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Articles on the topic : Broadband News
Ofcom Says Over 40% Of Brits Shun Broadband
As Lord Carter pushes to get broadband access into every UK home by 2012, Ofcom boss Ed Richards has revealed new figures which show that many people don’t actually want broadband in their homes.
Over 40% of the 25 million households within the UK do not currently have broadband access. There are varying reasons for this and it seems that more than half of them (55%) actually choose not to have the service in their home. This group of people are known as the “self excluded” group.
30% cannot afford to have broadband access in their homes and are known to be “financially excluded” while 15% cannot afford the service and don’t particularly want it either – the “duel excluded” households.
In his Digital Britain report, Lord Carter not only wants every home in the UK to have broadband access by 2012, he also wants them to have a minimum broadband speed of 2Mbps.
Currently around 15% of UK homes (1.5 million households) are unable to receive the 2Mbps broadband download speed target.
Overall these figures show that whilst every UK home may have access to broadband (either fixed or mobile) in the future, there are many households that simply do not want it.
Either way, a lot of work still needs to be done to improve the UK’s broadband infrastructure to meet the expectations laid down in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Report.
Recession Forces Sky Vs BT Vision Comparisons
According to a new survey the current recession is forcing more than 69% of Sky Movies subscribers to look into ways to save money – with Sky TV package comparisons to BT Vision likely.
The survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of BT has shown that a fifth of subscribers to Sky Movies (around 891,000 UK households) hadn’t watch a single movie in an entire month.
When asked why they hadn’t watched any movies whilst they were signed up, 50% said the movies weren’t of interest to them, while 15% stated that the movies were not on at the times they wanted – Sky’s Movies are staggered and played at specific times.
With up to 50% of those surveyed spending more than £45 per month alone on their Sky TV subscription, it begs the question why do they spend so much money on a service they never use?
The survey also showed 71% of respondents agreeing that they would rather watch movies on demand when they want to see them rather than when the broadcasters have scheduled them.
Dan Marks, CEO of BT Vision said: “This survey shows that in credit crunch Britain, people are looking for alternatives to subscribing to movie channels that they rarely watch, and viewing dictated by channel schedulers.”
BT Vision, BT’s on demand digital TV service, enables consumers to pay only for the television they want to watch. No mandatory monthly TV subscription is required, it’s simply pay per view that uses a customers BT Broadband connection.
There are more than 600 movies to choose from that can be viewed on demand whenever a user wants, together with thousands of hours of sport, documentaries, drama and kids entertainment. There’s also access to all the Freeview channels.
Further information on BT Vision can be found at the bt.com website.
Altenatively, visit our BT Broadband, Phone & TV review page for more.
Lord Carter Asks BBC To Part Fund Broadband Plans
In order to reach the Government’s target of providing broadband access in every UK home by 2012, Lord Carter is now asking the BBC to help fund part of the UK’s broadband plans.
When talking about how the issue of funding is potentially hindering the UK’s new superfast fibre optic broadband plans, Lord Carter stated: “Would the nation’s state funded content provider have a role in this? It would seem to me it would.”
The BBC would not be the only broadcaster to be asked to fund broadband access. Sky, Virgin Media and Tiscali have all got interests in content production and high speed internet access and may well be asked aswell.
With high numbers of people looking at media content online (up to 20% of media consumption will soon be web based), it will no doubt be in the BBC’s best interests to enable more people to view the content it posts online.
The news that the BBC could contribute to the funding of broadband networks comes as welcome news to many industry experts.
Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, the president of the Country Land Association, said “We won’t have universal broadband in rural areas without significant public investment. We have already said that a proportion of the BBC license fee should be used to contribute to the cost of this.”
However, whilst BBC funding will help, it is not going to solve the funding issue. More funding is needed by more companies to ensure that the broadband goal of reaching every home in the UK is possible by 2012.
UK Broadband Costs Set To Rise By £30 A Year
Broadband costs within the UK are set to rise by £30 a year over the next three years it is claimed.
The expected rise follows BT’s plans to increase the wholesale cost it charges its competitors to run broadband and telephony services over its network.
The first of these BT increases will be this April where the wholesale cost of broadband per year per home will rise by around 11% to £91. This is set to rise to £112 per year in 2012, a 37% increase from today’s current wholesale prices – a rise that is supported by Ofcom.
The rise has been predicted in a study by Dr Chris Doyle of Warwick Business School. The study, funded by the Carphone Warehouse, who’s TalkTalk broadband and phone service uses BT’s network, criticised BT stating: “BT is very inefficient or it is exaggerating its costs, or it is being deliberately allowed to make excessive profits.”
In response, BT defended its price rises stating: “The UK has the most competitive broadband market in the world, thanks in large part to the massive investment made in broadband infrastructure by BT.”
With the government’s plans to give every home fast broadband access for all salary ranges, it’s estimated that more than 800,000 consumers will be unable to afford broadband if the rates do increase.
Gateshead Housing Site Set for UK’s Fastest Broadband
A Gateshead housing site is set to receive the UK’s fastest broadband service at up to 100Mbps.
This new ultra high speed broadband service is set to benefit the current “Brownfield” housing site which used to be the Freightliner depot, situated close to Gateshead town centre.
The technology was originally developed to bring new business and job opportunities to the town and will be extended so that all homes that are built on the site will have direct access to the ultra fast service.
Homes will receive the service via a fibre optic broadband network that will connect to the Baltic Business Quarter network via a cable that will run under the A184 Felling bypass. It may also be extended to 18 other potential sites throughout Gateshead.
Mick Henry, the leader of Gateshead Council said of the network plans:
“Baltic Business Quarter is developing the best communications infrastructure available anywhere in the UK today. The system was designed specifically to attract major employers and high-quality creative jobs to Gateshead. However, we believe it would be relatively simple to extend this system into neighbouring areas – and offer householders the potential to access some of the fastest and most powerful broadband in the world.”
He continued, “This is an exciting new development which could completely transform housing potential in this area and turn the Freightliner site into one of the most sought after locations in the region.”
Overall this new super fast broadband network is definitely good news for the residents of Gateshead. All that is needed now is for more councils across the UK to work with technology providers in order for other advanced broadband networks to be built. That way the UK will be well on its way to the government’s goal of providing all UK homes with fast broadband access by 2010.
Broadband Customers Hit By Technical Helpline Costs
Many broadband customers are being hit by high technical support helpline costs according to a new survey by Which? Computing.
The company investigated 45 different technology companies to see how much they charged for a broadband technical call. Out of the 45 companies, 32 of them were found to use high cost telephone numbers for their helplines.
Surprisingly one of the highest charging companies was Tesco Broadband. The editor of Which? Computing, Sarah Kidner stated: “It’s particularly galling to see a huge company like Tesco Broadband using such expensive lines. If other companies can offer a freephone number, so can Tesco. After all, every little helps.”
The investigation found that Tesco Broadband, Roxio, Supanet and Nero had the highest charging broadband helplines. Tesco’s helpline which starts with 090 typically costs £5 for a ten minute phone call from a landline and that’s not including additional connection charges.
However the results of the investigation were not all bad. Six broadband providers were found to use freephone numbers. These included O2, Corel, BT, Sony, UK Online and Waitrose.
Tesco has released a statement in response to the criticism it is now facing. A spokeswoman said: “The cost of calls to Tesco Broadband technical support is something we’ve been looking at and listening to customer feedback on. As a result we’ll continue to provide high quality technical expertise to all our broadband customers but calls will now be charged at a local rate. We’ll be contacting all our customers as soon as possible to let them know about the change in price.”
Overall broadband technical helplines can cost a fortune and often customers have no idea what they are paying. Tesco dropping their rate is definitely a step forward. However, it is still vital that consumers pay more attention to the rates before they sign up for a broadband service or make a call to the technical support team.
