Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Friday 20 July 2007, 11:51 AM
Would you like a laptop with that?
How competitive is the broadband market getting in this country? Pretty crazy, actually. You may have read that those signing up to Orange's much-derided broadband service at PC World stores can now pick up a free laptop for their troubles, but now Carphone Warehouse is joining in the fun, with those signing up to AOL getting a free Dell Inspiron (talk about Dell finally visiting the High Street in the oddest way).
I'm really not sure what the economics of this are. Are laptops that cheap to produce? Is broadband that cheap to provide? Whatever's going on, the margins must be wafer-thin...
PreviousComments on this post
I would imagine this is some kind of loss-leader approach to draw in the late adopters amongst the UK population. For the remaining 30%-ish of UK households not connected to the web (and probably not PC owners) an offer like this may be enough to persuade them to sign up and get a PC at the same time.
Given that it is expensive to persuade existing users to switch ISP (and then watch as they switch again 12 months later) - there may be some sense in this. If Orange and CPW can lure a decent number of new sign-ups from the current non-user base they may be more likely to stick with their provider the foreseeable future.
Lots of 'ifs' and 'maybes' though...
Is it a surprise that both Orange and CPW rate pretty much bottom on Speed, Reliability, and Customer Service compared to the other ISPs?
Is the Laptop a good enough incentive to overcome the poor service...
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