After announcing intentions to merge last year, Orange and T-Mobile will now be marketed under the Everything Everywhere brand, although the two will retain their own distinct iconography and advertising.

Everything Everywhere will make an appearance in promotional material from both of the providers and it is believed that T-Mobile will begin to offer home and business customers the chance to sign up to fixed line broadband services. This is because it can now benefit from Orange’s network and expertise in a market of which it has little direct knowledge.

Coalitions seem to be flavour of the week and Everything Everywhere will result in other new services which may be of interest to business broadband users, including the creation of a far wider network of Wi-Fi hotspots in key areas. This would allow T-Mobile and Orange business connections to compete with BT business broadband packages, offering greater coverage whenever people need to get online when away from the office.

The merger gives T-Mobile and Orange the largest mobile broadband network in the UK, with more masts and more inclusive accessibility than any other firm. Everything Everywhere will be opening 100 new retail stores to complement the 700 or so existing locations, with the intention of educating potential customers as to the latest broadband and mobile products.

Orange, O2 and Vodafone have offered fixed line broadband to customers in the past, but now T-Mobile will be able to join in, although it looks as though it could be many months before the first broadband packages appear.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard said “There were concerns that the Orange and T-Mobile merger would give them an unfair advantage, but the winner here will be the customer, because more competition in the broadband market means lower prices and better service.”

A new survey has found that O2 is the most consistent broadband provider in the UK when it comes to informing potential customers as to the actual speed that the service will be capable of delivering in the context of their specific location.

In a study carried out by industry regulator Ofcom, O2 staff were far more likely to give prospective business broadband clients information about the download and upload speeds that the provider could realistically offer on a given line without being prompted by the interested party.

O2 automatically gives out its predictions regarding connection speed in 54 per cent of calls, which is significantly more often than its major rivals in the business broadband market.

The least transparent provider was found to be BT, which would only let customers know as to the real speeds on offer, without being asked, in about 28 per cent of cases. Sky did not fare much better, giving accurate predictions as to download and upload speeds in 39 per cent of sales situations.

The number of calls in which firms confirmed that the speeds given were only estimates came to 40 per cent and in 31 per cent of calls, the customer was informed of other potential hurdles which could significantly reduce the connection speed in real terms.

A spokesperson for Ofcom said that the organisation was generally pleased with the figures, which show a rise in the number of callers who are being given specific, accurate and honest information as to the speed and quality of broadband service that a provider can offer before they commit to a contract. However, the organisation also believes that more can be done in this area.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard commented: “O2 is proving itself to be one of the most trustworthy broadband providers in the UK, for both home and business users, setting the bar for other providers.”

Many business owners around the UK have said that the availability and speed of broadband are key to the growth of the economy and as a result, the parties fighting for votes in the upcoming general election will need to deliver on promises of an improved infrastructure after the polls have closed.

The Financial Mail Small Businesses Panel has shown that there is growing concern amongst small and medium sized UK businesses that broadband is the only means by which they can expand and compete directly with their established rivals.

Business owners will be scrutinising the various manifestos presented by the parties that could take power after May 6th in order to see which offers the best chance of a brighter future for the UK’s business broadband expansion.

There is concern within the business community that without the universal availability of high speed broadband, smaller firms will be unable to maximise their potential, costing the economy billions of pounds.

Business expert Tom Wenham said that politicians would need to look to the needs of small businesses, particularly those located in isolated areas with little or no broadband coverage. Partnerships between businesses and access to services by consumers can only move forward if broadband is not restricted only to densely populated areas.

Rutland Telecom’s David Lewis told The Mail on Sunday that despite claims to the contrary there is actually a significant demand for high speed broadband in rural areas to make the roll out of networks economically viable.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard added “Business users will have to think carefully about where they lend their political support, as each party has different ideas as to how to get BT business broadband packages available to all.”

Mobile broadband provider Orange has recently announced a new set of packages aimed at business users, with the promise of making work far more flexible in the future.

Orange hopes that organisations and individuals will be better able to cope with a diverse and changing set of business requirements when they pick up a mobile broadband package which has been designed with the needs of an enterprise user in mind.

Orange says that the traditional hours of work are no longer as rigid as they were in the past and it believes that with a business mobile broadband package, staff will be able to adjust their own schedules without having to remain stuck in the office to get the job done.

Orange’s small business director Martin Lyne said that its aim was to reflect the working lives of its customers with the malleability of its business mobile broadband packages.

The new Orange packages offer unlimited use to business customers with a moderate fair use policy to govern the monthly data allocation. It also says that it has made the pricing of its business tariffs clearer.

Mr Lyne said that UK businesses would be presented with a range of mobile broadband options and would have the freedom to choose the package most appropriate to their specific needs.

Orange has been promoting its mobile broadband as a means of allowing workers to make the most out of the good weather when the summer rolls around. It says that using mobile broadband will allow business customers to work from home, or from the local park, rather than having to commute into the office, consequently reducing their carbon footprint.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard added “Orange tells us that 90 per cent of workers commute for more than an hour a day, so with Orange and BT business broadband packages evolving, many of us should be able to benefit from more time working at home”.

Residents in and around Birmingham and the West Midlands are waiting to see which location in their region will be chosen to be the proving ground for 100Mbps superfast broadband.

High speed internet connectivity is being promoted as an essential asset in the area and one which will encourage regeneration and bring economic growth and stability along with it.

Campaigners are hoping that three different areas will be chosen in the 100Mbps trials, although in all likelihood it will be urban Birmingham that feels the benefits before more isolated locations.

A group of local businesses is campaigning for faster broadband in the region, hoping to aid the progress of the roll-out by costing the installation and upkeep itself in order to attract investment from big telecoms firms.

Hopeful locals will have to wait until early June to find out how the investigations and preliminary tests are progressing.

Campaigners believe that the growth of superfast broadband will allow more people to work from home, which will encourage small businesses and entrepreneurs to stay locally and boost the economy.

Broadband activist and businessman Glyn Pickford told the Birmingham Post that consumers and businesses would benefit from faster broadband in the West Midlands. Mr Pickford also stressed that big business would benefit from 100Mbps broadband and that regeneration is reliant upon its availability.

It is believed that members of the public will need to be educated as to the benefits of superfast broadband and new BT broadband options using fibre technology, as many are aware that it is coming but unsure as to how it will impact upon their daily lives.

Simple Broadband’s Simon Gerrard added “It is great to see regions around the UK campaigning for faster broadband and seeing their wishes come true. A stream of new initiatives and ever more diverse BT broadband options prove that 100Mbps broadband is a nationwide issue.”

Business and home broadband customers will be pleased to learn that BT has announced various locations that will be benefiting from a fibre optic broadband upgrade in the next few months.

Its BT Infinity service, which uses fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology has so far been available in limited areas of the UK, but now BT says that an additional four million business and home users will be able to enjoy download speeds of up to 40Mbps.

A BT spokesperson said that the telecoms giant is committed to bringing 40 per cent of the UK population some form of fibre optic broadband by 2012 and now it has announced that customers in London, the Midlands, Yorkshire and East Anglia will be some of the first to experience the speed boost.

BT will not be the only broadband provider offering fibre optic services as part of the new upgrades, as it will also be selling on its service to ISPs in order to generate competition and variety. This will be welcomed by business broadband customers who may not be convinced by the current BT Infinity tariffs.

More than 300 local telephone exchanges are being upgraded as part of the new initiative and around 190 of these will be located in the south and east of the UK. The North West will see 30 exchanges upgraded and the Midlands is getting around 40 fibre-ready exchanges.

BT hopes to complete the work by the middle of next year, although some have said that the concentration of the exchanges in the south implies that the digital divide is getting wider.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard said “Businesses can really benefit from high speed access, not only for their own premises, but also within the local community, as the internet will become an ever more effective tool for sourcing custom locally.”

The budget delivered by Alistair Darling last week was extremely important for businesses looking to ensure their future prosperity as the promise of universal high speed broadband was essentially pledged.

The new 50p Broadband Tax has been confirmed and this comes almost simultaneously with the new Building Britain’s Digital Future initiative, in which prime minister Gordon Brown committed to getting high speed broadband to 100 per cent of the population in the next decade. Business leaders can only hope that future governments are able to live up to this promise.

Thankfully it looks as though most businesses are being backed by local and national plans to help bring broadband to as many people as possible, but for many there is little clear idea as to what kind of timescale they will be looking at before the promise of universal high speed broadband becomes a reality.

At the moment, the 2017 deadline for 90 per cent high speed broadband coverage is looking attainable, but there are no official figures relating to how much the public or private purse will have to pay in order to ensure that the final 10 per cent is not left floating in the wind.

The nations that currently top the charts in terms of high speed broadband availability, including Korea and Japan, could only achieve market saturation with heavy investment from the authorities, which suggests that relying entirely on the private sector for the cash is not going to work in Britain.

It is believed that if high speed BT business broadband packages become widely available within the next decade, working from home will be far more common and the morning commute for those who do head into work will be less crowded as broadband enables more diverse working patterns.

It has recently been confirmed that Virgin Media will begin offering its next-generation broadband services to homes and businesses around the UK later this year, with download speeds of up to 100Mbps available to those living in cabled areas.

Virgin Media’s current flagship broadband package, which uses fibre optic technology to provide the most consistent speeds possible, is rated at up to 50Mbps for downloads and so the new service would double this potential.

A spokesperson for Virgin Media said that in some areas it would be able to provide business customers with 200Mbps connections, which would make the majority of BT business broadband packages look a little long in the tooth.

Although Virgin Media is pushing its 100Mbps service, a BT representative said that in fact the cable broadband provider was only just catching up with BT. It is claimed that 100Mbps connections are already enjoyed by BT business customers, with the BT customer base being considerably larger, with 25 per cent more subscribers.

Virgin Media hopes to bring 100Mbps broadband to every one of its customers by 2011, but it aims to offer it in some areas before 2010 is out. No further information as to pricing was provided, but Virgin Media is continuing to expand its operations and increase its annual revenue, with a 3.3 per cent rise in 2009.

Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard said “Virgin Media is definitely upping the stakes in both the home and business broadband markets and with 100Mbps and even 200Mbps broadband coming online in the near future, the UK will no longer be languishing in the middle of the international league tables for average download speeds. We can only hope that Virgin Media rolls out its fibre optic networks to encompass even more UK customers”.

A new government target aimed at increasing the number of UK subscribers to broadband has been revealed, with plans to get an additional seven million people connected at high speeds within the next four years.

The Digital Participation Plan was laid out by Stephen Timms, who is the minister at the helm of the government’s Digital Britain initiative. It hopes to reduce the number of people who do not currently have broadband connections by 60 per cent. This is a fairly ambitious plan since that figure currently stands at 12.5 million.

Mr Timms is hoping that the groups who will be helped by the campaign will be those on lower incomes and the elderly, as both are typically ignored by traditional broadband advertising, or put off by the high cost of certain services.

A total of 60 organisations from the public and private sector are set to become involved with the Digital Participation Plan, which should mean that it will have a significant impact around the country. It should make BT broadband options more affordable and attractive to those who have not jumped on the broadband bandwagon.

Access to the internet at broadband speeds is considered to be essential for active participation in the modern era, at both a commercial and cultural level, according to Mr Timms.

The creative and communicative potential offered by broadband is at the heart of the new initiative’s ideology and the initiative will hopefully eradicate the disparity between those who are currently connected and those who are unable to, for whatever reason.

Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard said “It is great to see the government getting enthusiastic about broadband, as it is becoming an integral part of our society. BT broadband options are an obvious point at which a potential broadband customer can start to understand the current offerings, although comparing the market for the best deal is the optimum way in which to save money in the longer run.”

A new report suggests that UK businesses will benefit significantly if the government’s targets for blanket broadband coverage are met.

Broadband is now considered to be an essential commodity for home users as well as business customers and although the importance of high speed broadband for businesses is well known, it is equally important that sufficient customers are able to get online and access services in driving revenues.

According to a new report authored by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), UK businesses could net an additional £1.4 billion in ad revenue if every household in the UK is given access to a 2Mbps (minimum) broadband connection, which is the government’s plan.

It is estimated that nearly five per cent of UK citizens are stuck with sluggish dial-up internet connections, whilst many more have no kind of internet access at all in their homes. This means that there is an untapped market out there from which businesses could benefit if universal broadband becomes a reality.

The IPA believes that nearly 37 per cent of consumers would make a purchase online if their internet experience was boosted with a broadband connection, which would make ad space more valuable and drive further revenue for businesses in all sectors.

The IPA’s Nigel Gwilliam noted the degree to which broadband had shaped market trends and influenced the behaviour of consumers online. Mr Gwilliam also said that the new report was the first of its kind, demonstrating that home broadband connectivity was directly linked into the success of businesses.

Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard added that “Businesses will benefit hugely from the arrival of universal broadband and the best news is that the opportunities will be relevant to any enterprise from any background with the ambition to make waves online.”