10.31.06
BROADCALL – The New Value Broadband Service
The Utility Warehouse Discount Club recently launched a new broadband service with bundled line rental and inclusive calls. Called ‘Broadcall‘ the new service offers an 8Mb connection speed and a 40 Gig monthly download limit for less than £20 a month for all lines that have been LLUed.
Because this includes your line rental charges, which could be £12 a month if you currently pay BT quaterly, this means the broadband connection is only £8.
If the line hasn’t been LLUed then the cost is less than £28 per month which still offers remarkable savings when compared with the other major broadband suppliers in the UK.
The key benefits are:
- 8 Mb Connection
- No BT line rental charge
- 40 Gig download limit
- Free connection
- Free broadband modem
- Unlimited free UK calls
- No minimum contract
- The company will check your line every 6 months and if it has been LLUed, will automatically switch the service to the cheaper cost.
For customers with more than 1 PC then upgrading to Broadcall Plus gives unlimited downloads and a free wireless router, all for £24.99.
One of the other benefits is that customers can add other home services such as energy and mobiles phones to give more benefits and the ease of a single fully itemised monthly bill.
For more information visit Broadcall – 24 MEG Broadband.
09.16.06
BT Announces a Price Cut…and Increases It Prices!!
Back in August, BT announced a range of price cuts with savings in excess of 31% for some of it’s packages.
What they managed to hide was the fact that for most families, those that can least afford it, the cost of a call would in fact go up and they will be worse off.
This is because they have stopped billing by the second and will now round up all calls to the nearest minute. So a call lasting 4 minutes and 1 second will be charged as a 5 minute call. This means that the call will cost approximately 3p more than before. With 16 million customers, all of those extra £0.03ps will very quickly become £10,000s and all at the expense of the elderly or infirm who need the phone as a lifeline to the outside world.
Shame on you BT.
The Npower Gas Price Scandal
So Npower has announced their third rise in domestic gas prices this year, with it’s customers paying an extra 17.2% for the privalege of heating their homes and cooking with Npower gas. This means that from October 1st. there will be, on average, an increase of £92 per annum for Npower’s customers.
Npower’s first price increase this year was back in January with a rise of 15% and then again in April by another 15%.
What this means is that, since January 2006, Npower’s gas prices has increased by a massive 55%.
It was reported that a spokesperson for the company promised that there would not be any further increases this year.
What is scandalous about this latest price increase is that the wholesale price of gas has come down over the last 4 months by more than 20%. So yet again the poor British consumer suffers.
Just before people start to think that I’m singling Npower out, also worthy of mention are the following:
British Gas increased their prices by 22% in March and a further 12.4% this month. A 37% increase this year.
Powergen increased their prices by 24.4% in March and 18.4% in August. A 47% increase this year.
And finally EDF Energy who increased their gas prices by 14.7% in March and 19% in July. A 36% increase this year.
So unless the weather is going to be particularly mild this winter, it looks like some households may be in for a bleak Christmas.
