3rd January, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
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3rd September, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Broadband bundles are all the rage – that’s all your telecoms needs on one bill – but are they ever worth it?
This article will look at price, quality of internet connection and convenience as factors in answering this question.
First a look at the prices of these broadband deals. Common sense would tell you that getting all your services from one provider is likely to be cheaper in the long run since they’ll lower prices as an incentive to get your custom for a lot of different services.
This is often true and it’s also the case when you are an existing customer with a company and then your subsequently take broadband from them (for example, when you have a mobile contract from a company that does broadband) even though this won’t all come on a single bill.
However, it’s not always the case as sometimes providers will see you as a captive audience and therefore charge more for services you may assume would be cheaper such as line rental.
For example, one of the UK’s most popular bundle providers – Virgin Media – now offers line rental for a price that’s more expensive than the industry standard – that is, the price as set by British Telecom. It’s not more by much but it’s still an expense that can ratchet up the cost of a broadband bundle.
In all, though, the first assumption is the correct one. It is far cheaper to get a broadband bundle in general than buying three services as separate deals.
The other question, though, is whether you actually need those three.
In many cases, consumers get TV – for example – on top of their broadband because it’s only a little bit more per month but, if they’d stuck to their original plan and just got broadband and a phone line, it could have cost them considerably less. In this case, the person should have compared like for like when it come to the internet connection.
It’s also the case that the quality of broadband connection can be in doubt when taking such as deal. For example, when choosing between Sky or Virgin – two huge bundle providers – you may notice that the former offers fairly slow internet connections with low download limits while the latter offers the opposite.
In this case, one company is putting more emphasis on broadband than the other and when it comes to bundles that can be a serious annoyance since moving one service could mean moving them all.
It seems even when it comes to getting everything, then, one thing has to come first. Whether it’s 100 TV channels or 15GB Mobile Broadband the best thing to do to find out whether a broadband bundle is worth it is to start with that.
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30th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Popularity of broadband has seen tremendous ascend in the recent past. This popularity has given way to immense competition between the broadband service providers, outcome of that being the cheap Broadband Packages in UK broadband arena. The broadband providers keep enticing users with the lucrative offers and their main target are the users looking for low-end broadband packages. It’s better to get abreast about the offerings, if one intends to make the most out of such deals.
Plusnet, O2, Virgin media, BT, Homecall and AOLT are amongst the leading UK broadband service providers that offer cheap broadband packages. All of them keep coming up with cheap broadband packages to attract users toward their services. It can sometimes be a perplexing task to choose between such a myriad number of service providers offering large number of packages. One way to get the best deal is to take online help. There are many sites which give complete information about the deals and also help formulate a decision by providing comparison between different packages. Buying a broadband package online can be helpful because the best deals are mostly available over the internet. It’s not necessary to make a compromise on speed, when looking for cheap broadband packages. The speed should be chosen on the basis of requirements. So, if someone is not using internet for applications which require high speed, good amount of money can be saved by opting for low speed broadband connection. It’s not always necessary to rely on the big brand name while taking your broadband connection. Especially, while looking for cheaper deals, the small companies providing broadband connection can really fit into the requirements of the user. To establish themselves into the competitive broadband market, the comparatively smaller companies tend to offer a slightly better and cheaper packages. Generally, the companies which has greater availability offer better deals. Therefore, going for the service provider with greater presence can be fruitful. Mostly, the cheaper deals are the ones that have long commitment periods attached with them. This is the type of risk, which a person should be ready to take, if looking for a really good and a cheap broadband package. A good amount of money can also be saved in a package deal. These broadband deals are a kind of enhancement to the already existing internet connection.
A good and complete knowledge of the various cheap broadband packages available can help save a large amount of money. It is always better to do a little research before getting your hands on something like broadband connection, which is available in so many different packages. The cheap broadband deals is an offering on the platter and it is up to the users to accept it or not.
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26th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Technology such as Broadband Internet covered in this article are rapidly changing our world in many ways and becoming more affordable for the average person. It’s worth mentioning however that better technology is actually properly defined as simply a better way of doing something we already do with whatever process we have at hand. Rather than thinking of better technology in terms of computers, hi tech gadgets and such, for example anytime we find a way to get to work 5mins faster than before we have found a better technology to improve our lives in some respect.
How often do you use your Internet? I can hardly fathom computers at times. If I actually sit and think about all they do, I simply get confused. It’s kind of like cassette tapes. Back when I was a child, I used to wonder how in the world does music come off of this magical tape. Well, it still makes little sense to me even after studying the process. The Internet is like this also. The World-Wide-Web takes us throughout cyberspace, but does it from our living rooms. It’s phenomenal how we can lounge on our couches with laptops at hand and surf the planet. However, to do this the right way these days is with high speed cable Internet.
You may find it hard to choose between high speed cable Internet and DSL. If this is the case, ponder no more. Let me give you some basic advice about high speed cable Internet. There is no substitute. You probably hop online every day. Most of us send emails, pay our bills, do some work, and maybe surf the web on a regular basis. Don’t you want the fastest speed when doing these routine chores? With high speed cable Internet you get things done at a much quicker pace. No more sitting around on your thumbs while waiting for a single page to load. Who wants to wait an hour for a movie trailer to open? You want to watch it now. You need high speed cable Internet. While DSL might save you a little; is it really worth sacrificing all of that time? Our lives are too valuable.
**Running Commentary** – Its interesting to note at this point that the cost of Broadband Internet is going to range in price quite a bit and you really need to first identify your needs and wants and when you go shopping make sure you don’t overspend for features you want but don’t really need. As technology so quickly becomes obsolete 1. many of the features will become obsolete 2. later models will be cheaper if not superseded by a later model with newer features and 3. are you going to actually have time to read the whole manual and understand how all the features work ? (I know I never figure out all the features of any new gadget or gizmo I buy)
Yes, there are a few individuals who suffer from the horrible affliction called dial-up. It’s hard to believe anymore, but a few of us still deal with the ear-piercing screech and the constant disconnections. Dial-up is certainly a thing of the past, and most of us are very glad it is. These days we love the freedom of high speed cable Internet. When you finally make that switch from one to the other, you will be completely shocked at the difference. I laughed at my father who recently switched to high speed cable Internet from dial-up. He was utterly amazed at the newfound speed. If you are not up to date on quality Internet service, it’s time to hop online and browse around. A popular high speed cable Internet service that many of us share is called Road Runner by Time Warner Cable Service. Take a surf through cyberspace with high speed cable Internet and you’ll never go back to the inferior.
To wrap up our article about Broadband Internet I wish you luck in putting your new technology to use in your home/work life. In the last 20 years I have seen so many examples of new technology come and go I can’t help feeling excited about what I’m going to see in the next 20 years. Although many people seem to feel a sense of foreboding about new things changing their lives in a negative way I must confess that I don’t have this fear at all (at the ripe old age of 40 anyway). I understand that new and changing technology is not only inevitable but in fact is opening up more opportunities for us all than ever before in our history and we should only feel threatened if we choose to cling to the past and somehow expect the rest of the world around us to do the same.
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22nd August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Strategy Paper for Overcoming DTAG Market and Technology Advantage
This paper was created for a venture capital company and subsequently used to target cable accessible markets in Germany. The paper has been parsed in this forum to separately cover Digital TV, Broadband Data, Video on Demand, Telephony, Interactive TV, Gaming and Colocation.
TELEPHONY
Telephony is another DTAG strongpoint. However, telephony has the potential to be just as ubiquitous a service within the enterprise as cable tv. Telephony in the form of Voice Over IP (VOIP) should be offered by the enterprise to residential and business customers. The enterprise can offer telephony cheaper than, quicker and with more bells and whistles than DTAG.
My strong suggestion is to take DTAG’s market share by offering better value. Value is measured by customer costs+options+customer satisfaction+enterprise costs=value. The same DTAG arguments offered in the Broadband Data section of this document, hold true in Telephony also. Using agreements with bandwidth providers and reciprical agreements with LECs, the enterprise can compete with DTAG by:
1. Offer lower monthly basic fee
2. Inter-cable area calls are free
3. Reduced cost on international calls
4. Reduced costs on DTAG and mobile calls.
Through legislation, the enterprise must insure that DTAG is withheld from offering predatory pricing. In addition, the enterprise should approach the Bundestag for telephone tariff legislation allowing it to charge more money to carriers who connect to it to complete calls, than it pays to carriers to complete it’s calls. The EU precedent for this has already been set in Belguim.
Much of the infrastructure needed for Telephony is also needed for Broadband Data and VOD, hence costs can be amortized across systems. The enterprise should also study whether call centers, help desks, etc. would subscribe to an outsourced call routing system comparable to commercial ACRs with queues. Telephony options (through technology) can then be offered to business consumers and used as a profit center.
The technology needed for this is conventional telephony (SS7, SPDs, etc.) for DTAG and other pure POTS type of carriers, and VOIP in order to take advantage of the lower costs offered by this technology. The technology for POTS and VOIP operations is reliable, cost effective and widely known outside of Germany.
Extraordinary costs entailed would be for marketing, consumer awareness, consumer education and sales. Bundling this product with cable tv, and using existing cable consumer notification processes would somewhat lower customer acquisition costs.
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18th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Almost every home now has internet access in one form or another, be it dial-up connection or broadband. If you have a family, your children may find the internet useful for keeping up with friends or doing their homework; but what else is happening behind the screens?
The vast number of blogs, social networking sites and free website space has led to an increase in a deplorable practice amongst children and teenagers; Cyberbullying. Taking the notion of schoolyard bullying one step further, Cyberbullying is causing distress and, in some cases, suicidal actions among adolescents today.
Cyberbullying takes many forms, all of which are designed to humiliate, upset and otherwise distress a bully’s target. Perhaps the most well-known one is the malicious email or text message, the modern-day equivalent of the ‘poison-pen’ letter; the difference being an email or SMS can usually be traced much easier than a letter sent through the post.
Taking it a little further, ganging up on an individual in a chatroom or instant messenger conversation is a method often used by cyberbullies. Inviting several people into an IM chat to encourage, contribute or even just laugh at the bully ‘having a go’ at their target can be just as upsetting to the victim as the actual attack itself.
Going further than this, bullies may set up profile pages on network sites like Myspace and Facebook dedicated to slamming or humiliating their victim. These profiles are sometimes written as if from the victim’s point of view, revealing embarrassing and often untrue facts about the person. Others may contain embarrassing videos or pictures of the victim, usually edited in a photo editing program.
Some bullies will take their hate campaigns to the lengths of actually setting up an entire website about their victim; the advent of free website and blog services has exacerbated this. The victim often has no idea about the existence of such a website, and is left to wonder why people are laughing behind her/his back or making cryptic comments.
With broadband becoming cheaper, more families are getting internet and leaving their children open to cyberbullies. Some broadband deals may offer monitoring software to allow you to see what your child gets up to online. Compare broadband packages with your child’s safety in mind and stop the cyberbullies.
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14th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Those with long enough memories will remember the first wave of dot.com mania in the 1990s, which led to a host of web businesses being valued at multi-millions of pounds by the stock market, despite never having generated any meaningful revenue. Many of those over-valued companies subsequently failed to make the predicted profits and disappeared without trace, incurring huge losses and leaving a lot of investors with burnt fingers.
One of the prime reasons for the failure of those early online businesses wasn’t because their ideas or business models were outlandish it was because they relied upon 26kbps dial-up to deliver their website to the consumer. That proved to be far too slow as many website pages took far too long to download, provoking widespread disillusionment amongst web-users. As a result many turned their back on cyberspace, companies failed in their thousands, and the early optimism of internet entrepreneurs dissolved.
It has taken the widespread introduction of broadband access to the internet to reverse dot.com fortunes. Now, with download speeds of upwards of 8meg widely available the nightmares of the past have been largely forgotten and the internet business world is now experiencing rapid growth as people return to the web in their millions. In 2005 the UK passed the US in terms of per capita penetration of Broadband services, and now 89% of web users in the UK are broadband users, according to BRMB internet monitor.
Increased fierce competition has seen the price of broadband pushed down at the same time as download speeds have dramatically increased. That has enabled a communications revolution, as broad bandwidth allows users to make voice and video calls via their PCs far cheaper than using a traditional land-line.
The minimum recommended bandwidth for smooth video chat is 128kb for both upload and download speeds, but double that is much better. At a dial-up speed of 56kb video calling is just not possible, and even voice-only calls will be pretty poor. Now that almost nine in ten web users in the UK are on broadband at speeds in excess of those minimum speeds they can all take advantage of free voice and video calls on the web.
But it’s just not increased bandwidth that has made quality video communications possible on the web. Rapidly improving technology has led to a dramatic increase in webcam quality meaning that they are no longer the preserve of the well-to-do; for example, a professional quality webcam can now be bought for under £100.
But, to make successful video calls all that is needed is a standard quality webcam costing between £20 and £30. It will give crystal clear quality and as most come with a built-in microphone, all you need to do is plug-and-play, then you are ready to make video calls to anyone in the world.
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10th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
There aren’t many businesses nowadays who don’t utilise the internet in one form or another. Large corporations may use it to communicate with their many members of staff, and a smaller business might use it for market research purposes.
First of all, a company will need to sign up to a business broadband package. Domestic packages don’t have the same features and flexibility as business ones, as domestic users don’t have the same needs as a company.
The main benefit to a business connection is the technical support you receive. When a home connection goes down, it’s an inconvenience but when a business connection goes down, it can mean loss of revenue and customers, so it’s vital that proper technical support is provided. A business package should provide a company with 24 hour access to a helpline, quick engineer call-out and even remote assistance if necessary. Some providers offer a backup service which will keep the servers running on dial-up while the broadband is being fixed.
Security is another concern for company internet. While the cheap broadband business packages may only offer the basic security and anti-virus, a more expensive deal can also prevent against hackers who could possibly steal financial details and staff information.
Speed is important, with more upload speed needed than on a domestic package. An uncapped download limit it useful as it’s likely that a lot of downloading will be taking place, especially if you have a lot of employees.
Consider how many computers will need to be connected together on a LAN, and make sure you have an option to expand as more employees join the company. You can also have the option of connecting to offices in different parts of the country. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is useful for this type of setup. It’s a way of using broadband internet as a phone line, and communicating between machines with VoIP software instead of making phone calls. Calls between computers with the same software are usually free so it’s cheaper for businesses to communicate with each other in this way.
As with anything, do some research first into the different business broadband deals around, and make sure you get one which will suit your business best.
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6th August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Research has revealed that the vast amount of broadband packages currently available is leaving customers feeling baffled and confused, with four in 10 struggling to understand the differences between the deals that are advertised.
Despite 53% of UK households now having broadband internet, the research has highlighted that many still do not understand the technical terminology used by providers to differentiate between the packages that they offer.
It’s not necessary to know the technical workings behind broadband to help you choose the best deal for you; all you need is a basic understanding of the terminology that the providers use. Once you have that, it’s then relatively straight forward to decide what package is most appropriate for you.
The main thing to consider is how much you intend to use the internet. Internet providers set the charges for each package against how much data they allow you to download. Providers set a monthly download capacity for each package, for example:
• Package A – 5 GB monthly download allowance
• Package B – 8 GB monthly download allowance
• Package C – Unlimited monthly download allowance
For a cheap broadband deal then go for the lowest monthly download allowance i.e. Package A.
If you foresee that you will be using the internet frequently and you will be using it to download large files, then you will need a package that offers you a higher download capacity.
If you use the internet mainly just to browse web pages and for occasional emails then a cheaper package offering a lower download capacity will suffice.
To put things in perspective, viewing 25 web pages roughly equates to 1MB (megabyte) of data. There are 1000MB in 1GB (Gigabyte), so a one gig limit set by the provider should leave you with plenty of headroom if you plan on avoiding large file downloads.
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2nd August, 2010 - Posted by admin - Comments Off
Dial-up internet is slowly but surely being phased out with more and more households turning to a broadband connection instead. But with so many providers around, each offering a different package, finding the right one for you may seem like an uphill struggle.
There are some things to consider when shopping around for a broadband provider if you want to get the best deal. First of all, as with anything, think about your budget. How much can you afford to spend per month on your broadband? And how much do you expect to use it, and for what purpose?
If you intend to use the internet for downloading or viewing a lot of sites, you’ll need to take into account any usage limits. Some providers like the Post Office offer a low monthly cap of 5MB, which is enough for a light to medium user who doesn’t need to download much. For the media fans, a higher download cap will be needed, or even an unlimited one.
There has been a lot of controversy regarding certain providers and their appalling customer service, so if you’re not technologically minded, and anticipate needing help with your broadband connection, then ask friends and family to recommend a provider with a good reputation for customer service. If you already have internet access then look on review sites for feedback.
Don’t go just on price alone. Cheap broadband may not be as cheap as you think. Take into account any hidden costs, and read all the small print. For example, you may find a package which charges just £9.99 per month, which on the face of it seems fantastic, but there may be an extortionate set-up fee, and a charge for the equipment too. Also find out about any cancellation fees that may apply if you decide to cancel before the end of your monthly contract.
Which brings us to our next point. Many providers prefer to you sign up with them for a minimum amount of time, usually 12 months, and you can incur a hefty fee if you wish to leave early. This isn’t a problem if you’re happy with your provider, but if you experience problems and want to switch, it may prove expensive. There are some providers stating that they don’t have a minimum contract term, but they will still charge you if you leave before a certain period of time, so this amounts to the same thing.
Finally, look to the companies you are already with to see if they provide broadband internet. You may be able to get a cheaper deal as an existing customer from your cable TV, mobile phone or even utility provider.
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