’s still everything to play for up until April 2008, with takeovers from Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse hopefully giving former stragglers Pipex and AOL a shot in the arm, and with Sky connecting customers at a phenomenal rate since the launch of their successful See Speak Surf squad formation. Up and coming ISP Be Broadband, has also been a keen player, thanks to partners O2, who have just launched their own broadband service using the Be network.

We’ve taken a quick look at the total take-up of the big six so far, and had a look a some of the more prominent ‘tier 2′ ISPs available.

UK Broadband Premiership – Q3 Figures 07/08 Season

BT Group (BT Broadband/PlusNet/Brightview) - 4.1 million

Virgin Media (including Virgin Media Cable and ADSL) - 3.3 million

Carphone Warehouse (TalkTalk/AOL UK) - 2.5 million

Tiscali (Tiscali Broadband/Pipex) - 2 million

Orange (Orange Broadband) - 1.6 million

Sky (Sky Broadband/UK Online) - 1 million

UK Broadband Division 1

O2 Telefónica - have launched O2 Broadband, using the Be Broadband ADSL2+ network. O2 Broadband comes at a discounted price to O2 Pay Monthly mobile customers who pay more than £30 a month.

NamesCo – one of the veterans of the ISP league, NamesCo may not hold as big a market share as the big hitters, but specialise more in hosting, and provision of webspace. NamesCo have generous packages for businesses and residential customers alike.

Eclipse Internet – with word of mouth spreading, Eclipse are slowly winning over customers with a solid broadband service that doesn’t rely on flashy bundle deals or expensive ad campaigns. Eclipse is owned and ran by KCOM, who handle all telecommunications within Hull and around the Kingston area.

Demon Internet – Like NamesCo, Demon have been doing the rounds since the early days of dial-up and are an established and trusted brand. Demon also specialise in hosting, providing webspace, unlimited emails, and static IP addresses with their home and business packages.

Back in May, Vodafone secured the purchase of Spanish ISP Ya.com, which means that the UK-based mobile network operator could very well push quad play services on the continent by the end of the year.

Whilst this doesn’t directly affect the average UK Broadband consumer, it could conceivably change the current shape of the converged communications market. The parent companies of Orange and O2, both market leaders in the mobile/Broadband stakes over here compete with Vodafone in Europe; the acquisition of Ya.com also puts Vodafone at loggerheads with Tiscali, who have a strong presence in Italy.

In an article that was posted on influential IT website The Register by one Faultline, it was suggested that this move could put Vodafone in strong position for the future:

“If Vodafone decides it cannot bring a full quadruple play to market on lines which are merely leased from British Telecom […] it has the obvious next step of trying to acquire the remaining business of Tiscali, based mostly in Italy and the UK. Tiscali has recently sold off its German and Netherlands operations to focus on the UK and Italy…”

Faultline also states that: “if anyone came in to bid for it, its value would likely rise well above $2bn, making it expensive even for Vodafone,” so whilst it does not explicitly state that a Tiscali takeover is on the cards in the near future, the article reflects how market movements elsewhere can affect things at home.

A Vodafone takeover of, or merger with Tiscali would see another quad play provider entering the UK market, threatening the current top 2 – Vodafone has strong brand power and is the largest mobile operator in the world, something which Virgin Media should be very afraid of.

We put together a quick ‘who owns who’ of our listed providers, to see how purchases and acquisitions overseas could potentially shake things up in the rapidly narrowing broadband market.

BT – owns the majority of the phone lines in the UK, and sells local loops to other services providers as per the terms of the Openreach plan. Also funds, but does not operate PlusNet.

Carphone Warehouse – the largest independent mobile retailer in Europe, which owns and runs a mobile repair service, the newly launched Geek Squad mobile tech support service, and TalkTalk as well as the AOL internet services for the UK, which Sky were also interested in snapping up.

Telefónica O2 – part of the BT Group back in the BT Cellnet days, O2 was bought by Spanish telco Telefónica, which competes with France Télécom/Orange and Vodafone on the continent. More recently, O2 purchased Be Broadband in the UK.

Tiscali – Italian-based ISP which took over the Homechoice IPTV service in 2006, making it a triple play provider of digital TV, Broadband and home phone services. It is highly likely that Tiscali will acquire Pipex by the end of the year.

France Télécom / Orange – the main telco in France owns and runs the Orange mobile phone and broadband services, originally known as Wanadoo. Bundled Mobile/Broadband/Home Phone services were launched following the Wanadoo rebrand.

Kingston Communications – a telco formed from the Hull Corporation which set up its own telephone infrastructure independent of BT around Kingston upon Hull – the phone network is the only municipally owned network in the UK. Kingston Communications owns and runs Eclipse Internet.

British Sky Broadcasting – runs the most popular pay-TV platform in the UK, and launched a converged TV/Phone/Broadband package after the purchase of ISP Easynet in 2005. Sky also owns, but does not operate UK Online, which was part of Easynet during the acquisition.

Virgin Media – compromised of the combined services of the merged NTL: Telewest (cable TV and landline phone service) Virgin.net (broadband), and Virgin Mobile (mobile phones).

Pipex – absorbed the ISPs Host Europe and Nildram in 2004 and both Toucan and Bulldog Broadband in 2006, cancelling out millions of pounds worth of debt in the process in 2006 before launching the infamous David “King of the Internet” Hassellhoff ad campaign. Began looking for a buyer early this year; Tiscali are hotly tipped to take over.

NamesCo – web hosting company which took over Simply.com in 2004; NamesCo supplies domain names, hosting as well as broadband services, and own gold mining facilities in Vietnam, which makes them sound like a front for a James Bond supervillain corporation.

It seems that whilst most customers routinely check the small print for credit cards, bank loans, insurance plans and the like, they fail to scan their broadband contracts with the same scrutiny.

The majority of contractual pitfalls involve cancellation fees – a charge levied for customers who terminate their contracts prematurely, or before a specified time. Be Broadband, who we’ve championed on these pages for offering customers more manageable and flexible 3 month contracts, will slap a £50 charge on customers who have the temerity to sign up for less than 12 months.

PlusNet, who are touting bite-sized 1 month contracts, operate a policy where you get a free wireless router for which there are no installation charges – provided that you sign up for at least 12 months. If you don’t, then you are liable to pay for the £65 router and the £47 install fee, which in practical terms amounts to a total cancellation fee of £112.

Customers who fail to make payments will be hit with fines of up to £25 – NamesCo charge this amount plus VAT for each missed monthly payment. BT and Virgin Media charge customers £7.50 and £10 respectively for failed payments.

Other common ‘hidden’ charges apply to home phone call packages which provide free calls to UK landlines – provided that they begin with either the 01 or 02 prefix – calls to 08 numbers and mobiles are not covered by the majority of inclusive call deals. Similarly, calls to technical support and helpdesks are often charged at premium rates, with Virgin charging 25p and minute, and Orange, a massive 50p a min for tech support.

It’s no secret that UK ISPs are operating in a fiercely competitive market, and as such are heavily dependent upon continual revenue from customers, and to be fair, providers cannot be blamed for customer oversight, even if fine details are buried under reams for small print.

Broadband Finder was set up to ensure that all internet packages are as transparent as possible – details of such things as connection and set-up fees, the cost of line rental and the basic terms and conditions of phone plans are clearly listed in the package summaries, which you can access by clicking on the relevant links on the Broadband Comparison page.