Broadband Guide Blog

New broadband satellite gets funding

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:18:00 BST

There’s been a huge development in the broadband industry with the news that a new broadband satellite has been given funding to the tune of £220,000 by the ESA (European Space Agency).

The new satellite is to be named Hercules, and will be able to deliver super-fast broadband speeds to large areas of the country that are currently not getting access to broadband. It will be created by Avanti Communications, and the funding will now help it to develop a plan to get the satellite up and running in the UK.

This is Avanti’s response to the Digital Britain Report from the Government, which includes the proposal to get 2Mbps broadband into every home across the country by 2012.

This is the second satellite from the company, following on from Hylas, which is set to be launched in 2010. Hylas, however, can only reach 100,000 users, meaning it will not be able to provide broadband to enough people to make a significant difference.

The chief executive of Avanti, David Williams, claimed that the satellite would be able to provide broadband access of between 2 and 50Mbps to about 2.5 million rural households across the country which do not currently get access to broadband. It would provide a low-cost solution to getting broadband access to the masses and would help the government to stick to its pledge.

Satellite broadband is a relatively new technology, but it is growing in popularity across the continent. However, it is still unclear just how economically viable the service is, so the government has to decide whether it is better to go ahead with the satellite broadband, or whether it would simply be cheaper to provide standard broadband to remoter areas.

What is clear, however, is that it could provide a real solution to solving the problem of numerous rural communities being unable to access broadband.

Flexible working a reality as more staff take advantage of mobile broadband

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:16:39 BST

Orange has released the results of a survey that it commissioned which has produced some interesting results. According to the mobile-broadband provider, it turns out many more businesses are now offering their staff a greater degree of flexibility through the use of mobile broadband in the workplace.

The research involved asking 500 businesses and 4,500 members of staff for their feedback. The areas they were asked about included how mobile broadband was used by them at work and whether it allowed them to enjoy more flexibility.

The results suggest that businesses in the country are now working very differently, as staff in many more companies are now being offered the chance to work from anywhere now that flexible broadband is becoming an increasing reality.

The best place in the country for flexible working practices was Wales, with 29% of employees being able to work from outside the office. The south of England was not far below at 25%, and Scotland had 22%. The East Midlands was the lowest with 16%.

Paul Tollet, the vice president of business at Orange, said that although it was great that so many workers could take advantage of the benefits of flexible working, it is “surprising” that “over 35% of employers have yet to consider it”.

The results also showed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the mobile and IT sectors where flexible working was most encouraged, with 39% of businesses in this sector offering flexible working.

However, it wasn’t all good news. The survey also uncovered the fact that half of those who said that they could work flexibly were not provided with the tools and technology that they needed in order to do so.

UK comes fifth in global broadband table

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:32:22 BST

The broadband picture in the UK is looking good, after the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development) placed the country in fifth position out of a selection of 30 major world economies based on the success of the broadband market.

The report does not cover every country in the world, omitting Russia and China amongst others, but it does provide a good idea of the general state of things for the worldwide broadband market.

The fifth position relates to the high number of broadband subscribers that the UK currently enjoys, with over 17 million people connected. This was one of the highest numbers in the world, although France and Germany were ahead of the UK, and the US led the field with 80 million subscribers.

With regards to the overall picture of broadband in the OECD nations, the results show that broadband subscriptions have risen by 15% in the last year across the 30 countries. This adds up to a total figure of 270 million subscriptions, or more than one-in-five people.

However, the fibre-optic market is still very much in its infancy, and since June 2008 the market has only grown by 1%. The UK does not even make it onto the fibre-optic list, but there is a very different picture in Japan and South Korea where it makes up the dominant connection format.

Disappointingly, the UK drops to 11th position on the scale of broadband per capita. The number of broadband subscribers per one hundred does not paint such a good picture, and schemes such as the government’s plan to get 2Mbps broadband to every home by 2012 will be important in helping this figure to increase.

Orange sees dongle sales rise by 500%

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:22 BST

The booming popularity of mobile broadband is no secret, but the true extent of its popularity has just been made even clearer now that Orange has revealed that its dongle sales are up 500% over the last year. On top of that, mobile handset data usage has also risen by 108%, which brings to 3.8 million the number of Orange customers who are either on a 3G mobile handset or have bought a dongle.

The details were released on the company’s Digital Media Index report, which also highlights the fact that dongle data usage has seen a huge rise of over 4,000% in the last year.

The director of products at Orange, Paul Jevons, said that the “explosion” of mobile applications and embedded laptops means that the demand for mobile data will increase enormously in the coming months and years.

But despite the obvious popularity of mobile broadband, there are no signs that it will take over from fixed-line broadband anytime soon. Michael Phillips from BroadbandChoices.co.uk told the BBC that people use mobile broadband more for social networking and news, whereas a fixed-line broadband has faster speeds and bigger download limits and is therefore used differently.

This seems to be confirmed by Orange’s announcement that of the most searched-for categories, social networking came top of the list, with downloads, ringtones and games following closely behind.

But with the growth of mobile broadband, new challenges will arise. The BBC has highlighted the huge demands that will be put on the networks to deal with increasing amounts of data. As the networks are put under ever-increasing strain, the speeds could well suffer as a result. So despite the figures from Orange, it's clear that the technology is still in its infancy and has a long way to go yet.

The Usage Quagmire

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:52:41 BST

ISPreview.co.uk, a self-proclaimed broadband information resource, has revealed that up to a quarter (25.1%) of British broadband users have been warned about excessive usage by their internet service provider (ISP).

Critics are blaming the ISPs. Due to the shared nature of many domestic broadband networks, truly unlimited broadband is a rarity, if it exists at all. ISPs may be encouraging usage violations by continuing to sell “unlimited” broadband packages, even if their own fair usage policies place restrictions on downloads and bandwidth.

Approximately half (41.1%) of all interviewees said that they would seriously consider switching providers if their usage was called into question. A further 45% would seek out a more suitable provider. Only 13% said that they would remain with their current ISP.

ISPreview have perhaps been a little pessimistic. Due to the size of the survey group – a meagre 557 people – the results are unlikely to be representative of UK broadband users as a whole. However, there is an indication that broadband companies are struggling to cope with the popularity of interactive media websites such as the BBCi Player and 4OD, and the Xbox Live gaming platform.

Mark Jackson, news editor for ISPreview, reminds broadband users to be mindful of any hidden limitations imposed by their service provider. Companies such as BT will charge gluttonous users a service fee if they violate the fair usage policy. Tiscali, on the other hand, applies bandwidth restrictions to individuals who download in excess of 100GB per month.

Despite the results of the ISPreview survey, many internet service providers maintain that written warnings and service restrictions are employed to counter extreme usage violations, rather than the occasional over-indulgence.

Broadband research gets £1 million government boost

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:51:02 BST

Things are looking good for the future of broadband speeds as the government has agreed to pump £1 million into researching new technologies. The cash injection will help a number of projects in their attempt to find a way to reach speeds of up to anything between 1Gbps and 10Gbps in the future.

The money is being supplied by the TSB (Technology Strategy Board), which is itself supported by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. It will provide funding to 13 research projects across the UK, all of which will focus on the development of fibre-optic technology.

The new research is needed to find a way of getting super-fast speeds at the right price to make them commercially viable. Mike Biddle of TSB said that internet speeds double “roughly every 21 months”, and that although we can already see speeds up to 10Gbps it cannot currently be done “at the right cost point”. If this is achieved then it could see huge advances in the broadband industry over the coming years.

The research projects are all looking into different areas of the broadband technology. Whereas one is experimenting with a new wi-fi system for the home, others are working on the crucial area of passive components, which connect homes to fibre-optic networks and is one of the biggest obstacles currently in the way.

The grants vary in size from £30,00 to £100,000, and it is great that the government has realised just how important broadband is to the future of the UK economy and is taking real measures to see it develop.