Can Everyone Have Fast Broadband In Less Than Three Years?
The recent announcement by the UK government that all homes will have at least 2Mbps of broadband speeds in every home by 2012 have left many viewing the task as too challenging for a result that will not suit the future of most people’s technology needs.
According to Ofcom, this project will have to address 16% of the homes across the UK which is a stunning figure for just a three year time frame.
However, the Government responded to naysayer’s by stating this is only a baseline figure and is only one component of a much larger broadband improvement scheme.
Low broadband speeds are most frequently found in rural and community belts as broadband speeds are defined as the amount of distance a home is from the telephone exchange.
However, more homes are affected as there are high-speed fibre lines in their area, but access is not permitted to area residents such as the town of Ewhust, England where one would not expect low Internet speeds.
This is due to the fact most people struggle with dial up since the large fibre connections are owned by nearby Mullard Space Laboratory.
However, according to ThinkBoadband, a popular UK technological publication, fibre is unlikely to be the solution to low broadband speeds as it is not cost efficient since it costs too much to lay fibre connections.
Estimates have been compiled that suggest that £5.5b could be spent by BT to bring the UK to widespread 2Mp speed if fibre was utilized.
BT Spinoff, Openreach, has offered to talk to community groups about the possibility of local citizens taping into its high fibre solutions, but managing director Amy Chalfen stressed that high speed broadband solutions should not be treated exclusively as BT’s responsibility.
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In the end, most of the broadband speed concerns boils down to one thing according to Jupiter Research Analyst, Ian Fogg: economics. This is perhaps the most controversial element of the entire Government proposal with lower economic areas finding themselves forced to live with low speeds indefinitely.
