It is the last day of the year and what a year it has been for the broadband, home phone, digital TV and mobile markets.

Broadband

2006 was the year the free broadband was born and totally revolutionised the industry. In April, TalkTalk were the consumer champions, entering into a brave new world of “free broadband forever”. Now they are the villains, with massive customer service and connection issues. Orange has also suffered similar problems with their free broadband service. Have they tainted the reputation of free broadband? Well, in 2007 consumers will no doubt be very suspicious of free broadband offerings from TalkTalk, Orange and Sky. Many people are already opting to turn their backs on free broadband and instead choosing to pay for a service that is more reliable. Over time, free broadband will recover as providers sort out the problems with the service.

Home Phone

The days of home phone providers being called “Telco’s” and broadband providers being called “ISP’s” are gone. 2006 was the year in which the two became interchangeable. “Convergence” was the new industry buzzword. Home phone providers moved into broadband if they hadn’t already and ISP’s offered home phone and broadband bundled together.

BT finally became slightly competitive with price controls being lifted by the industry regulator, Ofcom. You are still better off to use an alternative provider though.

Digital TV

The UK’s biggest Digital TV provider moved into broadband with its free broadband offering to Sky Digital customer.

Awareness “digital switch over” increased with more noise being made by Ofcom, DigitalUK and providers like Sky, Telewest and ntl.

Mobile Phone

Naturally, advances in mobile technology continued. 3 mega pixel camera phones became the new threshold that aspiring manufacturers had to reach, with Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia leading the pack.

Cash back deals from mobile retailers became common place with retailers giving money back to customers as long as they send in their mobile bills at designated times.

Convergence with broadband extended to mobile operators with Orange entering the free broadband club (following the rebrading of Wanadoo as Orange Broadband), Virgin Mobile merging with ntl/Telewest, O2 buying broadband provider Be and Vodafone developing its broadband product. T-Mobile is also rumoured to be entering the broadband market soon.

2007 Predictions

In 2007 we are likely to see the big players like Virgin, Orange, TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT will battle it out of market share. We are likely to see even more consolidation in all markets with these bigger providers buying up the smaller providers. Smaller providers will simply not survive in this cutthroat world.

Convergence will continue with companies offering the triple play products of broadband, home phone and digital TV or broadband, home phone and mobile.

The newly merged Virgin Mobile, ntl and Telewest will be determined to gain some dominance in the market with its quad play offering of broadband, home phone, digital TV and mobile.

It will certainly be an exciting year ahead, and we are likely to see more stellar deals!

Happy New Year

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Ofcom announced that broadband providers will be forced to issue a Migrations Authorsiation Code (MAC) to customers who want to switch providers, in a move to make switching providers easier. A Migration Authorisation Code from your current provider is required to switch to a new provider. You must obtain the number from your current broadband provider and give it to the new one before you can switch providers. Currently, broadband providers can voluntarily follow this process, but they do not have to.

More than 75% of internet connections are now broadband connections. Competition is fierce and many customers capitalise on this by switching providers to lower cost deals. Some broadband providers attempt to block customers leaving by refusing to issue, or delaying, the MAC code.

This move by Ofcom should make switching broadband providers easier. This is always good news, as healthy competition and ease of transfer is the best way to ensure prices continue to fall.

More information at the BBC

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Vodafone has done a partial U-turn and has gone back to Carphone Warehouse. It had signed cancelled its contract with Carphone Warehouse and signed an exclusive deal with Carphone Warehouse’s rival, Phones4U. That prevented Carphone Warehouse from selling Vodafone contract pay monthly mobiles.

Vodafone has changed its mind and will allow Carphone Warehouse to sell contract renewals and pre-pay connections, which makes up some 40% of the business it had lost from Vodafone.

So it seems that the original disagreement was more of a lovers tiff than a divorce, with both parties now at least partially back in bed with each other.

NTL has dropped its £4.7 billion bid for ITV. It has decided there is no future in the deal. This move comes after News Corporation bought a 19.9% stake in ITV, effectively blocking NTL from take control of ITV. NTL said in its statement that it “submitted its views on this purchase to the Office of Fair Trading and OFCOM because it presents serious competition and public interest issues”.

Ofcom is to force voice over internet (VoIP) operators to warn customers of the limitations of their service. These limitations include the inability to call 999, the phone line going dead in power cuts and the service not working when the buyer’s computer is turned off.

These warnings will have to be made to customers at the point of sale. Customers will have to sign to confirm that they have been made aware of these warnings. With operators that sell VoIP services online, such as Skype, warnings will have to be made on the screen.

Currently nearly 2 million people in the UK use voice over internet services to make telephone calls. Voice over internet allows you to make phone calls over an internet connection for a much lower cost than a traditional phone line. Often calls can be made for free. Demand for voice over internet is likely to increase substantially in the next few years.

Many operators belong to the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association, which is unhappy with the changes. Eli Katz, its chairman, said: “These proposals are the most prescriptive set of regulations of anywhere in the world.’’