Bournemouth to see super-fast broadband by 2011
March 26, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Bournemouth is on course to become one of the best-connected broadband hotspots in the country. By the beginning of 2011 it is going to see an explosion in super-fast broadband connections run on fibre-optic cables that will see its residents benefit from broadband speeds of up to a whopping 1Gbps.
The development is all down to Fibrecity, the company that is providing the fibre-optic cables to Bournemouth. It is using the town’s sewer system to lay the fibre-optic cables, which is making the unrolling of the cables a lot quicker and more cost-effective than in other parts of the country. Fibrecity confirmed that it is only spending £500 to connect each of Bournemouth’s homes.
It has already signed up three ISPs to deliver the super-fast speeds: Fibreland, Vispa and Velocity1. These will compete with Bournemouth’s current fast providers, including BT’s 24Mbps service and Virgin Media’s 50Mbps service. It is suggested that prices could be a lot more competitive, however, starting as low as £9.99.
Thinkbroadband recently reported that about 1,000 homes will soon be able to get speeds of up to 1Gbps thanks to Fibrecity. A spokesperson for the group also told the website that it is hoping to connect over 750,000 homes across the rest of the country by 2012, in a sign that the UK’s fast-broadband scene is really starting to get interesting.
The chief executive of i3 Group, which owns Fibrecity, is quoted by ZDNet UK as saying that its decision to wholesale the fibre service is all about “creating the platform that gives the customer the choice”. And there won’t be many people in Bournemouth complaining about that.
Broadband travel passes from Virgin
March 19, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Virgin Media has introduced another feature that is sure to cement it as one of the best broadband providers in the UK. It has now launched a collection of internet travel passes that customers can use to access mobile broadband and the internet whilst travelling anywhere in Europe.
There are four different price ranges for the mobile-broadband packages. The cheapest costs £10 and provides a day’s worth of mobile broadband access along with a 10 MB download limit.
The next costs £15 and provides a 15 MB download limit which lasts for three days. The third deal costs £30 for a 30 MB data limit to be used over seven days, and the most expensive package costs £60 for a 60 MB data limit for 30 days of connectivity. All that customers have to do to take advantage of the deal is text ‘BUY’ to 23456.
As well as mobile broadband, Virgin has also released new mobile internet packages. Customers can now pay £4 to receive one-hour of internet access, and £6 for a whole day of connectivity.
Jonathan Kini, who is the director of mobile at Virgin, said that the deal would help people to stay connected when they are abroad, "whether it’s searching for the best pizzeria in Rome on your mobile or uploading photos on to Facebook with a laptop”.
This will be great for people heading to Europe on holiday or on business who want to get instant connectivity but don’t want to be hit with a huge bill from their ISP on their return.
How low will home broadband prices go?
March 19, 2010 at 4:11 pm
The price of home broadband has been gradually falling since it replaced dial-up connections as our main means of getting online. The question is, how low are broadband prices likely to go? Plusnet’s recent decision to offer 4 months free on its standard value package meant the cost of their home broadband package is just £4 a month over the course of a 12 month contract. This is lower than their competitors, undercutting AOL by £1.99, but will Plusnet’s choice to offer £4 a month broadband lead other companies to cut their prices and is that really what customers want from their broadband provider?
Broadband by its nature is a service. The broadband provider agrees to provide the customer with the necessary equipment and then offers them the connectivity and speed which will allow them to surf the world wide web. However, as with many services, customers are not only interested in price. A quick browse of the customer reviews on this site reveals the importance of not only price but also quality of service, communication and support. As broadband prices continue to drop, the inevitable question is how the broadband providers are able to offer such low prices and whether anything has to be sacrificed to make offering low prices a profitable option. Many providers for instance now outsource their customer support centres to countries where they can find and employ a cheaper work force. Another oft levelled criticism is that broadband providers rarely provide the speeds which they offer in advertisements. Low price services which offer up to 8MB on advertisement rarely reach anything near to that.
Customer reviews also reveal issues with reliability, communication response time, hidden charges and changes in terms of conditions, all of which leave a black spot against the lowest price providers. It also seems from the sheer number of 1 star reviews across the board, that all broadband providers should be focused on providing quality rather than finding ways to be cheaper.
It is hard to say how low the price of broadband is likely to fall in the coming year as companies decide to respond to the undercutting of competitors, in an attempt to win new custom. The question instead should be whether low price broadband is good value for money compared to its higher price equivalents. From studying customer reviews of the lower price providers there certainly may be something to the well known phrase, you get what you pay for.
Free TV shows for broadband users
March 12, 2010 at 2:16 pm
TV-on-demand services are becoming increasingly popular these days – just look at the success of BBC iPlayer. Now another new service has just been launched which provides thousands of hours of content – all completely free.
Seesaw streams over 3,000 hours of content to users without them having to pay a fee. The content currently consists of programmes from Channel 4, Channel 5 and BBC Worldwide, although more content from other sources is expected to be added in the future.
The reason the service can be offered free is because users are forced to watch two one-minute advertisements whenever they watch a programme: one advert before it starts, and one halfway through. Viewers do not have the option of skipping the adverts, and it is this advertising revenue that pays for the content.
Despite the content currently being offered free of charge, it is likely that a pay service will be introduced later in the year with the addition of premium content. The controller of Seesaw, John Keeling, said that the service was just “the tip of the iceberg”.
Adobe Flash player is required to view the content, and users are also recommended to have a minimum connection speed of 1Mbps in order to view programmes properly. This could pose a problem for viewers in some parts of the country who are still unable to receive fast broadband speeds.
Seesaw is based on technology from Project Kangaroo, the TV-on-demand service that was eventually scrapped before it came to fruition. Many are seeing Seesaw as the reincarnation of this failed service.
Cloud computing held back by slow broadband
March 5, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Slow broadband speeds across the UK are preventing SMEs (small to medium enterprises) from taking full advantage of new technologies including cloud computing.
This is according to Matt Yardley, a partner in Analysys Mason. He was speaking at the Westminster eForum Keynote Seminar about cloud computing, and said that faster speeds were essential for businesses if they were to take advantage of such on-demand services.
Cloud computing is the new way of using software on the internet. Whereas before, users had to download software to their individual computers in order to use it, now many things are provided on the ‘cloud’ of the internet. For example, Google Documents is a service that allows users to use and store spreadsheets and word processor documents online without downloading any software.
The benefits are enormous, especially when it comes to improving efficiency for businesses. This is important at the moment because many businesses are trying to fight their way out of the recession, and anything that improves efficiency is a huge plus. But slow broadband speeds are proving a barrier to the uptake of such new technologies.
Yardley suggested that, unless things improved quickly, it could be a decade before the right broadband speeds come along to make cloud computing a reality.
This comes just weeks after BT announced the unrolling of its own super-fast fibre-optic broadband service across some parts of the country. This is a step in the right direction but, as Yardley stated, “It’s a long, long way off until we have full availability, ubiquitous coverage of those networks, particularly if we think about both fixed and mobile networks."
It remains to be seen just how long it will take to reach the broadband speeds required, and how much the inability to adopt cloud computing will impact the economy.
New wireless 3G modem from Netgear
March 5, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Netgear has joined forces with Ericsson to produce a new device that could become incredibly popular over the coming months. The MBRN3300 is the not-so-catchy name given to its latest creation, a wireless router for 3G networks.
The new router looks pretty standard on the surface. It includes four Ethernet ports for standard connections, as well as an AC adaptor to plug into the mains. However, the secret is hidden inside with its integrated 3G HSPA module. Users can now use one single device to connect via a standard Ethernet connection as well as through a mobile broadband connection.
3G is the connection used by mobile phone companies to provide mobile broadband across their networks, as opposed to a WiFi router which transforms a standard internet connection into a wireless signal. With the growing popularity of mobile broadband, the only problem for many users is that they cannot share one connection in the same way as they can with a standard WiFi connection.
This device will be ideal for those who want to share their mobile broadband signal across multiple devices. It will also be ideal for business travellers who find themselves staying in hotels or waiting at airports without WiFi access. Now they can just switch on their router and connect a number of devices to their very own WiFi hotspot.
The router is going to be on display at the GSMA Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. The vice president of mobile broadband modules for Ericsson, Mats Norin, said that “mobile broadband connectivity over HSPA in routers opens up new opportunities in yet-untapped home, SOHO and semi-nomadic user scenarios.”
