Broadband for less than the price of a pint of beer

Europe's laggard telecoms sector (at least according to the EU information commissioner) has come up with the goods yet again. An even cheaper broadband deal for the UK market.

TalkTalk, one of the big UK telecoms providers, is offering unlimited broadband for £2.50 per month - no cap. As the company points out, this works out less than a pint of beer every month for unlimited broadband.

Users pay £15.40 line rental but there's no calls allowance. Instead they just pay per call at a fairly stiff rate - the idea being that many users now have a generous calls allowance on their smartphones so are happy to pay less for their phone line and not use the wired phone at all.

So in effect this offer is 'near-naked DSL' - DSL with a G-string, perhaps.

Not only that, users get a free wireless router and the line rental is only £9.50 per month if paid up-front.

At that price (£12 p.m. in total) it's becoming very difficult to see why society might need a net neutrality-busting option so that telcos can offer affordable DSL to cash-strapped users.