The problem with supplying a straight broadband service is that once price, speed and stability have all equalised, there is nothing to distinguish you from your competitors. When service providers appear virtually identical, customer churn increases as subscribers can be tempted away in large numbers by simple offers and discounts.
Service providers are trying to combat this by providing value added services to make them distinct from each other – such as NTL’s new inclusion of PhotoBox in its Broadband Plus subscription. NTL are hoping to take advantage of the huge popularity of digital photography, coupled with the practical requirement that broadband is essential to make use of a digital printing service.
Broadband Plus costs an extra UK£3.99 per month on top their usual broadband bill, and NTL claim that it provides an extra UK£35 worth of value added services to subscribers.
NTL’s research indicates that a third of consumers in the UK take more than 48 digital pictures every month – and half of those consumers will keep 12 or more of those images. Proportionately few digital pictures are then made into prints as online services are not main stream and domestic photo quality printers aren’t quite what consumers would regards as photo quality.
PhotoBox is a well-established service for printing and storing digital photographs, and NTL customers will be eligible for 15 free photographic prints per month plus 200 mb of online picture album storage. This will allow subscribers to store about 1,000 print quality images. Prints from online services are considerably superior to inkjet prints and are produced on photographic paper for accuracy and longevity.
Aizad Hussain, managing director of NTL’s residential service said: “The introduction of PhotoBox ensures that NTL Broadband Plus customers have easy access to one of the UK’s finest online digital photography services at no extra cost.”
Broadband Plus costs an extra UK£3.99 per month on top their usual broadband bill, and NTL claim that it provides an extra UK£35 worth of value added services to subscribers.
