Fibre Technologies Warns of Universal Broadband Pledge
Posted: 16th Jan, 2009 By: MarkJ
The Sales Manager of Berkshires Fibre Technologies Limited (FTL), Darrell Simmons, has issued an open letter to ISPreview concerning the governments recent universal (USO) broadband access proposals. Simmons warns that the timescales of attempting to provide at least 2Mbps broadband to everybody in the UK by 2012 is "simply inconceivable":
Simmons certainly makes a very valid point, especially when many of those in remote areas that can receive broadband may only be able to receive speeds of 512Kbps (0.5Mbps) due to technical limitations. Overcoming such problems will not be easy and were still waiting to see precisely how either the government or supporting political opposition parties would solve it.
"With ISPs promising to deliver up to a maximum broadband speed, rather than concentrating on delivering a guaranteed minimum speed, the current infrastructure appears to be struggling to provide the bandwidth that would give users a connection speed they have paid for; added to this, nearly half the country doesnt have a connection. How can they think about maximising capacity when they arent delivering to everyone yet?
Internet content is becoming more and more data intensive and most houses have more than one device connected to the internet. With the network so highly congested, it will be very difficult to guarantee a 2megabits per second connection to every home in the UK. Telcos are not alone here, and with mobile operators still not able to offer full coverage the problem becomes compounded. Perhaps now is the time we looked more closely at fibreto-the-home?
Whilst the technology and the resources are available to realise Lord Carters plans, it will simply not be possible to complete them by 2012, the proposed deadline. It has taken around 8 years to get 58% of the country on broadband realistically 3 years is simply not enough time to upgrade the network to the level it needs to be at to cope with this extra demand.
With the proposed Universal Service Obligation for operators, its now time for ISPs to agree to make this commitment but it will take a brave ISP to be the first to offer this to their customers. However, this is vital before we can even think about supplying broadband to every home in the country.
We need to get our existing networks right today before we get universal broadband completely wrong tomorrow."
Internet content is becoming more and more data intensive and most houses have more than one device connected to the internet. With the network so highly congested, it will be very difficult to guarantee a 2megabits per second connection to every home in the UK. Telcos are not alone here, and with mobile operators still not able to offer full coverage the problem becomes compounded. Perhaps now is the time we looked more closely at fibreto-the-home?
Whilst the technology and the resources are available to realise Lord Carters plans, it will simply not be possible to complete them by 2012, the proposed deadline. It has taken around 8 years to get 58% of the country on broadband realistically 3 years is simply not enough time to upgrade the network to the level it needs to be at to cope with this extra demand.
With the proposed Universal Service Obligation for operators, its now time for ISPs to agree to make this commitment but it will take a brave ISP to be the first to offer this to their customers. However, this is vital before we can even think about supplying broadband to every home in the country.
We need to get our existing networks right today before we get universal broadband completely wrong tomorrow."
Simmons certainly makes a very valid point, especially when many of those in remote areas that can receive broadband may only be able to receive speeds of 512Kbps (0.5Mbps) due to technical limitations. Overcoming such problems will not be easy and were still waiting to see precisely how either the government or supporting political opposition parties would solve it.
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