Posted: 25th Feb, 2004 By: MarkJ
Intel, which has its own vested interests in related technologies, has said that the UK governments Broadband Britain (2005) plan has little chance of success without wireless:
Speaking at the 3GSM show in Cannes, Sean Maloney, senior vice president in charge of communications for Intel, said the government's target of making the UK the G7's most competitive market for broadband by 2005 was impossible with existing technology.
"Tony Blair's Broadband Britain campaign has stopped in its tracks. This is because the quality of the copper network isn't good enough to reach places like West Glamorgan and no-one can afford to run fibre to such distant locations," he said.
Instead of relying on DSL the government should be looking at wireless broadband such as WiMax (also known as 802.16) to provide connections, Maloney continued. WiMax has a theoretical range of 70km but in practice can deliver 10Mbps over a range of three miles.We'd hardly say that broadband Britain had "
stopped in its tracks", in fact it's booming, but Intel does make some valid points about areas that others (excluding Satellite) are unable to cover. More @
VNUNet.