Broadband News

No sooner had the ink dried on the multiple column inches devoted to Virgin Media’s 50Mbps service launch, then Be announced results of a 48Mbps trial near Paddington, London.

Although the full results of the trial are not to be released until the start of next year, a statement from Be pointed out that managing director, Felix Geyr, wanted to share the news, ahead of the full publication of results.

Geyr not only took the opportunity to mention the company had managed to double up its 24Mbps lines to give a combined 48Mbps service, he also managed to have a dig at Virgin Media’s new service.

“We want to push the limits of high-speed broadband,” he said. “We already offer the fastest possible broadband on an ADSL line, but we want to take it a step further. If you want broadband around the 50Mb mark but don’t want to go the cable route, Be wants to offer you a real alternative.”

The results indicated the Paddington trial had achieved ‘real world’ speeds of between 30Mbps to 45Mbps which were fast enough to download an MP3 track in a second.

The Be statement went on to explain, once again, that Virgin Media’s service is only available in cable areas but stopped short of announcing an actual launch date for its own line doubling technology. Instead the ISP simply promises further trials of its technology throughout 2009.

TalkTalk’s recently appointed senior director of products and strategy, Sylvain Thevenot, told SamKnows that the ISP sees minimum speed as equally as important as top speed and that local loop unbundling is the ultimate key to a nationwide fast broadband service.

“The most crucial thing when delivering video on demand is the minimum speed,” he says. “We believe that although you need a fast service to deliver HD quality video the main requirement is to have a service which never drops below the 3Mb to 4Mb level, the troughs in a service are just as important as the peaks, and this is technology we’re working on.

“We also think that the way forward is through local loop unbundling, that’s why we’re the country’s leader with around 1700 unbundled exchanges. This is the only way to build out a fast, national broadband service. You have to take control of the entire connection and you can’t be limited to set region.”

BT is keeping its silence over remarks made on the Virgin Media launch at which the cable company’s chief executive suggested its rivals should also role out fibre but “with their own money”. The country’s leading ISP has refused to comment on the suggestion that it should reverse its current strategy of rolling out fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) through ‘partnership’ with national and local government as well as interested regional bodies who would be willing to share the cost of the network.