Tag: BT

Britain's broadband 'not fit for the future', but no surprises there

There seemed to be a real kerfuffle on the news this morning caused by a Cisco-sponsored survey which showed that UK finished 25th out of 66th in the broadband quality league table, lower that is than Bulgaria and Latvia. The amazing thing is that anyone was really surprised by our relatively lowly position.

As anyone who has been to South Korea and Japan – the two countries that top the table – can tell you they are simply light years ahead of us in terms of broadband penetration, speeds and quality. Indeed the South Korean government recently promised universal speeds of up to 1Gigabit per second by 2012 while we struggle to meet the global average speed of 4.75 Megabits per second (Ofcom’s April research revealed that our average broadband download speed stands at 4.1Mbps.)

Now I haven’t been to Bulgaria and Latvia so I can’t vouch for their broadband (though one wag commented on the Daily Mail site of course that the roads were much better in Bulgaria than the UK). But again it doesn’t really surprise me.

So what’s the problem? Why does the UK lag behind seemingly less developed countries when it comes to high speed delivery of internet services. The reason is largely because of lack of fibre-optic cable which is the only way of delivering the high speeds necessary for superfast broadband (currently we rely mostly on old copper telephone wire via ADSL networks). This is because for years there were dozens of tin-pot little cable companies with no money who spent more time squabbling with each other than actually digging up the roads to lay high speed cable. Even today there are large parts of densely populated neighbourhoods in London which still don’t have fibre-optic cable.

The good news though is that could be about to change, albeit slowly, with Virgin now the only cable company on the block. It is rolling out a 50Mbps service while 24Mbps ADSL2+ services via BT and others are becoming more widespread. However, it seems there is still some way to go before we reach the average download speed of 11.25Mbps that’s needed to handle future applications such as High Definition Video.
Until then Britain will have to be content with the survey’s label of ‘Meeting Needs for Today’, the broadband equivalent of ‘must try harder’.

Shinychris Broadband

BT on course with its super-fast broadband project

ngafibremain.jpg

BT has announced that an additional 69 towns will be receiving their super-fast fibre-based broadband by this time next year – meaning the service will be available to 1.5 million homes and businesses.

BT’s Steve Robertson said: “We had aimed to get fibre to half a million homes by next March but we’re now being far more ambitious. We’ve received a tremendous response to date and so we’re keen to get on with the job.”

Their overall goal of the project, which is costing the telecommunication giant £1.5billion, is to have 10 million homes covered by 2012 – 40% of the country.

BT will be offering access to ISPs on an open, wholesale basis thereby supporting a competitive market. The first areas to have access to the network went live earlier this week. Trials are taking place in Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, South Wales and involve 16 different ISPs.

The plan is great news for internet users and makes a bit of a mockery of the plan set out in the Digital Britain report to ensure that the country is covered by a broadband network capable of 2Mbps. The super-fast network being developed by BT should be capable of speeds of 40Mbps – 100Mbps. No wonder MPs are to open an inquiry into whether the 2Mbps plan is ambitious enough. Clearly it isn’t.

(via BT & Computing.co.uk)

Paul Lamkin Internet

BT to ditch Phorm after public outcry

phorms-logo-218-85.jpg

BT has dropped plans to continue with the hugely unpopular Phorm Webwise targeted advertising software.

The company, who has in the past been guilty of trialling the software without customers even knowing, has decided to drop out – apparently due to their commitment of investing £1.5bn into a super-fast broadband network for 10 million homes by 2012. It is reported that privately, however, bosses have become worried about the backlash against Phorm.

Phorm are playing down the damage caused by BT’s withdrawal – stating that there is still plenty of interest in their Webwise software. The BT decision comes on the back of a series of other knocks for Phorm though – Amazon, The Guardian, The FT and Wikipedia has all stated they won’t be using Phorm and the BBC also has also stated they are not currently interested.

(via The Guardian)

Paul Lamkin Internet

BT to use ATMs as Wi-Fi hotspots

Untitled.jpg

Cash machine company Cashbox, the company behind many of the fee-charging ATMs found in pubs and shops has signed a deal with BT to turn some of their cash-points into Wi-Fi hotspots on the Openzone network.

The deal is good news for BT Broadband customers as well as iPhone users on O2 who receive free connection to the Openzone network. For other customers who want to connect to Openzone, the cost is a wallet-worrying £5.88 for 90 minutes or £9.79 for a full day.

Cashbox has 2,500 cash-points in the UK. The plan is to introduce the Wi-Fi capabilities amongst them gradually, starting with just 10. Ciaran Morton, CEO of Cashbox says: “It’s really just the start of our rollout. We will look at extending coverage over the coming months.”

(via PC Pro)

Paul Lamkin Wi-Fi

BT hits back in iPlayer throttling row

bbc-iplayer.jpg

You may remember last week, we published a post regarding BT’s apparent throttling of its users broadband connections. Well, the telecom giant has hit back, going public with its condemnation of online video services like the BBC’s iPlayer and YouTube.

Basically this is how the row has unfolded: The BBC releases a story accusing BT of slowing down broadband connections at peak time – to less than 1Mbps between 5pm and midnight – when users should be getting up to 8Mbps. BT responds by sending an email to BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours stating that content providers “can’t expect to continue to get a free ride”. They also go public with this stance.

The Beeb have responded today, via their blog, saying that BT’s move was a “forthright call for cash” and that the row could end with net neutrality becoming obsolete.

What this means is that ISPs, who currently make no differentiation between types of internet traffic, could begin to charge content providers for their output, particularly bandwidth hoggers like the iPlayer.

The row illustrates how much the net has evolved over the last few years. With the mass introduction of high-bandwidth streaming service like the iPlayer, Spotify, YouTube and the like, the pressure on ISPs to provide a fast and consistent service to their users has increased dramatically.

Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review is due next week and should call for broadband at high speeds and low prices. It might just be that content providers are going to have to come to a compromise with the ISPs to make that happen.

Whatever the outcome, the end users should not be the ones who are penalised. If an ISP advertises up to 8Mbps broadband with unlimited data allowance then that is exactly what they should provide. They shouldn’t promote a service if they are going to struggle to provide it.

(via The FT)

Paul Lamkin Broadband, Internet

BT & 3 wage war with mobile termination rates

Terminate-the-rate.jpg

BT and 3 are asking us to “terminate the rate”. The rate in question is the mobile termination rate (MTR) of 4.7p/min that customers must pay when calling a number on a different mobile telephone network, and the two companies have come together to launch a campaign to get Ofcom to drop charge to 1p/min or to ditch it entirely.

At a press conference this morning, 3 CEO Kevin Russell spoke of a “price floor” in the industry keeping consumers from the benefits of “truly unlimited call packages” both with BT and mobile operators across the board. They’re asking the public to visit the campaign website to understand this hidden charge they’ve been paying for all these years and sign up to make sure that reforms are made.

MTRs were initially put in place to help the mobile companies pay for the set up of their infrastructure. The cost would be incurred by BT, with the majority of calls coming from landlines all those years ago, and subsequently passed on to us. But the masts have long been built and the Big Four mobile operators well established. They don’t need the 4.7p/min any more but they certianly enjoy its benefits.

Last year, they collected a total of £750m in MTRs – money directly from our pockets and money, according to the Federation of Small Businesses, that could have been spent on low cost items in UK shops helping tradespeople weather the recession.

The European Commission asked Ofcom to look at the termination charges on 7th May this year and by supporting Terminate the Rate you can help apply the pressure.

BT currently chargers the mobile networks just 1/15th of that 4.7p/min in return and 3 paid £200m in MTRs to the Big Four over the last three years. On the one hand, it should be no surprise that it’s they who are championing this campaign, but, when the real cost of handling calls from another network is closer to less than a penny, it’s really in all users’ interests to stop the con.

So, head on over there – just as soon as the site has a little more to say than “OK” – and do the right thing, and in the mean time vent your spleen in the comments below. How does it make you feel?

Daniel Sung Mobile phones