Weekly Broadband News Roundup (8th May 08)

By Bruce Stevens Staff Writer Thursday, 8 May 2008

Featured Broadband Providers This Week Compare the broadband packages of: Compare broadband packages from O2 Broadband Compare broadband packages from BT Total Compare broadband packages from Plusnet Compare broadband packages from Virgin Media Compare broadband packages from Sky Broadband Related Broadbands News See our other recent related news stories: O2 Broadband Launches Publicity Drive On the back of their recent roll-out to the entire country, O2 Broadband has joined the likes of Tiscali and Virgin Media on our TV screens with a £6m advertising campaign. Sky Versus Virgin Media: Who Wins? While Sky broadband may be accumulating more customers than Virgin Media, which of the two giants offers a better service? Adam Mitchell investigates. Broadband News Roundup (02 May 08) NEIL Hawkins' weekly broadband news roundup. Broadband News Roundup (25 Apr 08) NEIL Hawkins' looks back at the week's broadband news stories.

AS the temperatures outside rise, so too does the world of broadband this week, as O2 Broadband goes nationwide, Plusnet improves its already excellent support, BT helps you take your broadband into the sunshine and Sky Broadband uppercuts Virgin Media in the chops.

O2 Broadband expands its reach to the entire UK

Our flavour of the month favourite broadband provider O2 Broadband is now available to everyone in the whole wide world.

Well, everyone in Britain anyway, thanks to a recent deal with BT which allows O2 Broadband to use the BT 8Mbps service to reach all parts of the UK.

While O2 Broadband’s best offering is its high speed Up to 20Mbps package which is only available to those who live near O2 Broadband’s unbundled telephone exchanges, the new deal now allows anyone to take advantage of the company’s excellent customer support, low prices and reliable service.

Expect a rush of take-up after a multi-million Pound advertising campaign for the O2 Broadband service was launched this week.

Improved support for Plusnet

Whispers on the ground today reveal that Plusnet’s already excellent customer service is set to improve even more over the summer.

One of Plusnet’s big customer service selling points was their text message service which updated you via SMS on your support queries.

You can now even use your mobile to reply to these messages.

The next big improvement – while not quite as fancy – is to simplify their Help Assistant which, we agree, was way too complicated despite its undoubted usefulness.

Other news from Plusnet is that they expect their ADSL2+ high speed broadband technology to be in place by the end of the summer.

This is predicted to offer half of all Plusnet broadband customers realistically achievable speeds of 9.3Mbps, while a lucky quarter of users will typically get 14.7Mbps.

While ADSL2+ can in theory reach 24Mbps, it is encouraging to see Plusnet publicising the actual speeds we’ll receive.

Sky Broadband beating Virgin Media for new customers

Anyone taking sides in the Sky vs Virgin Media battle will be interested to know that Sky Broadband accumulated more than two-and-a-half times as many new customers in the first 3 months of this year than Virgin Media.

The judges will clearly award that round to Murdoch.

Virgin Media on the other may just be slipping the horseshoe into the glove however with a combination of its Samuel L Jackon-fronted advertising campaign, it’s promise of 50Mbps speeds in the pipeline and increased competition for Sky’s satellite TV service in the form of BBC/ITV’s FreeSat free satellite TV service.

BT adds a second bulge to your pocket

Because I already have one bulge in my pocket in the form of a mobile phone, BT Total Broadband has launched a new broadband package that promises to add, um, a second bulge.

BT Total Broadband Anywhere – launched on Wednesday – is a sort of a cross between a broadband package, a blackberry and a wi-fi laptop.

The concept is a good one: Take your home broadband package with you everywhere.

Whether BT makes that a reality is somewhat debateable.

For only marginally more per month than BT Total Broadband Option 3, BT Total Broadband Anywhere gives you BT Home Hub and BT Hub Phone for your home broadband, but you also get a Blackberry-style smartphone called the BT ToGo.

Worth £150, the BT ToGo supposedly connects seamlessly to any BT Openzone and FON wi-fi spots around town allowing you to surf on the little device at broadband speeds.

Outside of wi-fi hotspots you’ll just connect via GPRS (and pay through the nose for anything more than the 10MB usage allowance).

The inclusive phone package on the ToGo - which runs off the back of the Vodafone network – gives you 50 free minutes and 50 free texts a month.

You can get up to 600 minutes and 300 texts for an extra £30 a month, which makes me wonder whether anyone is going to give up their current mobile deal for this, or just resign themselves to carrying around 2 devices.

At that price though, the one bulge in your pocket getting smaller will be that of your wallet!

Neil Hawkins is away this week

Compare broadband and bundle services
Back to broadband guide