Super Fast Broadband - The Facts 30/12/2010
Posted by Kevin Box on Thu, Dec 30, 2010 @ 12:13 PM
Although the adverts give the impression that fibre is the latest
technology – it isn’t. It has been around since the 1960’s. Over half the population already has access to high speeds courtesy of Virgin Media. Setting up that network bankrupted many companies and has left Virgin with a massive debt.
Now BT have committed to providing £2.5bn to bring fast networks in the form of FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) to 2/3 of the country by 2015. So that will leave 1/3 they don’t reach. That of course will include most of the places which Virgin doesn’t reach either.
At the moment BT will not say where the 2/3rds is. This means that if you were a company who wanted to bring fast broadband to your favourite semi rural spot - you could spend a fortune achieving that only to find BT wander in and undermine your investment. BT has at least said they will keep people informed about their plans for the forthcoming year on a rolling basis.
The Labour government had decided on a 50p a month telephone line tax to raise 1.2bn and thus allow the connection of the final third of the country. However the new government scrapped that and came up with a headline figure of £830m to do the job. However the headline figure is simply a headline. The reality is that they are putting £530m into the task, £300m from the BBC licence fee and £230m from the digital TV switchover. However the consensus seems to be that the total cost of FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) will be around £5.1bn. So we have a major shortfall no matter which way you look at it.
Cornwall and Wales are sufficiently depressed to get EU money to help the roll out. Some councils are putting together plans to achieve what BT won’t. For example Cumbria claims to have fast access almost everywhere with money from the Northwest Development Agency. There are other people and councils working along the same lines.
BT are suggesting that Virgin could open up its network to other ISP’s as it was forced to. However without Virgin being forced to do that there is no chance - it would be commercial suicide. Virgin can counter with other allegations including BT’s reluctance - no refusal to provide broadband access without a telephone number and subscription.
So if you are in a rural or semi rural location and want a fast broadband what can you do?
You could wait for LTE, the long term evolution, the new 4G service for mobile. However the wait will be long and the service will of course start in the big cities when it eventually comes around in 2014-15. The government hasn’t even auctioned the spectrum yet.
You could go Wimax, this can be a promising development. Take the fibre to a central point and then broadcast the signal out. There is getting to be a group of Wireless Community Networks being planned or actually implemented in the UK. The problems tend to be administrative and regulatory, but if you know lots of people….
There is satellite broadband - with the launch of Hylas1 the other week and competitor offerings coming around this is a good answer. However because the signal has to travel around 72,000km to the satellite and back the time lag on the signal makes it unsuitable for VoIP or gaming. It is also relatively slow and expensive.
You can get a leased line or bond together ISDN lines. In both instances the cost is liable to be prohibitively expensive for home or SME/SMB use. However where there is enough money there is a solution. A cheaper solution may be BT’s broadband enabling technology (BET) which effectively bonds two old fashioned lines into one channel. BT are keen to roll this technology out but want public money to make it happen.
So, in summary where Virgin and BT are located there is and will be competition, where they are not, there is likely to continue to be not very much at all.
Written by David Hill, Chairman, Cloudnet
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Cloudnet supplies business phone systems and services to SMEs and start-ups. Its Cloudnet Connect system offers the advantages of no capital expenditure necessary to run a professional PBX and dramatically lower running costs. Cloudnet has developed a dedicated voice over IP (VoIP) network providing free calls within its network and cheap rate calls outside of the Cloudnet network. The company also offers CLASS, a live answering service and has introduced mobile VoIP solutions. Cloudnet is privately financed and started trading in March 2009.