Here’s some odd news that, honestly, sounds like it’s come straight out of the ’90s – the decade when using the internet and using the phone meant having two phone lines in your house. BT has announced something called ‘dedicated connection’ home broadband, and it basically amounts to having a second internet line wired into your home for… reasons.
This plan is designed for all potential customers, not just those who already have BT, and is for people “who want the reassurance that a second line will provide to help minimise disruption”. In other words it’s a secondary internet connection you can either use as a backup, or to chew up bandwidth without affecting the rest of the house. Or, in other words, a really niche product that seems pretty pointless for a typical household.
I can get businesses needing extra connections so they can transfer data uninterrupted, and maybe that’s what this is supposed to appeal to. Lots more people are working from home, and if they need to send off bulky reports and data files this could be useful. But that’s something the business employing them should handle, right?
BT is promising that this service has no connection fee, and promises “the UK’s best converged broadband, mobile, and phone plan”. Those are the words of BT’s marketing department, not me. It also had BT’s Halo 2 connection, which will let you use a 4G connection on the off-chance that your internet ever goes down. Not, as I originally assumed, the video game Halo 2. There’s also the choice of a complete home mesh Wi-Fi package or £100 back.
If you’re not an existing BT broadband customer this will cost you £60, though if you are it’ll only cost you £50 a month. Both are on a 24 month contract, and include a £10 postage charge. Speed-wise you’re looking at a 67Mb average speed.
In other words it’s pricey, no matter who you are, and if you desperately want a second fixed line broadband connection you’re going to have to pay for the privilege. If you’re just looking for a backup connection you should probably either invest in a BT connection that offers the 4G backup already, or just buy a SIM card with unlimited data. Even if you don’t have an old phone to bung it into, a mobile router is going to cost less than the dedicated line.
But if it sounds good to you, you can sign up over on the BT website.
