Push email for £5

Perhaps not surprisingly it is possible to get a really cheap push email deal. Vodafone is now offering it for £5 per month in a bid to attract small to medium sized businesses (SMEs).

The downside? You have to sign an 18 month contract. It seems that the operators and resellers are increasingly looking at ways of locking down new subscribers - the Carphone Warehouse broadband deal been the most high profile recent example. Carphone may have locked them in but it now has to deal with the bad PR as thousands who signed up wait months for their free broadband.

Curious fact: Vodafone clearly sees the SME sector as an area of great potential but its research figures are nothing short of amazing. In its release it quotes the Department of Trade and Industry as saying there are currently 4.3 million 'business enterprises' at the start of 2005, and that this figure is expected to rise to 10 million in the next five years. TEN MILLION? That's one business for every six and a half people in the country. The government must be rubbing its hands with glee at the thought of a 250 per cent increase in corporation tax revenues.