Many business broadband providers are beginning to offer their new customers more of an incentive to sign up with attractive package deals and limited term offers to stimulate interest.

Heart Telecom, which provides business broadband and other telecoms services to enterprises in the UK, is one of the providers currently luring new customers with a tempting offer. You can get six months free business broadband from Heart Telecom at the moment, which is certainly worth examining in further detail.

The package offers 8Mbps download speeds and 1Mbps upload speeds, suitable for small businesses and home workers. The package also comes with a dedicated support service located in the UK and no fees to pay for the setup or connection.

Heart Telecom says that the deal can be taken in tandem with a number of its other services, which include business call packages, line rental inclusion and intelligent phone numbers for growing businesses.

Heart Telecom’s MD said that his firm was looking to give businesses a better deal when it comes to broadband. He also said that he believes that other providers should be doing more to make business broadband more affordable.

Heart Telecom manages each new setup so that the transition from your previous provider is as seamless as possible and any interruption to core business activities is minimised.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard added that “although the recession is officially over, it does not mean that businesses are no longer feeling the financial strain. As such, checking out business broadband deals that offer great value for money is essential. Small business owners and home-working entrepreneurs need broadband to keep connected and to identify opportunities for growth and success and this news from Heart proves that an appropriate service does not need to cost the earth.”

As of January 25th 2010, new and existing BT Total Broadband customers in an enabled exchange area will be eligible for the up to 40Mb service. This will be one of the fastest broadband services available to customers in the UK.

More good news for BT customers is the price. They are charging as little as £19.99 per month for the 40Mb service, which is more than £7/month cheaper than Virgin Media’s high speed service. However, in balanced against that, the Virgin Media offer, it is 10Mb faster than BT, at 50Mb, and Virgin Media are also very reliable with their speed – if you pay for 50Mb, you will get very close to 50Mb nearly all the time. It remains to be seen if BT will be able to get close to the promised 40Mb with such regularity.

One factor that is definitely in BT Broadband’s favour is their upload speed. At 10Mb upload speed, it does put most of it’s rivals to shame, up to 6 times faster than Virgin Media. It is always worth remembering though, the advertised “up to” speed and the actual speed you get can vary greatly with BT.

By the end of 2010, BT are estimating that 4,000,000 homes and businesses will have access to this new faster service, and they expect many to take advantage. With online gaming on the up, a high speed connection is becoming a “must” for many households with teenagers, making their gameplay smoother, and this speed increase could even lead to a further boom in the online gaming sector.

It appears that the average UK broadband customer is now far more in tune with the technology that powers their internet connection and many are able to recite on demand the download speed they can achieve in their own homes.

As a result, experts believe that more people are also cottoning on to the benefits offered by super fast broadband connections.

Edd Dawson, who edits a leading UK broadband website, has spoken out about the increasing number of people taking broadband speed tests to assess the speed of their current connections. He believes that many more people are seeking deals based on the download speed alone.

Mr Dawson also revealed that broadband customers are extremely receptive to new information that can help them to speed up their current connection. With cheap cable broadband coming from BT and the competition that this will bring to the market, high speed connections are likely to become an even hotter topic in the future.

Mr Dawson said that the largest factor influencing the increased interest in faster download speeds was the growing availability of quality media content online. With the BBC’s iPlayer and other video streaming services including YouTube now offering broadcasts in high definition, a faster connection is becoming ever more desirable. Video chatting and VoIP voice calls also require a higher connection speed and houses with multiple users going online can ensure optimal performance by comparing providers based upon their download speeds.

With common ADSL broadband connections still languishing with average connection speeds of 4Mbps or lower, cheap cable broadband offering faster connections on a more consistent basis is becoming more attractive.

Mr Dawson has added his opinions to the discussion generated by BT’s announcement of its own 40Mbps fibre optic cable connections, which will be going live in the near future.

The current line up of BT broadband deals has just seen a super fast addition in the form of the first of its fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connections, offering up to 40Mbps download speeds and 10Mbps upload speeds.

After trials took place in London and Glasgow, BT has begun to roll out its new fibre optic technology that will still rely on copper telephone wiring for the last mile of provision, but will see fibre optic connections linking the cabinets servicing streets in the UK to the main broadband network.

By 2011 BT plans to make FTTC available to 4 million homes around the UK and the 40Mbps is a significant improvement over the current maximum download speed of 20Mbps that BT offers.

These new fibre optic BT broadband deals are set to cost from £19.99 a month with an 18 month contract, thus requiring longer commitment than other packages on offer. There will also be an installation fee, but BT is willing to waive this if you sign up for a more expensive and comprehensive monthly package.

BT has said that its new fibre services will provide better opportunities for houses with multiple internet users trying to get online simultaneously and will also offer faster downloads and higher quality video streaming.

The cheapest fibre broadband deal from BT will come with a 20GB monthly data allowance, although costlier packages will have unlimited downloads coupled with a fair use policy to watch out for.

BT will not be the only provider offering deals that use the FTTC technology, as it will be offered to third party wholesalers to resell, as is currently the case with ADSL broadband.

Simon Gerrard, Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager noted that “this will produce competition within the market that will ensure that consumers will be able to obtain the best possible deals on next-generation broadband connections”.

Homes and businesses in and around Oxford Road in Manchester could soon be able to connect to the internet at significantly higher speeds thanks to new plans to install a fibre optic broadband network.

The plans have been announced as part of an effort to instigate regeneration within the area and the organisation Corridor Manchester will be pushing through the installation with support from local businesses and individuals.

The organisation has sought the expertise of Geo Networks to carry out the construction of the fibre optic network and reports suggest that in order to connect the eastern region of the city the firm will make use of the MetroLink tunnels. This will be the first stage of what should hopefully be a relatively rapid process.

Corridor Manchester’s CEO Jack Potter said that broadband speeds were bound to increase in the local area once the work was completed. However, Mr Potter also said that he hoped local home and business users would be able to access an open network and that any limitations inherent in current broadband provision in the area.

The Salford Quays area of Manchester has already received a commitment from BT that will ensure the availability of fibre optic broadband for the MediaCityUK business park. It is hoped that by 2011 home users as well as local firms will be able to access fibre optic broadband on their premises with greatly enhanced BT broadband options.

Simple Broadband’s Simon Gerrard added “many more areas should expect similar schemes to arrive in the coming years, with urban dwellers set to be the first people to be able to take advantage of extended BT broadband options.” Along with the next generation of mobile broadband, fibre optic broadband is going to significantly help the UK to hit the target of universal broadband availability by 2012.

Although the government and the major telecommunications networks are pumping money into the future of broadband in the UK, not everyone is relying on support from the public sector or large private organisations. In Dorset and Cumbria, two new schemes are being put in motion with local backing in order to ensure that businesses and residents in these regions can keep up with the rest of the country and get high speed broadband.

In Dorset it was revealed earlier this week that provider South West Internet (SWI) was seeking funding to help initiate new plans that would see an upgrade to its current broadband network, allowing for better coverage and faster speeds. At the moment it mostly offers businesses and consumers broadband via an extensive wireless network, but it hopes to use fibre optic technology to offer even faster speeds of 100Mbps or more.

SWI is calling on local enterprises to help support its plans and most will consider it an investment in the future of their business. A trio of local councils are also adding funding to the project, although input from the local business community will be necessary to ensure that it is a success.

In Cumbria local councillors are pushing for a new fibre optic broadband trial to be carried out. The trial will hopefully use money from the Northwest Regional Development Agency, which currently has the means to support pilot schemes in two different areas of the region.

A spokesperson for the county council voiced some concern that without action it was possible that Cumbria could become overlooked during the implementation of new broadband technologies. It was also suggested that with high speed connections available, the region would be far more attractive to businesses, which would cause faster growth in the local economy and help to drive new BT business broadband packages and those from other providers.

2010 is set to be a good year for businesses around Wales after news that BT is planning to roll out two high-speed broadband technologies across the country emerged. BT Business MD Nigel Stagg said that the availability of ADSL connections capable of up to 24Mbps download speeds should become widespread next year and added that the 40Mbps fibre optic connections that BT is installing as part of its 21st Century Network upgrades are also going to benefit business users.

24Mbps ADSL connections are already available in Bangor and Caernarfon and Mr Stagg indicated that business customers in other towns such as Wrexam should also be eligible for a faster connection for their enterprises.

The most important of the new broadband technologies that BT has promised to offer Welsh business customers is fibre optic connectivity. BT is using Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC), which will allow customers to continue to use their existing copper land line telephone connections to provide the last mile of connectivity whilst the rest of the work is performed by a fibre optic network.

In the first instance, business broadband customers in Wales should expect download speeds of up to 40Mbps and upload speeds of 2-15Mbps if they sign up for a fibre optic broadband package from BT. The download speeds are set to increase as time passes, with a target of up to 60Mbps for FTTC customers in the near future.

In the first half of 2010 BT plans to roll out FTTC at 100 different telephone exchanges around the UK, with a small proportion allocated to Wales.

Simple Broadband`s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard commented that BT’s plans to improve the availability of high-speed broadband for businesses everywhere was “an exciting prospect and one that should significantly drive recovery and growth over the next decade.”

BT has recently announced some fairly significant developments which will please shareholders in the firm as well as business and home broadband customers around the country.

The first piece of news highlights the fact that BT has just passed the five million customer mark for its broadband service. It sent the lucky 5 millionth customer, a chip shop worker from Glasgow, to see the Winter Olympics to mark the milestone which assures BT’s place as the UK largest fixed line broadband provider.

The second exciting development came when BT announced that it was currently ahead of schedule for the roll out of the latest fibre optic broadband technology. The intention now is to make fibre optic broadband available to 10 million customers around the UK in time for the 2012 Olympics and so far the £1.5 billion project is moving along swiftly.

In the last two years BT revealed that it has gained the custom of over one million new business and home broadband users and a spokesperson for the company said that the growth in the number of business customers signing up for broadband was set to continue as higher speeds become available across a wider area.

BT said that with the current work rate it would be able to connect 4 million customers to the internet using the new fibre optic network by the end of 2010 and the pressures of being official communications partner and sponsor of the 2012 Olympics are clearly helping BT to stay on task and stick to its promises.

BT CEO Ian Livingstone said that they expected to gain support from the government in order to ensure that businesses could have access to high speed broadband connections in time for 2012.

It is clear that by the end of next year people looking to compare business broadband packages will be faced with a much wider selection of high speed connections than those that are currently available.

Although the current range of BT business broadband packages has allowed far more businesses to connect to the internet at high speeds and enjoy the various perks of doing business online, experts predict that even bigger improvements will be instigated by further technology developments.

The various functions and applications of existing IT systems used by businesses around the UK will mutate as next-generation broadband networks are rolled out.

The biggest change is going to come when cloud computing services and virtualisation of server environments allow for businesses to move most of their IT services away from on-site solutions to remote, third party systems which are far more cost-effective.

BT’s managing director Bill Murphy spoke out about the benefits of cloud computing for businesses in a recent interview, but also said that IT firms themselves would have to adapt their methods to cope with business broadband technology.

Mr Murphy explained that the cost of the software which facilitates business in many sectors could be set to fall as BT business broadband packages of the future would significantly change the way in which solutions were delivered.

It is fibre optic cabling that most industry experts consider to be the most important development in the future of business broadband. Some networks in the largest UK cities are already offering speeds of up to 100Mbps for early-adopting enterprises and it is these speeds that will increase the viability of cloud computing and virtualisation.

This significant leap in download speeds that most business and home broadband users are expected to experience in the coming years will require many to completely alter their perceptions as to what is possible. Faster internet connections open up a whole host of exciting and profitable possibilities which will only continue to grow in significance as the future broadband technologies become more common.

Millions of pounds are being invested in the broadband infrastructure for Northern Ireland in order to offer much faster connections to home and business broadband customers around the country.

A total of over £48 million will be injected into the industry over the next year and a half, with the promise of improved speeds for both rural and urban customers.

Businesses who want to take advantage of high speed connections are in luck, as the plans include the provision of a 10Mbps minimum download speed for urban businesses, whilst a 2Mbps minimum is expected for rural businesses.

Completion of the improvements is targeted for mid-2011 and half of the money is being invested by British Telecom after it won the contract.

The remaining money is being provided from various public sector sources, including some from the European Union.

A spokesperson for the government said on announcing the plans that the money would not only enable faster broadband for all residents of Northern Ireland, regardless as to their location, but would also create up to 1000 new jobs as a result of the improved broadband infrastructure.

Cheap cable broadband using fibre optic technology will be key to the success of the investment scheme, although 166 telephone exchanges are being upgraded and various wireless broadband hotspots are also going to allow for wider coverage.

Many are pleased that the investment will help those in rural areas, where broadband connections are traditionally sluggish or non-existent. The inclusive nature of the plans is being heralded as a step in the right direction that other areas of the UK would do well to follow if growth and productivity are to be improved.

BT Chief Executive Ian Livingston said that cheap cable broadband provided using fibre optic technology would continue to be integral to increased speeds and wider availability of broadband in the future.