July 21, 2009
A survey has found that mobile broadband users are not happy with the speed they get from their mobile broadband. The survey was done on the broadband comparison website BroadbandGenie and found that 64% of those who responded were not satisfied with their mobile broadband.
The question posed to respondednts was “Is your mobile broadband fast enough?” and only 11.5% said that it was, with a further 25% saying that they didn’t know.
These results should be a wake up call to mobile broadband providers that customers are not happy with what they receive. With mobile broadband taking off to become very main stream in the last year or so it is clear that users look upon mobile broadband like they do with fixed line broadband when in reality mobile broadband isn’t able to offer the same broadband speeds or reliability as fixed line broadband can.
What mobile broadband does offer however is the freedom to use the Internet when away from your home or office and currently is a great addition to have as well as a fixed line broadband connection and maybe at the time being not to be looked at as a replacement for a fixed line broadband connection. Those considering thsi option would be advised that they should try and test a mobile broadband connection at home before signing up to a lengthy contract just incase they struggle to receive a connection.
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July 20, 2009
O2 are offering mobile broadband users in Manchester a free mobile broadband dongle swap.
What O2 want is for mobile broadband users of other networks to bring their USB dongles in to one of the O2 stores across the city and they will be given a free O2 mobile broadband Pay & Go dongle in exchange for their existing one. O2 mobile broadband customers whose contract has expired are also able to trade in their old dongle too.
 Users have until 30th July to take part in the mobile broadband “amnesty” and receive their free Pay & Go mobile broadband dongle which gives users the chance to try without commitment what O2 mobile broadband can offer them.
Jonathan Earle, Head of Pay Monthly, said:
“We believe that O2 Mobile Broadband provides the best quality service available but we don’t want to just say it, we want people to try it for themselves. With O2’s mobile broadband amnesty we are giving other mobile broadband users the chance to give us a try without having to commit to a lengthy contract.
O2 mobile broadband users also receive free access to thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots when they have a pay monthly or pay & go deal with O2 (the free wi-fi is only available for the same length of time that the pay as you go is active for).
For anyone who struggles with their mobile broadband connection it could be worth trading in and trying to see if O2 performs any better, however if you are with a mobile broadband provider and you are satisfied with your service and receive good coverage then it may well be a good idea to stay with them unless you know that O2 mobile broadband has coverage where you usually use your mobile broadband.
The current O2 mobile broadband Pay & Go charges are:
- Mobile Broadband Daily (available for 24 hours) – For £2 for 500MB + Unlimited Wi-Fi
- Mobile Broadband Weekly (available for 7 days) – For £7.50 for 1GB + Unlimited Wi-Fi
- Mobile Broadband Monthly (available for 30 days) – For £15 for 3GB + Unlimited Wi-Fi
The participating stores in and around Manchester that the “amnesty” is taking place at are:
Altrincham, Ashton-Under-Lyme, Victoria Plaza Bolton, Bury, Denton, Oldham, Rochdale, St Helens, Warrington, Grand Arcade Wigan, Woodcock Square Wigan, Arndale Centre Manchester, Cross St Manchester, Market Street Manchester, Salford Quays, Northwich, Stockport and two stores in the Trafford Centre
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July 17, 2009
Virgin Media are set to target the top 2% of its customers who use the most bandwidth on it’s network. Virgin believes these customers are detrimental to it’s network and other users. Currently it has been the top 5% of users who have been targeted but Virgin are now going to concentrate on the top 2% who they say use upload and download unusually large amounts.
The “penalty” for being in this group is likely to be the throttling of their broadband connection during peak hours and thus reducing the bandwidth available to them.
The following has been added to the Acceptable Use Policy that Virgin Media have on their site:
3.2.1. Virgin Media does not place a limit on monthly network usage. However, in isolated cases (currently less than 0.1% of customers) where excessive network usage at busy times (9am to 9pm) is having a detrimental effect on other users, we may need to take appropriate action in accordance with the terms of this AUP to notify users of the impact they are having and require them to move some of their activity into the less busy period.
The customers who are likely to be affected are those who use P2P and file sharing which use up allot of bandwidth.
The reduction of targeting the top 5% down to top 2% is likely to have come about with Virgin completing it’s DOCSIS 3 network which is offering 50Mb broadband and has tripled the available bandwidth they have available.
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Concerns in Whitehall were raised in to if the UK broadband infrastructure would be able to cope with a Swine Flu pandemic as many infected works were forced to work from home to try and reduce the spread of the infection.
The Concerns were that with so many extra people working from home via remote access over the Internet it could cause the broadband network to fail, however BT have said that the broadband network will be able to cope with the extra strain that would be put on the network.
Others believe that it is the companies themselves who may have more to worry about with their own network as they need to make sure their own networks are able to cope with workers connecting via remote access and to be sure that their network will be able to cope with the extra uploading and downloading from their network, it may also be an idea to add extra capacity to their own networks to help with this.
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July 16, 2009
Virgin Media has launched it’s first own branded netbook called “Freedom”.
 The netbook will be offered for free on 24 month (2 year) fixed line and also mobile broadband contracts from Virgin Media. Virgin say that the netbook is optimised to work on it’s 50Mb broadband package and has a stand alone retail value of £300. It will be available for both new and existing customers.
The netbook weighs 1.1Kg and has a 10.2″ LCD screen. It is powered by an N270- Atom processor and has a 120GB hard drive. Customers can choose to have it in Black or in Virgin Red colour.
Virgin has just announced that 50Mb broadband is now available across it’s entire fibre broadband network which is available to over 12 million homes across the UK.
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Virgin Media are to reduce the price of it’s headline 50Mb broadband deal.
The cable broadband provider has made 50Mb fibre broadband available to 12 million homes across the UK in an 18 month upgrade plan which has seen the completion of its DOCSIS 3 network. To mark this they are to reduce the cost of this to £28 per month when broadband is taken with a phone line or to £38 per month when taken as a stand alone product.
The new pricing will be launched on 1st September and will be available for both new and existing customers.
Virgin is also starting to trial 10Mb upload speed which would put it way in front of any other UK broadband provider and would be extremely useful for any online gamers, home workers and anyone wanting to video conference.
Virgin broadband are trying hard to make sure that they are the fibre broadband provider customers choose now that BT has started to roll out their “Next Generation Broadband network”.
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July 10, 2009
BT has named the next locations that it will be rolling out it’s fibre network to, which has 69 new locations around the UK listed on it.
BT have doubled their original estimate of having half a million premises connected to their fibre network by March 2010 up to 1 million premises, with BT expecting that by early summer 2010 there will be 1.5 million homes that will be able to access the new network.
BT has also planned that by 2012 that 40% of the UK, or 10 million homes, would have access to it’s super fast fibre broadband network with the majority connecting to it via FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) which should initially offer broadband speeds of 40Mb. The company have pledged to invest £1.5 bn in this roll out of fibre broadband across the UK.
The 69 new locations that BT will be installing their fibre network to are:
BERKHAMSTED – East of England
BILLERICAY – East of England
BRENTWOOD – East of England
ELSTREE – East of England
HAINAULT – East of England
HODDESDON – East of England
LEA VALLEY – East of England
LOUGHTON – East of England
STANFORD-LE-HOPE – East of England
WALTHAM CROSS – East of England
WOODFORD – East of England
GLOSSOP – East Midlands
HINCKLEY – East Midlands
BARKING – London
BARNET – London
ELTHAM – London
GREENWICH – London
HORNCHURCH – London
INGREBOURNE – London
NEW SOUTHGATE – London
PONDERS END – London
SIDCUP – London
SLADE GREEN – London
STAMFORD HILL – London
CHESTER-LE-STREET – North East
DURHAM – North East
EAST HERRINGTON – North East
HETTON-LE-HOLE – North East
ALTRINCHAM – North West
ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE – North West
CHEETHAM – North West
CHORLTON – North West
DENTON – North West
HYDE – North West
MANCHESTER EAST – North West
MOSS SIDE – North West
PRESTWICH – North West
STALYBRIDGE – North West
SWINTON, GREATER MANCHESTER – North West
URMSTON – North West
WALKDEN – North West
WILMSLOW – North West
LISBURN – Northern Ireland
EDINBURGH CORSTORPHINE – Scotland
EDINBURGH CRAIGLOCKHART – Scotland
GLASGOW BRIDGETON – Scotland
GLASGOW GIFFNOCK – Scotland
BASINGSTOKE – South East
DARTFORD – South East
BRISTOL NORTH – South West
BRISTOL WEST – South West
DOWNEND – South West
BARRY – Wales
CAERPHILLY – Wales
PENARTH – Wales
BIRMINGHAM, NORTHERN – West Midlands
FALLINGS PARK – West Midlands
GREAT BARR – West Midlands
LEAMORE – West Midlands
NUNEATON – West Midlands
TETTENHALL – West Midlands
WEDNESBURY – West Midlands
WALSALL – West Midlands
ARMLEY – Yorkshire
CASTLEFORD – Yorkshire
HEADINGLEY – Yorkshire
LOW MOOR – Yorkshire
PONTEFRACT – Yorkshire
SHIPLEY – Yorkshire
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BT think that the “broadband tax” to help fund next generation fibre broadband that is to be charged to all fixed telephone lines should be extended to also include mobile phone users.
The “Broadband Tax” as set out in the Digital Britain report means that a levy of 50p per month, £6 per year, is to be charged to every fixed telephone line that is expected to raise around £1.5 bn.
BT say that as it won’t only be fixed line broadband operators who will be able to bid for a share of the money and that the mobile operators will also be able to bid for some too.
Emma Gilthorpe, BT’s director of industry policy and regulation has said that “the government should consider the opportunity to widen the base for the tax and possibly reduce the amount that each individual household pays.” with regards to mobile operators looking to claim some of the money raised from the broadband tax.
The money raised is to fund the deployment of fibre broadband into areas of the country where it wouldn’t be feasible for broadband providers to fund the installation themselves.
BT is planning on installing it to 40% of the UK population at a speed of 40Mb, Virgin Media however already offer their fibre optic broadband service to 50% of the population and have a headline speed of 50Mb broadband.
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July 9, 2009
Worldwide home broadband connections are set to hit 500 million by next year showing that despite the global recession there is still a huge demand to have fast Internet access.
Futuresource Consulting were the people behind the research that also found that 60% of broadband connections are supplied via standard DSL through the local telephone line, with 20% having their broadband delivered by cable.
Although the saturation of broadband in many developed countries means that new broadband connections won’t grow rapidly like we have seen in previous years, there is however still other countries that are likely to see broadband connections in the home boom in numbers.
India for example currently has only around 2% of households with a broadband connection with around 5 million homes, over the next 4 years the research found that they expect this to rise to as many as 25 million homes.
Other areas that are likely to see a large increase in new broadband customers are Africa and the Middle East where this year alone there could be an estimated growth of 33% according to Patrik Pfandler, Senior Market Analyst of Futuresource Consulting.
In terms of broadband speed Japan and South Korea are the leaders who offer an average broadband speed of 30Mb, this is over twice as fast as the closest European country (Sweden) that has an average of 14Mb. The UK falls even further back than this with an average in the region of 4Mb. The average broadband speed int he USA last year was just 2.7Mb.
With this in mind it calls the UK governments plans for a minimum 2Mb broadband available throughout the UK by 2012 as very unambitious. The recently released Digital Britain report set this as a minimum broadband speed for everyone in the UK to be able to receive.
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July 8, 2009
Ofcom have created a 3G coverage map of the UK to show where there is a minimum threshold of coverage for anyone trying to connect to the Internet via a mobile phone or a mobile broadband dongle.
The maps are done for each of the 5 mobile operators in the UK and show their coverage, with Three and then Orange as those with the greatest coverage followed by T-Mobile, Vodafone and then O2 with the least 3G coverage.
The maps show indicated coverage representing areas where the threshold is exceeded for 50% of locations and 50% of time and for outdoor use. These are areas where there is a good chance that a customer will be able to make or receive a call over a 3G network.
Each of the mobile operators have their own 3G coverage maps on their websites that will be able to drill down to specific locations more accurately for customers wanting to know what coverage is like for a specific location, but this independent set of maps are a good platform to view what each of the mobile broadband operators are able to offer in terms of coverage throughout the UK.
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