Last night’s ' Money Program' was about the increasing consumer demand for broadband services and the various options available from the suppliers.
Broadband services from the major players (Carphone Warehouse, BT, NTL and newcomer Sky) were all reviewed for various households with different requirements.
British Telecom has an incredibly strong brand with the older generation. One grandmother on the show simply opted for a BT Video Phone because she implicitly trusts that the service will work because ‘it is from BT’.
Another family opted for ‘Free Broadband For Life’ from Carphone Warehouse. The kids were excited - lightning downloads, more MSN’ing, online gaming. Mum was excited - she could actually use the phone again for hours on end. Even Dad was excited - he was going to save 36GBP every single month. Quite why he was still paying 15GBP per month for dial-up wasn’t clear.
In fact, they all thought it was too good to be true. And so it proved. They are still waiting for the engineer to arrive despite Charles Dunstone moving them to the top of the massive waiting list.
I have had broadband (Telewest) for so long I had to go and look it up - April 2002.