Broadband Growth Challenges Recession
September 30, 2009
Despite the fact that the UK economy is thunder struck by the present financial crisis, the broadband sector has shown some growth and is still continuing it. According to a survey, it was seen that there was a huge demand for high-speed internet, in spite of the fact that the whole economy was equally shattered in the recent global recession.
In a study conducted all over the UK, it was predicted that number of fixed-line connections across the UK will be over 422 million by the year end along with the energetic growth of the broadband sector. At present, there are about 382 million broadband household users in Britain and within the next four years it would it would increase to a huge total of 580 million.
Principal research analyst of Gartner, Amanda Sabia, commended that people are now looking forward to upgrade their old dial-up connections to make the services more reliable and faster. This has become the driving force of the market. She also said that even though people are curious about their expenditure, they have not descended from their wishes to avail broadband connections. Office for National Statistics recently released figures on the sale of web packages with an increase of up to 2.1 percent year on year.
Broadband Connection Reliability – A Necessity
September 29, 2009
Recent researches on broadband show that more than one third of the broadband consumers consider the reliability of broadband connections as a necessity. The consumers have also commended that beat download speed and price of these connections are vital factors that are to be considered.
When the rating was taken, connection reliability was backed by download speeds at the second position with a rating of 30 per cent, followed by value for prices on with 23 per cent. It was clearly seen that about 7.6 million broadband customers were not satisfied with the service received from various internet service providers.
The major criticism arouse from 47 per cent of the broadband consumers stating that these internet service providers never kept their promises, mostly on the download speed issues. Issues on download speed topped the list with 70 per cent of them supporting this matter. The second one was by 32 per cent of them having problems related to reliability issues and thirdly, customer service was neglected for more than a third of the consumers.
High speed services to be doubled – BT
September 25, 2009
BT a leading provider of internet services has planned to double the number of connections in connection with governments target to provide more connections to homes and businesses across the UK. According to reports of the Times, the company is aiming at doubling its current facilities with the introduction of more copper-based lines.
This plan was proposed in order to expand the network to 75% of Britain and reach the remote or rural areas as well. According to the newspaper report, the company could be serving twice the amount of users by increasing the speed up to 24MBps by 2011.
Cameron Rejali, MD of products said that both household as well as businesses would benefit from this service as they will be able to choose services according to their requirements over copper, fibre or mobile. This plan is expected to hold up the plans outlined in the governments Digital Britain report. Recently, BT had announced on-demand television services to its subscribers enabling them to access 24-hour shopping channel of Gaby Roslin.
Common sense approach for broadband security – A requirement
September 24, 2009
Broadband customers are advised on a common sense approach for surfing in order to avoid viruses and malware. 7Safe, an organization for information security consultation claims that they can offer a different portfolio of services for this field by educating them about certain potential risks.
Allan Phillips, CEO of the firm said that certain Trojan viruses are designed in a way that it outsmarts certain software’s, but, if care is taken by people, they can remain safe. He also added that, such malware can be avoided if people be little bit conscious and alert in checking out certain links, emails, and websites and downloads.
Expert advice is to operate systems with the presumption that dangerous viruses are present that cannot be protected against. Trojans especially are difficult to decipher and will go on evolving with more sophistications. Computer users are thus advised to stay vigilant on these harmful viruses.
BT focuses on fibre optic broadband prices
September 23, 2009
BT Openreach plans to focus on its approaching product Pilot that offers 100 Mb FTTP broadband services across UK starting from Highams Park in London. The company will initially provide the service to 40,000 homes from 2010.
The company has also decided on the price of the service as between £175pa and £255pa. They have also decided to apply bandwidth options to the product from 10MB to 100MB and this fee will be available to line rental only.
The cost of other additional packages will be added on top of the product with the customer being imposed with usage limits either by slowing down the speed or hiking the prices up significantly. Other product options with upstream bandwidth above 10 MB will be published as soon as the company finalizes it.
