Latest Broadband Deals
BT Brings Back 3 Months Free Broadband Offer
BT (www.BT.com) has brought back its 3 months free broadband offer as competition hots up in the broadband sector.
The online offer is available now at the BT.com website until the 4th September 2009.
To qualify for the offer, new customers must order a BT package online, be it BT broadband and phone calls, broadband and TV or broadband, phone & TV. BT’s Home & Away package is excluded from the offer.
The move means customers can get up to 8Mb broadband together with unlimited evening & weekend UK phone calls (known as the ‘Get Connected’ package) for free for the first 3 months, followed by £15.65 a month thereafter. Offpeak calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers are also included.
For those customers considering switching from Sky, the BT Vision bronze value deal containing 40 digital TV channels and the choice of 2 viewing packs from film, music, sport and kids can be added for an additional £7.34 a month.
The BT Vision gold value deal is available for an additional £12.23 a month and includes all 4 viewing packs.
BT’s free mobile broadband usage deal worth £180 remains available until the end of August for those customers ordering BT broadband on its own. We understand this deal cannot be used in conjunction with the BT’s new 3 months free broadband offer.
Readers can find out more at our BT Broadband package review.
O2 Home Broadband 2 Months Free Offer To End
O2 (www.o2.co.uk) has confirmed that its 2 months free home broadband offer is to end tomorrow on the 6th August 2009.
The offer, which provides a saving of up to £44, is available on all O2’s home broadband packages – which are called O2 Broadband Standard, O2 Broadband Premium and O2 Broadband Pro.
Included within each package are unlimited downloads, free UK customer service, McAfee PC security software, free connection, a 30 day money back guarantee and a free wireless router.
O2 Broadband Standard offers speeds up to 8Mbps while O2’s Premium and Pro provide up to 20Mbps. All packages are available on a 12 month contract with prices starting from £7.34 a month after the first 2 months free.
In a recent broadband awards ceremony, O2 Home Broadband won 9 out of 11 awards, including Best Value For Money, Best Technical Support, Best Customer Service and Best Quality of Information when changing broadband provider.
More information can be found at the o2.co.uk website or our O2 Broadband review.
BT Mobile Broadband Free Usage Offer Extended
BT (www.BT.com) has extended its free mobile broadband usage offer until the end of August.
The offer provides up to 1GB of free mobile broadband usage per month, which is worth £10 a month or £180 over the 18 month contract.
BT mobile broadband speeds up to 7.2Mpbs are available (dependant on your location) with coverage extending to 80% of the UK.
Non BT customers can order BT mobile broadband on its own and pay a one off £129.99 for the BT dongle. Alternatively, there are options to add BT mobile broadband to a BT home broadband order and pay from just £9.99 for the BT dongle.
Existing BT Broadband customers can also add mobile broadband to the services they receive from BT.
Further information can be found at the BT.com website, or at our BT Broadband review.
O2’s 1/2 Price Mobile Broadband Dongle Offer To End
O2 (www.o2.co.uk) has confirmed that its half price mobile broadband dongle offer will end at 8.30am this Thursday the 6th August 2009.
Usually £29.34, the O2 dongle costs just a one-off £14.67 and is available with O2’s Pay and Go mobile broadband tariff which has no contract tie in.
O2’s Pay & Go broadband tariff means once customers have received their O2 dongle they can top it up whenever they want with the internet access they need.
Top up charges vary from £2 a day for 500MB’s of data to £15 a month for 3GB’s.
Mobile broadband speeds up to 3.6Mbps are achievable from O2 while there’s also unlimited access to over 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots across the UK.
The half price O2 dongle can be brought online at the o2.co.uk website.
Readers can also review O2 mobile broadband packages here.
TalkTalk Broadband To Sponsor The X Factor 2009
TalkTalk Broadband (talktalk.co.uk/xfactor) has announced today that it is to sponsor The X Factor 2009.
The UK’s biggest broadband provider with over 4.25 million customers will use its sponsorship of the X Factor 2009 to cement its position as the UK’s ‘brighter phone and broadband company’.
The sponsorship will make use of TalkTalk’s new ‘brighter’ advertising campaign that uses light graffiti.
TalkTalk is also giving viewers the chance to become ‘bright stars’ themselves by creating their own light graffiti ‘bright-dance’ which could appear on prime time TV during the X Factor idents.
Budding stars can visit talktalk.co.uk/xfactor to record their own ‘bright-dance’ and winning entries could be broadcast on ITV.
TalkTalk’s Marketing Director, Olivia Streatfeild said: “We are really excited to kick off our sponsorship of the nation’s favourite entertainment programme and we can’t wait to bring the magic of The X Factor to our 4 million customers”.
The broadband supplier plans to take the X Factor fever to the homes of its customers through themed products, downloadable X Factor parties, together with the chance to win tickets to the live X Factor shows.
TalkTalk provides the UK’s best value broadband and phone package. Called the ‘Essentials’, it costs just £6.49 a month and includes up to 8Mbps broadband speeds plus evening / weekend landline phone calls. Anytime local phone calls are also included.
Further information can be found in our TalkTalk Broadband review or by calling TalkTalk on 0800 049 7865.
Data Centre Costs Could Hinder UK Broadband Speeds
The high costs of building the huge data centres required to support the government’s Digital Britain plans could force companies to build them in Europe and thus hinder broadband speed progress within the UK.
The claims come from Derek Webster, an Associate Director of McBains Cooper who told the Times that the average data centre uses as much power as the city of Leicester.
The restricted broadband speeds are likely to mainly affect small businesses and those who work from home.
It could also affect the financial sector, with Webster saying, “When it comes to, say, the financial services industry, a delay in movement of information or money of a millisecond can cost tens and millions of dollars. So the demand is to keep those data centre servers close by”.
Expensive land and electricity prices as well as patchy fibre optic infrastructure just outside of London is making the UK an unsuitable place to build data centres.
Unless these prices change, it’s likely that the Digital Britain report will have its major organs placed in other European countries such as Germany, France and Sweden.
