Government in huge broadband investment boost
August 30, 2011 at 4:55 pm
There has been a lot of talk about increasing broadband speeds across the country, and the government has now announced a new £530m fund to unroll super-fast broadband to all the hardest-to-reach corners of Britain.
Up until now, broadband providers have been reluctant to provide remote rural regions with their super-fast broadband services. The problem lies in the fact that they have to connect their expensive fibre optic cables to these remote areas, which are often populated by fewer people, meaning it makes little financial sense to do so.
It was therefore good news for these rural ‘not-spots’ when Jeremy Hunt recently allocated the money, dividing it up between different areas of Britain.
The aim is to use the money, which has been diverted from the BBC, to help the most remote parts of the country which have yet to benefit from super-fast broadband to get access within the next four years.
However, the funds allocated are not enough on their own, and the government is hoping that the telecoms companies will also get involved and add their own investment.
In total, there are 40 areas which will benefit from the funding. The government has announced that after 2015 there will be another £300 million available.
The government has already come up with the target that all homes in the UK will have 2Mbps internet access shortly. However, it is also hoping that 90% of homes will have speeds of over 24Mbps.
BT has already announced its own investment of £2.5 billion in its own scheme, with the aim of getting high-speed broadband into two thirds of homes by 2015. This, together with the government funding, should see a huge change in the broadband landscape of Britain over the coming years.
However, the Scottish government has been left upset at its allocation of £68.8 million, which is just 13% of the total funds, suggesting that it is not enough to make a real difference.
Worst places for broadband revealed
August 27, 2011 at 4:58 pm
With faster broadband speeds becoming increasingly important for households and businesses across Britain, it is worrying to see that some places are still being left behind.
A new study by uSwitch.com has now uncovered the worst places for broadband speeds in Britain, with Cranbrook in Kent being named the very worst place. This small town in the southeast of England has a population of just 7,000, and has to put up with an average download speed of 1.32Mbps, which is five times worse than the average for the rest of the country.
The second place on the list is Tregaron in Wales which has an average download speed of 1.48Mbps. In third place was Lavant in Sussex with an average of 1.65Mbps.
The results were revealing in that they showed the southeast of England had some of the lowest average speeds. Sussex and Kent between them shared six of the top 20 worst places, with Ashford, Dover, Pulborough and Hastings also on the list.
The reminder that some places are not able to receive decent broadband speeds will increase the pressure on the government to do more to boost super-fast broadband around the whole of Britain. Things seem to be moving in the right direction, however, after the government recently announced a £362 million investment drive to boost broadband speeds to the most remote ‘not-spots’ in Britain.
When residents of a town cannot get access to fast broadband speeds they are unable to enjoy the services which their city counterparts take for granted, such as the BBC iPlayer.
The results were based on a survey of speed tests which were carried out through the uSwitch.com website between May and July 2011. A total of 400,000 tests were carried out.
Virgin Media to leave Westminster
August 25, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Virgin Media has been in the news a lot lately as it continues to expand its super-fast broadband service across the country. However, it has now revealed that in Westminster it will actually be withdrawing its services completely.
The decision has apparently been made because of problems with infrastructure in the area, with Virgin stating that it is unable to provide high-speed broadband to the area.
This will mean that about 3,000 Virgin customers in the area are going to be forced to find another provider, and Virgin has pledged to help these customers to make the switch.
Although certain to upset many of its customers, Virgin said that because it rents the fibre network in the area from BT, it is unable to upgrade the network to deliver its new services.
At the same time, Westminster is a conservation area, and this makes it difficult to dig roads up here to install more lines.
Virgin is also keen to unroll its new TV service, Tivo, across the country, and it cannot do so here because of the infrastructure, which was probably partly behind its reason to withdraw from Westminster.
Current Virgin customers have been told that they will have to change their providers by next January when Virgin will stop providing them with broadband.
Up until now, Virgin has only been able to provide its customers with a maximum speed of 50Mbps in Westminster. Although this sounds fast, it is currently offering twice that speed to other areas of the country.
Consumers still not getting broadband speeds advertised
August 18, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Once again it seems that broadband customers are paying for one thing and receiving another. Following Ofcom’s latest broadband study, which it carries out twice a year, it was revealed that although the average speed for broadband advertised is 15Mbps, the actual average speed which customers receive is just 6.8Mbps.
The situation is worse in rural areas, and now Ofcom is calling for this to be addressed so that consumers are able to make a more informed choice when they purchase a broadband package.
This news comes despite the fact that faster speeds are emerging all the time. Some of those highlighted by Ofcom included the Infinity packages from BT, which run on fibre optic cables. Ofcom said that these packages provided between 33Mbps and 35Mbps, and are advertised at 40Mbps, which is not such a large difference.
However, this contrasted with the standard copper lines from BT which are advertised as up to 8Mbps but only deliver just over half of that on average.
The worst offenders of all are those packages which provide up to 24Mbps, which only deliver an average speed to users of 6.6Mbps.
Overall, Virgin was found to deliver the best actual broadband speeds in relation to those advertised.
Ofcom has now made changes to its voluntary code of practice, asking providers to give an estimate to customers of the speeds they can expect rather than just stating the maximum speed. It wants customers to be able to cancel the package within three months of purchase if the speed turns out to be a lot slower.
Virgin to roll out high-speed broadband across Southampton
August 14, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Virgin Media has announced that it will be rolling out its high-speed broadband across Southampton later this year, doubling the area of the city which can take advantage of its super-fast 100Mbps service.
It is a huge expansion of the fibre optic network, which at the moment is only available to half of the city. The first phase of the expansion will be complete in September, and as a result it is hoped that more businesses will be attracted to Southampton to take advantage of this.
As well as businesses, thousands more residents of Southampton will be able to take advantage of all the benefits that super-fast broadband brings, especially in the area of home entertainment such as watching online video content.
Virgin’s 100Mbps broadband is currently the fastest in the UK, with speeds over 16 times the national average. What’s more, Virgin is one of the few providers to consistently deliver on its advertised speeds.
80,000 households are set to benefit from this latest rollout, and it is expected to be complete by the end of December.
Councillor Royston Smith, the leader of Southampton City Council, said that having super-fast internet will be a boost to business in the city. Virgin said that it was excited to be bringing its service to so many people.
Virgin will also be hoping that many residents take advantage of its new TiVo TV service. This is a digital TV service which provides hundreds of channels and many hours of programmes, including HD, 3D and on-demand viewing.
uSwitch claims customers paying excessive broadband fees
August 10, 2011 at 1:55 pm
uSwitch recently announced that we are now paying a combined £2.7 billion too much for our broadband, a headline-grabbing figure if ever there was one.
This combined total means that the average consumer is currently spending £140 too much on broadband a year, and uSwitch is pretty clear about what we have to do about this: switch providers.
It turns out that there are cheaper deals out there, but that too few of us are taking advantage of them.
In fact, according to uSwitch, 12 million broadband customers have not changed their package in the last year, and five million have never changed it. All this means that broadband customers are continuing to put up with deals which are uncompetitive.
However, according to the comparison website, it is possible to get broadband for as little as £2.99 a month, and there are a total of six providers who are offering it for £10 a month or less. The most competitive deals tend to be for new customers.
Despite these low figures, prices for broadband are generally rising. The research shows that the annual broadband bill is 5% more than it was last year. In 2010 the average annual cost was £167, whereas that has now gone up to £176.
Ernest Doku at uSwitch said that customers who are coming to the end of their contracts should invest some time looking at other broadband deals to see if they could actually be paying less.
