The Department for Business Innovation and Skills has opened up a three month consultation period to gather views on how the Next Generation Fund could best be used to bring Next Generation Access to 90% of the population by 2017. Estimates suggest the fund could reach as much as a billion pounds within that period.
The [...]

Business ISPs who rely on selling internet access alone are not in a good position to tap in to future growth, warns Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing at Zen Internet.
While many have realised that growth is more likely to be enjoyed in selling services down the lines they provide rather than relying [...]

A host of internet service providers are upping their top speeds to 20Mbit/s. ISPs Orange, Plusnet and Zen Internet have all announced they’re raising their respective bars over the past few days. In doing so, they’re making up ground on the likes of Virgin Media, BT, BE and O2, which all already offer “up to” 20Mbit/s services.

Mobile phone operator O2’s just announced it’s going to start trialling what’s being billed as a 4G network – and it could reach speeds of 340 Mbit/s. Meanwhile, BT’s revealed its first fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) at a UK “brownfield” site. Both are slated to begin next year.

BT has officially announced it’s doubling its so-called “next generation” capabilities – so that it could reach up to seventy-five per cent of UK homes and businesses. But before you get excited with fibre optic dreams, it’s actually talking about ADSL2+.

BT says that clamping down on Internet piracy could cost as much as £1 million per day – and that the consumer is going to have to pick up the bill in the end. John Petter, the firm’s consumer division boss, is warning of a future “arms race” between those who pirate and those who try and police them. Meanwhile, BT is expected to make an announcement about extending its ADSL2+ infrastructure.

BT’s announced it’s finally rolling out its Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) over IPstream Connect and – while the name alone may a technophobe’s worst nightmare – the move promises to be good news for mainstream broadband users. As part of BT’s plans for its 21st Century Network, it could now be easier and cheaper for ISPs relying on BT Wholesale to speed up their services for end users.

1.5 million homes to have access by early summer 2010

Zen Internet is to introduce a 20Mbps package for both new and existing users. Both business and residential customers will be moved over to the faster service as and when it is available, thought to be at the end of summer.
Using elements of BT’s 21st Century Network and ADSL2+ broadband technology, the 20Mbps package will [...]

BT Broadband has announced plans to upgrade the connection speeds of its existing customers – as long as they sign up for another twelve months. The firm’s using ADSL2+ technology that should enable it to more than double the (potential) speed of its network without digging up any roads.

The Guardian has published a map of BT’s initial Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) locations. This follows on from the media stories over the last few days about various regional cities getting “superfast” broadband.
With electronics mounted in or close to kerbside cabinets the length of the twisted pair loop will be reduced and speeds of [...]

Analysys Mason have produced a report “Delivering High Quality Video Services Online” which forecasts substantial growth in the bandwidth required for delivery of video over broadband networks.
The report was commissioned and published by OFCOM as part of their technical research program. 
At 122 pages the report covers the subject in some detail. In essence it concludes [...]

BT Wholesale’s recently launched WBC (Wholesale Broadband Connect) service has suffered a setback this week as 440 exchange activation dates have been delayed and a further 320 have been removed from the schedule all together.
The new wholesale service from BT offers ADSL2+ end user connections and will eventually be available nationwide. Despite being launched in [...]

I am pleased to announce that our first Performance Monitoring report is ready (finally!).
The report is available in PDF format using the link below. Apologies for the relatively large file size – many of the images are at a higher resolution, so you can zoom in for a better look. A one page “executive summary” [...]

P2P (peer to peer) traffic is seldom out of the news either because its most popular use is for pirating copyright material or because ISPs are throttling it to reduce the impact on their network.
In the USA a bit of deep academic thinking has gone into seeking ways of addressing the traffic issue, while potentially [...]

The introduction of BT’s 21CN network and Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) has caused unexpected problems for some Entanet customers who have found their connection being migrated over to the new system.
It appears that Entanet have taken the opportunity at some WBC equipped exchanges to move IPStream customers onto the new infrastructure. About 4% of customers [...]

Entanet launches their “2Plus” range of broadband services on Tuesday 15th July. These are variable rate ADSL2+ products that will connect to the telephone exchange at speeds as high as 24 Mbits/s or as low as 288 kbits/s depending on line length, interference, extension wiring and the usual constraints of physics. In other words an [...]

OFCOM have opened a consultation looking at the future pricing structure for BT’s Openreach division.
Openreach owns and runs the BT “local loop” copper network and charges other divisions of BT and other operators for use of the lines. As the local loop is an effective monopoly the pricing is regulated by OFCOM.
Currently the prices charged [...]

Keen followers of BT’s 21CN project will know that today is the day that Wholesale Broadband Connect launches. The new service from BT Wholesale aims to bring their range of ADSL products up to speed with the LLU services of their competitors. It also introduces a range of QoS (Quality of Service) options that could [...]

BT Wholesale assembled journalists from a wide range of technology websites at it’s Gatwick offices yesterday as we begin the countdown to the launch of Wholesale Broadband Connect in six weeks. BT were keen to demonstrate the plethora of new techniques designed to help improve broadband throughput on the new 21CN-based wholesale product.
They began by [...]