O2 Broadband 
Come next-gen broadband and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for dial-up now. As well as Jimmy Carr, the Wernham Hogg Paper Company and that John Betjeman poem, Slough can now count high speed mobile broadband among Things It’s Famous For.
O2, whose UK headquarters are in the Berkshire town, has distributed next-gen LTE dongles to test out their new high speed mobile network. LTE, short for Long Term Evolution technology, is looking set to replace 3G as the next high speed mobile broadband technology.
A piece in today’s Telegraph states that the LTE dongles given out in the O2 trial are theoretically capable of providing top speeds of 150Mbps.
This could mean that super-fast speeds could be rolled out without the need for the expensive and time consuming installation of a nationwide fibre network.
Part of the Digital Britain report mentioned that future solutions for Broadband Britain (2Mbps speeds in every home by 2012) would involve a mixture of traditional physical connections (phone lines and cable) and wireless solutions.
LTE ought to allow for all sorts of mobile broadband goodness such as seamless streaming of HD videos, downloads of huge playlists, online mobile gaming… everything that a fast fixed-line connection ought to allow for.
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Posted by Tom on December 15th 2009 in Broadband, Mobile Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, O2 Broadband
Orange Mobile Broadband is the pick of the bunch in the UK, according to a recent report.
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.
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Posted by Tom on November 18th 2009 in Mobile Broadband, O2 Broadband, Orange Broadband
Today is the day when Orange customers can finally get their hands on an iPhone on contract. Whilst the much hoped-for price war between Orange and O2 hasn’t quite erupted (yet), last night’s announcement by O2 could be the spark which ignites the kindling.
If you’ve got an iPhone and you’re on O2, signing up for the 3GB Internet Tethering iPhone bolt-on will see you getting the O2 Standard Broadband package (up to 8Mbps, unlimited downloads) included for FREE.
This offer is open to new and existing customers so if you’ve already got O2 Broadband in the home then you won’t be left out of the deal. Customers on the Premium and Pro O2 Broadband packages (top speeds of 16Mbps and 20Mbps, unlimited downloads) can also enjoy monthly discounts of £7.34 with the Total Connectivity for iPhone plan. This brings the monthly prices of the services down to £2.45 and £9.79 a month respectively.
The offer is available from today, the 10th of November up until the 31st of December. Obviously you can only sign up for this if you can get O2 Broadband in your area and you’re not already been supplied broadband by someone else.
Orange has recently revamped it’s broadband products, rolling out top speeds of 20Mbps across the board, and has been offering its mobile phone customers discounted broadband for some now. It’ll be interesting to see how or even if Orange responds to this recent development.
Posted by Tom on November 10th 2009 in Free Broadband, O2 Broadband, Orange Broadband
Attention O2 and Be Broadband customers: if you use the O2 or Be Broadband-branded wireless routers (the O2 Wireless Box and Be Box) you’re going to want to check your settings sharpish.
A vulnerability discovered by O2 Broadband customer Paul Mutton has prompted O2 to remotely configure the settings of customers routers. The security loophole is thought to affect both the O2 Wireless Box II and Wireless Box III devices, used with the Standard and Premium/Pro ADSL2+ packages respectively.
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Posted by Tom on September 8th 2009 in Be Broadband, O2 Broadband, Security
BT Broadband has just announced that it has completed upgrades of hundreds of its exchanges which will give customers access to speeds of up to 20Mbps. 549 exchanges, serving 10 million UK homes, have been upgraded, with more homes to be added throughout the rest of the year.
What’s more is that homes eligible for an upgrade will be able to speed up for virtually nothing. Although the theoretical maximum speed available on a fully pimped ADSL2+ line is 24Mbps, BT Broadband has taken a leaf out of O2 Broadband’s book and will be advertising the top speed as being 20Mbps. This is ostensibly to advertise a more realistic top speed, as the theoretical maximum is rarely if ever experienced by broadband customers.
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Posted by Tom on August 18th 2009 in BT Broadband, Free Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, O2 Broadband
O2 Broadband is kicking off a crazy end of summer deal for online customers who sign up throughout the month of August. OK, so it’s not exactly been a great summer over this year weather wise apart from that one week about a month ago when London was hotter than Dehli, but that’s Britain for you. Anyway. Throughout the month of August, any customers who sign up for any of O2′s Home Broadband packages will qualify for two months free. This gives customers eager to get some of the fastest speeds available – up to 24Mbps – for less, saving up to £44 in the first year.
All O2 Home Broadband packages include a free wireless router and McAfee security software, allowing you to easily set up a wireless network and surf safely and there’s also no connection charge. The entry-level O2 Broadband Standard gives you Unlimited downloads and a top speed of 8Mbps for £7.34 per month (£12.23 per month for non-O2 mobile customers).
The O2 Broadband Premium and Pro products provide the same Unlimited downloads plus maximum speeds of 20Mbps. The only difference between the two is that the Pro package comes with a faster top upload speed.
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Posted by Tom on August 7th 2009 in Broadband Bundles, O2 Broadband
An Ofcom report published yesterday suggests that the average download speed received by UK broadband customers is only just over half the speed of the average advertised rate. Data from the report shows that while the average broadband package is sold as “up to” 7.1Mbps, the actual average speed delivered is thought to be 4.1Mbps, little more than half the average theoretical maximum.
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Posted by Tom on July 29th 2009 in AOL, BT Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, O2 Broadband, Orange Broadband, PlusNet, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Tiscali, Virgin Media
BT has begun rolling out its next-gen fibre optic network in Muswell Hill in London, and in the Whitchurch area of Cardiff.
Roughly 15,000 properties are covered in each of the regions, and rival providers such as O2, Sky and TalkTalk are also reportedly taking part in the trials. We expect that this is to see whether or not BT could adopt an Openreach style platform with their new network.
BT expects to have up to 29 exchanges enabled with Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology by 2010, and to be providing fibre connections to 40 per cent of the population by 2012. Internal trials of the technology reportedly saw BT able to achieve download speeds of up to 40Mbps.
In addition to this, BT has also begun trials of Fibre to the Home (FTTH) services, which offer speeds of up to 100Mbps at a housing development in Ebbsfleet in Kent. A separate trial of this FTTH technology is set to take place in March 2010, and is said to cover some 40,000 UK homes.
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Posted by Tom on July 8th 2009 in BT Broadband, O2 Broadband, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk
O2 Broadband has just announced yet another sizzling summer deal. All those who sign up for any of the O2 Home Broadband packages throughout July will get the first two months of their broadband service free. This provides a saving of up to £44 over the first year of service, should you sign up for the O2 Broadband Pro package and you are not an O2 Mobile customer.
This offer is also available to customers outside the O2 network, who can sign up for O2 Access Broadband, which provides the same speed and usage cap as O2 Standard Broadband (up to 8Mbps, Unlimited) for a slightly increased monthly cost.
It’s been a busy few weeks for O2, who on Monday announced a Wi-Fi tie-in with BT Broadband which sees O2 Mobile Broadband customers able to make use of 3,000 BT Openzone Wi-Fi points. In the week previous, O2 halved the cost of Mobile Broadband dongles on Pay As You Go.
Posted by Tom on July 2nd 2009 in BT Broadband, Mobile Broadband, O2 Broadband
O2 has announced a new partnership with BT Broadband which sees O2 Mobile Broadband customers able to hook up to an additional 3,000 BT Wi-Fi Hotspots. As well as this, O2 Mobile Broadband punters will be able to keep an eye on the amount of data they’re using thanks to new software.
This new software will notify you when 75%, 90% and 100% of your data allowance has been reached, so you don’t stray over your limit and end up saddled with extra charges.
Last week saw O2 slashing the cost of its Mobile Broadband dongles on Pay As You Go. With O2 Mobile Broadband Pay As You Go, you can chose to sign up for daily, weekly and monthly packages, all of which include unlimited Wi-Fi.
Back in April, BT installed Wi-Fi in over 600 branches of Starbucks throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It was announced shortly after that iPhone owners would be able to make use of BT’s Wi-Fi points in Starbucks for free as well, with O2 Mobile Broadband customers to follow in the summer.
Posted by Tom on June 29th 2009 in BT Broadband, O2 Broadband
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