Superfast broadband in the UK: the realistic picture

We’ve been waiting a long time for it, but is the next generation of internet access finally upon us?

With BT trialling fibre-optic connections to the home, cable offering up to 50Mbits/sec download speeds and all the mobile networks competing to provide broadband on the go, has the UK finally got a network ready for the 21st century? Or is the fastest access available not to the many, but just a few?

PCW has been looking at the state of broadband in the UK regularly over the past few years, seeing how things have changed, and looking at what’s on offer from the major ISPs. In this round-up, we take a look at what’s really changing - and explore some of the reasons for the state we’re in.

Too good to be true?
Imagine – you move into your new apartment and there’s an Ethernet socket waiting in the living room; plug in your PC, work through the automated sign-up process, and a few minutes later you have a 25Mbits/sec connection, with 5Mbits/sec upload bandwidth.

Or perhaps you’ve chosen a new home that comes complete with a fibre-optic connection, with the possibility of HDTV as well as high-speed internet access. And on the move, your laptop can download at over 7Mbits/sec, for a cost that not so long ago wouldn’t even have bought you a 512Kbits/sec ADSL connection.

Can this really be Broadband Britain in 2008? The answer is yes – provided you live in the right place.

Nevertheless, it’s a welcome sign that the state of internet connectivity is beginning to improve, if not at the same speed for everyone. There’s more good news, in that the state of the infrastructure is finally starting to be considered a national issue, not just one for the individual companies involved. So, how is broadband in the UK changing, and when will it start to affect you?

New technologies
Parts of BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN) are now live, offering the same type of ADSL2+ 24Mbits/sec broadband connection in a Birmingham trial that other operators have offered via Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) in other areas.

The 21CN project is the wholesale replacement of the ageing voice-centric circuit-switched telephone network, where data piggybacks on voice traffic, to a new data-centric packet-switched network based on the Internet Protocol (IP), with voice treated as just another form of data. It’s a major development that will affect how voice and data traffic is handled throughout the UK.

By the time you read this, the trial will be more or less over and, as the rollout of 21CN continues around the UK, any ISP that resells BT’s service will be able to offer the higher speeds. But, of course, to an extent, while the extra speed offered by 21CN will be welcome to many broadband users, it’s not exactly new.

If you can’t wait for BT to upgrade your local exchange, some of the LLU providers may help – O2-owned Be, for example, has announced a rollout of more exchanges that it says will provide coverage to 67 per cent of the UK population, including sites in Wales and Northern Ireland, which haven’t always fared so well in the broadband stakes. There are, however, some more interesting developments.

Internet provider Ask4 is presently boasting the UK’s fastest broadband, with a 25Mbits/sec service that’s delivered simply as an Ethernet point in some new apartment buildings. Plug in, sign up and – for £60 per month – you’ll have a high-speed connection.

There are slower speed options too, with a 2Mbits/sec connection coming in at £25 per month – and since the service is delivered over Ethernet, there’s no BT line rental to pay on top of it. But this service is so far only available in a few apartment blocks and some student residences. So what about the rest of us?

If you’re in a Virgin Media cable area, there’s good news too; the cable provider has been trialling an upgrade in Folkestone, Ashford and Dover that will provide download speeds of up to 50Mbits/sec, with a wider rollout anticipated this summer – though as ever, those who take advantage of the higher-speed connection to download loads of data at peak hours are likely to find their usage capped or their bandwidth throttled.