Welcome:   Broadband News Update: Olympic Opportunity

Whilst companies invest billions in modernising internet connections, the Governement seems slow to take advantage of obvious opportunities:

>> Half of the Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to the man who developed the use of fibre optic cables in broadband and networking technology. Charles Kao of Standard telecommunications in London along with the Chinese University of Hong Kong calculated how fibre optics could be used to transmit data back in 1966. The other half of the prize goes to Bell Laboratories in the US.


>> Figures from broadband.co.uk have shown that they average download speed last month across the whole country was 4.361mbps. This is a small increase on August. Upload speeds have also increased slightly.

Virgin Media offered the fastest speeds with it fibre optics service offering 7.238mpbs.


>> Companies across Sheffield are set to benefit from the introduction of fibre optic broadband from Thales UK. It is expected that the service will cover 1.3 million consumers and 40,000 businesses.


>> The MP for South Dorset, Jim Knight has said that the Olympics in 2012 would be the perfect opportunity for the region to invest in fibre optic broadband.

Sailing events are due to be held in Dorset and connections to London will need to be fast and reliable. New exchanges and infrastructure may need to be built to allow the flow of information back to London. He has said that Dorset would be remiss if they didn't take up the opportunity while the work was being done.


>> Talk Talk have revealed how one of its residential customers has taken advantage of the BT trial of fibre optic broadband in Muswell Hill in London. The customer is the first to sign up and required an engineer to visit their property to upgrade the telephone socket. They expect to connect another 3 customers in the coming days.

It takes around three hours for the full conversion to be made. † [last update: 11.10.09]

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