The new broadband home service is known as Homecall, was announced in October by Caudwell Communications. They are a telephony business that is part of the Caudwell group, and the current owners of the Phones4u mobile phone company.
Advantages of Homecall over other services include combining your different needs into one package. Your Internet and phone bills arrive in a single bill, instead. And since Homecall is associated with Phones4u, they can provide great mobile phone promotions, which include free international and local calls, and cheaper calls on your mobile phone.
With the advent of BT being forced to open up their private phone lines for other companies to use as well, some of the other companies have opted to install their own equipment at the BT telephone exchanges instead of using BT's equipment. BT still controls the main 155Mbit line that Ipstream uses. This results in the IPSs that use Ipstream having to pay BT, but the service is very fast. The Datastream providers now have their own 2Mbit circuit in each telephone exchange. You must share your bandwidth with the other people in your local exchange, not everyone in the country. The drawback of using Datastream is that customers can find their Internet service slower and not providing their full Internet bandwidth, which can be as slow as 512k dialup speeds.
A poll by Homecall found that the number one reason people use the Internet is to download music. The second was to download adult services, a third was watching music videos, a fourth reason was to listen to the radio and the fifth was downloading movie trailers. The sharing of family photos and online gaming were also among the top ten reasons. A Homecall spokesperson is quoted as saying "Broadband in the home has really taken off."
Homecall is currently offering no setup costs and includes all the equipment you need to get started. Their prices are competitive and there's no limit cap on your bandwidth. This means you can download as much as you want all the time. However, with the Datastream problems you may not be able to download as much as you would like to. Choosing Homecall broadband is also much cheaper if you get a package deal that includes phone calls. This is definitely a money saver. Homecall has undercut BT's phone prices by a couple of pounds a month and they also give you more free calls and with the unlimited internet, it really turns into a good deal. The downside is that the speed of their Internet packages is slower and can be a little bit more expensive. Homecall currently offers both 2Mbps and 512Kbps broadband Internet access.
Homecall's package is perfect for users who don't want a download cap and access to high speed unlimited broadband. Combined with their phone package you can make savings on your BT contract and get loads of free phone calls all throughout the day. The only problem is you may end up having your speeds slashed if too many people in your local area are also on Homecall.
