According to BT, the black hubs have been flying off the shelves like the proverbial hot cakes, and so, flush with Easter spirit, they have decided to extend the deal til the 31st of March.

This is great news for people who wanted one of the black beauties but were waiting to come out of a previous contract before switching but missed the previous boat (yesterday). The offer of the BT Home Hub to come bundled with the Option 1 broadband package is also still standing, meaning that free wireless home networking is still available on all BT Broadband products.

The black hubs are pretty fetching, and we’d like to see BT make the choice of colour, sorry, shade, available to customers during the sign-up process.

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.

It’s been another bad week for TalkTalk, who despite promises of investing heavily into customer services, have seen their name very publicly dragged through the mud after one former customer successfully sued the ISP for £630 in the small claims court.

Ann Gordon, a retired languages teacher, had seen her phoneline pack up after switching from BT to TalkTalk, and be left without any kind of service for almost six weeks, despite repeated promises that a temporary mobile service would be supplied for which she would be reimbursed. In a post that Mrs Gordon made at thisismoney.co.uk, she wrote:

“We had 39 days, no phone, so no internet; no apology, no explanation. They offered £20 (already paid by us) which never appeared. We asked for a refund of 2 months direct debit, plus mobile phone charges (promised us on the phone!), but never saw a penny.”

After 39 days without a phone or the internet, Mrs Gordon asked to be switched back to BT who, sorted out her problem in under 20 minutes.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast News this morning, Mrs Gordon described TalkTalk’s customer service as “Kafkaesque,” and in a report in last Saturday’s Guardian she is quoted saying “All my letters to TalkTalk - including to the managing director - got no response… I did everything I could to resolve this matter. Even after the successful judgment in court, they still refused to pay up, and I was forced to spend another £55 to instruct the bailiffs.”

It was later revealed that TalkTalk were apparently ‘unaware’ of the situation until bailiffs turned up at their London offices. A statement issued last week reads: “We will obviously abide by the court’s decision and will be paying her immediately. We are very sorry that it came to this and would like to unreservedly apologise.”

Virgin Media, who had previously threatened Sky with legal action after the dispute over carriage fees for their channels, are expected to issue a writ to the High Court sometime this week.

Sky pulled a selection of their channels from Virgin Media’s cable TV package in March, after the two companies failed to agree on a price for the channels; Virgin said that Sky were asking for over double the amount of the previous deal – a claim emphatically denied – and stated that that they would take Sky to court in 30 days if an agreement could not be reached.

Virgin’s statement in March read: “Following Sky’s withdrawal of its basic channels from Virgin Media’s TV service, Virgin Media has formally advised Sky that it will pursue action in the high court if their carriage disputes are not resolved within 30 days.”

Since then, Virgin have introduced faster cable broadband speeds, a free digital TV set-top box for ADSL customers, and have petitioned Ofcom to scrutinize the converged pay-TV/broadband market in an attempt to make life difficult for Sky.

Sky have hit back with a high-profile advertisements mocking Virgin’s reduced TV service and are prepared for a lengthy legal battle, dismissing the possibility of court action as a part of a perceived Virgin Media “PR Campaign” to portray Sky as a bullying conglomerate.

The heated Broadband/Digital TV battle between Virgin Media and Sky intensified yesterday with Sky threatening to deny Virgin customers popular favourites such as The Simpsons, Lost, and 24. The dispute has reopened old wounds sustained when Sky boss Rupert Murdoch purchased an 18% controlling share in ITV last year, effectively putting the kibosh on Richard Branson’s attempts to take over the television company under the ntl brand.

This current move is said to be a reaction to many customers switching to the new Virgin Media service, presumably to take advantage of the exclusive Broadband and mobile deals on offer; it is estimated that Sky could lose up to £20 million in profits that would have been accrued through advertising if they pull their channels.

Virgin has said that it now expects to lose basic channels such as Sky One, Two, Three and Sky News and Sky Sports News. The two companies have been having talks to agree on a new deal; the current contract expires at the end of February. Virgin have been looking to renegotiate, although it was admitted last Friday that dialogue had broken down.

As was mentioned in Sunday’s Media Guardian, Branson also thumbed his nose at Sky by going behind their backs and securing a deal with American TV network ABC, the producers of the aforementioned Lost, in an attempt to lessen the damage that the loss of the Sky channels will cause to Virgin’s Digital TV enterprise. This deal will make all three series of Lost available to customers as part of the video-on-demand channel, Virgin Central.

As of today, Migration Authorisation Codes, or MAC codes as they are commonly known will now have to be issued by ISPs to customers who which to move to another provider.

MAC codes were introduced by Ofcom and BTas an industry standard code of practice between Internet Service Providers, to ensure that customers who wanted to ’switch’ from one provider to another could do so with ease, and not be bound into a contract against their wishes.

However, ISPs were not obligated to provide their customers with MAC codes on demand, and were unpopular with many companies who refused to adopt the practice of issuing the codes. This left many people frustrated, unable to leave a contract prematurely without being heavily fined.

There have been plenty of horror stories when customers have been lumbered with slow connections and download limits and have effectively been unable to shop around for a better deal because their provider is withholding their code.

Now wholesale providers will be required to issue consumers and small businesses (of 10 employees or less) with MAC codes within five days, regardless of any amounts that may be owed or any contractual obligations the end user may be under. Users are now able to vote with their feet if they deem the service they have received from a provider to be unsatisfactory.

This is great news for broadband customers, as it allows for greater freedom, and will hopefully force underperforming providers to improve their services and not rely on lengthy contracts to bind customers to their wallets.