The battle for broadband Britain has begun in earnest, with announcements from telecommunications providers heralding what many observers expect to become a fully-fledged price war between British Telecom (BT), Telewest and NTL. From 1 April, BT will cut wholesale prices for broadband from £25 per month to £14.75. The UK is currently lagging so far behind most of its peers in the take-up of broadband services that the situation has become something of an embarrassment for the Government. Many law firm IT directors have high hopes for better, cheaper services as the providers get serious about keeping their customers happy.
And law firms should be high on the companies’ priority lists. According to a recent survey across all sectors of commerce and industry by Eurobell, a division of UK cable group Telewest, the legal sector is the third-biggest spender on international calls. Seen in this light, it is strange that none of the very large players in the market are focusing specifically on the legal sector. “You would expect more of a divisional focus from the likes of BT and Cable & Wireless: we are not treated as a market with huge potential, which is what we are,” says Derek Southall, head of strategic development at Wragge & Co. “Any operator that really focused on law firms would do well because we depend on telecommunications in every way. But none of the popular suppliers do a fantastic job, nor do they have huge economies of scale.” It is also hard to see why, if firms are spending so much on telecommunications, relatively few are using voice over internet protocol (VoIP), which potentially can deliver huge cost savings.
