Free broadband offer is on its way from Carphone Warehouse

Free broadband offer is on its way from Carphone Warehouse
By Michael Jivkov and Saeed Shah
Published: 01 April 2006
Carphone Warehouse is to launch a major assault on the broadband market by
offering a free service to customers. The deal, which is to be announced on
11 April, will see the telecoms group offer a three-month free broadband
trial followed by a rate of just £4.99 a month, half the price of the
current best offer available.

To access the free broadband offer, customers need to subscribe to
Carphone's fixed-line service, which has a rental cost of £9.99 a month.
Carphone currently charges £14.99 for its 1MB broadband service.

Analysts see the move as part of a "land grab" by Carphone. Some believe it
could be as significant as Freeserve's landmark launch, in the late 1990's,
of dial-up internet access to households that did not involve a monthly
subscription charge.

Merrill Lynch said yesterday: "In our view Carphone Warehouse now has a
solid opportunity to establish itself as a credible alternative broadband
player in the UK."

The group is able to make such a drastic cut in its prices thanks to the
process known as local loop unbundling, which has meant that BT has been
forced to allow rivals on to its exchanges. The reforms mean that operators
such as Carphone can lease the copper lines that connect a customer's home
to BT exchanges, giving them end-to-end coverage.

For the first time, alternative telecom carriers such as Carphone will be
able to offer their own broadband internet services, which use their own
physical infrastructure, as opposed to simply re-selling BT services under
their own name.

According to the consumer group uSwitch, the best deal available comes from
UK Online, part of the easyNet business that BSkyB bought last year, which
offers 1Mb broadband for £9.99 a month, with no download limits. Blair
Wadman of uSwitch said broadband prices had already crashed, coming down
from some £30 a month at the end of 2004 for a 1Mb connection.

Later this year, Sky will offer a new bundled service, adding broadband to
its television offering in what is likely to be an aggressive move on the
broadband market.

Some 42 per cent of UK households have broadband. The market leader is NTL,
which has 35 per cent market share following its merger with Telewest. Next
is BT with 24 per cent.

Merrill Lynch said Carphone has two advantages over rivals such as Wanadoo,
Tiscali and Homeserve. It has low subscriber acquisition costs because of
its established base of phone customers; and Merrill points out that the
group already has a strong brand name.

http://news.independent.co.uk/busine...icle354944.ece




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On Mon, 3 Apr 2006 19:45:55 +0100, "CyberMail"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>Merrill Lynch said yesterday: "In our view Carphone Warehouse now has a
>solid opportunity to establish itself as a credible alternative broadband
>player in the UK."

So 'loss leader' is now a basis for credibility?

I wonder if the business analysts actually sat down with the techies
to make sure it's deliverable before they crunched the numbers?

I imagine the performance and technical support will be consistent
with the price.

--
Address munged but valid - remove mungbeans.

"CyberMail" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:44317c24$0$20109$(E-Mail Removed) .com...
> Free broadband offer is on its way from Carphone Warehouse
> By Michael Jivkov and Saeed Shah
> Published: 01 April 2006
> Carphone Warehouse is to launch a major assault on the broadband market by
> offering a free service to customers. The deal, which is to be announced
> on 11 April, will see the telecoms group offer a three-month free
> broadband trial followed by a rate of just £4.99 a month, half the price
> of the current best offer available.
>
> To access the free broadband offer, customers need to subscribe to
> Carphone's fixed-line service, which has a rental cost of £9.99 a month.
> Carphone currently charges £14.99 for its 1MB broadband service.
>
> Analysts see the move as part of a "land grab" by Carphone. Some believe
> it could be as significant as Freeserve's landmark launch, in the late
> 1990's, of dial-up internet access to households that did not involve a
> monthly subscription charge.
>

So I need to pay the £4-99 for broadband which might be low speed or capped,
then £10-50 or whatever it is to BT for the line rental, then £9-99 to
carphone warehouse!
I might aswell just stick with BT for the discount schemes and pay any other
ISP the £14-99.
Nothing in it for me!

MartinP wrote:

>
> "CyberMail" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:44317c24$0$20109$(E-Mail Removed) .com...
> > Free broadband offer is on its way from Carphone Warehouse
> > By Michael Jivkov and Saeed Shah
> > Published: 01 April 2006
> > Carphone Warehouse is to launch a major assault on the broadband
> > market by offering a free service to customers. The deal, which is
> > to be announced on 11 April, will see the telecoms group offer a
> > three-month free broadband trial followed by a rate of just £4.99
> > a month, half the price of the current best offer available.
> >
> > To access the free broadband offer, customers need to subscribe to
> > Carphone's fixed-line service, which has a rental cost of £9.99 a
> > month. Carphone currently charges £14.99 for its 1MB broadband
> > service.
> >
> > Analysts see the move as part of a "land grab" by Carphone. Some
> > believe it could be as significant as Freeserve's landmark launch,
> > in the late 1990's, of dial-up internet access to households that
> > did not involve a monthly subscription charge.
> >
>
> So I need to pay the £4-99 for broadband which might be low speed or
> capped, then £10-50 or whatever it is to BT for the line rental, then
> £9-99 to carphone warehouse! I might aswell just stick with BT for
> the discount schemes and pay any other ISP the £14-99. Nothing in it
> for me!

I read it as £9.99 for line rental via CPW plus £4.99 for BB after
three months.

--
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www.ukwebhost.com

On 03 Apr 2006, "MartinP" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>So I need to pay the £4-99 for broadband which might be low speed or capped,
>then £10-50 or whatever it is to BT for the line rental, then £9-99 to
>carphone warehouse!

No, AFAIK, the BT fee would be out of the picture - recent signups to use
the TT phone service switch from BT billing. The upside in the above would
be Internet and phone for 15 quid a month. The downsides would be: possible
difficulty in using alternative phone services for cheaper calls, and limits
on what the internet access might do - comments have been made about trouble
using peer-to-peer... would not affect me, but some others want that access!
Oh, network services like caller display, etc, will cost more via TT, and if
a fault develops, reporting route will be user -> TT -> BT {to fix it}

>I might aswell just stick with BT for the discount schemes and pay any other
>ISP the £14-99. Nothing in it for me!

Do you really find the BT discount schemes worthwhile? I pay 1899 for calls
I make in the day (a 4p connection fee, but 0p/minute for calls to 01/02 and
can chat for an hour or more without any extra cost)... There is a range of
discount schemes for "inclusive calls" such as from TescoTalk, Tiscali and a
couple of others at least, if daytime and off-peak calls are made... or some
schemes just to give cheap/included off-peak calls. Practically all undercut
BT charges for Option 2 or Option 3, I think you'd find. Check packages for
residential users at <http://www.magsys.co.uk/> (No link, past customer of
the residential spreadsheets).


--
UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash!!

> I imagine the performance and technical support will be consistent
> with the price.
>

IMO they're already consistent with that price...

I've been waiting 4 weeks for a MAC code only to be told yesterday
(after 4 phone calls) that there was a problem with the form and the
"request MAC code" box wasn't checked... Oh yes it was !!!!
so now I'll be cut off on 11/04 and have to sign up with a new ISP
pretty damn quick

I just signed up with them.
Every man and his dog seems to have a link to this TalkTalk company.
The one I found is http://tinyurl.com/l4k32 takes you staright to the
TalkTalk website.

On 25 Apr 2006 "Target" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>takes you staright to the TalkTalk website.

Straight to the site I'd use <http://www.talktalk.co.uk/>

However, you wouldn't see me trying their ADSL service in a month
of Sundays (I've been using the phone service for a while and I'm
happy with that, but have also seen negative comments about ADSL,
so would suggest anyone considering them simply wait 6 months and
then take a second opinion, based on whether they've had too many
negative comments on websites and in the national press.

Why you continue to "plug" some other link, everyone knows!

poster wrote:
> On 25 Apr 2006 "Target" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> takes you staright to the TalkTalk website.
>
> Straight to the site I'd use <http://www.talktalk.co.uk/>
>
> However, you wouldn't see me trying their ADSL service in a month
> of Sundays (I've been using the phone service for a while and I'm
> happy with that, but have also seen negative comments about ADSL,
> so would suggest anyone considering them simply wait 6 months and
> then take a second opinion, based on whether they've had too many
> negative comments on websites and in the national press.
>
> Why you continue to "plug" some other link, everyone knows!
>

We used TalkTalk for my landline phone for a while without any problems
and had 2 mobiles on Fresh.

I had recommended Carphone Warehouse for years.

Sadly their service has disintegrated and our phones are now all with
other service providers.

Billing became a mess with numerous threats from TalkTalk and Fresh.
About 40 communications from me were either ignored or received
meaningless replies.

Finally I wrote to Sir Charles Dunstone on 18 March.
Never did get a reply although a cheque I enclosed did clear just over a
month later.

Would I trust their over-subscribed ADSL service? I don't think so. I
was once with Tiscali and trying to get any sense out of the CPW Group
is far worse even than Tiscali.

Target wrote:
> I just signed up with them.
> Every man and his dog seems to have a link to this TalkTalk company.
> The one I found is http://tinyurl.com/wanker takes you staright to the
> TalkTalk website.

You really are a wanker, aren't you? Do you really think we're all to
stupid to see that you're posting affiliated links rather than direct links
to talktalk?

Tim