February 3, 2012
BT are to offer full fibre as an “on-demand” service and bring “ultra-fast” fibre broadband to anywhere that BT has a fibre footprint in the UK from Spring 2013.
 BT have been trialing an “on demand” full FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) service in Cornwall. The successful trial in St Agnes, Cornwall, has seen additional fibre being run from a FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) enabled area to the premises of customers meaning that they then receive full FTTP and the availability of up to 300Mb broadband speeds (BT are due to increase their headline 110Mb fibre broadband package to 300Mb speeds).
BT are investing £2.5bn in rolling out it’s fibre network across the UK and hope to have coverage of 66% by the end of 2014, the majority of these connections will be via a FTTC and not the full FTTP. FTTC currently offers customers broadband speeds of up to 40Mb, although this is to be doubled to up to 80Mb this spring.
The new “on-demand FTTP” service is likely to be made available for customers either personal or business who require full fibre by Spring 2013 yet are in an area where BT have only installed their FTTC fibre service yet want the extra speeds available that a full fibre connection would offer.
Currently around 7 million premises in the UK are able to access fibre broadband over BT’s fibre network, with this figure likely to be 10 million by the end of 2012 and then two thirds of the country by the end of 2014.
Olivia Garfield, the Openreach Chief Executive, said:
“FTTP on demand is a significant development for Broadband Britain. Essentially, it could make our fastest speeds available wherever we deploy fibre. This will be welcome news for small businesses who may wish to benefit from the competitive advantage that such speeds provide.
We are also doubling the speed of our standard fibre broadband this Spring giving ISPs the chance to offer speeds of up to 80Mbps. This will ensure that residential customers have world class speeds for all their family’s needs.”
There are currently no indications as to the price it would be for BT to upgrade a premises to full fibre but we would envisage it wouldn’t be a cheap enough option at present to turn many residential customers to decide they need the extra speeds.
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January 31, 2012
Sky are to offer customers a 40Mb fibre broadband package this year to give customers an ever greater choice of deals form them.
 The Sky Fibre broadband package will be available form April 2012 and will cost £20 per month and will offer download speeds up to 40Mb with Unlimited usage and no limits although there is a £50 activation fee to cover a BT Openreach engineer to enable the fibre broadband in a premises. The Sky Fibre broadband will run on BT’s wholesale fibre network which will initially launch with around 30% coverage to UK homes with this increasing in line with BT rolling out their fibre network across the UK.
BT aim to cover 66% of the UK with fibre broadband by 2015 as part of a £2.5bn investment in their network.
Sky are also soon be offering a free WiFi service for Sky Broadband Unlimited customers which will offer more than 10,000 hotspots across the UK for free, powered by The Cloud in places such as Cafe Nero, Pizza Express and Wagamama.
Stephen van Rooyen, from Sky, said:
“I’m delighted that our existing home communication products are making such an impact with customers. It’s clear that customers are responding to the higher levels of value, quality and service we offer.”
“This year sees a number of enhancements that will ensure we create even more choice. Whether it’s the launch of free public WiFi, extending our network into more parts of the UK, or adding fibre to our product mix, we are focused on meeting the demands of customers and on being their number one choice for home communications.“
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January 17, 2012
Virgin Media have had to apologise to some customers over sending out emails to some of their customers they shouldn’t have done which was saying that the customers would be receiving 120Mb broadband even though some of the recipients were those on the lower speed broadband packages which wouldn’t be receiving those speeds.
 Last week Virgin Media announced (Virgin Media to double fibre broadband speeds for customers) that they would be doubling the broadband speed that they would be giving to many of their customers and also upgrading those on their headline package from 100Mb to 120Mb broadband speeds.
Virgin were obviously keen to let their customers know about these free broadband speed upgrades they would be receiving but unfortunately the headline 120Mb broadband package upgrade email was sent to more than just the customers who would be eligible for it which prompted Virgin Media to have to send out a second email explaining their error to some customers which they blamed on “gremlins” in their email system!
Ultimately those customers who received the email by mistake shouldn’t have too much to complain about as they will be having their broadband speeds at least doubled. Also, good news for those on the Virgin Media 50Mb package, they will in-fact also be being upgraded to the 120Mb deal which will see a huge 70Mb broadband speed increase for them.
Virgin Media have also signed up Usain Bolt to feature in their latest advertising campaigns about Virgin Medias “Keep-Up” broadband speeds campaign. Virgin regularly top broadband speed test results charts.
***Update***
Just an update as we didn’t make part of this news precise enough and spotted by one of our readers, we didn’t point out that those Virgin Media customers who are on ADSL connections will not see any speed increases. It is only those customers who are on Virgin Media’s own cable network that will receive the broadband speed upgrades.
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January 11, 2012
Virgin Media are to double their broadband speeds for over 4 million customers and those on their current 100Mb deal will see their broadband speeds increased by a further 20Mb.
 The speed upgrade is likely to take around 18 months, starting in February 2012 and be completed by around mid 2013. Customers who are on 10Mb, 20Mb, 30Mb, and 50Mb services will see their broadband speeds at least doubled. Those customers on the 100Mb service will have their speed increased to 120Mb making it the UK’s fastest widely available broadband service (BT are to offer a 300Mb service but only very few people will be able to access it).
Neil Berkett, the Virgin Media Chief Executive, said:
“The internet has become an integral part of our social, work and family lives, so we think our customers are going to love this. As people are increasingly doing more online, and getting connected to the internet with lots of different devices, having a fast, reliable broadband service should not be a luxury. We want to make sure that consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection.“
David Cameron, the Prime Minister even applauded the news by saying:
“I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet. Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy.“
The upgrade programme will see those with older out of date modems receiving free upgraded modems that will be future proofed and be able to deal with broadband speeds up to 400Mb. Virgin Media customers do not need to request the upgrade, it will be done free of charge without many customers knowing.
Those on 10Mb broadband will be increased to 20Mb, those on 20Mb and 30Mb will be increased to 60Mb and those on 50Mb will be increased to 100Mb.
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December 14, 2011
UK consumers are slow on the take up of superfast broadband according to Ofcom who have released their annual Communications Market Report.
Ofcom say that around 59% of the country has access to superfast broadband via either Virgin Media’s cable broadband or BT’s new fibre broadband network, yet despite this only 4% of households have taken up the superfast broadband option (as of June 2011) with most staying put on standard cheaper broadband deals. Ofcom rate superfast broadband speeds as broadband that is faster than 24Mb, this takes out ADSL2+ as users won’t be able to receive faster that the theoretical maximum that is offered by this.
The likely reason to this is the cost element. With the average broadband speed consumers in the UK receive coming in at 6.8Mb it is highly likely for many people (especially in these financially unstable times) that the broadband connection they currently have is more than sufficient for what they need for everyday use without needing to upgrade to more expensive yet much faster fibre broadband. For many the time to jump to fibre broadband will be when the applications and internet use they need requires faster broadband or that the cost of fibre broadband comes down to a level closer to what they are currently paying.
For the average Internet user currently most internet applications such as video streaming and general surfing perform well enough with the average broadband speeds we receive, however, going forward with more applications and more usage this could soon start to mean faster speeds are needed and will be when it becomes more of a need and requirement to upgrade to fibre.
Another reason might be because there hadn’t been too much advertising of fibre broadband services too, so consumers are unaware of what is available to them, especially as many broadband providers such as Sky have yet to start offering fibre broadband.
Fibre broadband take up in Japan is at 40% with 10% in America, Germany is slightly less with just 3%, Spain 2.2% and Italy 1.5%.
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December 12, 2011
BT Openreach have announced a further 178 exchanges that to be upgraded to its fibre broadband technology.
 The extra exchanges that have been listed will cover around 1.8 million homes and businesses with most of them being connected with FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) with most of them hopefully being connected during 2012.
Currently there are around 6 million premises in the UK that have access to fibre broadband via BT’s “BT Infinity” network and once all the exchanges on the current list and these new exchanges have all been enabled it will see BT having hit 80% of their target coverage of two thirds coverage across the UK by 2014.
BT have already brought forward the date by a year for when they hope to achieve their two thirds coverage by and along with this they also announced not long ago (read here) that they will be doubling their main 40Mb fibre broadband product to 80Mb next year too.
BT’s headline full fibre product (limited availability) will also be increased from 110Mb to a whopping 300Mb in early 2012 too, this is a huge difference that the current average broadband speed test result of 6.8Mb that the UK currently has. Unfortunately most of the UK will be connected by FTTC (the current 40Mb one) and not the full FTTH (Fibre To The Home) that will see the up to 300Mb speeds.
Although BT are investing £2.5bn in their fibre network to cover two thirds of the UK, they do believe that with extra investment and funding that around 90% of the UK could be covered with fibre broadband. This requires some of the money from the BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) scheme to help BT roll out fibre that bit further.
The full list of the 178 exchanges that BT have announced can be viewed at www.btplc.com.
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December 9, 2011
90% of the UK should have fibre broadband connections in 5 to 6 years according to BT’s main man.
David Cameron visited BT’s Adastral Park research HQ near to Ipswich where they were told by BT’s Chief Executive, Ian Livingstone, that fibre optic broadband could be available to 90% of homes and businesses within 5 to 6 years.
BT are currently aiming to have two thirds of the country connected to its fibre network in just 3 years time (by the end of 2014). However, the final push will be a time consuming and expensive for BT hence why it could be up to 6 years before there is 90% coverage with fibre broadband.
BT are investing £2.5bn in its fibre network to upgrade from copper wires to fibre optic cable. The majority of connections people will receive will be FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) as apposed to full fibre to the premises (FTTP). FTTC has fibre optics being used from the main exchange to the streetside cabinets and then the standard copper cable to go from the cabinet to peoples premises, only a small number will receive full fibre to the cabinet and then fibre form the cabinet to their premises, although this offers far greater speeds it is also far more costly to do.
Other funding for fibre comes from the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme that sees around £530m from the government to help fund rural broadband schemes where it is not as financially viable for the likes of BT or Virgin Media to deploy their improved services.
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December 2, 2011
Sky Broadband have installed some new fibre technology into part of it’s network that which works at 100Gb and will result in a more stable and reliable network for Sky broadband customers although it won’t mean a speed increase for customers.
The Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is 100Gb technology and will help future proof the Sky broadband network as it is able to transfer around 10 times more data than current networks. It will be able to transfer around 7Tb (Terabits) per second and Sky claim that the technology will enable 4.6 million users to stream HD movies simultaneously.
Currently this 100Gb upgrade to the network has only been done between London and Birmingham with a further 5 more locations across the country also set to be upgraded in the next year.
Although the speed of the network is increasing this won’t have an end result of faster speeds for Sky broadband customers, what it will mean though is that going forward Sky will be able to deal with the ever increasing demands for data across it’s network.
Sky broadband don’t manage internet traffic at peak times despite Sky having around 3.4 million broadband customers that have seen an average growth in data usage of 60% per customer. They also believe that by June 2012 that the average Sky data usage will double from 350GB of data per second to 700Gb per second.
The Commercial Director at Sky Broadband, Jon Blumberg, said:
“As an entertainment and communications company with a heritage in great TV and movies, our broadband network has been designed to handle exactly this kind of data-rich content.
With the rapid adoption of services such as Sky Anytime+ and Sky Go, our customers are streaming and downloading more than ever before, as well as watching record levels of traditional TV. Sky Broadband really was built with entertainment in mind and the network innovations we’re announcing today will make sure we’re in good shape to continue to satisfy the demands of our customers.“
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November 30, 2011
10 UK cities are to receive £100m between them to help boost broadband coverage in them.
The initial 4 cities chosen are the capitals of all 4 nations, London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff with the further 6 cities to benefit still to be announced (The Telegraph printed that Milton Keynes and Bristol are 2 likely candidates).
The governments aim is to have some of the UK cities as a hub for super-fast broadband with broadband speeds of between 80-100Mb, along with city wide high speed mobile connectivity.
The areas that are likely to be chosen are those parts of the cities where the likes of BT and Virgin Media were unlikely to roll out fibre broadband to without subsidy to make it financially viable for them.
As with other broadband projects that take money from the BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) pot of funding, the companies who bid for projects (BT & Virgin Media being the main ones) are expected to at least match any funding that the government puts in. The first £20m is to be allocated in the year to April 2013 with £60m the following year and then the final £20m by April 2015.
Some people think that the money would be better spent helping to fund rural broadband, with cities already having broadband connections available you may find that rural communities and business would benefit more, some will see this as another case of a digital divide between the cities and rural communities.
George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, who announced the funding said:
“It means creating new superfast digital networks for companies across our country. These do not exist today. See what countries like China or Brazil are building, and you’ll also see why we risk falling behind the rest of the world.
Our great cities are at the heart of our regional economies. And we will help bring world leading, superfast broadband and Wi-Fi connections to 10 of them – including the capitals of all four nations.”
BT are continuing their roll out of fibre broadband across the UK and are still aiming to have two thirds of the country connected by the end of 2014.
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November 29, 2011
The Highlands and Islands region of Scotland sees just BT left for the contract to deliver broadband to the region.
Both Cable & Wireless and Fujitsu have both pulled out of the bidding process to bring super fast broadband to the Highlands and Islands. The area was one of 4 rural areas in the country that is to receive between £5-£10m of funding to help roll out a pilot of fibre broadband to the area, however, Fujitsu have withdrawn from the process as they claim that additional investment would be required for the required infrastructure and Cable & Wireless have also followed suit, this just leaves BT left in for the project.
Rhonda Grant, the Labour MSP for the Highlands & Islands, said:
“This pilot is of vital importance to every community throughout the Highlands and Islands and it is essential that more public money is invested in this project – so far only 10 per cent of the estimated costs have been secured.”
Alex Neil, the Scottish cabinet secretary for infrastructure and capital investment has previously estimated that the cost of rolling out next generation broadband across the Highlands & Islands region would be in the region of £300m alone.
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