The dream of a full fibre network for the UK has been given some official backing in the form of an announcement by Stephen Timms, Minister of State for Competitiveness and former E-Commerce Minister, who intends to meet with the ISP industry to discuss how the UK’s broadband infrastructure can be overhauled for the new millennium.
In his first main speech after being appointed Minister for Competitiveness, Mr Timms said:
“When I became E-Commerce minister five years ago, the UK was neck and neck with Croatia on broadband availability and use… We fixed that problem and put Britain in a leading position… Other countries are [now] starting to invest in new, fibre-based infrastructure[s], delivering considerably higher bandwidth than is available in the UK today… It is essential that the UK undertakes timely deployment of technology - we can’t lag behind.”
Extra bandwidth is sorely needed if services such as IPTV are really expected to take off in the UK. Recently, BT and Tiscali have expressed concern over the BBC’s decision to allow HD content to be made available for downloading and viewing through their iPlayer service.
HD generally chokes bandwidth across a traditional copperwire line, which presents a unique problem; the BBC’s public service remit states that content should be available to all licence fee payers at any time – if access to content is provided to the detriment of other services that people are paying for, in this broadband, then something has to be done to prevent this.
Ofcom is apparently keen to allow for funding to be set aside for a full fibre rollout, so long as the big boys of the UK broadband league are up for investing as well. BT Openreach’s chief executive, Steve Robertson is in agreement, saying that BT intend to invest in fibre to the home (FttH) so long as the competition is.
“The government has said there is going to be a major acceleration in housebuilding and, for Openreach, putting fibre into the ground is just as easy as putting copper into the ground… However, that does not help end users at all unless service providers - BT Retail, Carphone, Sky, Tiscali etc - come and play too and develop products.”
Countries which enjoy fast 100Mbps broadband speeds such as Germany, South Korea and Japan have seen investment of public funds into infrastructure which has seen residents and businesses alike benefit from faster connections and greater consumer choice. It has been noted that because the UK population density is nowhere near as compact as it is in Japan, mass fibre rollout is harder to achieve – indeed there are still many areas of London that today have not been set up with cable connections, and remote rural addresses still have to pay an arm and a leg just to get a phoneline connected.
“Putting fibre in the ground is as easy as copper”
Having said that, Robertson asserts “that putting fibre into the ground is just as easy as putting copper into the ground,” and so the roll out should not be any more or less logistically demanding than the current 21CN rollout is at the moment. The main stumbling block is money, and getting everyone involved to bring some cash to the table if we are to see any radical changes over the next few years.
The Broadband Stakeholder Group, an independent government advisor, has warned that the UK economy risks stagnation – the BSG has said that by 2012, British internet connections will need to be 10 times the speed of their current average 2 to 8Mbps. 2012 is the year when the analogue TV signal will be powered down to make way for full digital TV – as TV content can be delivered via fibre, the two markets are inextricably tied, earmarking 2012 as the future Year Zero of British telecommunications.
This is really encouraging news, as the implications of a having a national fibre network means that homes can be efficiently provided with a whole range of services and content through one port, which will change the face of markets forever. We’re seeing the beginning of this change happening already, with the rise of triple play providers including BT, Tiscali, Virgin and Sky, and now with Orange planning on releasing an IPTV service too.
Bandwidth heavy services such as the aforementioned delivery of HD programming over an IP will become more commonplace, as will VoIP services like Skype. The transfer of audio and video content will naturally be much faster and easier, and available to more people. To paraphrase somebody else’s marketing phrase, the future of broadband in the UK is definitely bright.
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