SamKnows

Will the 50p phone line tax only bring fibre to 80% of the UK ?

Something very unusual has started to happen in the UK over the past couple of years and it is has been happening in Scandinavia too. Alcatel-Lucent, which rolls out broadband networks and switching equipment across the UK for the likes of BT, among several others, has started to receive an increasing amount of calls for

Lord Carter says around ninety per cent of the journalists writing about Digital Britain just aren’t on the same page as him - in fact, he thinks they haven’t read his report at all.

A look at the 50p/month telephone tax and how it will be used to provide next generation access to the “Final Third”.

Communications regulator OFCOM has given BT Openreach the green light to operate active electronics in its access network.

The man in charge of the UK’s biggest ISP says that, when it comes to preventing illegal file-sharing, too much attention is being paid to peer-to-peer networking and the role ISPs can play to stop it. Speaking ahead of the impending final Digital Britain report, Charles Dunstone said “we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.”

A number of internet service providers (ISPs) have this week announced that they will take part in BT’s fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) trials. This involves the installation of electronics in roadside cabinets in order to minimise the length of the copper loop.

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.

A future Conservative government would build Digital Britain with an injection of more common sense and new powers at local government level as well as encouraging community groups to petition local authorities for fibre. Far more controversially, though, Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for the Creative Industries, reveals the Conservatives would give private investors access to

Virgin Media has started trialling 200Mb broadband in Ashford, Kent. The ISP claims it is the world’s fastest implementation of the DOCSIS3 technology it is using to provide its current top tier 50Mb service which is being rolled out throughout the year.
The pilot was launched last week to 100 trial participants who will be giving

Virgin Media’s quarterly figures released today show it is just as susceptible as competitors to the general slowdown in new broadband connections.
For the first three months of 2009 it added 47,300 additional broadband customers to its network, nearly half the 88,400 figure for the corresponding quarter in 2008.
The culprit would appear to be the oft-quoted

Virgin Media has launched its ‘V Stuff’ suite of broadband subscriber features with the announcement of a new, inclusive back up service which allows customers to set up online photo albums and order up to 100 prints per month for free.
Rival back up services normally start with a free low entry level of 5Gb total storage (BT),

The Australian Government is set to pour around £21 billion pounds into upgrading its broadband network after it decided against private investment. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised fast and affordable broadband when he was elected in 2007 and calls the country a “broadband backwater.” “Just as railway tracks laid out the future of the 19th Century

New music services from Virgin Media look inevitable after the fibre broadband provider announced today it had appointed Richard Wheeler to the newly-created post of Head of Music. A company statement summed up the new role has having been created ‘to develop Virgin Media’s music strategy and bring innovative new services to consumers, across mobile,

The BBC and Sky are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at loggerheads as to how central the BBC should be in delivering the government’s vision for Digital Britain.
Last week Sky asserted the government should reconsider its call, through the interim Digital Britain report, for the BBC to play a role in marketing broadband Britain and helping to set

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

Sky is urging the government to drop the suggestion the BBC could play an important role in the roll out of high speed broadband, as outlined in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.
The Digital Britain report, published at the end of January, only made a couple of passing references to the BBC when it suggested that

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

OFCOM have today released a statement on “Delivering super-fast broadband in the UK” which focuses on the regulatory regime that will apply to BT as they “currently hold a position of significant market power in relation to the relevant markets at present”. Specifically it addresses BT’s Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) plans.
The 90 page document is

The Fibre to the Home Council Europe recently published its 6-monthly global ranking of countries with more than 1% of households connected to fibre optic broadband. In the latest update there are twenty countries featured, up from fourteen last July. Only 7 of the 20 exceed 5% and the top four are Asian economies with