Broadband News

Another month has flown by at the Top 10 Broadband office, with yet another manic month of adventures in the broadband underworld.

Although the weather in June was wet and miserable for most of the UK, the broadband world was far from a wet squib. We noticed a real increase in the amount of new broadband statistics being published, there were a lot of updates to current broadband packages from the major ISPs, there were reports of broadband customers being poached and as ever, there were irresistible new services being offered.

Perhaps the most controversial (and interesting!)) story in June was based around complaints that TalkTalk had been ‘poaching’ customers from rival ISP PlusNet. The problem was reported on PlusNet’s community website after numerous complaints were made regarding people not able to make connection to the internet. Only after closer inspection was it revealed that TalkTalk may have ‘poached’ these PlusNet customers without consent. Over 20 reports were made, and PlusNet are reportedly taking the matter to Ofcom to resolve the issue.

Another important topic that made the news in June was that Brits are not only paying far more than most of Europe for their broadband but are also achieving far slower broadband speeds. France achieve an average speed of 17.6Mb/s compared to only 2.6Mb/s in the UK, but to rub salt into the wounds French residents pay on average 83p per month for 1Mb/s broadband compared to £5.60 in Britain. One of the reasons for such a high average speed in France is due to the huge amount of fibre optic cables across the country. In the UK, cable broadband is limited to cabling owned by Virgin Media and does not cover the whole country.

It was also noticed by the Top 10 Broadband team that the desire for free broadband in the UK is dropping compared to the beginning of the year. After extensive analysis, we found that ISPs offering free broadband are reducing in popularity on our site as more people seem willing to pay for their broadband - possibly in order to receive a better service.

Other notable pieces of news in June include Eclipse going carbon neutral, BT launching their own credit card to help reduce user’s BT bills, Madasafish offering wireless routers as standard and Plusnet making a language specific-site to cater for the growing numbers of Polish people living in Briton.

Don’t hesitate to make a comment if you have something to say, as your views are valuable to us.

As ever, you can compare all the latest broadband deals at Top 10 Broadband.

Until next month, regards from all @ Top 10.