Ken’s Tech Tips is the no-nonsense guide to mobile technology and broadband providers in the UK.
My goal is for Ken’s Tech Tips to be the most helpful and informative website about mobile and broadband providers in the UK.
I want to empower every single person to make an informed choice about their next mobile network or broadband provider, without all of the complexity and jargon that you’ll often find in our industry.
This website was founded in 2005. Thanks to the ongoing support from readers in the UK and from around the world, we’ve now published more than 1,000 in-depth guides and received more than 30 million page views. We’ve also had more than 10,000 reader comments and contributions.
Thank you again for continuing to visit my website and for all of your ongoing support and contributions.
How Are Our Guides Produced?
All of the guides you’ll find on this website have been written by Ken. You can find out a bit more about who I am & my background.
Everything is written to the best of my knowledge, and based on my own research. However, I sometimes get things wrong (or things can often change quickly, given the industry we operate in). For this reason, if you do spot an error or omission, please do get in touch and let me know.
Please also double check and verify the information that’s provided directly with the individual provider before you sign up.
How Do We Generate Revenue?
I’m committed to keeping Ken’s Tech Tips a free website for everyone to use. At the same time, I put in thousands of hours of work maintaining the website each year (from researching individual providers, to producing new guides about the industry and keeping older ones up-to-date). It’s also the product of more than 15 years work.
As such, Ken’s Tech Tips needs to be able to generate revenue in order to fund and sustain it. Here are the key things to know about how we generate revenue on our website:
Our editorial independence is really important to us. We cover lots of different providers on our website, highlighting both the benefits and the shortfalls of their service. However, I’ll only recommend products and services that I think are worthy of my recommendation. I don’t accept guest posts or content written by other people so you can rest assured that everything you read has been researched & written by us.
Once our content is completed, we use software to turn normal hyperlinks into affiliate hyperlinks. Affiliate hyperlinks work in the same way as normal hyperlinks, giving you the same (or better) pricing than going direct. The key difference is that affiliate hyperlinks will allow the retailer to track the sale back to our website.
We also use comparison engine technology to show you deals relevant to the guide. For instance, if you’re reading an article about 5G mobile technology, we might embed a comparison table showing you the latest 5G SIM card deals. These comparison tables will normally use affiliate hyperlinks.
When you purchase through an affiliate hyperlink, we might receive a commission from the retailer. To give you complete transparency over which hyperlinks are affiliated, we’ll mark all affiliate hyperlinks with an asterisk at the end. It’s the same approach you’ll see on other websites such as MoneySavingExpert (of which I’m a huge fan!).
We won’t ever sell your data. For more information about the data we collect and how we use it, see our privacy policy.
Contact Me
It’s always great to hear from readers of the website! Find out how to get in touch.
Looking forward to 2012, what’s going to be new for the online world? How are the patterns of internet usage changing and what are the key challenges facing the internet?
The team from Plusnet: Bob Pullen, Ben Trimble and Plusnet super-user Barry Zubel.
Last week, I took part in a discussion held by Plusnet about the future of internet and the trends that we’ll see online in 2012. Our discussion covered a whole range of topics including the marketing of download speeds and download limits, traffic management and net neutrality and how new internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets, televisions and games consoles will affect the way we interact with the internet.
In this article, I’d like to look back on the internet in 2011 and look forward to see how things might change in 2012. For me, 2012 will be an important year for the internet – particularly as the internet is moving beyond computers and onto a whole range of different form factors from a small-screen experience on a mobile phone to a large-screen experience on TV. Furthermore, talk of download limits and download speeds still confuses consumers. These are issues which must be tackled in 2012.
Ken’s Tech Tips has been tracking consumer choices in the UK mobile operator market for over a year. In this article, we reveal how the iPhone 4S has shaken up the UK mobile operator market.
At Ken’s Tech Tips, we spend a lot of time trying to understand how consumers interact with their phones and the thought processes they go through when choosing their new phone or mobile phone network. As part of that work, we’ve been carrying out research into the network choices and network switching intentions of UK mobile consumers over the past 13 months. We’ve been carrying out a poll of switching intentions and over 63,000 consumers have participated in our study over those 13 months. We now present the results of the study to date and how the release of the Apple iPhone 4S has affected the UK mobile operator market.
If you’re looking for an “ultraportable” computing device which you can take anywhere, you’ve got two choices: a tablet or a netbook.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen people demanding more from technology and the ability to access technology in more and more places.
Huge growth has recently been seen in the ultraportable computing sector. Ultraportable devices aim to offer both portability and computing power. In terms of both size and speed, they sit somewhere in between the smartphone you take everywhere and the laptop you leave on your desk. Ultraportables aim to offer the best of both worlds.
If you’re looking for an ultraportable computing device, you’ve got a choice between a tablet or a netbook. In this guide, we look at the history and design of both the tablet and netbook form factors. We also explore how the design heritages of both classes of device affect them practically and find out the pros and cons of each type of device.
We find out how e-ink screens (used by the Kindle) compare with LCD screens (used by iPad and most smartphones).
The Amazon Kindle e-book reader differs from most tablet devices in that it uses an e-ink screen as opposed to a colour LCD screen. Fundamentally, e-ink is a very different technology from LCD. In this article, we look at how e-ink and LCD display technologies work and compare the two technologies.
How do electronic ink (e-ink) displays work?
E-ink (electronic ink) displays produce images and reflect light in the same way normal paper does.
Paper reflects light from the Sun (and from artificial light sources such as light bulbs). Because paper reflects light of all wavelengths, it normally appears white (see left diagram below). In order to form an image on paper, we need to add a layer of ink in the relevant places. This layer of ink is non-reflective (this region appears black as black is the absence of light; see right diagram below). By selectively adding ink to a piece of paper, we can form the desired image.
Mobile phones with 3D displays finally reach the UK this month. In this article, we find out how they work and whether handsets such as the LG Optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D will really be flying off the shelf.
The UK’s first 3D mobile phones begin to hit the shelves this month. 3D phones such as the LG Optimus 3D and HTC EVO 3D promise to allow you to watch 3D videos on your handset, to play 3D games and to record videos in 3D. But does 3D really add an extra dimension to the mobile experience? Will they revolutionise the mobile industry or will it be another short-term fad? In this article, we find out how 3D mobile phones work and discuss the outlook for them.
How does the human eye perceive 3D?
Like many other animals, humans have two eyes so that we can see in 3D. As each of our eye are in slightly different places, each eye will observe objects from a slightly different angle. The brain will then piece together the information received from each eye to calculate the distance to the object (hence giving depth perception).
Ken’s Tech Tips has been tracking the popularity of the UK’s major mobile operators over the last 9 months. In this article, we reveal how they all fare.
During the UK Election Debates of 2010, we were glued to our screens and the sentiment-tracking application known as “The Worm”. The Worm showed a real-time, second-by-second overview of the “sentiment” expressed by viewers to each politician speaking in the debate. As the party leaders made arguments which were popular with viewers, the worm moved up the screen. Meanwhile, unpopular statements which didn’t go well with the public (such as personal attacks) moved the worm down the screen.
In this article, we unveil the Ken’s Tech Tips Worm – our version of “The Worm” but for mobile operators and their respective product offerings. By collating thousands of responses about how British consumers are switching between mobile networks (assuming they vote with their feet and gravitate towards the networks they like), we’re able to track the popularity of each mobile network over time and in response to different product offerings.
Our latest study looks at the switching intention of 7,200 consumers between February and April. Three edge out Tesco Mobile to take home the title of best performing network.
What is the Ken’s Tech Tips index?
The Ken’s Tech Tips Index is our regular study looking into how well each mobile phone network is performing in terms of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. We believe that consumers vote with their feet and that by looking at how well networks can attract and retain customers, we can determine how good a network really is.
We polled 7,205 consumers through our PAC Code Finder tool on their intention of switching network. From the responses, we determine how rapidly a network is gaining new customers and losing existing ones. The Ken’s Tech Tips “index score” is “the number of customers who join a given network for every 100 customers who leave that network”.
If a network has a high score in the Ken’s Tech Tips Index, it means they are gaining customers a lot faster than they lose them. This is perhaps a good indication that the products they provide are better value for consumers (or alternatively, it could just mean they are doing a great job with marketing their products).
The team at billmonitor have analysed 28,000 mobile phone bills to find out how much data we’re really using and how consumers can cut their phone bills.
billmonitor calls itself the UK’s first “mobile bill analysis engine”. Unlike traditional price comparison services (which I’ve blogged about before), billmonitor takes the more scientific approach of analysing your online phone bills to work out how you use your phone rather than simply asking you to provide figures. That approach means they’ve got real numerical data on your phone usage: the calls you make, the type of calls (landline, mobile or international) and how much data you use. Using these bills, the service then makes a recommendation on the best value phone tariff as well as any add-ons you might need.
The guys at billmonitor have recently carried out some fascinating research on how people use their phones and how much people are paying for their mobile phone service. In this article, I sat down with Nick Wright from billmonitor to discuss:
Our latest study looks at the performance of each network in the aftermath of Christmas. Tesco Mobile again takes the title of best performing network with Three and T-Mobile both gaining ground.
What is the Ken’s Tech Tips index?
The Ken’s Tech Tips Index is our regular study looking into how well each mobile phone network is performing in terms of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. We believe that consumers vote with their feet. We believe that by looking at how well networks can attract and retain customers, we can determine how good a network really is.
We polled 8,199 people through our PAC Code Finder tool on their intention of switching network. From the responses, we determine how rapidly a network is gaining new customers and losing existing ones. The Ken’s Tech Tips “index score” is “the number of customers who join a given network for every 100 customers who leave that network”.
If a network has a high score in the Ken’s Tech Tips Index, it means they are gaining customers a lot faster than they lose them. This is perhaps a good indication that the products they provide are better value for consumers (or alternatively, it could just mean they are doing a great job with publicity or sales).
My goal is for Ken’s Tech Tips to be the most helpful and informative website about mobile and broadband providers in the UK.
All of the guides you’ll find on this website have been written by Ken. You can find out a bit more about who I am & my background.
I’m committed to keeping Ken’s Tech Tips a free website for everyone to use. At the same time, I put in thousands of hours of work maintaining the website each year (from researching individual providers, to producing new guides about the industry and keeping older ones up-to-date). It’s also the product of more than 15 years work.
The 
The UK’s first 3D mobile phones begin to hit the shelves this month. 3D phones such as the 
During the UK Election Debates of 2010, we were glued to our screens and the sentiment-tracking application known as 
What is the Ken’s Tech Tips index?