A Ballasalla couple had a welcome surprise when they recently won free Ultima broadband for a year after becoming the 5,000th customers to sign up for Manx Telecom’s superfast Ultima service. David and Jo Dixon have already found that their prize is ideal for megabyte munching families who enjoy using multiple devices at home such as smartphones, tablets, games consoles, laptops and internet-enabled TVs. The superfast speeds and huge bandwidth which Ultima provides means a much better user experience for the latest home entertainment systems and devices.

David and Jo have one teenage daughter living at home, and two elder daughters who often visit – and the whole family are tech savvy using broadband for everything from downloading HD movies to their smart TV, to checking social media, emails, and making FaceTime calls. When the family are visiting, often with friends too, it means there are multiple devices accessing broadband simultaneously. At times, David and Jo had noticed that their broadband was struggling to cope, when demand was at its peak, so they decided it was time to switch to Ultima.

Jo said: “We’re delighted with Ultima broadband, everything we use the internet for is now so much faster. Winning the competition as the 5,000th customer was a great surprise – it’s the first competition we have ever won!”

The couple who regularly download programmes and movies from on demand channels including Netflix; say it’s really making a difference to their lives.

David commented: “The biggest difference we’ve noticed is downloading HD movies which now take less than a minute, whereas before we were sometimes reluctant to download them at all. For families like us, who use the internet for both personal and business reasons Ultima is ideal. We would certainly recommend it.”

David runs his own business, D Dixon Building Services Ltd, and is also a Manx Telecom business customer. Jo is Manager at the Isle of Man Live at Home Scheme which provides a range of services to help older people live independently and sometimes works from home, so the quicker upload and download speeds are making more efficient use of her time by providing faster access to emails and documents when she needs them. For David, Ultima is saving him time by allowing him to send and receive large documents, such as building plans, from home.

The Dixons were presented with their prize by Manx Telecom’s Marketing Communications Manager Voirrey Barron. She added:

“Many congratulations to David and Jo for becoming our 5,000th Ultima customer. It’s an important landmark in the fibre broadband success story and it’s fantastic to see so many customers and businesses enjoying the service. Ultima is available to 87% of premises on the Island and following the recent launch of our new Ultima Plus service, customers can truly enjoy the benefits that superfast fibre broadband provides.” 

Ultima was launched in 2011 thanks to significant investment by Manx Telecom to install a network of fibre optic cables to street cabinets and basements. For those who want even faster speeds there’s Ultima Plus which is available to around 50% of premises on the Island offering speeds of up to 80 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. Both Ultima and Ultima Plus are line length dependent. For more information, and to check whether either service is available for your home or business, go to www.manxtelecom.com/speed 

Photo - Manx Telecom Marketing Communications Manager Voirrey Barron (centre) presents David and Jo Dixon with their prize after they became the 5,000th customer to sign up for Manx Telecom’s Ultima broadband service.

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