Today Be Broadband has announced a new package to its line up called “Be Value” - Be value is an uncapped service (subject to ‘fair usage policy’) with up to 8 meg* download and up to 1.4 meg upload all for
Archive for August, 2007
Broadband Providers are always coming up with new and interesting was of attracting customers in a crowded market , just look at Orange giving away Free Laptops for instance. But are these Deals as good a buy as they may look at first? you can in some cases end up paying more than you initially thought as there is few pitfalls and hidden costs to look out for
We have made a list of things to keep in mind when considering a broadband package.
Free Broadband
Just like most things that claim to be free , its not! broadband companies like Orange , Talk Talk , Sky have been offering “Free” broadband for a while now but to get Free broadband you have to subscribe to one or more of their other Services like (Sky TV or Talk Talk phone line). These bundle deals do represent great value for money if you already subscribe to a qualifying service but you need to be sure you couldnt get the service cheaper when taken separately elsewhere.
If you do decide to go for one of these bundles then the second thing to look out for is the download limit included on your free Broadband which can be as low as 2GB which could see you hit with extra bandwidth charges if you are anything more than an low user.
Broadband Speeds
It is fairly rare to get the exact Speed advertised by your Provider for example you will see providers offering up to 8Mb broadband , in reality in a recent survey of 300 “up to 8Mb” users the average speed was just 2.7Mbps and the worst was a mere 0.9Mbps (read more here) . The maximum download speed for your connection is determined by many factors , one of the main ones being your phone lines distance from the exchange - use our broadband postcode checker to find this out and for a rough estimate of the speeds you can expect.
At the end of the day you could be paying extra for faster speeds that you wont get !
If you want to test the speed of your current connection use our Broadband Speed Test
Download Limits
Pretty much all Broadband Packages have download limits even if they don’t make this abundantly clear when you sign up. While you may be getting Super Fast broadband for under a tenner, when it comes with a download limit of 2GB per month you would need to be careful of what you use the connection for as you could easily exceed this with very little effort for example if you download a few movies a month or play a lot of online games. A 2GB limit is ok for people checking email and web browsing downloading some music etc. but if you are medium to heavy user it would not be suitable and would result in extra bandwidth charges
Unlimited Broadband ( Fair Use Policy)
In our opinion this is one of the sneakiest things broadband providers advertise, “Unlimited Broadband” should be unlimited right? wrong! they are almost alway subject to a “Fair Use Policy” which if you search through the small print may mean that if they think you are using your “unlimited” connection excessively then your provider may take the appropriate a action which can range from issuing a warning, throttling your connection during peak times, putting you in a pool of other high users to fight it 0ut for the bandwidth or even worse terminate your contract .
Make sure you read the small print to see what exactly each providers deems excessive use and what the consequences might be
18 Month contracts
You may notice some providers offering special deals for signing up to a 18 month broadband contract while this may look appealing remember that you will be locked in to that provider during the 18 month term and you may have to pay penalties if you need to get out early (e.g if you move house). Also in an ever changing broadband market do you want to be tied in for that long with out being able to switch freely?
Line Rental
Most people forget that you need to factor this into the cost of broadband as they already pay for their phone, but you cant have ADSL broadband without a phone line and you are looking at about
PlusNet are so confident that users switching to them from other providers will be so impressed with their service that they are offering a 90 day money back guarentee for switchers to their services - Even more if you are switching from Bulldog, Freedom 2 Surf, Toucan , Pipex or Nildram ( who are now all part of Tiscali following a recent takeover) you will also get one month free.
If you are currently looking to switch your provider then this is a pretty good deal , Your monthly subscriptions for the first 90 days will be refunded if you are not completely satisfied with the service and you cant say fairer than that
PlusNet offer a range of packages , all of which qualify for a 90 days free broadband trial compare them here
We have just finished our new speed checker you can see it in action at our Speed Test page
as well as looking alot better than our old version you can now test both download and upload speeds with more accuracy -
You simply click to start the test and the download speed test will start the dials on the speedo will move and left one shows current speed and the right shows the percentage progress of the current test. once the download speed is done the process is repeated for the upload speed and after that your results are displayed
Remember before you run the test to close down any application that uses the internet like email / messenger / torrents as this can slow your speeds .
We are still testing the checker and there may be a few glitches ( it doesnt work on Mac safari at the moment) . If you have any feedback please leave us your comments
Most Broadband providers price their broadband offerings depending on how fast and how much bandwidth usage is included a month - this leaves many confused about how much bandwidth they use or need . As a result many people go for packages with a higher usage limit than they actually need or even worse, sign up to a package with less monthly bandwidth than they need and end up getting charged for the over use!
Some providers give rough estimates of how much of various types of broadband content you can download with each package but this is just a rough guide and shouldnt be relied upon
So whats the answer? the best way to judge how much bandwidth you use a month is to use software to monitor your traffic for a month ( a few months would be more accurate) and then you will have an accurate figure of how much bandwidth you use.
If you then find that you are paying for too much bandwidth you can switch to another package or provider with a usage limit closer to your actual usage
To Download and install
Its seems like we have been waiting ages for O2’s entrance into the broadband market after several delays and its is thought to be kicking off around september / October but the latest news suggests that O2 have reduced plans to roll out its LLU network nationwide and instead they are going concentrate on selling its broadband via O2 retail shops in areas where there network is already running - they have signed a deal with BT Wholesale and this will help supply customers outside the reach of their network , but there is no word as of yet if the pricing structure will be the same as for LLU user,
In a recent report, consumer group Which? surveyed 300 users with typical “up to 8Mbps” broadband packages and found out that the difference between the 8Mbps they could be expecting and what they actually got was huge.
The average speed of the customers surveyed was just 2.7Mbps and the worst was a mere 0.9Mbps
Despite this massive difference in speeds the advertising standards agency (ASA) has deemed that the ads comply with the advertisers code as they use the “up to” clause , while Which? believes customers are being mislead .
There is many factors that effect the speed of broadband you can actually receive the major one being the distance from your BT exchange if you would like to check this out and see what maximum speed you could expect to receive try our Broadband Speed & Availablity Postcode Checker
Quite simply broadband internet access or “Broadband” is high speed internet access, giving you faster and more reliable access to the internet. Broadband has replaced the old method of accessing the internet which was Dial-up access via a modem, this required full use of the telephone line. You may have experienced this when picking up the phone to hear a strange sound like a fax machine instead of a dial tone. Dial up modems generally operated at a maximum bit rate, or speed, of 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second). Don
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line or ADSL is the most common broadband used today and the coverage for this is 80% meaning it is widely available. ADSL uses your standard existing BT copper telephone land line and turns it into a high