Plans by workers at BT (British Telecom) to strike in protest at massive bonuses awarded to the company’s managers and over a two per cent pay rise offer could affect broadband maintenance and troubleshooting services, according to industry observers.

Thousands of BT staff who are members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are to be asked to support walk-outs in protest at the bonus awards and a two per cent pay increase offer to its members. If the staff vote in favour of a strike, maintenance of millions of broadband lines could be hit.

“There are definitely going to be potential issues with maintenance. It’s (the strike) definitely going to affect day-to-day maintenance and problem resolution, Edd Dawson, editor of broadband information and comparison website broadband.co.uk, said.

“If it turns into a prolonged strike then it could very well affect the roll out of the next-generation broadband.”

The CWU represents nearly 60,000 BT staff.

A union official said: “This is about fairness. We don’t mind senior executives getting bonuses, but we want all staff to share in the success of the company. Striking is a last resort and not something to be taken lightly.”

Football fans heading to South Africa for the World Cup have been warned by a watchdog group to keep an eye on the cost of their mobile internet use while there.

Consumer Focus says that mobile operators levy huge charges for web browsing on their phones, with prices ranging from £1.25 to £8 per Mb.

That means that uploading 10 photos to Facebook via a mobile phone could cost up to £80, it warns.

Call charges for people travelling outside the European Union are between 80p and £1.50 per minute, and texts cost from 25p to 50p. This compares to a maximum call cost of 37p per minute and 9p per text for people travelling in Europe.

At £1.70 per minute Virgin Mobile pre-pay offers consumers the worst rates for making calls, with T-mobile the most expensive network to use to receive calls from the UK at £1.50 per minute.

Orange and Tesco have the highest data charges, with costs for customers on both networks of up to £80 to upload ten 1MB photos. They are closely followed by T-mobile where the same usage would cost £75.

According to Consumer Focus, Vodafone’s free Passport scheme offers consumers the best call rates and texts. Customers pay a 75p connection fee and then their normal UK rates, while texts cost 11p. 3 UK offers the cheapest data roaming fees of £1.25 per MB.

Nick Hutton, telecommunications expert for Consumer Focus, said: “The watchdog is calling on mobile phone firms to cut their mobile-phone roaming costs and set prices at a similar level to those in the EU.”

Here are Consumer Focus’s top five tips for using your mobile phone abroad:

- Check your rates before you go and ask what add-ons or bundles your mobile phone company offers on calls, texts and data as this could make you considerable savings - Remember that while abroad you won’t be able to use your inclusive minutes, texts and data allowance (except inclusive minutes under Vodafone’s passport service) and will pay to receive as well as to make calls which could add up

- Photos and videos can be expensive to upload on mobiles while abroad so consider other options such as uploading using a computer at an internet cafe or hotel instead

- Consider getting a local SIM card for use in South Africa if you will be making calls to numbers within the country

- If your phone is lost or stolen while abroad report it to your mobile provider as soon as possible as you will be liable for any calls made. Make a note of the emergency contact number for your network and keep this separate from your mobile.

New broadband forecasts for the UK are good news for broadband operators and service providers.

The total number of broadband lines is now expected to be 25.1million by the end of 2014, almost a million more than earlier estimates, according to online trends experts PointTopic.

It says that, while the increase is not huge, it will help to improve the business case for broadband, and particularly for investment in superfast broadband using next generation access.

The short-term forecasts have also been increased. The actual total of lines in use at the end of 2009 was 80,000 higher than forecast, at 18.37million. The forecast for the end of this year has subsequently been increased to 19.79million, from 19.58million.

A major feature of the longer-term forecasts is the dramatic growth projected for superfast broadband, mainly based on fibre to the cabinet or premises (FTTx). Contrary to much opinion, Point Topic is projecting a boom in FTTx similar to what happened with BT’s DSL broadband services in the mid-2000s.

“We believe that FTTx will echo the development of DSL in the UK,” says Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic.

“People with dial-up internet access converted to broadband in their millions in the boom years. We forecast that superfast broadband will do the same around the middle of this coming decade.”

The number of DSL lines grew from 550,000 to 12.3 million between 2003 and 2007. Point Topic now expects that next-generation FTTx broadband will do something similar, with 12 million lines by the end of 2016.

“The difference from the noughties is that we think there will be a quicker run-up this time,” says Johnson. “While it took DSL three years to get from almost nothing to half a million, we expect that FTTx will cover similar ground in only two years.”

Key factors on the other side of the balance are that FTTx demands much more new investment than DSL and superfast broadband is not yet fully proven as a must-have service for ordinary homes.

“We think these barriers will be swept aside as user demand for bandwidth and a quality experience spirals upwards,” says Johnson.

The UK Government’s annual Budget, announced on March 24, confirmed its commitment to levying an annual tax on phone landlines to pay for the extension of super-fast broadband services to 90 per cent of the country by 2017.

Chancellor Alistair Darling reiterated the government’s commitment to making Britain a digital world leader, with plans for a major broadband roll-out.

He announced that super-fast broadband would be available in 90 per cent of homes by 2017, funded by a £6 annual tax on landline phones.

The Conservatives have vowed to scrap the tax if they win the next election, which is expected to be held in May.

Fast internet services would create “hundreds of thousands” of new jobs while putting services online will help efforts to reduce public spending, the chancellor said.

He also promised more tax breaks for the UK’s computer games industry.

“The UK has the potential to be a digital world leader. It needs high-speed broadband for rural areas as well as urban, it must not be limited to the well-off,” the chancellor said in his budget speech.

The broadband tax has cause fierce debate. The current plan will see people with fixed lines being charged 50p a month to help fund super-fast broadband, although it is not clear whether those who use cable services will be included.

It has been called unfair by an all-party group of MPs who say that most people who pay it won’t see any of the benefits.

It is aimed at the so-called ‘final third’ of the country, where commercial operators’ plans to roll out expensive fibre-optic services are likely to be considered too expensive.

Some experts were surprised that the chancellor did not reiterate Gordon Brown’s commitment to bring super-fast broadband to 100% of the UK by 2020.

“We are disappointed that the budget has simply repeated the government’s previous target of 90 per cent coverage by 2017,” Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of broadband site ThinkBroadband, told the BBC.

In the same week as Mr Darling’s announcements, Prime Minister Gordon Brown talked up the Government’s digital commitments when he described high-speed web access as “the electricity of the digital age”.

And as the date of a poll nears, broadband is emerging as a major issue, with some key differences between the parties.

The Conservatives have said that the funds which they would not receive as a result of scrapping the planned phone levy would be made up instead by private businesses who would stand to gain the most from superfast broadband’s introduction.

Super-fast broadband will be available to every home in the UK by 2020, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised.

In a speech, Brown called super-fast broadband “the electricity of the digital age” which “must be for all – not just for some”.

At the same time, he pledged to make the British government “the most efficient, open and responsive” in the world, by having a single website created to bring together all government and public sector services.

In his speech, Mr Brown said faster broadband speeds would lead to cheaper and better public services and make trade easier.

But leaving this to the market alone would lead to coverage “determined not by need or by social justice, but by profitability” and “a lasting, pervasive and damaging new digital divide”, he said.

Instead, he said it was up to government to create a fair digital future, adding: “The alternative is our vision: ensuring, not simply hoping for, universal coverage.”

Mr Brown said greater use of the internet would also allow people to have more say over government policy, such as through e-petitions, and could bring major cost savings by making public services more efficient.

Jim Knight, the minister responsible for digital inclusion, told the BBC that the government had to intervene to ensure super-fast broadband reached remote areas of the country.

He told BBC Radio 5Live: “Having universal access to very high bandwidth which allows more streaming video, allows people to watch TV and listen to radio online, it means that we can also release the business and employment potential of this.

More than two-thirds of Britain could easily get the ability to use high-speed broadband network speeds without any extra government funding, a report compiled by the UK Government’s Business Innovation and Skills Committee believes.

The Committee goes as far as to call the possibility of the Government intervening to ensure that its target of having high-speed broadband available to 70 per cent of the country by 2017 “unwise”.

Its reasons for reaching this conclusion were that it could lead to a distortion in the business phone and broadband market, and not allow time for any technological solutions devised in the meantime to be tested sufficiently to allow them to play a part in extending the reach of high-speed broadband services across the country.

The committee has also voiced the opinion that there is little evidence of pent-up demand for this enhanced service, and that customers are currently unwilling to pay a price premium to access such high-speed services.

Instead, it believes that the UK government should switch its attention to encouraging outside bodies and commercial interests to invest in next-generation access (NGA) capability. The MPs on the committee said they believed this could best be achieved by means of alterations to the regulatory and tax systems.

Findings of a report commissioned by the Government itself into its proposals compared the likely levels of coverage which would be achieved if it went ahead with plans to levy a 50p per month ‘broadband tax’ on each UK home, against what would be achievable by the markets if they were left to fund the improvement themselves.

It wanted to know the likely outcomes in the latter scenario in the event of the funding from the levy not being available, or take-up of the scheme not reaching projected levels. In either of these cases, the shortfall in the funding available would have to be met by commercial sources.

The MPs on the committee concluded that this would be likely to happen as businesses increasingly realised that having high-speed 8mb or 24mb broadband capability, or faster, was in their competitive interest.

The UK government looks likely to come under increasing pressure to offer better business phone and broadband services to rural areas.

A new pressure group has been formed to persuade the government to make sure that it delivers on its promise to make high-speed business broadband services available universally by 2017.

Included in the group Final Third First is a number of broadband service providers. They have joined rural lobby groups to press for high-speed broadband to be made available to the ‘final third’ of the UK – the most remote areas which require the highest levels of investment to achieve the objective.

Launching the campaign on the Final Third First blog, Country Land and Business Association Head of Rural Business Development Dr Charles Trotman said: “The government’s universal service commitment to provide broadband speeds of two megabits per second (Mbps) for all by 2012 will be hard to achieve.
 
 ”Those living in areas known as the Final Third still receive no proper access to broadband, putting them at a severe disadvantage. This campaign calls for faster action on the progress already made so that everyone can benefit from the Government’s increasing array of online services.”

Of course, this includes many businesses which would welcome the opportunity to access better quality broadband connections, as it would help make their dealings with Government at all levels, and hence the running of their affairs, that much easier.

There are mixed views on whether the priority should be the achievement of super high-speed broadband connectivity of up to 100Mb, or ensuring that a minimum standard of 2Mb is available universally.

Lloyd Fenton, founder of a self-help online portal for rural businesses, www.ruralbroadband.com, nevertheless says that the ‘Final Third First’ campaign would “add significant weight to efforts to connect rural communities, many of which rightly claim to be more in need of better broadband than their urban counterparts”.

Glenn Peacey, of Hampshire County Council, said: “Rural broadband is a key part of ensuring the long term economic and social viability of rural communities.  Access to the internet enables rural communities to compete on an equal footing with urban centres. It enables smarter working from home which reduces dormitory villages, increases spending in local shops and reduces CO2 emissions and road congestion. 
 
“High speed broadband also has a significant impact on social sustainability. Not only does it enable residents to access leisure and media services which they would otherwise be excluded from or have to travel to consume, it also facilitates access to online education and learning resources.”

Pupils at a school in Bury, Greater Manchester, are pioneering a new scheme offering them free wireless broadband access to help them with their learning, and to introduce them to social media.

The innovation, at Broad Oak Sports College, is the first of its kind, and has been welcomed by school and local council officials.

The school and Bury Council had between them met the £140,000 cost of setting up and running the project.

Mark Sanders, chief executive of Bury Council, said: “The project is all about bridging the digital divide so that young people in poorer areas don’t fall behind.”

The project will entail setting up nine wireless hotspots around the school and the surrounding area. Initially, the first part of the project to go live offered the fast internet service to 120 homes.

In order to keep the network secure, passwords will be given to school pupils for their and their families’ use.

This is a different method of extending broadband network use to that proposed by the British government. It is looking at giving families on low incomes free laptop computers and broadband access, paid for by ‘Home Access Grants’.

Virgin Media is promising to offer its customers the fastest commercially available broadband network in the UK by the end of 2010.

It announced plans to roll out a 100Mb broadband service across parts of the UK in February as it gave its financial results for the previous quarter which were ahead of expectations.

Its revenue for the last three months of 2009 was GBP980million, boosted by it signing up an additional 28,600 subscribers for its cable service.

The company’s success is based on the high proportion of its customers – over 60 per cent – who are signed up for at least three of its offerings from pay-TV, broadband, and fixed and mobile telephone services. More than one in 10 of the total takes all four.

Cable customers are also contributing more to the group’s revenue, with income from these up 5.8 per cent over the quarter. These yields are set to grow further, as the company implements a series of price rises across its products in the coming months.

But Virgin Media chief executive Neil Berkett told Reuters that while the group was succeeding in upselling to its existing customers, it was attracting new subscribers at the same time.

And he believed the roll-out of its superfast broadband would see this migration take a further step forward.

BT's announcement that it was to unwrap a super-fast 40 megabit per second service for less than £20 a month was expected to herald a new price war among broadband suppliers in the UK.
Mid-February 2010 saw the first time that customers in the UK could choose between two super-fast broadband providers after BT announced it had laid enough fibre-optic cables under the street to start its 40Mb a second service.
Until then, Virgin was the only company to own fibre optic wires under the streets of Britain, taking advantage of this to offer a 50Mb a second service. About half the country’s population live close enough to a Virgin cable to be able to use the service, according to Broadbandgenie.co.uk.
Downloading a 12-track music album from a service such as iTunes takes three minutes on an 8Mb service, but just 36 seconds down a fibre optic connection.
Next week just a few hundred thousand customers will be able to be hooked up, in parts of Cardiff, Muswell Hill in London and Glasgow to BT’s fibre optic cables. But by the end of the month most of Manchester, north London, Basingstoke, Watford and Halifax will have the service.
BT’s cheapest deal at the super-fast speed of 40Mb a second is just £19.99 a month, £8 cheaper than the 50Mb a second service from Virgin.
Michael Phillips at price comparison site Broadband Choices said: “This is great news for customers that you have two major, big competitors fighting for customers.
Virgin said that it not only offered faster speed but it was also more generous with its “fair usage” policy. So far none of its estimated 40,000 customers on its super-fast service had ever stepped over its “unlimited” level.
BT, in contrast, said that customers on its £20 a month service have a 20GB monthly limit, the equivalent of watching the BBC iPlayer programmes for an hour and a half every day. On the more expensive package of £25 a month, consumers could download “unlimited” amounts of data – which meant up to 100GB a month.
Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer of BT Retail, said: “The internet is essential to our customers’ lives and they are demanding more and more as richer and even more compelling services become available.”