Free broadband from Carphone Warehouse...

gameboy

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Carphone Warehouse is this week poised to unveil a "free" internet broadband service as part of its drive to diversify away from its mobile phone retailing roots.

The company, headed by Charles Dunstone, is expected to offer free initial subscriptions for the service, with subsequent rates as low as £4.99 per month.

Standard industry broadband rates are about £14.99 per month and competitors argue that the discounted rates are unsustainable.

The move would trigger a price war with broadband providers such as NTL, with nearly three million UK subscribers.

Details are expected tomorrow, when Carphone issues a quarterly trading update.

The company declined to comment yesterday. A spokesman said: "It is no secret that we are going to make a significant investment in broadband in 2006.

"However, we have never actually given details and it is all speculation at this stage."

Carphone Warehouse is spending £60m installing its own broadband equipment in up to 1,000 BT exchanges.

The move, known as local-loop unbundling, will give the company greater control over the speed and price of broadband services offered.

Source: Scotsman
 

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Speculation...

In the Summer, Sky comes back with "free broadband" for users of its' premium package. This will be a decent speed and also include voice and a few other innovations such as downloading movies, sports events etc, etc,

In other words, Sky goes for the triple play (video+voice+data)

then...

In the autumn, BT launches its' video play. Orange launches its' revised Wanadoo+Mobile play. NTL offers its' triple-play products rebranded as Virgin through new distribution channels.
 

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I'm rather hoping Sky offer special prices to premium subbers when they got their broadband up and running.

As for this 'free' broadband offering from Carphone Warehouse, dont be fooled, its not free in reality. Carphone Warehouse 'TalkTalk' prices are higher than BT (I know, I've seen other peoples bills!), and the 'free' offer is only for three months, £4.99 thereafter. I'm surprised Trading Standards haven't pulled the Warehouse up for letting the media spread misleading information.
 

Channel Hopper

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Its only news in this country, many other places already supply broadband internet services for free.
 

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Channel Hopper said:
Its only news in this country, many other places already supply broadband internet services for free.

Typical of us to be behind!
 

gameboy

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Salty25 said:
Carphone Warehouse 'TalkTalk' prices are higher than BT (I know, I've seen other peoples bills!)

Was with OneTel who are now owned by TalkTalk - they guarantee to be cheaper than BT. I get free calls 'anytime' to other TalkTalk users and free weekend calls to anyone. They even beat the BT line rental price or they give you £1000.

My bills are certainly cheaper than when I was with BT.
 

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Salty25 said:
Typical of us to be behind!

All things are relative - broadband hasn't reached me yet!
 

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gameboy said:
Was with OneTel who are now owned by TalkTalk - they guarantee to be cheaper than BT. I get free calls 'anytime' to other TalkTalk users and free weekend calls to anyone. They even beat the BT line rental price or they give you £1000.

My bills are certainly cheaper than when I was with BT.

Really? Lower line rental - THAT I would be interested in. Gotta link?
 

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Salty25 said:
Really? Lower line rental - THAT I would be interested in. Gotta link?

£1,000 challenge

If we can’t prove that your bill with TalkTalk is cheaper than it would have been with BT we’ll give you £1,000.

_http://www.talktalk.co.uk/talktalk/servlet/gben-LLU-PageServer?article=MAIN.UK.TALKTALK.STATIC.LLSTATIC.WHYSWITCH
 

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gameboy said:
£1,000 challenge

If we can’t prove that your bill with TalkTalk is cheaper than it would have been with BT we’ll give you £1,000.

_http://www.talktalk.co.uk/talktalk/servlet/gben-LLU-PageServer?article=MAIN.UK.TALKTALK.STATIC.LLSTATIC.WHYSWITCH

Cheers. I've had a ganda at Talk1, the equalivant package to BT Option 1 that I have now, and while the line rental is the same, the landline and mobile calls are defo cheaper.
 

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Looks like free broadband is having an effect...

From the Car Phone Warehouse site...

Many thanks for visiting our site. We have had a quite extraordinary last 24 hours. Interest in Free Broadband has exceeded our wildest expectations. By now nearly 20,000 people have already signed up. This is 5 times what we predicted. Naturally, I am thrilled, but this has meant that the web site has been getting up to 40,000 hits a minute. I am afraid that yesterday this led to some problems with some of the pages, so our ever resourceful technical teams worked through the night, streamlining it and adding more capacity. So far today it has been flying, in spite of the continued massive amount of interest!

It seems we have really started a revolution and from today onwards the world of telecoms will never be the same again.

We have already had the inevitable grumblings from BT, suggesting to people that it isn't really free, and to check the small print. My response is: 'do the maths BT' we are more than 50% cheaper than your cheapest equivalent package! In terms of our small print - you have to pay a £29.99 connection charge and sign an 18 month contract - and that's it.
 

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gameboy said:
Looks like free broadband is having an effect...

From the Car Phone Warehouse site...

It sounds very good. Hopefully, this will greatly influence BT, Sky (when they enter the market), and NTL.
 

rolfw

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Has anyone read their fair usage terms and conditions? See Advance User Information Not too much use for a lot of our members. ;)

Throttled P2P usage apart from midnight to 8am, 40GB monthly usage, no problem for your average Joe, but hardly what I would call "Free Broadband" when it comes to usage.;)
 

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rolfw said:
P2P usage apart from midnight to 8am, 40GB monthly usage, no problem for your average Joe, but hardly what I would call "Free Broadband" when it comes to usage.;)

For me, that's perfect!!! Most of the things I download (no, not always mature content.... :D )only seem to appear after midnight, so the throttling wouldn't really cause much of a problem, and the 40GB limit, not a probelm, I probably average about 6GB a month...:D

Bye bye NTL methinks (especially as they've overcharged me for using Wanadoo dialup)...
 
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