Broadband Genie end of 2007 Broadband ISP report

Dec. 21, 2007 - PRLog -- 2007 has been an active time for UK ISPs and Broadband Genie has been there amongst it, all offering independent comparisons on broadband providers and UK broadband prices.
In October, Broadband Genie began its dedicated broadband news service (www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/broadband-news/), giving customers the opportunity to read up on the latest ISP announcements, products and services.
As the year comes to a close we present a summary of the most popular ISP news and developments reported in Broadband Genie News:
Post Office
The Post Office identified its target market as the over 50s, as well as people who prefer to pay for their downloads in cash. It estimated that this group could comprise as much as 25% of all current internet users. In addition, the Post Office hoped to target an estimated six million families that still had no high-speed internet at home, reportedly to the value of around £500 million.
The company set aside a £9m marketing budget for its news service, including high-profile TV advertising featuring boy-band Westlife.
Virgin Media
Virgin Media prepared to re-focus its efforts on its broadband offering, after identifying that its unique cable broadband network could give it the edge over competitors such as Sky in the battle for consumer telecoms, according to a report in The Guardian.
The competition between BskyB and Virgin Media heated up with both companies being rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over misleading marketing claims.
The company confirmed that it added 13,000 customers in the third quarter, heralding a significant turnaround after losing 70,000 customers in the second quarter.
Managing director of strategy, Ernie Cormier quit as the firm bid to make its broadband ventures its core project. The company’s customer care chief Steve Stewart also departed at a similar time.
Virgin Media broadband customers were plagued with fraudulent phishing scams supposedly from their ISP. The scam, which targeted Virgin Media subscribers using an old NTL email address, threatened users with deletion of their account.



Orange
France Telecom revealed that Orange managed to recruit a further 5,200 new customers to its broadband service in the last quarter. This increase brought the firm up to 1,142,000 ADSL customers at the end of September.
Orange announced it would launch its IPTV service before the end of the year The company released plans to offer clients the ability to run campaigns across Orange Broadband and its TV and mobile platforms.
A deal was signed with Europe’s leading wireless broadband provider, The Cloud. It was announced that Orange customers would be able to take advantage of The Cloud’s network of more than 19,000 wi-fi hotspots across the UK.
A new mobile broadband service for 2008 was announced. Utilising similar technology to Orange’s Livebox, the Flybox will offer a Wi-Fi connection, four LAN sockets and a function to run a regular phone through the mobile SIM card. Speeds are expected to reach a maximum of 1Mbps.
Sky Broadband
Sky broadband revealed that it managed to recruit over one million customers to its broadband internet service, and claimed to be the UK’s fastest growing broadband provider. It was announced that Sky Broadband is on target to have three million customers using its service by 2010.
The competition between BskyB and Virgin Media heated up with both companies being rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over misleading marketing claims.
O2
Mobile phone company O2 launched its home broadband service earlier this month, and stated that it aimed to recruit one million customers by 2010.
BT
BT set up two new encryption services for BT Business Broadband users to maximise security and privacy on all online communications.
BT Group met second-quarter predictions ahead of schedule with a 3% rise in revenue on their growth of BT Broadband and networked IT services. The BT Retail unit had accounted for 37% of net DSL broadband additions. The figures gave BT a customer total of over four million, making them the overall largest provider in Britain.
BT Global Services were highly commended at this year’s World Communication Awards under the ‘Best Customer Care’ category. Pipped to the post by global communications providers, Vanco, BT Global Services were praised for their performance improvement.


Carphone Warehouse
Carphone Warehouse stepped into the Irish broadband market with the introduction of three packages under its TalkTalk service.
The company reported an 18% rise in first-half revenues.
Since acquiring AOL’s UK internet access business earlier this year, Carphone Warehouse recruited over 215,000 new broadband customers.
Tiscali
Tiscali released its third quarter results, with figures that showed a profitable gain in comparison to 2006. Revenue increased to £155.9 million, an improvement of £36.9 million and results that met expectations for Tiscali’s business plan. Profits also took a dramatic rise at £73 million, a 53% increase from 2006.
Tiscali recruited over 4.2 million customers, with 2.6 million connected to Tiscali broadband
A new strategic growth plan for the company between 2008 and 2012 was announced. The new ventures saw Tiscali putting more emphasis on their UK and Italian divisions.
Tiscali UK announced that it expected to raise its unbundled exchanges by 100 sites a year, taking the number sites up to 1,000 in 2008 and 1,000 sites in 2009 and covering 17 million lines.
PlusNet
Madasafish, acquired by BT Retail in July this year merged with PlusNet. The company continues to serve under the Madasafish title but now concentrates on improving new features such as customer service and technical support.

Ciaron Dunne from Broadband Genie said: “The world of broadband is fast-moving and it can be difficult for customers to keep up to speed with the latest developments and hot topics. Broadband Genie exists to serve customers with un-biased, informative broadband advice. The development of the Broadband Genie News service ensures that consumers can keep on top of the latest broadband activities at the click of link.”

Notes to editors

Broadband Genie allows users to compare broadband online, and is part of Genie Group.

Genie Group Ltd is a leading independent provider of internet comparison shopping services in the UK, and was set up in 2004 by Philip Wilkinson (co-founder of Kelkoo UK). Genie Group's unique selling point is 'the Genie', which makes personal recommendations to internet shoppers based on ground-breaking, intelligent technology. This gives Genie Group the ability to provide an enjoyable and satisfying internet shopping experience, and deliver an unmatched quality of sales leads to our affiliate merchants. Genie Group launched its flagship broadband comparison service Broadband Genie in January 2005.

More information can be found at http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk . Please direct all media enquiries to Ciaron Dunne. Interviews with Philip Wilkinson can be arranged on request.

Website: www.broadbandgenie.co.uk