Tag: broadband
Government gets behind 2Mbps broadband for all by 2012
The UK government has signalled its backing of at least one section of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain interim report from earlier this year by setting aside enough cash to give everyone in the UK a minimum of 2Mbps broadband by 2012. The cash will come primarily from an underspend in the promotion of digital TV.
It’s not yet clear exactly what form that broadband might take – ADSL, cable, wireless and satellite are all options – but that information will hopefully be contained in the final version of the Digital Britain report, which is due out in early Summer 2009.
(via BBC)
Contract laptops to come with kill-switch
A growing trend among phone networks is to start offering netbooks and other low-cost laptops free to customers of their mobile broadband services. What happens, though, if the contract owner stops paying up? They lose kit worth hundreds of pounds that’s still in fully working order.
As a result, LM Ericsson AB, a Swedish company that produces laptop modems, has added a feature to its hardware that can remotely ‘kill’ a laptop, rending it useless. If carriers desire, then they can stop a customer who hasn’t paid up from using his or her machine.
It could also be used to secure lost or stolen machines – locking them down remotely. It’s a nice idea, but I’d be concerned about the risk of these devices malfunctioning, stopping legitimate customers from accessing services that they’ve paid for.
(via Yahoo!)
Will WiMax or LTE win out?
EDGE, 3G and HSDPA are all very well, but what will the next jump in technology be for wireless internet? There are two competing technologies – WiMax and LTE. Which one is likely to win the race in the UK?
WiMax is based on Wi-Fi, and doesn’t require a SIM card for usage. Its benefits are that it’s an open standard – anyone can create the gear required to use the technology without paying license fees. That means the tech can be up to half as expensive as the equivalent LTE tech.
LTE, on the other hand, is based on the existing 3G network technology. In fact, LTE stands for “The Long Term Evolution of 3GPP”. Its advantages are that it’s well-understood by carriers, and when a device is out of range of an LTE signal, it can drop back to a 3G or 2G service. LTE’s currently a little faster, too, but that difference should be addressed by the ratification of a new WiMax standard later this year.
In the last year or so, Motorola’s been trialling an LTE service, but there are already commercial WiMax deployments out there. As a result, WiMax has an early lead. But given how entrenched many operators are in their love of 3GPP networks, we’ll soon be seeing more of that. In fact, Motorola’s already testing an LTE network.
What’s eventually likely to happen, however, is that laptops and netbooks will rely on WiMax (thanks to lower prices and enhanced compatibility) and LTE will take hold on mobile devices, just because it’s easier for operators to continue working how they do now.
So I reckon it’ll be a draw, and both technologies will have their own places in the next 5-10 years. Bit of a cop-out, perhaps, but there you go. What’s your opinion? Drop us a tweet at @techdigest letting us know exactly how wrong we are.
UPDATED: Ofcom to gives the thumbs up to BT fibre optic program
Ofcom appears set to give BT the go ahead to start their fibre optic broadband project that will see the UK telecomms giant provide up to 100Mbs speeds to 10 million households around the UK…
Motorola picks Swindon to test out 4G
Motorola is testing 4G, also known as LTE – the Long-Term Evolution of 3G, at its lab in Swindon. The trials are using 2.6GHz spectrum, just above the range used by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (2.4GHz).
4G is competing with WiMax to replace 3G as the communications standard for the next generation of mobile phones. Vodafone’s also testing a 4G service, but it’s unlikely that consumers will start seeing this technology for at least a few years.
(via Computer Weekly)
Koreans to get ultra-fast broadband – 1Gb/s by 2012
In contrast to our Government’s pledge for 2Mb/s broadband for all by 2012, South Korea’s government is promising 1Gb/s! At present, they’ve got 100Mb/s pipes, and as a result their digital culture is more advanced that almost any other nation on the planet.
As well as a wired speed increase, their wireless broadband will be going up to 10Mbps, using Korea’s own WiBro standard. The whole plan will cost the country $24.6bn (£17bn) and generate 120,000 jobs. Now if they can do it, why can’t we?
(via GigaOM)
Related posts: Digital Britain | Samsung launches their high end Yepp YP-P3 in Korea
UK Government to tax every British broadband connection £20 for copyright enforcement
A £20 charge could be levied on every broadband connection in Britain, to pay for an agency that will provide data about serial copyright-breakers to music and film companies, if plans due to be announced today by the Government in its ‘Digital Britain’ green paper come to fruition.
Today, Lord Carter of Barnes will propose the creation of a quango which will be paid for by a levy on ISPs, who’ll almost certainly pass the cost on to their subscribers. Also in the white paper is a proposition that every house has a right to 2Mb/s broadband.
Virgin's P2P music service scrapped amidst labels' anti-piracy concerns
A new legal peer-to-peer music sharing service due to be launched by Virgin Media within the next couple of months has been put on hold indefinitely due to last minute whining by a few well-known record labels, according to a report in The Register.
“Virgin Music Unlimited” would have allowed Virgin Media’s broadband subscribers to share music and keep tracks while the company aimed to make money from these P2P users and presumably pass some of that revenue back to the record labels…
Average UK broadband speed is 3.6Mbps – and you're probably only getting half the speed you're paying for
Ofcom, the communications watchdog that’s in charge of making sure everyone’s phones work and no one’s getting ripped off too badly by the ring tone companies, has revealed the results of a massive survey it conducted into the UK broadband scene.
As you might expect, we’re not getting what we pay for – as anyone who spends most of their evenings conducting broadband speed tests and sighing at the results will already know…
Vodafone launches pre-pay USB broadband modem
The rise in popularity of pay-as-you-go mobile services has now extended to mobile broadband, with news that Vodafone has launched its first pre-pay USB modem.
The “TopUP and Go” 3.6Mbps modem costs £39 and comes with a £15 credit which offers 1GB of data. Good news: purchased data doesn’t expire after 30 days.
Customers simply use a voucher or call a phone number (08080 101238) to buy additional data…
