Digital Britain funds to be insufficient to cope with demand for superfast broadband
The plans by the government to assist financially with 12 million pounds in the rolling out of fibre – optic broadband are most likely to fall extremely short of the potential growth in demand for super – fast broadband, a research by Point Topic says.
Tim Johnson, the main analyst at Point Topic, says the amount is not enough to cope with the potential challenge of meeting this demand. This cash is meant to ensure that high – speed broadband is available in areas where companies would find it unviable to roll the technology out themselves.
The latest forecast by them says that nearly 9 million homes still don’t have internet access and this number is not falling as much as expected. 5 years down the line, there will still be 6.5 million homes without access to the internet.
However, Point Topic is quite about the increase in the number of households with access to broadband and has made the necessary adjustments.
Number of broadband connections in use increased to oever 17.8 million in the 6 months of this year, 100,000 more than initial predictions. Due to this, PT has increased their total prediction by 36%.
The coverage of next – gen BB is not much, but, in 5 years, it should go to 50%, says PT. At this rate, the target for 2017 should be achieved, though it does depend on some form of subsidy to get to remote areas.
PT expects over 7 million next – gen fibre lines to be there by 2014, by when there should be over 20 million houses as well as 1.7 million businesses with at least one broadband line. Next – gen BB should take up 30% of the market, with DSL accounting for 49% and cable taking 21%.
Source - computing.co.uk
BT broadband services to be more flexible
BT announced the introduction of a new service which will utilise next – generation technology which will give customer a newer way of communicating with others and accessing the internet and hoped that it would be popular with all of its existing and potential customers.
BT also revealed that their 21st century network (21CN) technology as well as a sole backhaul link will be used to provide broadband service providers in the country with a higher variety of options.
This innovative system could result in less costs for consumers as operating it is cheaper for operators regardless of the fact that it is the best available. The system is to be known as Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) over IPstream.
A number of companies which were mulling possibly making use of 24 Mbps fibre – optics and copper phone lines would be able to utilise this service, Sian Baldwin, the director of BT broadband said.
After the high level of work carried about by BT, the new product that BT have come up with is definitely something that will benefit the users no doubt, said the sales and marketing director at Griffin Internet.
He also said that this IPstream Connect services is a better way to have an inter-connection with the IP backbone of BT Wholesale and that WBMC will bring about a much better speed for business – grade ADSL to all sizes of businesses, medium and small likewise.
BT is of the hope that, by spring 2010, the use of 21CN equipment will be made possible to at least 55% of internet users in the UK
The goal of 1 million Wi-Fi hotspots in city centres, shops, homes, business and a number of other locations is halfway through completion (500,000 hotspots being currently available), according to an announcement made by BT last month.
