Opal is launching a discounted business broadband service in the UK. The company, which is the B2B division of The TalkTalk Group, is launching Opal Office Broadband, which runs at speeds up to 24Mbps and network priority for £10 per month; 58% less than BT's nearest equivalent, the company claims.
The Opal package offers a combination of premium business broadband features as standard. Crucially, it operates across the group's Next Generation Network, which is the most widely penetrated and developed in the UK, giving Opal significant technological and scale advantages over its competitors, including BT, which recently announced it is having to scale back its investments.
Opel reckons it will grab 20% market share: it has sold more than 10,000 new connections in test sales since Christmas.
Paul Lawton, Managing Director of Opal, said, "TalkTalk overhauled the residential broadband market in 2006 with its free broadband offering and we anticipate the launch of Opal Office Broadband will do the same in the business sector."
He didn't mention the national outrage and appalling publicity that resulted from TalkTalk being unable to meet the demand for its free residential broadband, so long as consumers sign up for phone call package. The effect was so severe, the take-up of broadband in the UK generally was damaged by the debacle.
It's taken me four years and innumerable phone calls for TalkTalk to get my name and address correct after it bought out Tele2, which had my details correct.
This morning I got a letter from the head of customer services, Alain Meric, to say the company couldn't get the bill through to my email address - needless to say the reason was because they'd got that wrong too and to add insult to injury, they've whacked me for late payment too.
And no, because of the appalling trouble I've had with customer service, TalkTalk doesn't supply my broadband.