Free Broadband for the UK?

April 9, 2006 by budda
Filed under Communication, Computing, Gadgets, Internet

Carphone Warehouse is set to launch a landgrab on the UK broadband market which will provoke a price war for high-speed internet access, it was reported today. According to trade mag Mobile, Carphone is due to unveil details of its broadband service on April 11 ahead of a summer launch backed by a massive ad campaign.

Free broadband to TalkTalk customers is said to be one of the strongest contenders, but an option of free fixed-line calls when subscribing to broadband is also under consideration. Bundling with mobile services is also still to be considered by the board. No final decision has been made.

It seems that as well as spending Â£60 million on a LLU roll-out over a three year period, the company may be on the edge of launching a product bundle, that sees broadband access as a free added extra, or free calls with a broadband subscription. How wide and broad the area covered by Carphone Warehouse in its LLU roll-out is unknown, but one can hazard a good guess that all the usual big cities will see another LLU choice.

At present, Carphone has about 75,000 broadband customers in the UK while BT Retail has 2.3 million and NTL 2.8 million.

Until now, Carphone has been hampered by having to resell BTâs wholesale broadband product.

Todays CPW announcment comes after satellite broadcaster BSkyB confirmed last week that it is to start offering broadband connections from this autumn.

BSkyB is also predicted to offer a number of low cost deals, and it and Carphone Warehouse’s move into the market is expected to start a price war.

The UK broadband sector is currently dominated by BT, AOL, Wanadoo and NTL..

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