Scottish communication company Thus, the owners of Demon Broadband, are on the brink of a massive takeover bid from Cable & Wireless.

Thus, which grew out of the telecoms operations of Scottish Power, is currently valued at around £250 million. Cable & Wireless revealed to investors that it had made an approach to the board of Thus, whose shares then shot up by 25 per cent.

In a statement to shareholders, the company said:

“Thus is confident in its future as an independent group, which offers an attractive combination of strong growth and future cash flow generation. The Board remains focused on delivering maximum value for shareholders and will evaluate any proposal from any third party against the value that the company can deliver as an independent group.”

Cable & Wireless are the 2nd biggest telecoms provider in the UK behind British Telecom, and they will continue to prosper having just landed a £100million contract with supermarket chain Tesco.

Vonage have reacted quickly to news that voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) provider Skype’s announcement that 0207 (central London) numbers would not be supported after December 20th by offering affected users the chance to continue using their 0207 number. The decision is reported to impact as many as 10,000 Skype users within the UK. 

Vonage call plans start from £5.99 a month for unlimited calls to UK and Ireland landline calls and £7.99 for international call packages. Vonage are also in the process of relaunching their website on the back of a usability study which will make their cheap international phone calls packages easier to understand for prospective customers. 

>> Visit Vonage’s website to see their cheap phone call packages

The award winning BT Total Broadband has announced that they will be offering BT Vision FREE with all new broadband packages – enabling you to watch both Freeview and On Demand digital TV whenever you want, without having to sign up to an annual contract. This follows in the footsteps of Tiscali and Virgin Media of offering complete Broadband, TV and Phone packages to their customers. When you sign up for BT Total Broadband as a new customer from £8.95 a month let them know you want BT Vision and you’ll get a V-Box (which is their digital TV recorder) sent to you with your BT Home Hub. Once set up (there is a connection fee of £30) you’ll be able to pause and rewind live TV and record up to 80 hours of your favourite programmes.

BT Vision enables you to :

• Watch films from BT’s vast library for as little as £1.99
• Enjoy 70 digital TV and radio channels with Freeview as standard
• See up to 242 Barclay Premier League games for as little as 99p per view, or get unlimited access to Setanta Sports from £9.99 a month
• Choose from a wide range of viewing packages, so you get to choose the kind of TV Films and Sport you want to watch, from just £6 a month
• Record up to 80 hours of programmes with a V-Box. Customers signing up to BT Total Broadband get a V Box at no extra cost, otherwise it’s £199

>> Sign up for BT Total Broadband from £8.95 a month and get BT Vision FREE!

>> Read more about BT Total Broadband

BT’s have updated the design of their Home Hub which is their wireless router (connecting your computer to the BT broadband enabled phone line) enabling you to provide broadband wirelessly throughout the home from a sexy looking box! The Home Hub will update itself automatically and is futureproofed as technical upgrades can be delivered more easily. The redesign also makes it even easier for you to set up so you can be online without too much fuss and surfing the net at speeds of up to 8MBps in no time. (more…)

My Uncle lives in Canada but spends a lot of time travelling round the world for business and the last time I saw him he sat me down (over a few beers) and told me the next big thing that would hit the UK – VoIP. My reaction was ‘er what’s that’. Well VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol and basically means using your broadband connection to make phone calls.

“Well,” I told my uncle “I’ve been making phone calls over my broadband connection for a year or so using Skype”. Skype for the uninitiated is a software programme that enables FREE calls (including video if you have a camera) to other Skype users by plugging a headset into your computer. You can also call landlines including internationally at pretty cheap rates. Skype actually works quite well, but the call quality is very hit and miss depending on how many Skype users are online.  It can be very annoying when you’re shouting “what, I can’t hear you, I’ll turn you up! I can’t turn you up. I’ll call you later!!!!” or listening to your fellow caller sounding like Cher singing “Do you believe in life after love” (I must stop using that joke when talking about Skype but it’s true!).

Anyway, my uncle says to me “that’s not true VoIP, you should try Vonage” before whispering mystically “it’s the future! You don’t need to even have your computer turned on to make calls. All you need to do is plug a regular phone into the Vonage adapter and plug that into your router and you’re good to go. It’s not VoIP in a Skype sense, it’s broadband telephony”

So I went away and did a bit of searching and took a quick look at the Vonage website, £5.99 a month for unlimited UK calls, er no thanks! Why would I want to pay a monthly fee for a service I already get for free? Cheap International landline calls - that’s why. (more…)

Ofcom are pressing for common sense to prevail by making it mandatory for VoIP providersto provide access to emergency numbers including 999 by the first half of 2008. Ofcom’s proposal published recently stated that any VoIP provider that allows their subscribers to make calls to landlines as part of their VoIP package must also offer access to the emergency services via 999.

It may come as a surprise to many non VoIP users that some providers such as Skype don’t allow 999 access and indeed it is worrying that any delay in making a 999 call whilst trying to locate a mobile phone of normal landline could in fact cause fatalities. The report suggested that enabling users to call 999 would cost just 90 pence per household per year – a very small cost when you consider the life threatening implications! (more…)